Special Message

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit to the Senate a treaty of peace and amity concluded between the United States and the Dey and Regency of Algiers on the 23d of December, 1816.

This treaty is in all respects the same in its provisions with that which had been concluded on the 30th of June, 1815, and was ratified, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the 26th of December of that year, with the exception of one additional and explanatory article.

The circumstances which have occasioned the delay in laying the present treaty before the Senate for their advice and consent to its ratification are, that having been received in the spring of the year 1817, during the recess of the Senate, in the interval between the time when the Department of State was vacated by its late Secretary and the entrance of his successor upon the duties of the office, and when a change also occurred of the chief clerk of the Department, it was not recollected by the officers of the Department that it remained without the constitutional sanction of the Senate until shortly before the commencement of the present session. The documents explanatory of the additional articles are likewise herewith transmitted.

JAMES MONROE.