sizes, have been counted as passing Gay Head Light, in the course of twelve months. Without means of defence, a blow might at any time be struck there, involving a great loss of property, which the people of other States would feel not less deeply than would our own citizens. It is estimated that at least thirty thousand vessels annually seek shelter in the various ports of the Sound. In addition to the fortifications existing and intended for the harbor of New Bedford, there is needed a United States armed steamer, cruising about that harbor, the mouth of Buzzards' Bay, and the Vineyard Sound. If attached to the revenue service, the same vessel might be usefully occupied for the Treasury Department, and in watching over a large portion of our whole coasting marine.

Besides the permanent fortifications, we need rifled cannon, with their appurtenances, for movable ordnance and temporary batteries, at suitable points. For these batteries companies of militia could be raised, with corps of riflemen attached. Such defences can be speedily prepared, and can be indefinitely extended.

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So, also, there are wanted, to be kept at hand for instant use, rifled ordnance and projectiles, for sea service. Never may the mercantile marine of Massachusetts, and her gallant and hardy sailors and fishermen, be obliged to creep defenceless home, to wear away their lives ignobly at a foreign menace of

our flag! Let the State be ready to arm two hundred merchantmen and extemporize a navy auxiliary to the national army of the seas, and let the national ensign rise to kiss the breeze wherever it fans the ocean,protected by brave hearts and brazen peace-makers.

The Militia,

Military education, both in the militia and in connection with the earlier training of the seminaries of learning, and the establishment of a school within the State taught by professors of military science, are all subjects deeply engaging the minds of the people.

It is to be hoped that Congress at its present session will adopt some comprehensive National plan of militia organization, requiring all men within certain ages to make it a point of honor and duty, to instruct, strengthen and recreate themselves by that reasonable training, desirable to prepare the citizen to shoulder the musket at any crisis of public danger or disaster.

I venture to recommend that our own militia should be brought to the highest perfection possible by legislative encouragement. Can it be regarded as due to the momentous possibilities of the future, or just to the people, that less than twenty-five thousand men, fitted and furnished to be mobilized in a week, should constitute an active militia?

The whole number of our enrolled militia is one hundred and fifty-seven thousand four hundred and ninety-six. The whole number who have gone into the volunteer service of the United States is reported by our Adjutant-General as twenty-seven thousand two hundred and seventy-five. About eleven thousand more are estimated to be in the naval service, as sailors and marines, leaving one hundred and twenty thousand at home, besides those men capable of the ordinary duties of civil life, not included within the prescribed age for military enrolment.

I beg leave to communicate a report made by a gentleman of the military staff, who fully appreciates the importance of this subject, and has given much study and examination to the matter of military education as it is elsewhere conducted. It is too thorough to be reserved only for private uses or to be embodied in this Address.

Confessing to myself the deepest obligation to the several gentlemen of the general and personal staff, to which the Commander-in-Chief of the State militia is entitled, including those added during the last year under the authority of recent legislation,—and in view of the arduous and increased military duties, it would be unjust were I to omit a public and cordial expression of gratitude, and an emphatic recognition of patriotic and intelligent service to which whatever efficiency there has been in the work of the year is mainly due.

Our National Cause.

The ultimate extinction of human slavery is inevi table. That this war, which is the revolt of Slavery, (checkmated by an election and permanently subordinated by the Census,) not merely against the Union and the Constitution, but against Popular Government and Democratic Institutions, will deal it a mortal blow, is not less inevitable.

I may not argue the proposition; but it is true. And, while the principles and opinions adopted in my earliest manhood, growing with every year in strength and intelligence of conviction, point always to the policy of Justice, the expediency of Humanity, and the necessity of Duty, to which the relations of our Government and People to the whole subject of Slavery form no exception, so that I have always believed that every constitutional power belonging to the Government, and every just influence of the people ought to be used to limit and terminate this enormous wrong, which curses not only the bondman and his master, but blasts the very soil they stand upon,-I yet mean, as I have done since the beginning of the "Secession," I mean to continue to school myself to silence. I cannot suspect that my opinions, in view of the past, can be misconceived by any to whom they may be of the slightest consequence or curiosity. Nor do I believe that the faith of Massachusetts can be mistaken or misinterpreted. The record of her declared opinions is resplendent

with instruction, and even with prophecy; but she was treated for years as the Cassandra of the States, disliked because of her fidelity to the ancient faith, and avoided because of her warnings and her testimony. And now, when the Divine Providence is leading all the people in ways they had not imagined, I will not dare attempt to run before, and possibly imperil the truth itself. Let him lead to whom the people have assigned the authority and the power. One great duty of absorbing, royal Patriotism, which is the public duty of the occasion, demands us all to follow. Placed in no situation where it becomes me to discuss his policy, I do not stop even to consider it. The only question which I can entertain is what to do, and when that question is answered, the other is what next to do in the sphere of activity where it is given me to stand. For by deeds, and not by words, is this People to accomplish their salvation.

Let ours be the duty in this great emergency to furnish, in unstinted measure, the men and the money required of us for the common defence. Let Massachusetts ideas and Massachusetts principles go forth, with the industrious, sturdy sons of the Commonwealth, to propagate and intensify in every camp, and upon every battle-field, that love of equal Liberty, and those rights of universal humanity, which are the basis of our Institutions; but let none of us who remain at home, presume to direct the pilot, or to seize the helm.. To the civil head of the National