We have also heard of a project for raising fifty thousand volunteers, which has, I believe, been very properly stifled in its birth, and we have appropriated, during the present session, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars towards the erection, repairing, and completion of our fortifications. A sum about equal to the expenditure of the British Government for six weeks, or two months, on a single fortress in the Province of Canada, and which sum, with us, is to put into a state of defence, against the naval power of Great Britain, an exposed and accessible maritime frontier of two thousand miles in extent! In contemplating war, it is also proper to advert to the state of the Treasury. Under such an event, and with any serious preparation for war or actual prosecution of it, the present funds would soon be exhausted. How soon cannot be stated, because the amount of them cannot be accurately ascertained. A part, and a considerable part, of the money now on hand, does not belong to the public. It is the property of the merchants; it is deposited in the Treasury as in a bank, to be checked for, whenever that commerce, which Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, most emphatically says, our country _will have_, shall be again reopened. And thus situated, what are the projects offered for replenishing the public coffers in future? It is the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to develop the resources of the nation, and to point out new sources of supply, whenever the usual channels are impeded. He has designated three modes. The first, if executed, embraces, in my view, and I am sorry to say it, a marked violation of the public faith. It is the suggestion of stopping drawbacks on merchandise, which, in many instances, the merchants, from a reliance on the stability of your laws, and the integrity of the Government, have imported expressly for exportation, and not for domestic use or consumption in this country, and which exportation you have prevented them, alike contrary to their inclinations and their interests, from making for a longer period than ever was known or endured in any other nation. The second project is one which, in my opinion, would do little honor to the genius of any man. It is a sweeping project for doubling, at the moment, the duties on every description of imported merchandise, on which a duty is now payable. Without notice to the merchant, without inquiry, without discrimination, without distinction between the necessaries of the poor man and the luxuries of the rich one; between the indispensable raw materials of the manufacturer and the useless decorations of fashion. By which, bohea tea and Madeira wine, brown sugar and cosmetics, coaches and carpenters tools, are all, by a single stroke of the pen, raised in the same ratio; and a duty of 100 per cent. on the present rates, without favor or affection, equally recommended to be imposed on the whole of them.