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DEPARTMENT OF STATE, _Feb. 29, 1808_.
Agreeably to a resolution of the Senate of the 30th November
last, the Secretary of State has the honor to submit to the
President, for the information of the Senate, the statements
herewith enclosed, from No. 1 to 18, inclusive.
No. 1. A statement of impressments from American vessels into
the British service, since the last report made from this
department on the 5th March, 1806, founded upon documents
transmitted in the first instance to this office.
Those from No. 2 to 13 inclusive, being a series of returns and
abstracts received from General Lyman, the agent of the United
States at London, giving an account of the applications made by
him in relation to seamen, from 1st April, 1806, to 30th June,
1807, and of the result of those applications, and exhibiting
other particulars required by the resolution.
Not having received any returns from the West Indies since the
date of the last report to the House of Representatives on
this subject, nor from General Lyman for the quarter ending
on the 1st January last, the Secretary of State has not the
means at present of giving, with any degree of precision, the
information asked for in the last clause of the resolution.
From the returns in the office it would appear that four
thousand two hundred and twenty-eight American seamen had been
impressed into the British service since the commencement of
the war, and that nine hundred and thirty-six of this number
had been discharged, leaving in that service three thousand two
hundred and ninety-two. General Lyman, in a letter dated on the
21st October, 1807, estimates the American seamen now detained
in the British service at a number greatly beyond what is here
stated; but he does not give the data on which his estimate is
made.
All which is respectfully submitted.