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To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States.

Agreeably to the request of the House of Re-
presentatives, communicated in their resolution of the
sixteenth instant, I proceed to state, under the reserve
therrein expressed, information received touching an
illegal combination of private individuals against the
peace and safety of the union, and a military expedi-
tion planned by them against the territories of a power
in amity with the United States, with the measures I
have pursued for suppressing the same.

I had, for some time, been in the constant expec-
tation of receiving such further information as would
have enabled me to lay before the legislature the ter-
mination, as well as the beginning, and progress of
this scene of depravity, so far as it has been acted on
the Ohio and its waters. From this the state of safety
of the lower country might have been estimated on
probable grounds; and the delay was indulged the
rather, because no circumstance had yet made it ne-
cessary to call in the aid of the legislative functions.
Information, now recently communicated, has brought
us nearly to the period contemplated. The mass of
what I have received, in the course of these transac-
tions is voluminous: but little has been given under
the sanction of an oath, so as to constitute formal and
legal evidence. It is chiefly in the form of letters,
often containing such a mixture of rumors, conjec-
tures and suspicions, as renders it difficult to sift out
the real facts, and unadvisable to hazard more than
general outlines, strengthened by concurrent informa-
tion, or the particular credibility of the relator. In this
state of the evidence, delivered sometimes too under