are received in the city hospital at a fixed rate per week, paid out of the marine hospital fund. 4th. Portland, New London, Wilmington, North Carolina, Newbern, Edenton, and Alexandria, where temporary relief is afforded in private boarding houses. 5th. Savannah, from which no returns have been received. By the statement B it appears that the whole sum received from seamen, either in private or in public service, amounts to 147,875 dollars and 58 cents, of which 6,185 dollars and 33 cents have been applied to the purchase of the hospital at Gosport, near Norfolk, and 74,636 dollars and 51 cents have been expended for the relief of sick seamen; that 73,761 dollars and 61 cents remain unexpended in the hands of sundry collectors and agents, and that 6,707 dollars and 87 cents are due to certain agents who have expended more than has been received by them. This last circumstance has taken place in Newport, Norfolk, and Charleston, namely, in three of the four marine hospitals which have been established; and it will be perceived, by a recurrence to the same statement, that to those three places the navy fund has been exclusively applied; but this last fund being nearly exhausted, it is impracticable to continue any longer the established hospitals at Norfolk and Charleston, unless Congress shall think proper to grant them some aid, or to make such alterations in the law as will permit a more general application of the fund. Under existing circumstances, if no alteration shall be made, it will be necessary to write to the collectors of both places to discontinue in toto the hospitals after the 81st of March next. For the advances made by them must, by this time, exceed twelve thousand dollars; these have been paid out of the proceeds of the duties on import and tonnage, and cannot be admitted to their credit in their accounts as collectors. It will be necessary for them to continue to collect the seamen money until they shall have been fully reimbursed for their advances. If it be asked why the funds have proven insufficient in those two places, the following reasons, it is believed, may be assigned: 1st. The establishment of an hospital, instead of having had recourse to city or State institutions, as in Philadelphia and New York, which has drawn with it all the expenses of superintendence, attending physicians, etc. For what reason the Gosport hospital was purchased from the State of Virginia, I am at a loss to know; but if it was intended for the navy, it should be supported out of the funds appropriated for that department and placed under its control. The building is much too large, and in an unfinished state, and wants immediate and expensive repairs. 2d. Those two seaports are more expensive, and generally, so far especially as relates to non-residents, more sickly than the more northern ports. 3d. The provision of the law which makes seamen on board coasting vessels pay only in the port to which they belong, is unjust in its operation, and bears more particularly on the Southern ports. It is necessary to state that complaints are frequently received from those ports where no relief has yet been granted; the scamen complaining that they pay without deriving any benefit from it. This may be the case in some instances; but it is doubtful whether the application of the funds in such manner that they might find relief in all the important ports of the Union, may not be more beneficial to them than a provision in the ports where they reside, and where they want it least. Whilst the expenditure of the money is restricted to the port or State where it is collected, it cannot be considered in any other light than as a municipal establishment, and would more conveniently be placed under the control of the State itself. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, Sir, Your obdt. Servt., (Signed) ALBERT GALLATIN. The President of the United States. ("American State Papers," vol. vii., "Commerce and Navigation.") On May 3, 1802, an act was passed amending the act of 1798, by which the moneys collected on account of the hospital tax were constituted a general fund; the sum of $15,000 was appropriated for the erection of a hospital at Boston; the President was authorized to take the necessary measures for providing relief at New Orleans; masters of every kind of river-craft entering the port of New Orleans were required to pay the hospital money at Fort Adams; the President was authorized to appoint a director for the hospital at New Or leans; sick and disabled seamen from foreign vessels were authorized to be admitted into the marine hospitals on the application of their respective commanding officers; and it was further enacted that the directors of the marine hospitals should be held accountable in the same manner as other receivers of public moneys, and they were allowed a commission of one per centum on the money disbursed. On May 6th the Collector at Boston was requested to designate a site for the hospital; but on the 21st of June the following letter was written him: BENJN. LINCOLN, Esq., TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 21st June, 1802. Collector of Customs, Boston. SIR: I have the honor to enclose a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to Samuel Brown, Esq., directing him to designate the ground, not exceeding five acres, which, out of that purchased for a Navy Yard, to be appropriated for a Marine Hospital. In order to obtain an eligible plan, it appears proper and I request you to insert in one of the newspapers an advertisement offering a premium of 50 Dollars for the most approved plan of an hospital of 4,000 square feet area, two stories of 10 and 8 feet high, with cel lars below; the rooms for the sick to be well aired, and of varied sizes from 12 to 20 feet square; the convenient distribution of the rooms and economy of space and construction will be principally regarded in the decision. A ground plan, elevation, and section will be expected to be transmitted to the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, on or before the 15th day of August next. Plans not approved shall be returned. ALBERT GALLATIN. which I would recommend in yours, is to confine the I have the honor to be, respectfully, Sir, ALBERT GALLATIN. A reward of $50 having been offered for the best plan for the hospital at Boston, and only one having been received, that one was adjudged the best, and the author received the money, although the Secretary considered it necessary to make certain alterations, as the following letter shows: TREASURY DEPARTMENT, SIR: I enclose the only plan which has been received for a Marine Hospital at Boston, in consequence of the public advertisement inserted in your newspaper for that purpose. It was transmitted by Asher Benjamin, and although it is not possessed of any great merit, yet, unless you have received some other, we should use it with a few trifling alterations. Mr. Benjamin will in that case be entitled to the reward, but he should give some explanation concerning the thickness of walls and partitions, and the precise absolute dimensions of the building. If you shall have received any other plan, I will thank you to transmit the same to this Department; but if none has been received, the enclosed, with the following alterations in the second floor, may be considered as adopted. Alterations of the second floor, marked with a pencil on the plan: Let the corner rooms be on the same plan as in the first floor; that is to say, that at each end of the building, instead of a room 18' by 19, two 9 by 18 each, and a passage between; there will be a room 18 by 20, and one 16 by 18. Let the four rooms 9 by 16 in the original plan be converted into two rooms 18 by 16. Upon a supposition, then, that no other plan has been received by you, I have to request that you will take the necessary measures to form a contract for the erection of the Marine Hospital in conformity to the enclosed. I presume that the mode adopted for light-houses, that of a public advertisement, will be the most eligible. The building should be brick, the cellar stone; the whole not to exceed the sum appropriated, and to be completed within the course of next summer, at farthest by 1st December, 1803. You will be able to judge of the details necessary to be inserted in the contract in order to secure the best materials, good workmanship, and a compliance with the intended plan. Whenever you shall have received proposals, I will thank you to compare them and transmit the same, with your opinion thereon, to this of fice. I have the honor to be with respect, Sir, The "Columbian Centinel" of October 30, 1802, contained the advertisement for the erection of the new building. The advertisement is very lengthy; the following is extracted: A MARINE HOSPITAL Is to be erected by the United States in Charlestown, on the North Easterly part of the Land purchased to accommodate the Navy Yard, on such part thereof as shall be hereafter direct ed. In general, the HOSPITAL is to be one hundred and fourteen feet long and thirty-nine feet wide, to be built with brick, two stories high, and a well stoned cellar under the whole. [Very complete details follow, and the advertisement concludes as follows:] In a transaction of this kind, it is difficult to give a minute detail of all the particulars, which must be embraced by a full execution of the plan. In order therefore to avoid any mistakes or painful questions relative to this business, the plat of the building may be seen at the Collector's Office in Boston at all times, On November 10, 1802, Secretary Gallatin addressed a letter to Collector Lincoln approving the advertisement and the general arrangement of the building, but "presumes that until the establishment may be fixed on a more extensive scale than is at present contemplated, the nurses may and would be better accommodated on the first or second floor than in the cellar." The President, December 20, 1802, appointed Dr. Charles Jarvis physician of the Charlestown hospital, at a salary of $1,000 per annum, to take effect when the sick should be removed to the new hospital. During the year 1803 it was found that the fund was insufficient to meet the demands upon it, and the sick arriving at the smaller ports were furnished transportation to the large seaports whenever able to bear the journey. In this year the President appointed a physician to the hospital in New Orleans, as the following shows, which also gives in detail the general principles on which the service was administered: TREASURY DEPARTIENT,} H. B. TRIST, Esq:2 April 14, 1804. Collector, New Orleans. SIR: The laws respecting sick and disabled seamen being extended to the port of New Orleans, you are appointed, as other Collecters are, in their respective ports, the Agent for that purpose." No instructions as to the mode of collecting the 20 cents per month from seamen, and accounting for the moneys thus received, appear to be necessary, in addition to those you have already received as Collector of Fort Adams, unless it be to remind you that all seamen belonging to vessels of the United States, including of course those owned in Louisiana, are subject to this tax, those engaged in foreign trade being required to pay it at the time of making entry from each foreign voyage, and those engaged in the coasting trade at the time of taking out the enrollment or license; and to observe that, as some doubts may exist whether the Act of May 3d, 1802, still continues operative so far as to make it necessary for the masters of boats, rafts, and flats going down the Missisof Natchez of the number of persons employed on sippi to New Orleans to make report to the Collector board, and to pay to him the amount of the tax on persons thus employed, it will be proper that you should require such report and payment from the masters of boats, etc., coming down the Mississippi in all cases where it shall not appear satisfactorily to you that the tax has been paid previously at Natchez. The tax cannot be demanded of seamen belonging to foreign vessels; but if application is made for the admission into the Hospital of such seamen, they are to be admitted on the master's paying seventy-five cents per day for each seaman, as provided in the fifth section of the Act of May 3d, 1802. The fund produced by the tax of 20 cents per month on seamen being much less than would be necessary to afford relief in all cases, it becomes requisite to provide only for the most urgent and to economize in the expenditures as much as possible. With this view it has been prescribed to the agents in the several ports of the United States, and you will consider it as a rule for your government, not to afford relief from the Marine Hospital fund to any person claiming to be a seaman, who shall not, at the time of application for assistance, belong to some vessel or boat then actually in port. This rule, together with the limitation of the sum of five thousand dollars, including the salary of the Physician of the Hospital, beyond which the whole annual expenditure must not be permitted to extend, is all that can be prescribed in a general way as to the mode of granting relief or the extent to which it may be carried. Dr. William Barnwell of Philadelphia has been appointed by the President Physician to the Hospital, with a salary of one thousand dollars per annum, which sum you will pay to him in quarterly payments, at the expiration of each quarter, from the time when he shall leave Philadelphia for New Orleans, which will be shortly, and of which you will be advised. Until he shall arrive you will please provide such medical attendance for the sick seamen as shall appear proper. The sick seamen have been provided for heretofore under the direction of Mr. Clark, in the "Hospital of Charity," they being charged by the managers of that institution with the bread, meat, etc., consumed by them and their attendants, and a proportionable part of the general expenses of the Hospital. This mode may be still pursued if it shall be deemed the most economical and best calculated for the conve nience and comfort of the sick, or they may be attended in any other public building fit for the purpose which the governor may assign or which can be obtained with his permission; or if it shall be more advisable, the sick may be placed out and attended in private houses, as is practiced in some of the ports of the United States; though, from my present view of the subject, this appears to be the least eligible mode. A quarterly account of the payments made by you for this object, supported with the proper vouchers, is to be rendered to the Comptroller of the Treasury, in which you are authorized (by the Act of May 3d, 1802) to charge a commission of one per cent. on your expenditures. You will be regularly advised by the Comptroller of the settlement of this account, which after such advice you will charge in your general account current as a debit to the United States, and which will be so admitted on your transmitting a receipt of the form and in the manner which will be prescribed by the Comptroller. I am very respectfully, Sir, An editorial in the "Medical Repository," vol. vi., New York, 1803, says of the establishment of the hospital at New Orleans: On account of the increasing transportation of produce on the Mississippi, an additional number of American seamen and boatmen find a rendezvous at New Orleans. Many of these from the Ohio and upper country, as well as from the Atlantic ports and the ocean, have died annually in the most forlorn condition at that place. These considerations moved the Government, by a wise and humane proposition, to adopt measures for the support of a hospital in that city for their relief, and to ask permission of the Spanish Government to establish the same. On March 5, 1804, a memorial was presented in the House from citizens and mariners of Baltimore, protesting against the ruling of the Department that seamen should be excluded from relief who were not actually employed on board a vessel at the time of their application; declaring also that the passage of the law creating a general fund was a public misfortune, and that this alone prevented the accumulation in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore of a handsome surplus which might be devoted to provide a "fund for the permanent hausted in the service, though not proper obrelief of decrepit or superannuated seamen exjects of a sick infirmary." ("American State Papers," vol. vii., p. 572.) In this year a committee was appointed "to inquire into the expediency of exempting pilots from paying hospital money for their sp prentices." The committee, considering that the apprentices "receive in professional skill an equivalent for wages, and that they are in fact seamen, it would seem to be a liberal construction of the statute to make it include those persons, and thereby extend the advantages to them"; and the committee submit their opinion that it is inexpedient for Congress to make any declaration concerning the payment of hospital money by pilots for their apprentices. ("American State Papers," vol. iii., “Commerce and Navigation," p. 571.) Dr. Barnwell was directed, May 3, 1804, to purchase in Philadelphia the necessary medicines for the equipment of the New Orleans hospital, and the Collector, Peter Muhlenberg. Esq., to pay the bills therefor and advance one quarter's salary. On June 18, 1804, the Presi dent directed that the "temporary provision" for sick seamen should extend to New Haven, Conn., Wilmington, Del., and Providence, R. I. On August 30, 1805, the ruling of the Department was defined regarding fishing vessels as follows: DANIEL COFFIN, Esq., TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 80th August, 1805. Collector, Nantucket. SIR: Your letter of the 17th inst. was duly received. Seamen employed in fisheries are not expressly excepted from the payment of hospital money; but that payment is confined to vessels licensed for the coasting trade, and to vessels arriving from foreign ports. It results that a vessel exclusively employed in the fisheries, and which has not been during her voyage in a foreign [port], is exempted, but she is not so exempted as a fishing vessel, but merely as being neither a coasting vessel, nor arrived from a foreign port. It follows that every vessel arriving from a foreign port is equally liable to pay the hospital money, and must pay it on the principle fixed by the words of the law, viz.: for the time which has expired since the vessel was last entered at any port in the United States. No exemption is made in favor of vessels which may have been during a part of that period employed in fisheries, nor can any deduction be made on that account by the Collector. I have the honor to be respectfully, Sir, ALBERT GALLATIN. A letter to the same Collector, under date of February 28, 1807, informs him that "maniacs and chronic cases should not be cared for at the expense of the fund. The Legislative Council and House of Representatives of Mississippi Territory memorialized Congress to provide for the erection of marine hospital at Natchez; and the committee to whom it was referred, through its chairman, Hon. Thomas Randolph, March 26, 1806, reported favorably on the memorial, and recommended that twenty-four sections (15,360 acres) of land be granted the hospital establishment of Natchez, to be located by the Governor of the Territory. ("American State Papers," vol. vii., p. 66.) On April 15, 1807, Dr. William Barnwell having absented himself from the hospital at New Orleans without leave, Dr. Blanquet was appointed to fill the temporary vacancy. On May 3, 1807, the east wing of the hospital at Norfolk was destroyed by fire. The following letter from General Lincoln is characteristic of his extreme caution in contracting expenditures. The record shows the authorization asked for to have been granted: BOSTON, June 26, 1807. The keeper of the Marine Hospital informs me that the cellar at the west end of the Hospital is a place where he deposits his wood; the ground is very springy, and at times very muddy, and dangerous for the invalids to enter for wood; he wishes a floor might be laid to prevent the evils experienced, which will cost about one hundred dollars. I do not think myself authorized to do the business. I shall want your directions before I enter upon it. I have the honor to be, most respectfully, ALBERT GALLATIN, Esq., Secretary of the Treasury. The following letter shows the contract system at Baltimore to have been far from satisfactory, even at that date. The Dr. Watkins referred to was Dr. Tobias Watkins, afterward Assistant Surgeon-General of the Army, 1818 -'21: JAMES H. MCCOLLOCH, Esq., TREASURY DEPARTMENT, May 10, 1808. } Collector, Baltimore. SIR: Your letter of the 29th ulto. has been duly received. You are authorized to make the necessary arrangements for the support of sick seamen for one year from the expiration of the contract with Dr. Watkins. From the stipulation made with him by the former Collector, I am inclined to the opinion that he has an equitable claim for another year's contract; provided that his terms be as low as those offered by others, and provided, above all, that there may be a reliance on equally good attendance on the sick. I leave, however, the subject wholly to your discretion, only observing that the complaint made against Dr. Watkins relates to the locality of the house used by VOL. XIX.-50 A Dr. Charles Jarvis, the physician to the hospital at Charlestown, died November 15, 1807. From the "Independent Chronicle,' Boston, of the next day, which publishes a somewhat lengthy obituary, it is seen that he died at the comparatively early age of fifty-nine, universally respected by his contemporaries as a man of worth and spotless character. He was succeeded by the appointment of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse. Then as now, when an officer is first assigned to a new station, improvements and changes were apt to follow, as the following letter from Collector Lincoln to Secretary Gallatin will indicate: BOSTON, June 16, 1808. N. B.-The physician of the hospital reports to me that he is in want of a building, I think about twenty five feet square, two stories high, as a barn, in which he can place his hay and straw, and a place in which he can stow away old bunks. Besides, he wants one small room wherein he can cleanse the people who are lousy, and who have the itch, etc. BENJAMIN LINCOLN. The Secretary of the Treasury in 1809 recommended an additional appropriation to meet the expenses of the service, as the dues collected were entirely inadequate. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping paupers from being furnished relief at the expense of the fund, owing to the general want of money. The Town Council of Providence, R. I., having made a claim against the Department for the services of a physician, medicines, and subsistence furnished sailors, the Secretary denied the claim, but authorized the Collector to employ a physician at an annual salary of $200. From the report of Secretary Gallatin made at this time we learn that physicians were employed under contract at Newport, New London, and Baltimore-the only marine hospitals in operation at this period being at Boston and Norfolk. Several insane seamen were under continuous treatment, and the sick were furnished hospital relief in the town almshouses at Portsmouth, N. H., Portland, Me., Newport, R. I., and Alexandria, Va. At New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, seamen were sent to local hospitals. The following extract from a letter from Secretary Gallatin to General Dearborn, then Collector at Boston, defines the status of the physicians: April 19, 1809. No Directors of the Marine Hospital have been appointed by the President, nor that part of the law ever carried into effect. The whole is still considered as being on the original footing of affording temporary relief to the seamen, and the whole is under your exclusive superintendence, subject only to such general instructions respecting the annual expenses as have been transmitted from this Department. The President has reserved to himself the appointment of the Physician, but all the other officers or servants of the institution are considered as appointed by you. The Physician is only Physician and not director. You are also authorized to prescribe every necessary rule for admission as well as for the government of the house; and with you rests the admission or rejection of charges in their amount, and therefore the regulation of the expenses and the checking of abuses. I presume that in practice it will always be found eligible to give to the Physician such share of the control over the house, its subordinate affairs, and other details, as will secure obedience to his directions and is the usage in other hospitals. But I am apt to think that General Lincoln delegated more than was necessary to the attending Physician. If so, it is in your power to correct the evils whenever you please. I am, respectfully, Your obedient servant, ALBERT GALLATIN. Shortly after this letter was written, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse was removed on account of certain irregularities in his accounts, and Dr. David Townsend appointed physician to the marine hospital at Charlestown, which office he retained for a period of twenty years. In the year 1811 a committee was appointed in the House to consider the propriety of creating a separate hospital establishment for the sick among the officers, seamen, and marines of the navy; and the Secretary of the Navy (Paul Hamilton), in a report dated February 22, 1811, stated that, although the sum of $55,649.29 had been paid into the Treasury on account of hospital money since the enactment of the law, yet "no navy officer, and but very few seamen, had received any benefit from it "; that, among the few seamen sent to the hospitals, "three out of five deserted as soon as they got in a convalescent state." He recommended that the sum collected from the navy be separated from that collected from the merchant service, and stated that if this were made law, "six capacious hospitals would soon be established, in which all the sick of the navy might be comfortably nursed; all the wives of seamen killed in action might be supported; all the children supported and educated; and young men just entering the service as midshipmen might acquire the invaluable knowledge of the theory of navigation, lunar observations, and naval tactics, without costing the public a single cent." He also recommended that the balances due to deserters and deceased seamen, and mulcts of pay by sentences of courts-martial and stoppages of grog, be credited to the naval hospital fund; and that the subordinate officers of the hospital be appointed "from among those disabled seamen in the service who would gladly serve without any addition to their pensions, excepting merely their board, the cost of which to the establishment would be very inconsiderable." The commandants of the navy-yards he recommended to be governors of the hospitals, the wives of seamen killed in battle to be nurses, attendants, and laundresses, and their children, together with the pensioners and convalescents, to work in the gardens; the person in charge of the hospital to be acquainted with navigation, and act as teacher to the children and midshipmen; the latter class to have $10 per month deducted from their pay while studying navigation. This report, which is more remarkable for its spirit of philanthropy than for anything else, was, we are assured by Surgeon William P. C. Barton, entirely due to the data furnished the Secretary by himself, and was chiefly "written during a tempestuous voyage from Norfolk to New York in the sloop of war Hornet, then commanded by Captain Lawrence." (Barton. "Plans for Marine Hospitals," Philadelphia, 1814, p. x.) The idea of schools was evidently borrowed from the Greenwich Hospital, and the asylum plan from the Chelsea Hospital (England) for the support of aged and decrepit pensioners. On the receipt of this report, s law was passed (February 26, 1811) creating the naval hospital establishment, and separat ing the naval fund, which was to be disbursed under the direction of the Secretaries of the Treasury, Navy, and War, who were appointed commissioners for naval hospitals. During the war with Great Britain, the hospitals at Boston and Norfolk were crowded to their utmost capacity. The records of the former are still extant, and show that large numbers were admitted from returned ships affected with inveterate scurvy. The prisoners from the captured British frigate Guerriere, and the exchanged men of the Chesa peake returned from captivity, were treated at that hospital. The following table shows by years the number of American seamen registered as having received "protections" from 1796 to 1812: No naval hospital having been built, a resolution of inquiry was adopted by the House of Representatives, December 22, 1817; and, in reply thereto, the Secretary of the Navy (B. W. Crowninsbield) reported on Janoary 15, 1818, that the commissioners "met in the early part of the year 1812 and had surveys made of several sites in Washington City, bat that the subsequent events of the war stopped all further proceedings, until after the peace." He also presented the report of the commissioners, W. H. Crawford, J. C. Calhoun, and B. W. Crowninshield, dated January 14, 1818, which advocated the repeal of the separation act. On February 28, 1818, part of the marine hospital at Boston was destroyed by fire, the southwest wing and part of the center or main building being burned from basement to roof. The cause was reported officially to have been a defective chimney. In this year Secretary Crawford recommended an addition of 100 per cent. to the fund. A controversy arose be "American State Papers," Class IV., ** Commerce and Navigation," vol. ii. |