osition
appears to provide a remedy for the difficulties we have labored under
on that account. We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether
considered as foreigners having no particular affinity or connection
with the United States, but that trade and commerce, upon which the
prosperity of this State much depends, will be preserved as free and
open between this and the United States as our different situations at
present can possibly admit; earnestly desiring and proposing to adopt
such commercial regulations on our part as shall not tend to defeat the
collection of the revenue of the United States, but rather to act in
conformity to or cooperate therewith, and desiring also to give the
strongest assurances that we shall during our present situation use our
utmost endeavors to be in preparation from time to time to answer our
proportion of such part of the interest or principal of the foreign and
domestic debt as the United States shall judge expedient to pay and
discharge.
We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friendship, kindred,
and of interest with our sister States, and we can not without the
greatest reluctance look to any other quarter for those advantages of
commercial intercourse which we conceive to be more natural and
reciprocal between them and us.
I am, at the request and in behalf of the general assembly, your most
obedient, humble servant,
JOHN COLLINS, _Governor_.
His Excellency the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES, _February 9, 1790_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
Among the persons appointed during the last session to offices under the
National Government there were some who declined serving. Their names
and offices are specified in the first column of the foregoing list.[2]
I supplied these vacancies, agreeably to the Constitution, by temporary
appointments, which you will find mentioned in the second column of the
list. These appointments will expire with your present session, and,
indeed, ought not to endure