ANNUAL REPORT OF THE QUARTER MASTER GENERAL. SIR: [REFERRED TO ON PAGE 102 OF THE JOURNAL.] QUARTER MASTER GENERAL'S OFFICE. My Annual Report to your Excellency has been unavoidably delayed, in consequence of my absence from the State. There has been so little change, however, during the past year, in the disposition of the Public Military Property, that a statement of the situntion of it would be almost identically the same as that submitted at the last session of the Legislature. I have issued no arms to Uniformed Companies since the date of my last Report, though I am unofficially informed that one or two quotas, of ninety or one hundred stands, have been distributed by the Adjutant and Inspector General. With this exception, the arms and other Public Military Property remain precisely as they were at the close of the year 1844; and I take the liberty to transmit to your Excellency the statement which accompanied my Report for that year, as furnishing the best, and (in consequence of the extensive neglect of the several Regimental Quarter Masters to make the Reports required by law, to this Office) the only information in my possession respecting "the situation and disposition" of that property. I have received returns from no Regimental Quarter Masters, excepting those of the First, the Fourteenth, the Nineteeth, the Twentieth, and the Twenty-Sixth Regiments; leaving twenty-two Regiments unreported. These returns disclose no new facts respecting the condition of the public property; and while the fidelity of these five Quarter Masters, (Messrs. Mattison, Conant, Tabor, Currier, and Banks,) is unquestionably most praiseworthy; the neglect of prescribed duty into which the others have fallen, however censurable it may be deemed, cau scarcely excite surprise, when it is remembered that the inconsiderable compensation which the State granted for their services in inspecting the public property within their several regiments, and in making the returns to this Office, has been wholly taken away. It was easy to anticipate the effect of this proceeding, and the result has completely fulfilled the anticipation. The public is no better served without compensation, than the individual. The radical change in the militia system of the State, effected by the law of 1844, left an amount of the public military property, large in quantity, but by no means of corresponding importance and value, in the possession of the several disbanded companies of the enrolled militia of the State. I am aware that, without any unauthorized exercise of authority, I might have caused this property to be collected. But I have felt myself restrained from pursuing this course from two principal considerations: In the first place the State has no Arsenal in which they could be deposited for safe-keeping, and, as I apprised your Excellency in my last Report, the permission granted to this State by the General Government, to place a specified amount of public property in the United States Arsenal at Vergennes, for storage, has been already very considerably exceeded. In the second place, though to collect this property is made the duty of the Quarter Master General, I have refrained from exercising it, because it would necessarily be attended with no inconsiderable expense to the State; and, as no damage to the property thus dispersed could be reasonably apprehended from the delay, I have preferred to await the instructions of the Legislature, or such an expression of their wishes, in the premises, as is always agreeable, to say the least, to a public officer upon whom devolves the unpleasant duty of disbursing the public money. A portion of this property, consisting of books of records, tactics, &c., is, without doubt, of very little value; while another portion, such as musical instruments, flags, &c., should, unquestionably, be collected and preserved. I do not permit myself to doubt that, either from your Excellency, or from the Legisla ture, such instructions will be communicated to this Department as the public interest may seem to demand, and as will relieve the Quarter Master General from any imputation of unnecessarily exercising his official authority. I have the honor to be, His Ex'y WILLIAM SLADE, Your Excellency's ob't serv't, Governor and Commander in Chief, &c. &c. |