Special Message

To the Senate of the United States.

It is gratifying to me to be able to communicate to the Senate before the termination of its present session, for its advice and consent as to the ratification of it, a convention just received at the Department of State between the United States and His Majesty the King of Denmark, which was negotiated on the part of the former by Mr. Henry Wheaten, their charge d'affaires at the Court of Denmark, and on that of the latter by the Sieurs Henry Count de Schemmelman, his minister of foreign affairs, and Paul Christian de Stemann, president of his chancery, and concluded and signed by these plenipotentiaries at Copenhagen on the 28th of March of the present year.

The convention provides by compromise for the adjustment and payment of indemnities to no inconsiderable amount, long sought from the Government of Denmark by that of the United States, in behalf of their citizens who had preferred claims for the same, relating to the seizure, detention, and condemnation or confiscation of their vessels, cargoes, or property by the public armed ships or by the tribunals of Denmark or in the states subject to the Danish scepter; and there is every reason to believe, as the Senate will infer from the correspondence which accompanies this communication, that the proposed arrangement will prove entirely satisfactory to them.

ANDREW JACKSON