from Colonel William Raymond Lee that they have been received. I also established a credit in favor of the Adjutant for the use of these captives, to the amount of one thousand dollars, for the purpose of affording means to procure, if possible, medicines for the sick, and some alleviations for the feeble, and little stores not easily sent or anticipated. These last acts are not authorized by any law; save by the law written on our hearts; and they are submitted to your generous candor.

An elaborate report, with tables of the utmost minuteness, has been prepared by our present able and indefatigable Master of Ordnance, covering all the details of the business, property, and expenditure of his bureau. Its expenditures have been $562,488.30 -of which $251,339.96 were paid for Enfield rifles, and $23,617.83 for English infantry equipments. The balance is made up of American infantry equipments, ordnance, ordnance stores of every description, and wagons and caissons for the battery companies, freight, repairs, and the like. All regiments, and companies, whether of infantry or artillery, both for three months and for three years service, furnished by the State to the General Government, have, with the exception of one battery, received all their armament from the Commonwealth. The horse equipments and sabres for the cavalry were received from the United States. Of the troops in the three years service, fourteen regiments are armed with the Enfield rifled

musket, four with the Springfield rifled musket, and five with the Springfield smooth bored musket. The smooth bored with which the 15th and 21st regiments were at first provided were afterwards replaced by rifled arms. Of the Massachusetts companies at Fortress Monroe, about to be reinforced by three companies already organized, and now recruited into a regiment (the 29th, making our three years infantry regiments twenty-four in number,) one company received the Springfield and one the Harper's Ferry rifle, and the other companies, the Springfield smooth bore, which were exchanged for Springfield rifled arms, taken from our third and fourth Militia, on leaving the Fortress at the expiration of their three months' service. Our five companies composing the battalion on guard duty at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, are armed with the Springfield smooth bore. Our two companies of sharpshooters carry rifles, mostly with telescopic sights, specially selected under direction of a committee of the Council.

With the assent of the Executive Council, I assumed the responsibility of making, at a critical moment, a loan of two thousand Springfield smooth bores to the loyal authorities of Western Virginia, concerning which there is an interesting correspondence on the files of the Executive Department.

There is some loss of muskets and more expense for repair occasioned by the want of proper handling by inexperienced volunteers, drill clubs and militia.

And the absence of proper accounts in the ordnance office during a portion of the year, renders it as yet impossible to trace them. There are now in the arsenal, (or out for cleansing or repair,) including all descriptions of arm, 5,883 muskets and rifles. Of these 1,509 are Enfield rifles, and 2,078 Windsor rifles. In addition to our original contract for Enfield rifles, reported to the Legislature in May; under the advice of experienced persons, and in view of the difficulty in commanding suitable weapons, I caused, with the consent of the Council, new contracts to be made for 5,000 more Enfield rifles, of which 320 have arrived, and are included in the above enumeration. It is hoped that recent events may remove the British interdict against the export of arms and munitions of war, and enable us to receive our weapons. But, whether this takes place or not, I have earnestly to recommend the employment of our own domestic industry, and skill, in the production of rifles, by immediate contracts for not less than fifteen thousand stand of arms. And I trust Massachusetts will never again see the day, while aggression and wars are possible misfortunes, when she will be unprepared to put into the field, whenever the country calls, at least 25,000 well trained militia, full-armed for duty.

The "Two Years Amendment.”

I respectfully but urgently renew the recommendation, that the initiative measures be taken for the

repeal of the recent constitutional discrimination between citizens of alien and those of American birth, familiarly known as "The Two Years Amendment."

Engaged shoulder to shoulder in one of the most tremendous strifes of history, for the maintenance and defence of the country, to which some of us were born, and which others adopted, there is no distinction of duties, there has been none of patriotism and loyalty, and there should be none of rights between those two classes of citizens, whose hearts, torn by a common sorrow, beat responsive to the grand appeal of a common duty, and who gladly share a common danger, and strive in heroic competition for the garlands of glory, due not to the blood they inherit, but to the blood they shed and imperil.

If for any reason, any persons have ever doubted the loyalty or distrusted the patriotism of this class of our citizens, let the events of the past year admonish them that such doubts and such distrust were not, merited, and prompt them to concur, cordially and unasked, in the restoration of an equal franchise.

Relief to Families of Volunteers.

I respectfully recommend that the 222d chapter of the Acts of 1861 be so amended as to include in its provisions for the aid of the families of "the Volunteer Militia of this State," those companies which at an early period in the war, impatient of delay, and anxious

for service, marched from the Commonwealth, and became attached to the regiments of New York, with whose volunteers they are consequently enumerated. Earnest, but unsuccessful efforts have been made to transfer them to Massachusetts corps. And I cannot doubt that the Legislature will gladly restore to these companies, composed of good soldiers, whose behavior has done credit to the State, the benefits of a statute whose equity reaches their case.

I am apprised of certain other bodies of volunteer soldiers, who were recruited by irregular means in this State, and a part of them assembled at a camp in Lowell, and others at a camp in Pittsfield, whose condition, in a similar way, appeals to the General Court for consideration. Although they were needlessly enlisted and brought together, contrary to the orders and directions of the Department of War and the authority communicated to the Governor of this State, and to general orders promulgated from the Commonwealth head-quarters, issued at a time when we were straining the enlistment by raising eight infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and four artillery batteries at once, besides furnishing recruits to older regiments in the field; I am of opinion that the majority of these soldiers were misled into the belief that they were enlisting into regular regiments of Massachusetts Volunteers. They have marched, or will march, I believe, into actual service, when their conduct will doubtless entitle them to the