In case of domestic insurrection, no man able to serve shall be excused on any condition.

In case of foreign war, any man may be excused, paying dollars.

50

No militia (except those inhabiting frontier counties) shall be obliged to serve against Indians, nor those inhabiting frontier counties for more than in one year.

Any man who shall refuse to serve his tour when required, to be imprisoned during the term of service, or compelled to labor at some public work at the option of the government. Cases of exempts to be defined in the laws.

The respective classes to be liable to be called out for inspection and exercise as follows:

The militia, when in service, to be subject to the same rules of discipline and government as the army of the United States.

II. A regiment to be raised consisting of commissioned officers and persons engaged as sergeants, and with the pay of such, that is to say, in their own corps, they shall serve by rotation as sergeants, corporals, and privates; but out of their regiment they shall only be employed as sergeants. All new regiments which may be raised shall have their sergeants from this corps, which shall have a fixed station, and be carefully instructed in all the parts of camp, field, and garrison service. It may be considered, whether this idea may not be extended to artillery and cavalry. This corps to constitute the basis of an army in case of need.

III. To establish a provisional or auxiliary army, composed of four regiments of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and one battalion of artillery, formed into a legion of two brigades, each brigade commanded by a Brigadier, and the legion by a MajorGeneral.

This legion to be raised by voluntary enlistment, according to a certain distribution in the following parts of the United

States. In the part of Pennsylvania and Virginia lying west of the Alleghany, the northwestern and southwestern governments, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The consideration of enlistment to be a suit of clothes of the value of ten dollars per annum, and when in the field the same pay and allowance as other troops of the United States.

To be engaged for a term of years, but except in case of domestic insurrection or foreign invasion, not to be obliged to serve in the field more than months in one year. One brigade to be raised in the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the Northwestern Territory, and the State of Kentucky. The Brigadier to be immediately charged with all the military affairs of the United States in that scene. The other brigade to be raised in the other part of the country above described, with the same immediate charge to its Brigadier of the military affairs of the United States in that scene.

The Major-General to have the general direction.

IV. The following miscellaneous objects to be aimed at.

1. The establishment of a system of trade with the Indians under the agents of government; a plan in detail for this purpose.

2. The establishing it as a principle, that every man in arms to attack or resist Indians, except in some county under the actual jurisdiction of the laws, shall be ipso facto liable to the rules for the government of the army.

3. The establishment of manufactories under public authority, of cannon, muskets and other arms, powder and ball. All articles of clothing except hats and shoes.

The organization of the army to be revised; it is presumed to be susceptible of one more perfect.

DEAR SIR:

HAMILTON TO M'HENRY.

NEW-YORK, February 21, 1799.

I send you the draft of a bill for regulating the medical estab lishment. (I avoid purposely the term department, which I would reserve for the great branches of administration.) You will see that nothing but an organization with a general outline of duty is provided for. Detailed regulations will properly come from the President and the departments; and the less these are legislated upon, in such cases, the better. When fixed by law, they cannot be varied, as experience advises.

This particular establishment, is one to the right fashioning of which I feel myself more than ordinarily incompetent.

You mention in one of your letters, that by the law of the 16th of July, the appropriation for the augmented army ceases at the end of the present session. This is one construction of that law. A different might perhaps be mentioned. But be this as it may, you will find by a subsequent act of the same date, entitled, "An act making certain appropriations, &c.," that 900,000 dollars are there appropriated for the same object, without any qualifications; and I take it for granted that whatever money should have been issued from the Treasury for the use of the War Department, previous to the end of the session-upon the first of those acts, might be expended afterwards by this department without any question about its regularity.

DEAR SIR:

M HENRY TO HAMILTON.

WAR DEPARTMENT, January 22d, 1799.

I omitted to inclose you yesterday the annexed schedule, upon which my letter was a commentary.

The General-in-Chief has mentioned to me in explicit terms, "That it is a part of his plan to decline the occupation of the office, unless, and until his presence in the field should be required for actual operations, or other imperious circumstances should require his assistance. That, persevering in this plan, he cannot undertake to assume a direct agency incompatible therewith, and that a half-way acting might be more inconvenient than totally declining it. He then advises, in conformity with my opinion given to him in Philadelphia, a division of the military command between the existing General officers. I mention this that you may experience no embarrassment in giving your ideas upon the distribution most proper to be adopted.

I have this moment received your note of the 21st, and the sketch of the hospital bill, and am ever your affectionate friend.

DEAR GENERAL:

GENERAL GUNN TO HAMILTON.

PHILADELPHIA, January 23d, 1799.

In haste I inclose you by this day's mail a printed copy of the military bill reported to the Senate. The bill was handed me by McHenry, and he is engaged in drawing a bill for regulating the hospital department. Have the goodness to return the bill, with such amendments as you think proper to make. I do not see the utility of a full Colonel to a regiment.

If your other engagements are not too pressing, you will greatly oblige me by inclosing a plan for the provisional army. It is my opinion that every State ought to officer one-regiment, at least, and that the President be authorized to commission all the officers immediately. The policy of the thing will not be doubted. Our friends in the House of Representatives permit the enemy to gain time by long speeches.

With very great regard, &c.

DEAR SIR:

HAMILTON TO MCHENRY.

NEW-YORK, January 24th, 1799.

You ask my opinion as to a proper arrangement for the command of the military force, on the ground that the Commanderin-Chief declines at present an active part.

This is a delicate subject for me; yet in the shape in which it presents itself, I shall waive the scruples which are natural on the occasion.

If I rightly understood the Commander-in-Chief, his wish was that all the military points and military force every where, should be put under the direction of the two Major-Generals, who alone should be the organs of the department of war.

The objects of this plan are to disburthen the head of that department of infinite details, which must unavoidably clog his general arrangements, and to establish a vigilant military superintendence over all the military points. There is no difficulty in this plan, except as to the western army.

It will be a very natural disposition to give to the InspectorGeneral the command of all the troops and posts north of Maryland, and to General Pinckney the command of all the troops and posts south of the district assigned to the Inspector-General. How will this plan as to the western army answer?

Let all the troops upon the lakes, including those on the Miami, which communicate with Lake Erie, be united under the command of one officer, to be stationed at. Let all the troops in Tennessee be united under the command of one officer, to be stationed at Let them consider themselves under the order of the General who commands the western army, and let the whole be placed under the Inspector-General. The officers commanding on the lakes, and in Tennessee, to be permitted to correspond immediately with the Inspector-General, and receive orders from him.

All the communications, as well of these officers as of the General of the western army, to be sent open, under cover of the