that the Legislature,
feeling the same anxiety for the safety of our country, so materially
advanced by this precaution, will approve, when done, what they would
have seen so important to be done if then assembled. Expenses, also
unprovided for, arose out of the necessity of calling all our gunboats
into actual service for the defense of our harbors; of all which
accounts will be laid before you.

Whether a regular army is to be raised, and to what extent, must depend
on the information so shortly expected. In the meantime I have called
on the States for quotas of militia, to be in readiness for present
defense, and have, moreover, encouraged the acceptance of volunteers;
and I am happy to inform you that these have offered themselves with
great alacrity in every part of the Union. They are ordered to be
organized and ready at a moment's warning to proceed on any service to
which they may be called, and every preparation within the Executive
powers has been made to insure us the benefit of early exertions.

I informed Congress at their last session of the enterprises against the
public peace which were believed to be in preparation by Aaron Burr and
his associates, of the measures taken to defeat them and to bring the
offenders to justice. Their enterprises were happily defeated by the
patriotic exertions of the militia whenever called into action, by the
fidelity of the Army, and energy of the commander in chief in promptly
arranging the difficulties presenting themselves on the Sabine,
repairing to meet those arising on the Mississippi, and dissipating
before their explosion plots engendering there. I shall think it my duty
to lay before you the proceedings and the evidence publicly exhibited on
the arraignment of the principal offenders before the circuit court of
Virginia. You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was in the
testimony, in the law, or in the administration of the law; and wherever
it shall be found, the Legislature alone can apply or originate the
remedy. The framers of our Constitution certainly supposed they had
guarded as well their Government against destruction by treason as their
citizens against oppression under pretense of it, and if these ends are
not attained it is of importance to inquire by what means more effectual
they may be secured.

The accounts of the receipts of revenue during the year ending on the
30th day of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement
wil