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246 That the Militia laws are susceptible of improvement is not to be denied, but it may be said that there has been more faults in the complaints against them than in the system itself.

  There are now more than forty thousand men belonging to the Militia, divided into five hundred and seventy companies. The arms and stores in the Arsenal amount in value to at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the number of arms having been recently increased by a large supply from the United States. The administration of a department thus important and extensive, while it might be less arduous with some further provision for clerical aid in the office of the Adjutant and Quarter Master General, would still be embarrassed by a difficulty which seriously affects the troops, the omission of a code of rules and regulations, settling questions of rank and a great multiplicity of other objects, agreeably to the mode pursued by the United States.