A memorial of the House of Representatives of the Mississippi Territory of the United States, signed by William Dunbar, their Speaker _pro tempore_, and attested by Richard S. Wheatly, their Clerk, was presented to the House and read, stating certain disadvantages to which the inhabitants of the settlement on the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers have been and are now subjected, in consequence of their remote situation from the other inhabited parts of the said Territory; and praying that a line of separation may be drawn between the settlements on the Mississippi river, and those of Washington District, or that judges, learned in the law, may be appointed to reside within the said district, for the benefit and convenience of the inhabitants thereof.
_Ordered_, That the said memorial be referred to the committee appointed, on the 25th ultimo, on the petition and memorial of sundry inhabitants of the District of Washington, situate on the Mobile, Tombigbee, and Alabama rivers, in the said Mississippi Territory; to examine and report their opinion thereupon to the House.
The House went into a Committee of the Whole on the following report of the Post Office Committee:
The Committee on the subject of the Post Office and Post Roads, to whom was referred a resolution of the 2d ultimo, directing them to inquire by what means the mail may be conveyed with greater security and dispatch than at present, between the City of Washington and Natchez and New Orleans, report:
That the late cession of Louisiana by France to the United States renders it an object of primary importance to have the nearest and most expeditious mode of communication established between the city of Washington and the city of New Orleans, the capital of that province; not only for the convenience of Government, but to accommodate the citizens of the several commercial towns in the Union.
That at present the mail is conveyed on a circuitous route from this place to Knoxville and Nashville in Tennessee, and from thence through the wilderness by Natchez to New Orleans, a distance of more than 1500 miles.
That, by establishing a post route as nigh on a direct line between those two cities, as the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains will admit of, it will not only lessen the distance about 500 miles; but as this route will pass almost the whole way through a country inhabited either by citizens of the United States or friendly Indians, the mail will be more secure, and the persons employed in transporting it better furnished with the means of subsistence.