many details of business to the inconvenience of the people.

The Executive Apartments.

In this connection I beg to call attention to the defective arrangement of the suite of rooms assigned to the Executive in the State House, with special reference to the entire absence of proper facilities for ventilation. In their present condition, they are inconvenient and unhealthy.

Preparation of Legislative Business.

One of the desirable things often spoken of, less often accomplished, is the prompt disposition of the legislative business, the necessary condition of short sessions, which are, in their turn, the condition on which our ablest citizens are willing to become members. But this seems greatly dependent on an early and perfect preparation of the public business. If an early fixed day, common to all the departments and bureaus of the State was adopted as that on which all their books and affairs were to be annually closed, and their reports made up, and were those reports placed in proper hands,-for example the bank abstracts into those of the Bank Commissioners, the railway returns, of a State Surveyor, the reports of the different penal, charitable, and sanitary institutions into the hands of the secretary of a central board, -all these crude materials might be reduced to order

by just, cautious and skilful analysis, abstracted, tabulated and reported upon, printed, and laid on your tables at the beginning of the legislative term, to the manifest advancement of the business of the Court. I hope this may yet be accomplished.

Military Defences.

A letter dated at Washington, on the 14th day of October, was addressed by the Department of State to the Governors of all the States on the seaboard and the lakes, suggesting that it is necessary to take every precaution to avoid the evils of foreign war, in view of the fact that disloyal citizens, even before the present insurrection had revealed itself in arms, had hastened to foreign countries to invoke their intervention for the overthrow of the Government and the destruction of the Federal Union. The Secretary of State does not fail to urge with emphasis that one of the most obvious precautions against foreign war, is that our ports and harbors in the seas and lakes should be put in a condition of complete defence. In behalf of the President of the United States, he therefore invited the attention of this department to the subject of the improvement of the fortifications and defences of Massachusetts, and asked that the subject should be submitted to the consideration of the Legislature, when it should assemble, with the added suggestion that proceedings by the State would require only a temporary use of its means, and

that the expenditures ought to be made the subject of conference with the Federal Government.

I availed myself of the earliest occasion to visit Washington, and to confer with the distinguished head of the bureau of Engineers, whom I knew to be intimately familiar with our coast, and with the system of defence appropriate to its condition and

wants.

The interview and subsequent correspondence lead me to the opinion that certain fortifications, both on our Northern and Southern shores, unless immediately taken in hand by Congress, ought to be undertaken by the Commonwealth, acting in concert with the United States Government, advancing its own means, employing the capital, skill and industry of its own citizens, working under the supervision of the head of the bureau of United States Engineers, following his instructions and plans, and receiving from the Government of the United States the national bonds to cover the expenditure, which, exclusively of the guns, would involve an estimated cost of $400,000. I have the honor to lay before the General Court the letter of the Secretary of State, already alluded to, and a very recent letter obtained from General Totten, of the Engineers, for this purpose, in which last communication is contained a brief, but clear and instructive statement of the condition of our harbor defences. The permanent fortifications proper in Boston Harbor will probably need no assistance from the Common

wealth, but promise to be followed up to completion by the Federal authorities.

The communication of General Totten establishes the fact of the purposes of his own department, and we are enabled to see for ourselves what has already been done. I am assured also by General Ripley, the head of the Ordnance Office, at Washington, that in addition to the guns already mounted, and those the Government is engaged in mounting, of which there are a considerable number now on hand, it has adopted all possible means to obtain the additional cannon and carriages required to complete the armament, which will proceed as fast as procured, and that a portion of this armament will consist of rifled cannon in the positions requiring artillery of that kind.

The harbor of Provincetown possesses certain features of interest peculiar to itself. Of ample depth for all purposes, a shelving, sandy shore, accessible in all weathers without a pilot, and with an anchorage in which whole navies might ride in safety, its arm stretched far out into the sea, it seems adapted to be the base of naval operations along the whole coast of New England. I believe there is not a place so easily taken from us, and worth so much to an enemy, when taken, as Provincetown and its harbor.

In the hands of an enemy it would harrass our commerce as it did in the last war with England, and would be a secure and tempting haven. The situation.

of that harbor at a point remote and not suddenly accessible by land from the populous portions of the State, has another military significance. Without means to throw a large force suddenly into the place, it would require a large garrison in constant occupation. With a new railroad to strike the main artery of travel at Yarmouth, a substantial fort with a much smaller garrison, would hold it. Besides, it is said that the harbor of Provincetown is yearly endangered by the inroads of the sea upon its beach. Might not a road bed be easily so constructed as to serve at once as a rail track and a dyke or ocean barrier? It is worthy your consideration whether the loan of some aid to such an enterprise would not diminish the expense of a strictly military work and the cost of its garrison, while it would benefit industry and strengthen the people in peace as well as in war.

To whatever work of patriotic duty they are called, the People will come. There are those now among us and still ready to serve the country, who remember in the War of 1812, the thousands flocking down, some even from beyond the county of Worcester, each man with pick or shovel on his shoulder, and each town or parish headed by its pastor armed like the rest, to labor on the forts and defences of Boston. The People, if need be, could come themselves and wall up our coast with the masonry of war.

The Vineyard Sound is the great highway of our coastwise commerce. Ninety thousand vessels, of all