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Appendix.

Messages from the GOVERNOR transmitted to the two branches of the Legislature during the session of 1826.

Gentlemen of the Senate

and of the House of Representatives,

[note in right margin: See. page 25.]

Called again to the exercise of the Supreme Executive power of the State, I cannot, under the peculiar circumstances of the present occasion, refrain from acknowledging, with humble thankfulness, the kind and paternal care of an overruling Providence in behalf of this people, as well through the past year as through those which have preceeded it.

Whatever of affliction may, from time to time, have befallen any inconsiderable portion of our citizens, yet, as a community, we have been highly and wonderfully prospered. Health has generally prevailed throughout our extensive territory. The seasons have been favorable for the cultivation of the soil. The store houses of the farmer have been filled with the fruits of his labor; and the honest industry of the people, in all the various branches of enterprize [enterprise] and business, has been abundantly rewarded.

Since the meeting of the last Legislature, we have witnessed a new organization of the General Government, under circumstances favorable to the prosperity of the Country. The position of Maine as a frontier State, its very extensive commercial interest, owning already more tonnage than either of the other States of the union, with two exceptions, and its increasing importance in manufactures must, at all times, render the measures of the national Government, particularly interesting to us. More especially is that interest at the present moment increased, in consequence of the claim asserted by a foreign power to a large portion of the territory, considered by us as justly falling within our jurisdiction. Of the situation of