hen menaced with danger. The residue would be confined to their own
or the neighboring harbors, would be smaller, less furnished for
accommodation, and consequently less costly. Of the number supposed
necessary, 73 are built or building, and the 127 still to be provided
would cost from $500,000 to $600,000. Having regard to the convenience
of the Treasury as well as to the resources for building, it has been
thought that the one-half of these might be built in the present year
and the other half the next. With the Legislature, however, it will rest
to stop where we are, or at any further point, when they shall be of
opinion that the number provided shall be sufficient for the object.

At times when Europe as well as the United States shall be at peace
it would not be proposed that more than six or eight of these vessels
should be kept afloat. When Europe is in war, treble that number might
be necessary, to be distributed among those particular harbors which
foreign vessels of war are in the habit of frequenting for the purpose
of preserving order therein. But they would be manned in ordinary, with
only their complement for navigation, relying on the seamen and militia
of the port if called into action on any sudden emergency. It would be
only when the United States should themselves be at war that the whole
number would be brought into active service, and would be ready in the
first moments of the war to cooperate with the other means for covering
at once the line of our seaports. At all times those unemployed would be
withdrawn into places not exposed to sudden enterprise, hauled up under
sheds from the sun and weather, and kept in preservation with little
expense for repairs or maintenance.

It must be superfluous to observe that this species of naval armament
is proposed merely for defensive operation; that it can have but little
effect toward protecting our commerce in the open seas, even on our own
coast; and still less can it become an excitement to engage in offensive
maritime war, toward which it would furnish no means.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 11, 1807.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now lay before Congress a statement of the militia of the United
States according to the latest returns received by the Department
of War. From two of the States no returns have ever been received.

TH. JEFFERSON.

FEBRUARY 19, 1807.

_To the Senate and House of Representat