Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)», sayfa 78

Addressing itself to the natural feelings of the country, against high crimes and border offenders, and in favor of political liberty, the message of the President communicating and recommending this treaty to us, carefully presents this article as conforming to our feelings in all these particulars. It is represented as applicable only to high crimes – to border offenders; and to offences not political. In all this, the message is disingenuous and deceptive, and calculated to ravish from the ignorant and the thoughtless an applause to which the treaty is not entitled. It says:

"The surrender to justice of persons who, having committed high crimes, seek an asylum in the territories of a neighboring nation, would seem to be an act due to the cause of general justice, and properly belonging to the present state of civilization and intercourse. The British provinces of North America are separated from the States of the Union by a line of several thousand miles; and, along portions of this line, the amount of population on either side is quite considerable, while the passage of the boundary is always easy.

"Offenders against the law on the one side transfer themselves to the other. Sometimes, with great difficulty they are brought to justice; but very often they wholly escape. A consciousness of immunity, from the power of avoiding justice in this way, instigates the unprincipled and reckless to the commission of offences; and the peace and good neighborhood of the border are consequently often disturbed.

"In the case of offenders fleeing from Canada into the United States, the governors of States are often applied to for their surrender; and questions of a very embarrassing nature arise from these applications. It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation. The article on the subject, in the proposed treaty, is carefully confined to such offences as all mankind agree to regard as heinous and destructive of the security of life and of property. In this careful and specific enumeration of crimes, the object has been to exclude all political offences, or criminal charges arising from wars or intestine commotions. Treason, misprision of treason, libels, desertion from military service, and other offences of a similar character, are excluded."

In these phrases the message recommends the article to the Senate and the country; and yet nothing could be more fallacious and deceptive than such a recommendation. It confines the surrender to border offenders – Canadian fugitives: yet the treaty extends it to all persons committing offences under the "jurisdiction" of Great Britain – a term which includes all her territory throughout the world, and every ship or fort over which her flag waves. The message confines the surrender to high crimes: yet we have seen that the treaty includes crimes which may be of low degree – low indeed! A hare or a partridge from a preserve; a loaf of bread to sustain life; a sixpenny counterfeit note passed; a shed burnt; a weapon lifted, without striking! The message says all political crimes, all treasons, misprision of treason, libels, and desertions are excluded. The treaty shows that these offences are not excluded – that the limitations proposed by Mr. Jefferson are not inserted; and, consequently, under the head of murder, the insurgent, the rebel, and the traitor who has shed blood, may be given up; and so of other offences. When once surrendered, he may be tried for any thing. The fate of Jonathan Robbins, alias Nash, is a good illustration of all this. He was a British sailor – was guilty of mutiny, murder, and piracy on the frigate Hermione – deserted to the United States – was demanded by the British minister as a murderer under Jay's treaty – given up as a murderer – then tried by a court-martial on board a man-of-war for mutiny, murder, desertion, and piracy – found guilty – executed – and his body hung in chains from the yard-arm of a man-of-war. And so it would be again. The man given up for one offence, would be tried for another; and in the number and insignificance of the offences for which he might be surrendered, there would be no difficulty in reaching any victim that a foreign government chose to pursue. If this article had been in force in the time of the Irish rebellion, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald had escaped to the United States after wounding, as he did, several of the myrmidons who arrested him, he might have been demanded as a fugitive from justice, for the assault with intent to kill; and then tried for treason, and hanged and quartered; and such will be the operation of the article if it continues.

CHAPTER CVI.
BRITISH TREATY; AFRICAN SQUADRON FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE; MR. BENTON'S SPEECH; EXTRACT

The suppression of the African slave-trade is the second subject included in the treaty; and here the regret renews itself at the absence of all the customary lights upon the origin and progress of treaty stipulations. No minutes of conference; no protocols; no draughts or counterdraughts; no diplomatic notes; not a word of any kind from one negotiator to the other. Nothing in relation to the subject, in the shape of negotiation, is communicated to us. Even the section of the correspondence entitled "Suppression of the slave-trade" – even this section professedly devoted to the subject, contains not a syllable upon it from the negotiators to each other, or to their Governments; but opens and closes with communications from American naval officers, evidently extracted from them by the American negotiator, to justify the forthcoming of preconceived and foregone conclusions. Never since the art of writing was invented could there have been a treaty of such magnitude negotiated with such total absence of necessary light upon the history of its formation. Lamentable as is this defect of light upon the formation of the treaty generally, it becomes particularly so at this point, where a stipulation new, delicate, and embarrassing, has been unexpectedly introduced, and falls upon us as abruptly as if it fell from the clouds. In the absence of all appropriate information from the negotiators themselves, I am driven to glean among the scanty paragraphs of the President's message, and in the answers of the naval officers to the Secretary's inquiries. Though silent as to the origin and progress of the proposition for this novel alliance, they still show the important particular of the motives which caused it.

Passing from the political consequences of this entanglement – consequences which no human foresight can reach – I come to the immediate and practical effects which lie within our view, and which display the enormous inexpediency of the measure. First: the expense in money – an item which would seem to be entitled to some regard in the present deplorable state of the treasury – in the present cry for retrenchment – and in the present heavy taxation upon the comforts and necessaries of life. This expense for 80 guns will be about $750,000 per annum, exclusive of repairs and loss of lives. I speak of the whole expense, as part of the naval establishment of the United States, and not of the mere expense of working the ships after they have gone to sea. Nine thousand dollars per gun is about the expense of the establishment; 80 guns would be $720,000 per annum, which is $3,600,000 for five years. But the squadron is not limited to a maximum of 80 guns; that is the minimum limit: it is to be 80 guns "at the least." And if the party which granted these 80 shall continue in power, Great Britain may find it as easy to double the number, as it was to obtain the first eighty. Nor is the time limited to five years; it is only determinable after that period by giving notice; a notice not to be expected from those who made the treaty. At the least, then, the moneyed expense is to be $3,600,000; if the present party continues in power, it may double or treble that amount; and this, besides the cost of the ships. Such is the moneyed expense. In ships, the wear and tear of vessels must be great. We are to prepare, equip, and maintain in service, on a coast 4,000 miles from home, the adequate number of vessels to carry these 80 guns. It is not sufficient to send the number there; they must be kept up and maintained in service there; and this will require constant expenses to repair injuries, supply losses and cover casualties. In the employment of men, and the waste of life and health, the expenditure must be large. Ten men and two officers to the gun, is the smallest estimate that can be admitted. This would require a complement of 960 men. Including all the necessary equipage of the ship, and above 1,000 persons will be constantly required. These are to be employed at a vast distance from home; on a savage coast; in a perilous service; on both sides of the equator; and in a climate which is death to the white race. This waste of men – this wear and tear of life and constitution – should stand for something in a Christian land, and in this age of roaming philanthropy; unless, indeed, in excessive love for the blacks, it is deemed meritorious to destroy the whites. The field of operations for this squadron is great; the term "coast of Africa" having an immense application in the vocabulary of the slave-trade. On the western coast of Africa, according to the replies of the naval officers Bell and Paine, the trade is carried on from Senegal to Cape Frio – a distance of 3,600 miles, following its windings as the watching squadrons would have to go. But the track of the slavers between Africa and America has to be watched, as well as the immediate coast; and this embraces a space in the ocean of 35 degrees on each side of the equator (say four thousand miles), and covering the American coast from Cuba to Rio Janeiro; so that the coast of Africa – the western coast alone – embraces a diagram of the ocean of near 4,000 miles every way, having the equator in the centre, and bounded east and west by the New and the Old World. This is for the western coast only: the eastern is nearly as large. The same naval officers say that a large trade in negroes is carried on in the Mahometan countries bordering on the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and in the Portuguese East India colonies; and, what is worthy to be told, it is also carried on in the British presidency of Bombay, and other British Asiatic possessions. It is true, the officers say the American slavers are not yet there; but go there they will, according to all the laws of trading and hunting, the moment they are disturbed, or the trade fails on the western coast. Wherever the trade exists, the combined powers must follow it: for good is not to be done by halves, and philanthropy is not to be circumscribed by coasts and latitudes. Among all the strange features in the comedy of errors which has ended in this treaty that of sending American ministers abroad, to close the markets of the world against the slave-trade, is the most striking. Not content with the expenses, loss of life, and political entanglement of this alliance, we must electioneer for insults, and send ministers abroad to receive, pocket, and bring them home.

In what circumstances do we undertake all this fine work? What is our condition at home, while thus going abroad in search of employment? We raise 1,000 men for foreign service, while reducing our little army at home! We send ships to the coast of Africa, while dismounting our dragoons on the frontiers of Missouri and Arkansas! We protect Africa from slave-dealers, and abandon Florida to savage butchery! We send cannon, shot, shells, powder, lead, bombs, and balls, to Africa, while denying arms and ammunition to the young men who go to Florida! We give food, clothes, pay, to the men who go to Africa, and deny rations even to those who go to Florida! We cry out for retrenchment, and scatter $3,600,000 at one broad cast of the hand! We tax tea and coffee, and send the money to Africa! We are borrowing and taxing, and striking paper money, and reducing expenses at home, when engaging in this new and vast expense for the defence of Africa! What madness and folly! Has Don Quixote come to life, and placed himself at the head of our Government, and taken the negroes of Africa, instead of the damsels of Spain, for the objects of his chivalrous protection?

The slave-trade is diabolical and infamous; but Great Britain is not the country to read us a lesson upon its atrocity, or to stimulate our exertions to suppress it. The nation which, at the peace of Utrecht, made the asiento – the slave contract – a condition of peace, fighting on till she obtained it; the nation which entailed African slavery upon us – which rejected our colonial statutes for its suppression⁴– which has many, many ten millions, of white subjects in Europe and in Asia in greater slavery of body and mind, in more bodily misery and mental darkness, than any black slaves in the United States; – such a nation has no right to cajole or to dragoon us into alliances and expenses for the suppression of slavery on the coast of Africa. We have done our part on that subject. Considering the example and instruction we had from Great Britain, we have done a wonderful part. The constitution of the United States, mainly made by slaveholding States, authorized Congress to put an end to the importation of slaves by a given day. Anticipating the limited day by legislative action, the Congress had the law ready to take effect on the day permitted by the constitution. On the 1st day of January, 1808, Thomas Jefferson being President of the United States, the importation of slaves became unlawful and criminal. A subsequent act of Congress following up the idea of Mr. Jefferson in his first draught of the Declaration of Independence, qualified the crime as piratical, and delivered up its pursuers to the sword of the law, and to the vengeance of the world, as the enemies of the human race. Vessels of war cruising on the coast of Africa, under our act of 1819, have been directed to search our own vessels – to arrest the violators of the law, and bring them in – the ships for confiscation, and the men for punishment. This was doing enough – enough for a young country, far remote in the New World, and whose policy is to avoid foreign connections and entangling alliances. We did this voluntarily, without instigation, and without supervision from abroad; and now there can be no necessity for Great Britain to assume a superiority over us in this particular, and bind us in treaty stipulations, which destroy all the merit of a voluntary action. We have done enough; and it is no part of our business to exalt still higher the fanatical spirit of abolition, which is now become the stalking-horse of nations and of political powers. Our country contains many slaves, derived from Africa; and, while holding these, it is neither politic nor decent to join the crusade of European powers to put down the African slave-trade. From combinations of powers against the present slave-takers, there is but a step to the combination of the same powers against the present slaveholders; and it is not for the United States to join in the first movement, which leads to the second. "No entangling alliances" should be her motto! And as for her part in preventing the foreign slave-trade, it is sufficient that she prevents her own citizens, in her own way, from engaging in it; and that she takes care to become neither the instrument, nor the victim, of European combinations for its suppression.

The eighth and ninth articles of the treaty bind us to this naval alliance with Great Britain. By these articles we stipulate to keep a squadron of at least 80 guns on the coast of Africa for five years for the suppression of this trade – with a further stipulation to keep it up until one or the other party shall give notice of a design to retire from it. This is the insidious way of getting an onerous measure saddled upon the country. Short-sighted people are fascinated with the idea of being able to get rid of the burden when they please; but such burdens are always found to be the most interminable. In this case Great Britain will never give the notice: our government will not without a congressional recommendation, and it will be found difficult to unite the two Houses in a request. The stipulation may be considered permanent under the delusion of a five years' limit, and an optional continuance.

The papers communicated do not show at whose instance these articles were inserted; and the absence of all minutes of conferences leaves us at a loss to trace their origin and progress in the hands of the negotiators. The little that is seen would indicate its origin to be wholly American; evidence aliunde proves it to be wholly British; and that our Secretary-negotiator was only doing the work of the British minister in assuming the ostensible paternity of the articles. In the papers communicated, there is not a syllable upon the subject from Lord Ashburton. His finger is not seen in the affair. Mr. Webster appears as sole mover and conductor of the proposition. In his letter of the 30th of April to Captains Bell and Paine of the United States navy, he first approaches the subject, and opens it with a series of questions on the African slave-trade. This draws forth the answers which I have already shown. This is the commencement of the business. And here we are struck with the curious fact, that this letter of inquiry, laying the foundation for a novel and extraordinary article in the treaty, bears date 44 days before the first written communication from the British to the American negotiator! and 47 days before the first written communication from Mr. Webster to Lord Ashburton! It would seem that much was done by word of mouth before pen was put to paper; and that in this most essential part of the negotiations, pen was not put to paper at all, from one negotiator to the other, throughout the whole affair. Lord Ashburton's name is never found in connection with the subject! Mr. Webster's only in the notes of inquiry to the American naval officers. Even in these he does not mention the treaty, nor allude to the negotiation, nor indicate the purpose for which information was sought! So that this most extraordinary article is without a clew to its history, and stands in the treaty as if it had fallen from the clouds, and chanced to lodge there! Even the President's message, which undertakes to account for the article, and to justify it, is silent on the point, though laboring through a mass of ambiguities and obscurities, evidently calculated to raise the inference that it originated with us. From the papers communicated, it is an American proposition, of which the British negotiator knew nothing until he signed the treaty. That is the first place where his name is seen in conjunction with it, or seen in a place to authorize the belief that he knew of it. Yet, it is certainly a British proposition; it is certainly a British article. Since the year 1806 Great Britain has been endeavoring to get the United States into some sort of arrangement for co-operation in the suppression of the African slave-trade. It was slightly attempted in Mr. Jefferson's time – again at Ghent; but the warning-voice of the Father of his country – no entangling alliances – saved us on each occasion. Now we are yoked – yoked in with the British on the coast of Africa; and when we can get free from it, no mortal can foresee.

CHAPTER CVII.
EXPENSE OF THE NAVY: WASTE OF MONEY NECESSITY OF A NAVAL PEACE ESTABLISHMENT, AND OF A NAVAL POLICY

The naval policy of the United States was a question of party division from the origin of parties in the early years of the government – the federal party favoring a strong and splendid navy, the republican a moderate establishment, adapted to the purposes of defence more than of offence: and this line of division between the parties (under whatsoever names they have since worn), continues more or less perceptible to the present time. In this time (the administration of Mr. Tyler) all the branches being of the same political party, and retaining the early principles of the party under the name of whig, the policy for a great navy developed itself with great vigor. The new Secretary, Mr. Upshur, recommended a large increase of ships, seamen, and officers, involving an additional expense of about two millions and a half in the naval branch of the service; and that at a time when a deficit of fourteen millions was announced, and a resort to taxes, loans and treasury notes recommended to make it up; and when no emergency required increase in that branch of the public service. Such a recommendation brought on a debate in which the policy of a great navy was discussed – the necessity of a naval peace establishment was urged – the cost of our establishment examined – and the waste of money in the naval department severely exposed. Mr. Calhoun, always attentive to the economical working of the government, opened the discussion on this interesting point.

"The aggregate expense of the British navy in the year 1840 amounted to 4,980,353 pounds sterling, deducting the expense of transport for troops and convicts, which does not properly belong to the navy. That sum, at $4 80 to the pound sterling, is equal to $23,905,694 46. The navy was composed of 392 vessels of war of all descriptions, leaving out 36 steam vessels in the packet service, and 23 sloops fitted for foreign packets. Of the 392, 98 were line of battle ships, of which 19 were building; 116 frigates, of which 14 were building; 68 sloops, of which 13 were building; 44 steam vessels, of which 16 were building; and 66 gun brigs, schooners, and cutters, of which 12 were building.

"The effective force of the year – that which was in actual service, consisted of 3,400 officers, 3,998 petty officers, 12,846 seamen, and 9,000 marines, making an aggregate of 29,244. The number of vessels in actual service were 175, of which 24 were line of battle ships, 31 frigates, 30 steam vessels, and 45 gun brigs, schooners, and cutters, not including the 30 steamers and 24 sloops in the packet service, at an average expenditure of $573 for each individual, including officers, petty officers, seamen, and marines.

"Our navy is composed, at present, according to the report of the Secretary accompanying the President's message, of 67 vessels – of which 11 are line of battle ships, 17 frigates, 18 sloops of war, 2 brigs, 4 schooners, 4 steamers, 3 store ships, 3 receiving vessels, and 5 small schooners. The estimates for the year are made on the assumption, that there will be in service during the year, 2 ships of the line, 1 razee, 6 frigates, 20 sloops, 11 brigs and schooners, 3 steamers, 3 store ships and 8 small vessels; making in the aggregate, 53 vessels. The estimates for the year, for the navy and marine corps, as has been stated, is $8,705,579 83, considerably exceeding one-third of the entire expenditures of the British navy for 1840.

"Mr. C. contended there should be no difference in the expenses of the two navies. We should build as cheap and employ men as cheap, or we should not be able to compete with the British navy. If our navy should prove vastly more expensive than the British navy, we might as well give up, and he recommended this matter to the consideration of the Senate.

"Among the objects of retrenchment, I place at the head the great increase that is proposed to be made to the expenditures of the navy, compared with that of last year. It is no less than $2,508,032 13, taking the expenditures of last year from the annual report of the Secretary. I see no sufficient reason, at this time, and in the present embarrassed condition of the Treasury, for this great increase. I have looked over the report of the Secretary hastily, and find none assigned, except general reasons, for an increased navy, which I am not disposed to controvert. But I am decidedly of the opinion, that the commencement ought to be postponed till some systematic plan is matured, both as to the ratio of increase and the description of force of which the addition should consist, and till the department is properly organized, and in a condition to enforce exact responsibility and economy in its disbursements. That the department is not now properly organized, and in that condition, we have the authority of the Secretary himself, in which I concur. I am satisfied that its administration cannot be made effective under the present organization, particularly as it regards its expenditures."

"The expenses of this government were of three classes: the civil list, the army and the navy; and all of these had been increased enormously since 1823. The remedy now was to compare the present with the past, mark the difference, and compel the difference to be accounted for. He cited 1823, and intended to make that the standard, because that was the standard for him, the government being then economically administered. He selected 1823, also, because in 1824 we commenced a new system, and that of protection, which had done so much evil. We had made two tariffs since then, the origin of all evils. The civil list rose in seventeen years from about $2,000,000 to $6,000,000 – nearly a threefold proportion compared with the increase of population. In Congress the increase had been enormous. The increase of contingent expenses had been fivefold, and compared with population, sixfold. The aggregate expenses of the two Houses now amounted to more than $250,000. The expense of collecting revenue had also been enormously increased. From 1823 it had gone up from $700,000 to $1,700,000 – an increase of one million of dollars. The expense on collection in 1823 was but one per cent., now one per cent. and 5-100. Under the tariff these increases were made from 1824 to 1828. Estimating the expenses of collection at $800,000, about $1,000,000 would be saved. The judiciary had increased in this proportion, and the light-house department also. In the war department, in 1822 (the only year for which he had estimates), the expenses per man were but $264; now the increase had gone up to $400 for each individual. At one time it had been as much as $480 for each individual – $1,400,000 could be saved here in the army proper, including the military academy alone. It might be said that one was a cheap and the other a dear year. Far otherwise; meat was never cheaper, clothing never as cheap as now. All this resulted from the expansive force of a surplus revenue. In 1822 he had reduced the expenses of every man in the army.

"It had been proposed to increase the expenditures of the navy two and a half millions of dollars over the past year, and he was not ready for this. Deduct two millions from this recommendation, and it would be two millions saved. These appropriations, at least, might go over to the next session. The expenses of the marine corps amounted to nearly six hundred thousand dollars, nearly six hundred dollars a head – two hundred dollars a head higher than the army, cadets and all. He hoped the other expenses of the navy department were not in proportion so high as this. Between the reductions which might be made in the marine corps and the navy, two millions and a half might be saved.

"The Secretary of the Treasury estimates for 32 millions of dollars for the expenses of the current year. I am satisfied that $17,000,000 were sufficient to meet the per annum expenses of the government, and that this sum would have been according to the ratio of population. This sum, by economy, could be brought down to fifteen millions, and thus save nine millions over the present estimates. This could be done in three or four years – the Executive leading the way, and Congress co-operating and following the Executive."

This was spoken in the year 1842. Mr. Calhoun was then confident that the ordinary expenses of the government should not exceed 17 millions of dollars, and that, with good economy that sum might be further reduced two millions, making the expenses but 15 millions per annum. The navy was one of the great points to which he looked for retrenchment and reduction; and on that point he required that the annual appropriation for the navy should be decreased instead of being augmented; and that the money appropriated should be more judiciously and economically applied. The President should lead the way in economy and retrenchment. Organization as well as economy was wanted in the navy – a properly organized peace establishment. The peace establishment of the British navy in 1840, was 24 millions – there being 173 vessels in commission. Instead of reduction, the expense of our navy, also in time of peace, is gaining largely upon hers. It is nearly doubled since Mr. Calhoun spoke – 15 millions in 1855.

Mr. Woodbury, who had been Secretary of the Navy under President Jackson, spoke decidedly against the proposed increase, and against the large expenditure in the department, and its unfavorable comparison with the expenses of the British navy in time of peace. He said:

"There are twenty-nine or thirty post-captains now on leave or waiting orders, and from thirty to forty commanders. Many of them are impatient to be called into active service – hating a life of indolence – an idle loafing life – and who are anxious to be performing some public service for the pay they receive. It was, generally, not their fault that they were not on duty; but ours, in making them so numerous that they could not be employed. He dwelt on the peace establishment of England – for her navy averaged £18,000,000 in time of war, before the year 1820 – but her peace establishment was now only £5,000,000 to 6,000,000. Gentlemen talk of 103 post-captains being necessary, for employment in commission; while England has only 70 post-captains employed in vessels in commission. She had fewer commanders so employed than our whole number of the same grade.

"The host of English navy officers was on retired and half-pay – less in amount than ours by one-third when full, and not one-half of full pay often, when retired; and her seamen only half. Her vessels afloat, also, were mostly small ones – 63 of them being steamers, with only one or two guns on an average.

"That the navy ought to be regulated by law, every gentleman admits. Without any express law, was there not a manifest propriety in any proviso which should prevent the number of appointments from being carried half up, or quite up to the standard of the British navy, on full pay? It would be a great relief to the Executive, and the head of the Navy Department, to fix some limitation on appointments, by which the importunities with which they are beset shall not be the occasion of overloading the Government with a greater number of officers in any grade than the exigencies of the service actually demand. A clerk in any public office, a lieutenant in the army, a judge could not be appointed without authority of law; and why should there not be a similar check with regard to officers in the navy?

"It was urged heretofore, in official communications by himself, that it would be proper to limit Executive discretion in this; and a benefit to the Executive and the departments would also accrue by passing laws regulating the peace establishment. He had submitted a resolution for that purpose, in December last, which had not been acted on; though he hoped it yet would be acted upon before our adjournment. It was better to bring this matter forward in an appropriation bill, than that there should be no check at all. It is the only way in which the House now finds it practicable to effect any control on this question. It could only be done in an appropriation bill, which gives that House the power of control as to navy officers. There should be no reflection on the House on this account; for there is no reflection on the Executive or the Senate. It is their right and duty in the present exigency. He considered the introduction of it into this bill under all the circumstances, not only highly excusable, but justifiable. He did not mean to say that a separate law would not, in itself, if prepared early and seasonably, be more desirable; but he contended this check was better than none at all. When acting on this proviso the Senate is acting on the whole bill. It was not put in without some meaning. It was not merely to strip the Executive and the Senate of the appointing power, now unlimited: its object was to reduce the expenses of the navy, from the Secretary of the Navy's estimate of eight and a half millions of dollars, to about $6,293,000. That was the whole effect of the whole measure, and of all the changes in the bill.

"The difference between both sides of the Senate on this subject seemed to be, that one believed the navy ought to be kept upon a quasi war establishment; and the other, in peace and not expecting war, believed it ought to be on a peace establishment; – not cut down below that, but left liberally for peace.

"During the administration of the younger Adams, there was a peace establishment of the navy; and was it not then perfectly efficient and prosperous for all peace purposes? Yet the average expenditure then was only from three to four millions. It was so under General Jackson. Under Mr. Adams, piracy was extirpated in the West Indies. Under his successor, the Malays in the farthest India were chastised; and a semi-banditti broken up at the Falkland Islands. It was not till 1836 '37 that a large increase commenced. But why? Because there was an overflowing treasury. We were embarrassed with money, rather than for money. An exploring expedition was then decided upon. But even with that expedition – so noble and glorious in some respects – six millions and a fraction were the whole expenses. But why should it now at once be raised to eight and a half millions?"

The British have a peace as well as a war establishment for their navy; and the former was usually about one-third of the latter. We have no naval peace establishment. It is all on the war footing, and is now (1855) nearly double the expense of what it was in the war with Great Britain. A perpetual war establishment, when there is no war. This is an anomaly which no other country presents, and which no country can stand, and arises from the act of 1806, which authorizes the President "to keep in actual service, in time of peace, so many of the frigates and other armed public vessels of the United States as in his judgment the nature of the service might require, and to cause the residue thereof to be laid up in ordinary in convenient ports." This is the discretion which the act of 1806 gives to the President – unlimited so far as that clause goes; but limited by two subsequent clauses limiting the number of officers to be employed to 94, and the whole number of seamen and boys to 925; and placing the unemployed officers on half pay without rations – a degree of reduction which made them anxious to be at sea instead of remaining unemployed at home. Under Mr. Jefferson, then, the act of 1806 made a naval peace establishment; but doing away all the limitations of that act, and leaving nothing of it in force but the presidential discretion to employ as many vessels as the service might require, the whole navy is thrown into the hands of the President: and the manner in which he might exercise that discretion might depend entirely upon the view which he would take of the naval policy which ought to be pursued – whether great fleets for offence, or cruisers for defence. All the limitations of the act of 1806 have been thrown down – even the limitation to half pay; and unemployed pay has been placed so high as to make it an object with officers to be unemployed. Mr. Reuel Williams, of Maine, exposed this solecism in a few pertinent remarks. He said: