Gentlemen:

We sincerely congratulate your Honorable House on the ratification of the Federal Constitution, by the convention of this State since your last recess, and we flatter ourselves that its adoption will be attended with important good consequences to all the States in the Union.

In compliance with your resolution of the thirteenth of November last, we have obtained and now lay before the General Assembly, discriptions of the lands lying between the Northern Boundary of this State and Lake Erie, with an estimate of the sums which will probably be necessary for the purchases of the same, as will appear by the papers marked No. 1 and 2, to which we beg leave to refer. We have likewise wrote to our Delegates in Congress, relative to the estimate. Their answer as soon as it comes to hand will be transmitted to your House.

A revenue law of this State, passed the twenty-fifth day of September, 1783, requiring merchants who re-ship goods from Philadelphia to produce within one year certificates of the goods being actually landed at the Port of destination, appears to bear hard on the trade of this port. We therefore recommend a revisal of the aforesaid revenue act, when the merchants will have an opportunity of laying the particular inconveniences before your house.

The officers of the Land Office do not consider themselves authorised by the present laws to grant re-locating warrants, in cases where warrants on which the purchase money has been paid, are deprived of land by prior grants, we are of opinion that this power ought to be given, as the time may come, when vacant lands will not remain for them, and in that case the owners may call on the State for compemsation.

The granting of land in the late purchase has nearly ceased, and we are apprehensive that this fund will continue unproductive, untill the terms of the new purchase are lowered, a measure which we therefore recommend.

Great mistakes have been committed by the Orphans’ Courts of the different counties of this State, respecting pensions, particularly in providing for the support of the widows and orphans of militia men who fell in the late war; this power in the opinion of Council ought to be lodged in more proper hands, and its decisions thereby rendered more uniform.

The continual depreciation of our paper money merits the most serious attention of your Honorable House. This circumstance alone diffuses languor and embarrassment through the whole executive department of Government. Contracts cannot be compleated for the making of roads, or any other public business, without either risquing the honor of Government or acting on an implied depreciation of money, situations equally irksome and ineligible. We cannot help suggesting the propriety of more speedily destroying as much of it as is in the power of the treasury.

The time limited by law for compleating titles for lands held under office rights, obtained before the tenth day of December, 1776, expires on the tenth day of April next. We are of opinion that the extension of that period is necessary.

The benefits expected from the penal laws, having not equalled the benevolent wishes of its friends and framers, we recommend such alterations to be made in it as shall be calculated to render punishment a means of reformation, and the labour of criminals of profit to the State. Late experiments in Europe have demonstrated that those advantages are only to be obtained by temperance and solitude of labour.

The act entitled “An Act appointing Wardens for the port of Philadelphia, &ca.,” passed the twenty-sixth day of February, 1773, having by experience been found useful, and being on the point of expiring, we recommend an immediate renewal of the same for a further term, with such improvements as may occur to you.

We again recommend to the notice of your Honorable House the resolution of Congress passed March the twenty-first, 1787, and beg leave to suggest the propriety of passing a declaratory act, to answer the end intended by the said resolution. The latest accounts from the county of Luzerne, communicated to us by Colonel Pickering, represent the settlement as being in perfect quietness at present, and that the laws of this State havetheir free operation.

We have now the pleasure of laying before you a map of the Northern boundary of this State, as run by the Commissioners appointed for that purpose, who have compleated that useful work. We also herewith communicate a letter from His Excellency Samuel Huntington, Esquire, Governor of the State of Connecticut, in consequence of which we have mitigated the severity of John Franklin’s confinement as much as circumstances would warrant. An act of the Legislature of Virginia, concerning the Convention to be held in June next, transmitted by His Excellency the Governor of Virginia. And a letter from the Honorable Arthur St. Clair, Esquire, which we beg leave to recommend to the notice of your Honorable House.