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LETTER.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

January 31st, 1800.

SIR,

I HAVE the honor to submit, in compliance with your requisition, a few supplementary observations, and a few of the probable expense of the military schools respectfully recommended to consideration in my report, communicated to Congress, by message dated the 13th instant, from the President of the United States.

The report contemplates certain military schools as an essential mean, in conjunction with a small military establishment, to prepare for, and perpetuate to the United States, at a very moderate expense, a body of scientific officers and engineers, adequate to any future exigency, qualified to discipline for the field, in the shortest time, the most extended armies, and to give the most decisive and useful effects to their operations.

It is not conceived the United States will ever think it expedient to employ militia upon their frontiers, or to Garrison their fortified places in time of peace, nor that they will be disposed to place their reliance, for defense, against a foreign invading enemy, upon militia alone; but that they will at times maintain a body of regular troops, commensurate with their ability to maintain them, and the necessity or policy that may demand such an establishment.

To qualify and keep our citizens in general, of suitable bodily ability, prepared to take the field, against