as it has been; yet it is sufficiently lucrative, es- |ficers and their country from dishonor and dispecially on the Pacific station, to give rise to evils grace. that ought not to be. If it be expedient to charge freight for the transportation of money in our public vessels, the proceeds ought to go into the hospital or some other fund-and not into the pockets of individuals. The public expenditure incident to such an overhauling, and to the consequent increase of the Navy, would swell the aggregate of the annual Naval appropriations but little, if any, above their present ratio. In 1837-38, a law was passed to By what rule the present number of officers has authorize a squadron of armed ships to be mainbeen assigned to the several grades in the Navy, I tained in service along the Atlantic sea-board, but have never been able to discover. The number of the law has never been carried into effect. The juniors is independent of the number of seniors; duties of the Revenue service, which is now a and neither has any relation to the number of ships. separate corps supported at an annual cost to the The due proportions, between the materiel and offi- public of $200,000, or $300,000, might be transferciel of a Navy, are governed by certain laws, and red to this squadron, with the most beneficial reare as easily to be determined as the ratio between sults, both on the score of economy and efficiency. any known quantities in mathematics. By failing This service consists of fifteen vessels and seventyto observe these proportions, the history of the Re-odd Captains and Lieutenants, whose salary, in public shows that one reduction of its Navy has al- gross, may be stated at $70,000; all of which, by ready been considered necessary, and has actually transferring its duties to the Navy in the manner taken place. And, after an interval of forty proposed, would be saved. Besides protection of years, the time is once more at hand, when reor- the revenue, this arrangement would give constant ganization according to these rules, or reduction and useful employment to nearly one hundred again ad libitum, is required. Navy officers and Lieutenants in the Navy. Moreover, if the necesmen-of-war, like quantities in Algebra, constitute sary number of steamers and officers proper to be an equation in the national marine, by which the maintained in the Navy were put in commission, value of all other of its parts may be deter- the expense of the Revenue service might be enmined; and according to which the acts of the tirely dispensed with; for those steamers, without government with regard to its Navy ought always the additional cost of a dollar, might perform all to be regulated. But, hitherto, government has the duties of the Revenue service, and, in doing acted in the matter, neither in conformity with the this, they would the more completely subserve the doctrines of numbers, nor the rules of quantity. purposes of the government, by affording useful ocBy improper, and therefore injudicious alterations cupation to a large number of the officers, who otherand substitutions, transposition and elimination, wise would be without it. Such service would make the proportions of the great equation have been them familiar with the bars and channels, and destroyed. And now, that it is required to clear it teach them to become pilots of our own ports and up, it becomes necessary to know what is the harbors; an accomplishment which, in the exigenproper value of every term and part, and what are cies of war, often proves of the first importance to the just and natural proportions between its mem- the Navy officer. bers, before the process by which the desired The enormous rate at which work is done for the equality is to be restored, can be known. Wise Navy, may fairly be charged as another evil of the men and the public interest alone can determine present system. The experience of every officer, what that process shall be-whether subtraction on who has had an opportunity of judging, will conone side, or addition on the other. If by the for- firm the statement, that the cost of work at the mer, let ships be sold, or sunk, or burned, (as said public dock-yards greatly exceeds the cost of before) till the Navy, as it now is, can afford to similar work at private ship-yards. In some ineach ship that remains, her due quota of officers. stances the expense is many times greater. The If by the latter, then let the number of officers be schooner Pilot was built at a Navy-Yard. She increased, until every ship be provided with her cost the government $33,000, and was sold before due complement. Whether by increase, or di- she had performed her first cruise, for $3000, (I minution, this is the standard to which the Navy think). The schooner Active, bought to supply must be brought at last. And, until the practical the Pilot's place, (and there was no material difadoption of this standard, the Navy will be unsta-ference in the size of these two vessels) cost $8,000. ble-as liable to unhealthy increase at one time, She was taken forthwith to the New-York Navyas to unwholesome stagnation at another. There Yard, and repaired at the cost of $13,700. She was can be no time more propitious than the present, further repaired at Norfolk, the cost of which is for the introduction of such a system. Bad man- not known. And without having been to sea, she agement and injudicious legislation have reduced was sold, after receiving all these repairs, for the Navy to a state of confusion and disorder $4,500. never before witnessed. A thorough overhauling is rendered necessary to save it from ruin-its of Such are the effects of the system adopted, that it has induced the mechanics of our Navy-Yards to vie with each other in doing little, rather than | worm-holes, which, though they indicate that the much. For, say they, "do our interests require system is faulty in detail, are alluded to for the purthe work on hand to be finished, that we may be pose of showing that the 'leakage' under it, is by discharged for the want of employment ?" They percolation and by drops, as well as by steady jets have been heard to boast-one that he had painted through open seams. a wash-board in a day; another, that he had put a lock on a door. The price of each of these day's work was $2,00, or $2,50. 1834 Cost of materials, do. Labor, Sloop St. Louis, do. 1838: Cost of Materials, do. do. Stores, $20,035 45 ·- $25,747 65 $55.021 43 The delay in getting ships out upon their stations, and in relieving them when there; the practice of keeping their crews abroad, at greatly in The sloop of war Falmouth was repaired in creased wages, after their terms of service have expired; and the delay which sometimes occurs in paying them off when they do return, occasionally involving an expense of five hundred or six hundred dollars a day, are fairly chargeable upon the system. They are evils and injuries to the public service, which ought not to exist, and Mark the difference between the price of Labor which a proper organization would not fail to corand of Materials in the two cases. By the estirect. In 1833, (I have no statistics of a later date) mates of 1824,* the building of a sloop of war of the American trade with Canton was valued at the 1st class, cost-Materials, $30,866 26; Labor, sixteen millions of dollars. It has been nearly $15,650,-making $46,516 26; and her equipment eighteen months since the East-India squadron is set down at $38,483 74-making the total cost left Canton for the United States, and more, since when ready for sea $85,000. On the opposite another squadron ought to have been in readiness side of the river, at New-York, packet-ships, larger to relieve it. That trade has been interrupted by than the St. Louis by one half, are built, fitted and found in the most elegant manner, with bulk-heads of bird's-eye maple, stairways of inlaid mahogany, airy saloons, splendid cabins, and magnificent apartments, all for $75,000, or $80,000. Whereas to repair, at a Navy-Yard, a ship but two-thirds the size of one of these, costs $119,435 28! And this case is not selected as the most extravagant. The mechanics at our Navy-Yards are employed by the day, and are not subject to Navy rules and regulations. When an officer demands more work of them than is required by their rule of private interest, he does it at his own peril. You recollect six-and-thirty-gun ship-of all vessels in the Navy, the Major Lendrum affair, recently enacted in Baltimore? Navy officers have long since learned, that lettres de cachet may be also issued against them. There is a quiet way of putting one under the ban in the Navy. an armed force, and nothing has been done to protect it. This delay shows that great difficulties must exist under the present system, in getting ships ready for sea. In this fact, we have an apt illustration of the condition in which the Navy is at present. No emergency can arise, short of a state of actual warfare, which calls, more urgently than this, for despatch. In the Spring, it was announced that a large squadron of ships was to be fitted out with all possible expedition for the China seas. In the Fall, that squadron has dwindled away to one sloop of war, and a long-legged, crank, the one least suitable for such service. But notwithstanding these efforts at expedition, and the urgency of the case, these two ships can scarce be said to be in a state of forwardness, for the time of their sailing has not yet been appointed.† If the Navy were under that system of management, which the general weal requires it should be, the timber, since the order was issued for the fitting out of these ships, might have been cut from the forest, and better ships than they might have been built and sent to sea long before these will reach their station. Forty-five dollars a ton for pig-iron is at this time paid, at one of our Navy-Yards, to make castings for the Navy. Ask one of your own ironmongers the price of this article, and he will tell you that thirty or thirty-five dollars is all that he can get. Navy officers have nothing to do with making the purchase of such articles. They see the abuse and complain of it; and the Commandant What further proof need we that the plan, by of the Yard, at which such prices are paid, will tell which the affairs of the Navy are conducted, is you, that, had he the authority to exercise a proper defective in its details-that the whole system recontrol over the matter, he could save to the Go-quires amendment and reorganization? Is the navernment the salary of every officer attached to the tional peculiarity, which requires facts to precede Station. A United States steamer, already man- opinion, so strong among your readers that it is ned and equipped, is lying idle at Norfolk. Her necessary to multiply proof? If so, let them bear officers and men would be glad of any active employment. And six dollars a head, for the transportation of seamen from Baltimore to Norfolk, are paid to other steamboats. But these are mere American State Papers-Class vi. vol. i., p. 899 in mind the fact, that, during the present year, but one ship only has been equipped and got to sea in time to take her place on her station abroad. With * The delay-more frequent formerly, than of late. They have not sailed at the time of going to press.-Ed. guns from the Lakes, where they are wanted, to New-York, where they are not wanted. You well recollect the inconvenience suffered in the last war, by the delay of getting guns to the Lakes. They were literally dragged there at an immense cost of labor and of money. And, as though guns this exception, every ship that has returned from and other failures in ship building-transporting her three years of foreign service, has been compelled to leave her station before another could be got ready to take her place. The Columbia and John Adams, as before stated, from the East-Indies-the Lexington, the Falmouth, and the Boxer, from the Pacific,-the Independence from the Brazils, and the Vandalia from the West-Indies, may be never wanted on the Lakes again, they have all returned under such circumstances. And though some of these left their stations more than twelve months ago—and none less than six-the Independence and the Boxer are the only ones among them whose places have been supplied. Does this look like the workings of a well-regulated system? Or does it not rather resemble the labor of a machine, the cogs and wheels of which are rusted and broken? have been dragged back to New-York. The last tidings of them were given by the Inspector of Ordnance, a few years ago, who found them placed within the reach of salt water tides, undergoing a rapid process of rust and destruction. Another charge under the head of 'blunders,' may be laid against a timber-dock, that was built many years ago at Norfolk, for water-seasoning. After this dock had been in use for some time, it A judicious reorganization would prevent the was thought that water-seasoning impaired the durecurrence of such evils, and dry up the sources rability of ship-timber; and the dock was filled up, of much useless expense which now exists. Be- and a ship-house built over it. Not many years sides this saving, as an offset and a recommenda- afterwards, and, under the auspices of the same tion, the balance-sheet would exhibit a ten-fold official body, (whether composed of the same indiefficiency for the Navy, with an entire column of viduals, I know not, nor does it matter, for my important national advantages in favor of increase purpose is not to attack individuals, but to gain for and reorganization. An account of the savings the service, by showing the workings of an old effected in the first year after reorganization, might and a bad system, the benefits of a new and a better be stated roundly somewhat in the form below,-one,)-under the auspices of the same body, then, The grade, with a list of 200 passed Midshipmen, abolished, do. do. 17 passed Assistant Surgeons, another timber-dock has been commenced at Nor$160,000 folk, larger and more splendid than the first. 18,000 Thousands of dollars have been expended upon 20,000 it; and it is not yet finished. The work upon it has been suspended for the want of an appropriation, or from some other cause. Perhaps the same official body has again decided that water-seasoning does injure timber, and that therefore it is useless to complete the dock. 225,000 250,000 $673,000 A sum more than sufficient for the pay of the additional officers required under the new system. In 1820, long before this dock was commenced, the Navy Commissioners wrote pages in proving to Congress that timber docks would be worse than useless. And what is still more reIn explanation of the items mentioned above, markable is, that the Board should have advocated and to show that they are not overcharged, a fur- the building of this stupendous dock, after crownther statement is necessary-and 1st. The Frigate ing, on that occasion, their objections in the folUnited States was repaired last fall at the cost of lowing language-"The Commissioners beg leave $80,000. She was manned, equipped and got here to observe, that if the objections already urged ready for sea, when the carpenter reported that to the practice of immersion (preserving timber in some of her timbers were rotten. She was accordingly surveyed and was condemned as unseaworthy. Besides the $80,000 thus wasted, there ought to be taken into the account, the pay of her crew of nearly 500 men and officers, that were on board of her for months-the cost, with the wear and tear of getting her from Boston to New-York, and from New-York to Norfolk-also the pay of her crew while waiting for another ship to be got ready at Norfolk. To which ought also to be added the injury sustained by our fellow-citizens and the public, in consequence of the delay in relieving an important station. 2nd. Many a blunder and foolish notion.' Videlicet: The steamer Fulton water) should not be considered as conclusive, still it would be highly improper to resort to it at any of our building yards, where the worm is known to frequent, Norfolk and New-York for instance." But fully to understand the splendid folly of this undertaking, you must bear in mind, it is not to this day a settled point, whether water-seasoning is an advantage or a disadvantage to ship-timber. Some maintain that, in the process, an acid is generated by the action of the water upon the juices of the wood, which is highly injurious to the latter. Others, with * Letter of Dec. 9, 1820, in reply to queries propounded on 24 Nov., 1820, by P. P. Barbour, chairman of Naval Committee, H. R. VOL. VII-3 equal plausibility, on the other hand, maintain that reported, by Mr. Secretary Crowninshield, to the the destructive properties in the wood (described 14th Congress, in 1816, to be $153,475. The reby the Navy Commissioners as certain acescent pairs put upon this forty-four gun-ship in the course fermentative qualities of the sap juices) are neu- of seven years, amount to more than twice that tralized, by the infusion of a pickle which serves sum. to preserve it. Though of such doubtful utility, one. $69,836 08 31,636 48 $101,472 56 Repairs of the Sloop Natchez, in 1835: $31,653 00 27,830 00 $59,483 00 Repairs of Frigate Brandywine, in 1834: this Dock was built, destroyed, and built again; | Materials, and there was no one to institute a series of Labor, experiments, in order to determine whether water-Stores, not ascertained. seasoning preserves or destroys timber. Under a well-regulated system, would not this question have been settled, before estimates were made, or an appropriation asked for this Dock? Stores, not ascertained. At whose recommendation soever the enormous expenses of thus putting up and pulling down The rule among merchant-ship-builders is, that, were incurred, wilful malfeasances of office are on account of what they call 'dead labor,' the cost not chargeable under the present system upon any of labor compared with the cost of materials, is For, had the expenses been hundreds of much greater in a large ship than a small one— millions instead of hundreds of thousands, I would the scaffolding for a large ship is much higher, and still defy you, Sir, to set before the public that offi- the timber much heavier-therefore more labor is cer at whom you could point the finger and as- required to hoist it up as well as to handle it. But suredly say, 'that's the man upon whom rests the observe how completely this very obvious rule is reblame of this thing.' So true, and so applicable versed in the cases of the Brandywine and Natchez. under this system, is the old aphorism, that "in The former is more than double the tonnage of divided power, there is no individual responsibility." the latter-and while there are $38,000 difference It has been said that ships are repaired at more in the cost of materials, there are but little more than their original cost. I have it, from good au- than $3000 difference in the price of the labor. thority, that one of our sloops-of-war, which cost originally $85,000, was recently repaired at a cost of $120,000. And after all this expense, she would hardly be worth-for the purposes of war-the salt contained in the water which she displaces. Dull beyond measure, she could neither come up with an inferior, nor escape from a superior force. The original cost of the schooner Shark, was $22,000; and when last repaired, her repairs alone cost $46,000. In proving that the system is a ruinous one, I am willing that the above facts may be set aside as 'hear-say' evidence; and that the proof should rest upon the testimony of the expenditurebooks themselves-a very few extracts from which have found their way into the " Lucky Bag." By such testimony then, partial as it is, let the system be tried. I challenge contradiction to the evidence afforded by the following statements: Repairs of the Frigate U. States, in April, 1832: Materials, Labor and stores, not ascertained. Refer to statements already made as authentic as the foregoing, and derived from the same source, concerning the repairs of the Pilot and Active, and of the Falmouth and St. Louis. Boston, in 1838-39, (timbers not touched :) Stores, not known Stores, not known Total as far as ascertained, $219,637 31 193,970 20 101,000 00 79,371 00 27,377 00 $621,355 51 To estimate at these rates the cost of such a ship from first to last, is like calculating the distance of the most remote star that can be seen through the telescope of Herschel. The result is so overwhelming, that the mind cannot grasp it $131,281 78 when expressed in the ordinary terms of measurement; and the astronomer tells his pupil how many years it would take a cannon-ball or a ray of light, travelling with all its velocity, to reach that distant world. The money which this ship, now on her first cruise, has already cost the Government, if run into bars of silver, would, without hyperbole, be almost enough to ballast the largest of our live-oak $75,495 10 built frigates. In December, 1834-after an interval of only thirty-two months-this frigate was again under repairs. Materials, Labor not ascertained. $52,210 10 23,285 00 This frigate was again under repairs in 1839. After having been repaired this last time at a cost of $75,000, or $100,000, she was found to be rotten, and is now lying at Norfolk unfit for sea. The cost of building a forty-four gun ship was By Admiralty regulations, the cost, under peace rates, of building and equipping for sea a ship of 120 guns in the Royal Navy, (furniture and seastores included,) is about $348,945, (£78,135.) The ratio between the cost of materials and of la forth are not to be corrected by bringing down the pay of a Midshipman, or a Commodore. Honorable legislators are warned that the evils are deeply seated in the system itself, and are not to be removed by merely the plucking of a leaf, or the lopping off of a limb: the axe must be laid at the root-for nothing short of thorough and complete reorganization will do. To what page soever I turn, I find my note-book filled with memoranda which exemplify the evils of the present system. However distinctly, within bor in England, is stated at one-fourth or one-fifth. | on the 3d January, 1823, her cost is stated to be You have seen by the statistics furnished above, $294,042 97; of which 109,878 23 was for labor. that under our system there is no such thing as But you have seen that the labor to repair her in rule or ratio in practice, though the rule by which 1838-139, cost not less than $280,000; and that to estimates are made is about one-third. Another repair her only once, cost, under the present system, remarkable feature in this system is, the frequency $621,355 51*-almost three times her original with which repairs are called for. Men-of-war cost. What would you, as a man of business, think are built of live-oak-merchantmen of white-oak, of a ship owner, who, instead of selling his old usually. After a three years cruise, it is generally ships, should proceed to repair them at such rates? deemed necessary under the present system, tho- With such an exhibit as the above, meagre too roughly to repair a man-of-war. A white-oak mer- of items as it is, do you not think the estimate of chantman, carrying cargoes heavier than the bat- $250,000 too small to cover the 'blunders and fooltery, the provisions and crew of a man-of-war, ish notions' incident to the present system? Would usually runs ten or twelve years-frequently much you not say that the savings to be effected under longer-before she is touched. She sails on the this head alone, by reorganization, would come nearsame seas, encounters the same gales and tem- er to $1,000,000 annually? To satisfy the cry of pests; and, without having in her frame the sub-retrenchment and reform raised in the land, members stantial materials, or the strength of the other, out-of Congress, at its last session, seized upon the lasts her by many years. All of which is the fault Commissioner of Pensions, increased his duties, of the system. The 'Great Henry,' before alluded and reduced his salary. But the abuses here set to as the first ship with port-holes, was launched in 1515-and, without having been repaired, she was fit for service, when she was accidentally burnt thirty-eight years afterwards. The 'Sovereign of the Seas' was launched in 1636, and sixty years afterwards she began to require repairs. But let us come down to our own times. At a cost, in round numbers, of not less than $370,000, we find the liveoak built frigate, United States,' undergoing a process of thorough repairs no less than three times in the course of seven years. By statements made many years ago, and before this system was adopted, it the walls of the Navy Departinent, usage may have appears that the repairs of this same frigate, from drawn the line of demarkation between the duties 1802 to 1809-a period also of seven years-cost of Secretary and Navy-Board, or however well it but $16,924 14.* The United States schooner may be understood there, you will find but few able Dolphin went to sea in 1821, and was kept out of to trace it out of that building. Ask officers of the reach of this repairing system. She continued the Navy, where the duties of the Navy-Board bein active service on the Pacific Station and among the Polynesian Islands for FOURTEEN years, and was never once repaired during all that time. The United States frigate Brandywine was built four years after the Dolphin, and has already been repaired three or four times. The ships of some of the packet-lines from New-York, after having run as 'liners' for eight or ten years, are then sold; and, without receiving any repairs whatever, go cruising round the world in pursuit of whales. The calculation is, that the large Liverpool packets that are now built, will run as sound and good ships for fourteen years. In the building of merchant-ships, the cost of labor By the estimates of 1816†-from which time the is about one-half the cost of materials. In the Navy, the present system is dated-the building of a sloop-of-frigate Potomac cost $178,320 09-the labor was $87,039 69: war cost $46,293. But you have already seen that the repairs put upon the sloop-of-war St. Louis at one time, cost $119,435 28. By the same estimates, the building of a 74 is put down at $217,412. The Ohio, 80 guns, was commenced about this time. And, in a communication to Congress from Mr. Monroe, * American State Papers: Class vi., vol. i., p. + Ibid, p. 400. 253. gin? or where its responsibilities end? or where rests its accountability?—and no two will agree in their reply. Ask the best informed citizens the same question. Some will tell you that the NavyBoard is a power behind the Secretary, greater than the Secretary himself-that there is a MasterSpirit in that Board which rules the Navy. Others will tell you that the evil genius of the Navy presides at that Board. Him they unjustly charge with every thing that goes amiss, and would hold responsible for the present condition of the Navy. Materials, $91,280 40. The Columbus, 74, cost Total, $222.693 644 204,237 47 $426,931 114 But in consequence of the pulling to pieces, the cost of labor compared with materials, ought to be greater in repairing than it is in building. |