Making a total of $2,730,514 92; to which add about one third of that sum, for the first quarter of the same year, and we have a grand total of about three millions and a half, expended or computed for expenditure during the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1847, under "INDEFINITE APPROPRIATIONS;" which is nearly two millions less than was expended under indefinite appropriations, in 1840.

The mixing up, or commingling together, in the Annual Report of Public Accounts, the statements of expenditures under "indefinite appropriations" of former laws, with those of expenditures under annual specific appropriations in pursuance of regular annual estimates, calls for some criteria for distinguishing between these two great classes of disbursements-which could not be better given, than by incorporating, here, the above list of the acts making such “indefinite appropriations," with the amounts calculated to be wanted and drawn from the Treasury, for those objects during the fiscal year mentioned. In casting the eye over this list, and comparing it with the annual estimates, it might be supposed that there is, also, in several respects, a mixing up or repetition of specific estimates and appropriations for the year, for some of the same objects for which indefinite appropriations had already been made; but such is not the fact; for instance, the sum supposed to be wanted and drawn from the Treasury, as above stated, for Revolutionary Pensions under the indefinite appropriation of the act of the 7th of June, 1832, is no part of the sum estimated "for the payment of Revolutionary Pensions," at No. 31, page 25, ante. But estimates are sometimes made for specific appropriations when they are required in aid of the funds set apart for the objects contemplated by indefinite appropriation acts, of which the instances, however, are rare. But it is con. fidently believed that nearly all these appropriations might be made specific after the first year's experience in administering them under the respective acts making them indefinitely.

Let it be borne in mind that, though the annual estimates be not so fluctuating, the heads of appropriations are more or less liable to changes, on various accounts, in the different appropriation laws enacted annually, rendering them in some instances more specific, and in others more general: that is to say-though an appropriation may be specific as to the SUM, it may be more or less general as to the OBJECTS OF CLASSES of objects it may provide for. And therefore-the spirit of specific appropriations being not merely to provide a definite sum for an indefinite class of objects, but definite sums for definite objects, in detail, in all cases, as nearly as practicable, except only such small objects of which the amount could not well be anticipated or ascertained, and would give more perplexity than it were worth to descend to such minuteness-it was probably to avoid this perplexity, arising in cases where the heads of appropriations might be divided into too great detail, that the proviso of the 1st Section of the act of the 3d March, 1809, "authorized the President during the recess of Congress, on the application of the Secretary of the proper Department, to direct, if in his opinion necessary for the public service, that a portion of the money appropriated for a particular branch of expenditure in the same Department, to be applied [or transferred] to another branch of expenditure in the same Department," &c., &c.-According to the foregoing views, the following classification is suggested, which will be found to be reciprocally applicable to estimates, appropriations, and accounts of expenditures.

1.

THE CIVIL DEPARTMENTS.

[The aggregates of the civil and diplomatic estimates for the fiscal year, are not inserted in the following classification of their respective subjects or heads, as those aggregates have already been given in a preceding summary to illustrate the connection between the annual estimates, appropriations, and expenditures, the repetition of which here might rather distract the attention from the classifica. tion suggested, than promote the comprehension and appreciation of its general bearing.]

CIVIL LIST PROPER, AND INCIDENTALS THEREto.

(4)-LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT.

1. Senate.

1. Per diem compensation of Senators.

2. Mileage of Senators.

3. Salaries of officers of the Senate.

4. Contingent expenses of the Senate.

*5. Preparing, printing, and binding documents, &c.

II. House of Representatives.

1. Per diem compensation of members of the House.

2. Mileage of Members of the House.

3. Salaries, &c., of officers, &c., of the House.

4. Contingent expenses of the House.

III. Congress Library.

1. Salary of Librarian.

2. Salaries of Assistant and Messenger." 3. Contingent expenses of the Library.

4. Purchase of books for the Library.

(B)—EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.

I. President and Vice President.

1. President of the United States-salary.

2. Vice President of the United States-salary.

II. Department of State.

1. Salary of the Secretary of State.

2. Salaries of his clerks and messengers.

3. Contingent expenses of his office.

#4 Census of the United States.

*5. Salaries of Commissioners, &c., on boundaries of U. S.

*6. Commissioner of Patents-his salary.

*7. Salaries of his clerks and messengers.

*8. Contingent expenses of Patent office.

*9. Restoring records, drawings, models, &c.

#10. Refunding fees, on withdrawing applications for Patents.

11. Compiling, printing, and binding Biennial Register.

12. Superintendent and watchmen of N. E. building.

III. Treasury Department.

1. Salary of the Secretary of the Treasury.

2. Salaries of his clerks and messengers.

3. Contingent expenses of his office.

4. Superintendent, watchmen, and contingents of building.

5. Salary of First Comptroller.

6. Salaries of his clerks and messengers.

7. Contingent expenses of his office.

8. Second Comptroller's salary.

9. Salaries of his clerks and messengers.
10. Contingent expenses of his office.
11. First Auditor's salary.

12. Salaries of his clerks and messenger.

13. Contingent expenses of his office.
14. Second Auditor's salary.

15. Salaries of his clerks and messenger.
16. Contingent expenses of his office.
17. Third Auditor's salary.

II. Civil Institutions of U. S. in States and Territories.*

*The items that would properly make up this class are too scattered and indefinite in the printed accounts to be satisfactorily defined here.

(DIPLOMATIC LIST AND INCIDENTALS THERETO.)

I. Intercourse (proper) with Foreign Nations.

1. Ministers to foreign nations-their salaries.

2. Secretaries of Legation-their salaries.

3. Chargés des Affaires-their salaries.

4. Outfits of Ministers.

5. Outfits of Chargés.

6. Contingent expenses of all missions abroad.

II. Expenses incident to Foreign Intercourse.

1. Expenses of intercourse with the Barbary powers.
2. Contingent expenses of foreign intercourse.
3. Compensation of diplomatic agents in Europe.

4. Expenses of commissioners, &c., under conventions, &c.
5. Salaries of consuls at London and Paris, &c.

6. Expenses for the relief and protection of American scamen.

PUBLIC DEBT AND OTHER ASSUMPTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.

I. Public Debt proper, (old and new.)

1. Interest on (old) funded debt.

2. Interest and redemption of (old) domestic debt. 3. Redemption of (old) three per cent. stock.

4. Interest and redemption of loans of 1841 and 1842.

II. Treasury Notes, (old and new.)

1. Redemption of (old) Treasury notes, and interest.
2. Redemption of notes issued under act of 1838.
3. Interest on notes issued under said act.

4. Redemption of notes issued under act of 1840,

5. Interest on notes issued under said act.

6. Redemption of notes issued under act of 1841. 7. Interest on notes issued under said act.

8. Redemption of notes issued under act of 1842.

9. Interest on notes issued under said act.

III. Quasi Public Debt, or assumptions to pay, &c.
*1. Distribution of the proceeds of sales of public lands.
*2. Two, three, and five per cents. of land sales to new states.
*3. Relief of the corporate cities of the District of Columbia.
*4. To pay the debts of the Post Office Department.

*5. To pay annuities to sundry individuals.

*6. For the relief of sundry individuals.

*7. For refunding duties paid under protest.
*8. Repayments for unclaimed merchandise sold.

*9. Repayments for lands erroneously sold.

*10. Repayments of fees erroneously paid for patent inventions.
11. Repayments to individuals withdrawing their applications.
*12. Payments for horses and other property lost in mil'ry service.
*13. Payments of claims not otherwise provided for, &c.

II.

THE MILITARY DEPARTMENTS.

[Although the average of the Military and Naval Estimates for the fiscal year have been given in a préceding summary to illustrate the connection between the annual estimates, appropriations, and accounts of expenditures, those averages were adapted to a state of peace, and correspond only with the average yearly demands for the peace establishment of those two arms of the national defence: but as the state of war (now existing with Mexico) requires a very considerable increase of those expenditures, (without materially affecting those of the Civil Department,) the amounts of the estimates for the Military and Naval establishments are again inserted in their proper places, according to the official Reports of Estimates for the fiscal year, commencing the 1st of July, 1847. The classification here adopted for the estimates of the WAR DEPARTMENT is, for the most part, conformable to the affinities, the analogy, and the sequence of subjects, as will be perceived on casting an eye over the principal and subordinate classes into which they are arranged.]

THE MILITARY LIST PROPER, AND INCIDENTALS THERETO.

[(4) THE PERSONNEL AND COLLATERALS OF THE
MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT, PROPER,-
(including principal officers of Bureaus, and employees connected
with the Military Establishment.)

1. Adjutant General's Department.

1. For bounty in money to new recruits,

2. For quarters, fuel, bunks, straw, and stationery,

3. For private physicians' examination and medical attendance of new recruits,

4. For magistrates' fees for administering the oath of allegiance to new recruits,

5. For [clothing* and all other] contingent expenses of recruits, till mustered to join their regiments,

6. For extra pay allowed by law to re-enlisted noncommissioned officers, musicians, and privates, in their respective regiments-say for four hundred re-enlisted,

90,680

- 12,000

The above enumeration or distribution of the items of the official estimates for the recruiting service, for the sake of distinctness, varies from that of the original, which, doubtless, might have been given in detail with the same facility as is practised in some respects by other Bureaus.

The original, however, embraces all those details in two aggregates,
giving the above amounts of 812,000 and 890,680, except the item of
clothing, which is here introduced (in brackets] for the sake of comple
ting the enumeration of recruiting expenses.

II. Paymaster General's Department.

1. For pay of the army-consisting of officers of the
General Staff, Corps of Engineers, Corps of
Topographical Engineers, corps of Ordnance,
two regiments of dragoons, one regiment of
mounted riflemen, four regiments of artillery,
and eight regiments of infantry, including the
non-commissioned officers, musicians, and
privates in the respective regiments; together
with the commutation for subsistence, forage,
and servants' clothing, paid to officers in money;
with certain additional pay to officers, extra
rations and allowances in particular cases pro
vided by law; making a grand total of
This estimate, in the original, is made in the minutest detail, showing
the amount for each individual, from the highest officer down to the
private soldier, with the aggregate of staff officers' pay and emolu-
ments, of engineer and ordnance corps, and the several regiments,
which respective aggregates compose the grand total, as above, leaving
not the smallest matter connected with the Pay Department to be
guessed at.

2,868,722

The clothing and equipage required for recruits have always been supplied, formerly by the Commissary General of Purchases, and recently by the Quartermaster General, out of the general stock of such articles, prepared by the purchasing department for the army; which has been a source of great laxity in the preservation, use, and accounting for those supplies; but which probably would be greatly remedied by a separate purchase and accounting therefor, until the recruits be mustered into the army. It could then be easily ascertained, without a faborious collating of accounts, what proportion of these supplies has been consumed, or otherwise disposed of in the recruiting service. [See the letters of the Commissary General of Purchases to the Secretary of War on this subject in 1833.]

Numbers 41, 42, and 43, formerly appertained to the "Purchasing Department," now abolished, and the duties attached to the Quartermaster General's department; although the office, as formerly, is still kept in Philadelphia, but without a head, except that at the Department in Washington.

2,000,000
300,000

3. For the current expenses of the ordnance ser-
vice,t

100,000

4. For the manufacture of arms at the national ar-
mories,

5. For repairs and improvements of public buildings,
including lodges or barracks for operatives, &c.,
and new machinery at Springfield armory,
6. For repairs and improvements of public build.
ings, including lodges or barracks for operatives,
&c., and new machinery at Harper's Ferry ar.
mory,

7. For arsenals-consisting of constructions and
repairs connected with each, at Alleghany,
Apalachicola, Baton Rouge, Champlain, De-
troit, Frankford, Kennebeck, Mount Vernon,
New York, North Carolina, Pikeville, Rome,
Watertown, and Watervliet,

8. For artillery drawings-exhibiting a uniform
system of artillery, including guns, carriages,
and other implements, for seacoast, siege, and
garrison service, to be distributed to the arse-
nals, fortifications, and other military posts, for
the information and instruction of all officers
engaged in the construction, repairs, and use
of these implements,

These aggregate estimates of the Ordnance Department are accompanied with particular estimates, approximating all practicable detail, under each class, making up their respective aggregates, as established

above.

H. Engineer Department.

5,000

360,000

18,500

17,770

51,480

547,000

14. For storage, drayage, building store-houses and
work-shops, expenses of depots, &c.,
15. For forage for horses, mules, and oxen, in the
trains,

250,000

1,000,000

2,000

2. For fortifications at outlet of Lake Champlain,
3. For defensive works at narrows of Penobscot

30,000

5,000

6. For private physicians, and medicines furnished by them,

These estimates for the Surgeon General's Department, though in aggregates for their respective classes of objects, are sufficiently minute for all practical purposes, as the classes themselves are well divided. and sufficiently meet the policy of detailed estimates.

VI. Pension Department.

1. For pay of revolutionary pensioners, under the act of March 18, 1818,

6. For repairs of fortifications on Governor's Island,
Boston harbor,

15,000

67,200

11. For repairs of Fort Wood, and seawall of Bed-
low's Island, New York,

2. For pay of invalid pensioners, under various acts, 166,000
3. For pay of pensions to widows and orphans, un-
der the act of July 4, 1836,

12. For repairs of Fort Madison, Maryland,
13. For Fort Monroe, Virginia,

4,000

30,000

258,000,

4. For pay of pensions to widows and orphans, under the act of July 7, 1838,

14. For preservation of site of Fort Moultrie, South
Carolina,

10,000

270,000

5. For pay of pensions under the act of March 3, 1843,

6. For pay of pensions under the act of June 17, 1844,*

- 100,000

(B) THE MATERIEL OF MILITARY OPERATIONS,— (including the collaterals for their construction and preservation, Munitions of War, Armories, Arsenals, Fortifications, &c.) I. Ordnance Department.

1. For the armamentt of fortifications,

18. For Fort Barrancas and BARRACKS,§ Florida,
19. For repairs of Fort Morgan, Alabaina,
20. For repairs of battery Bienvenue, Louisiana,
21. For repairs of Fort St. Philip, Louisiana,
22. For Fort Livingston, Louisiana, -
23. For fortifications on Florida reef,
24. For contingencies of fortifications,

The first impression likely to be derived from the above items may be, that they embrace all the expenditures required for the payment of military pensions during the year; but they do not embrace the whole, because the Revolutionary Pensions, under the act of the 7th June, 1832, making “indefinite appropriations" for revolutionary pensions (which consume about 8g300,000 annually,) are not included in them, as has been more particularly explained elsewhere. It may be satisfactory also to state here, that all the Pensions above estimated for, together with those of the indefinite appropriation of the 7th June, 1832, are paid, on the production of the proper pension cer tificates, by pension agents in different parts of the Union; except certain pension claims settled and awarded by the Third Auditor, which are paid through his office, for the process of which see the proper head in the Chapter on the Third Auditor's office. Though but few pensioners are in the army, the great mass of them have been or are the representatives of those who acquired their right to pension in the service, and therefore the provisions for their stipends are constructively entitled to be classed here.

+These consist of seacoast and garrison guns, columbiads, howitzers and mortars, projectiles, carriage timber and other materials for constructing gun-carriages, pent houses, &c., with requisite implements and equipments used in preparing the armament for Forts.

These consist of timber and other materials for siege and field carriages, caissons, implements, equipments and harness, accoutrements for cavalry, artillery, infantry, and riflemen; of shots and shells for siege and field artillery; and materials for preparing ammunition therefor, and for the expenses of fabricating carriages, caissons, harness, implements, and equipments.

There is an incongruity but too frequently practised, in multiplying divisions or separations of matters of detail which are homogeneous and ought to be associated under the same province-whilst on the other hand, matters that have no assimilation or affinity whatever, are almost as frequently forced together under one and the same superintendency. For example: Barracks, whose construction and repairs, for the quarters of soldiers, appertain to the proper superintendency of the Quartermaster's Department; and yet we see barracks, connected with fortifications, are constructed by the Engineer Department, (for alleged convenience,) whilst constructing the Forts; as if to say, that the workmen and others employed by these two Departments could not conduct their operations within the vicinity of each other. But as the barracks within Forts, when completed by the Engineer Department, are turned over to the Quartermaster's Department, which is thereafter charged with their repairs and preservation, whilst the repairs of the Forts still continue in the charge of the Engineer Department, one would say it were more consonant with reason,

40,000

26,000

3,000

25,000

5,000

50,000

25,000