for each. In these estimates are separately laid the Report itself. Nor can I say which would be down the cost of warrant officers' stores for a the less excusable-the real existence of the excruise.' So astounding is the contrast here pre- travagance and abuse here indicated, or the presented, that lest your readers should think I make sence of error, and the misstatements of facts in a mistake of a figure, I extract for their satisfac- such a document as this. tion the estimates themselves : Having their armament, this then is a little over the sum that should be charged under the head of "ordnance and warrant officers' stores for a cruise," to those vessels, whenever they come to be repaired. And the second time the Boxer is repaired, she is charged $583 43-but when the Enterprise comes to be repaired her second time, she is charged $6,716 66 for them; an advance of upwards of seven hundred and ninety per cent. on the proper first cost! "Notwithstanding," says the Report," the difficulties [shortness of time allowed, and want of clerks] of ascertaining facts with the precision which is desirable, the present Reports are believed to be substantially correct in all cases where the cost of either building or repairing a vessel is given, when taken in connexion with the modifica tions or additions which are specially noticed in the remarks which are immediately connected with each of them." There are no 'modifications or additions' noticed in connexion with this, or any of the statements here reviewed, that have not been mentioned also. The subject is a dry one; and I have been tedious, Mr. Editor; but for that fault I throw myself on the kind indulgence of your readers-for I wished to afford them a practical demonstration of that Under the head of LABOR, in the Report, are two irresponsibility, which they have so often heard alcolumns, one showing the aggregate number of leged as an objection to the Navy-Board. I also 'days' work" employed to build or repair a ship, wished to show its defective organization, by pointthe other showing the aggregate amount that was ing out the want of all system and order in much paid for labor. Thus, to build the Delaware, it of the business with which it is charged, and even took 143,980'days' work,' at the aggregate cost of in its every-day operations. Since 1831 three mil$211,626. This is volunteer information, but very lions and a quarter of dollars have been expended valuable, because, dividing the cost of labor by the on Navy-Yard improvements, and by direction of number of ' days' work,' we are enabled to determine the Board, but in what sums, upon what objects, the mean rates which the government pays for labor where, and in what proportions, this Report informs by the day, at different times, and at the different the Senate, that the Commissioners have not the yards. Thus the price of labor for repairing the means of knowing. All that these officers can say, Delaware at Norfolk, was in 1828, $1 49 per day; is, that there has been so much appropriated for the in 1833, $1 38; and in 1838, $1 50. In 1833-35, Navy-Yards, there is now but so much in the Trea for repairing a sloop-of-war, it was, at Boston, sury-and therefore what is missing has been ex$1 60 per day; at Portsmouth, New-Hampshire, pended-at any rate it's gone. Vessels are built $1 48; and at Philadelphia, $1 58. At New- at twice the sum they ought to cost-they are reYork, for repairing a sloop-of-war in 1834, the paired at twice as much as it takes to build-the price paid for labor was $1 50; and for repairing labor to repair costs three times as much as the the Constitution at New-York and Norfolk in labor to construct-the same articles for one ship, 1838-39, the price charged for labor is $18 98 cost four or five times as much as their duplicates a day! Here is the official statement, sir; make for another-it costs twice as much to repair ordthe calculation for yourself: 1,561 days' work cost nance and stores for a ship, as it takes to buy $29,627 64. See page 5 of the Report. them-for the white man and the black, for the This statement is put forth to the Senate of the common laborer and the mechanic, $18 98 is United States, backed and endorsed by three Com-charged as the average price that has been paid modores, and the Secretary of the Navy himself. Were it derived from authority less weighty and imposing, I should discredit it entirely. Not meaning to reflect upon those officers, I should, had it appeared in any document of a less extraordinary character, still say, there must be some mistake in been made responsible; and as far as I know, the per day, for hundreds of days' work, and no one has official and authoritative question, “ why are these things so ?" has never once been raised. Where then is the responsibility? the matter. But so redundant of wild and extrava- than twenty-five years. During that time nearly The Navy-Board has been in existence for more gant statements is the Report under examination, one hundred millions of dollars have been approthat if we reject from it, as false, every thing that is priated for the Navy. Vast sums of money have irreconcilable with our ideas of good husbandry of been expended in building, equipping, repairing public moneys, but little indeed would remain of and fitting ships for sea-upon provisions and * See H. R. Doc. No. 14, 2d session, 21st Congress. stores, upon implements and munitions of war— проп other objects and for other purposes; and all me, states the actual cost of the North-Carounder the direction, control and supervision of the lina 74, to be $537,773 45-of the Delaware Navy-Board. Plain business men would say, that $627,680—and $654,810 44, as what would have the accumulated experience of so many years ought been the original cost of the Ohio, had no repairs long ago to have been hung round the walls of that been necessary. office, in tablets, showing at a glance for all classes of ships, the proper cost, and proper quantity of every article of every kind used, from the keel to the truck in building, and from a great gun down to a scupper-nail in fitting out-that when a ship was built, or fitted for sea, the actual cost of every artiele on board, would have been referred to its tabulated value on the wall; and that any considerable variation of prices, would at least have attracted uary, 1824, Mr. Crowninshield reported a bill for attention, if not investigation. But, sir, it is not my purpose to show what the Navy-Board ought to be; I aim to show that it ought not to be at all. That in twenty-five years of continued and active operation, no such useful effects or systemized results have been derived from the Navy-Board, is bat too evident-it appears on the face of this Report, and is borne in silent testimony on many an eloquent, though speechless tongue among the wooden walls of the Navy. The hull and spars complete' for a frigate, are put down in the estimates at $153,475. The whole cost of the Potomac is not stated in the Reportshe cost though, it tells us, $231,013 02-" principally for the hull; the returns for other parts incomplete." At page 900 of the same volume of papers before referred to, are more estimates. On the 20th Jan building ten of the eleven sloops-of-war that are mentioned in the Report under examination. The following extract is from the Report which accompanied Mr. C's bill, on that occasion: "Your Committee also find, by estimates from the Navy Commmissioners to the Secretary of the Navy, dated 23rd December, 1823, that the expense of constructing, together with the cost of all materials of all descriptions for a sloop-of-war of the largest class, will amount to $85,000." That is, the ten would cost $850,000-and a bill was passed making an appropriation to that amount.* It appears now from the Official Report on the subject, that their actual cost, as far as ascertained, (for the returns in several instances are incomplete) was upwards of one million two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars! I have examined every document within my reach, and I have sought information on the subject, at every source from which I have the privilege or the means of drawing, but in no one instance, when the opportunities of comparison occurred, have I ever found the estimated cost of any work, submitted by the Navy-Board, to come within hail of its actual cost. If in any one instance, In 1829, estimates were submitted, and a special estimates from the Navy-Board-(I do not mean appropriation of $20,000 was made for repairing the the so-called estimates for the pay and subsistence Brandywine. This Report states that that ship was of a given number of officers and men for a stated repaired in 1829 and 1830, at New-York and Norperiod, at stated salaries-for that is a matter of folk, at a cost of upwards of $115,000. This specalculation and not of estimate)—if in any one in- cial appropriation was made to fit her for a cruise to stance, the estimates proper from that quarter, have the West-Indies, whither she went for a few months. given any just ideas of what turned out to be the When she returned, she was repaired again. The actual expense of the undertaking proposed, such cost of these two repairs is stated together. Had instance has not come to my knowledge. The they been separately stated, as the Resolution of first estimates in which the finger of the Navy- the Senate required they should be, we should then Board is to be traced, are to be found at page 399 have found out how far the $20,000 went in reet seq. of the volume of State Papers devoted to pairing her for the West-Indies. The manner in Naval affairs. They, or similar ones, are the es- which the repairs of ships at different times and timates by which Congress was guided, when it places, and the cost of articles entirely unlike, are authorized the building of the ships of the line jumbled together in the Report, prevents the disDelaware, North-Carolina, Ohio, the frigate Poto-covery of many abuses, that are thus smothered. mac, et al. Though submitted in the name of the The cost of a bolt of canvass, of a coil of rope, Secretary of the Navy, that officer points out their of the carpenter's tool-chest, of a roll of charts, paternity; for, says he, "In these estimates I have and of a gun, things that are never classed together, been aided by the practical knowledge and expe- are all here jumbled together, under the lumping rience of the Commissioners of the Navy-Board;" head of ordnance and warrant officers' stores;' so and so far as the calculations are conjectural, it that the cost neither of guns, nor of stores, can be is presumed that they may exceed the actual expen- ascertained. diture from five to ten per cent." In these estimates, the cost of building and equipping a 74, including ordnance and warrant officers' storesevery thing, except provisions and marines' storeswas put down at $384,862. The Report before VOL. VII-46 . * Act 3d March, 1825, appropriated $500,000 350,000 $850,000 ted, but all the vessels had not been built. And as in every instance, the cry was, more, Congress, give! give!! In 1830, the Navy Commissioners, in making from the Navy-Board, appropriated $400,000 for out their estimates for the support of the Navy for building six sloops-of-war of the third class. And 1831, reported to the Secretary,* that to repair and in the documents which since accompanied one of fit for sea the Ohio, would cost $171,072 69. This the Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Navy, it Report says that it would have taken $360,000 to wasstated that this appropriation had been exhausfit her for sea, had no repairs been necessary. The cost to repair the Constitution was then estimated at $128,081 05. Two years afterwards [in 1833] they commence, and continue to work upon her for The manner in which the general estimates are three years, at a cost, for repairs, of $192,930 72, ex-submitted, and the appropriations are made, for the clusive of stores. It would cost, said these estimates, annual support of the Naval service, opens still wider to repair the Falmouth, $29,401 81. They com- the door to complaints against the Navy-Board. mence with her forthwith, and her repairs are stated There are sixteen distinct heads of appropriation for in the Report at $54,999 08. Notwithstanding the annual support of the Naval service of England; the pretended accuracy of these estimates-their and only eight or nine for ours. The two services nice calculations of sixty nine-cents-five cents-embrace nearly the same objects; and why should our eighty one cents, they scarcely come within 100 per appropriations be less specific than theirs? I extract cent. of the actual costs. the fourth item from the Commissioners' estimates In December, 1832,† estimates were again made for the last year: "For the repairs of vessels in ordias to the repairs of ships, the actual costs of which nary, and the repairs, and wear and tear of vessels are given in this Report. It would cost $35,211, in commission, $1,000,000." This, or one even "exclusive of docking," it was said, to repair the more general in its terms, is a standing head of esNorth-Carolina in 1833. Her repairs were com- timate and appropriation. Under it, the estimates menced in 1835, and they then cost $297,000. for the current year were for $1,425,000, and the "The Fairfield," it was said, "is sound and good, appropriations $2,000,000. And then, as thongh and only requires her bottom to be examined." these sweeping generalities might alarm the sticklers The looking at that ship's bottom proved to be a for specific appropriations on the floors of Congress, costly sight, for the examination was had imme- comes the special enumeration of objects, as given diately, and the Report shows that it cost upwards in the margin;* and against which Mr. Adams of $20,000, exclusive of stores. once said he should vote, because, after enumera In November 1833, an appropriation of $10,000 ting every object under the sun, it then added— was asked, and made for a store-ship. This ves-" and for no other object or purpose whatever." sel, though simply a merchant-ship of only about Under this general head, and by one of those 400 tons, and which, if built in a private ship-yard, beautiful figments in law, of which philosophers would cost not more than $30,000 or $35,000, sometimes tell us-vessels are altered soon after cost, when built by the Navy-Board, upwards of $93,000. *For contingent expenses that may accrue for the following purposes, viz: In January, 1836, estimates were submitted from For the freight and transportation of materials and stores the Navy-Board for fitting out all the vessels in 'or- of every description; for wharfage and dockage storage dinary.' These estimates, you observe, included pro-and rent; travelling expenses of officers, for house-reas to visions and every thing. And the estimated cost of pursers, when duly authorised, and transportation of seafitting out the Ohio, was stated at $450,000. But men; for funeral expenses; for commissions, clerk kire, this Report shows that the actual cost of fitting her out, was—exclusive of provisions, &c. which are not reported-upwards of $590,000. Had the whole cost of provisions, &c. been included, they would, according to these rates, have swelled up the actual cost of fitting out that ship, to near $700,000. At a later day, Congress, acting by estimates office-rent, stationary, and fuel, to Navy-Agents; for premiums, and incidental expenses of recruiting; for prehending deserters; for compensation to judges-advocate; for per diem allowance to persons attending courtsmartial and courts of inquiry, or other services as autorised by law; for printing and stationary of every descrip tion, and for working the lithographic press; for bos, maps, charts, mathematical and nautical instruments, caro nometers, models and drawings; for the purchase and repair of fire-engines and machinery; for the repair of steamengines in Navy-Yards; for the purchase and maintenance of oxen and horses, and for carts, timber-wheels, and work. men's tools of every description; for postage of letters of public service; for pilotage and towing ships-of-war; fer taxes and assessments on public property; for assistance rendered to vessels in distress; for incidental labor st Navy-Yards, not applicable to any other appropriation; for coal and other fuel, and for candles and oil, for the use of To fit out a ship-to furnish her with proper masts, Navy-Yards and shore stations; and for no other elgect of sails, yards, ammunition, artillery, cordage, anchors, and purpose whatever, * Annual Report of Secretary Navy, dated 6th December, 1830, and marked Doc. 2. H. R. 2nd Session, 21st Congress. + Paper M. of the accompanying Documents of the Report of the Secretary of the Navy, December 3rd, 1832. Paper M. of the Documents which accompanied the Secretary of the Navy's Report of 30th November, 1833. ◊ Doc. 138—2nd Session, 24th Congress, H. R., and dated Navy Commissioners' Office, 4th February, 1838. $450,000 other naval furniture, together with sufficient provisions for For contingent expenses, for objects not herein before the ship's company.-Falconer's Marine Dictionary. enumerated, $3,000 they are built, as the Brandywine was in 1826, and | It is owing to this want of accountability, in our as others have been at a later day, and the altera-present Naval system, that the cost, from first to tions are charged as Repairs—by it, the building of last, of getting this one 74 ready to sheet home a vessel is called repairing; and new vessels are her topsails for her first cruise, has been made to built from this appropriation;—by it, vessels, as the amount to a sum, which, taking the estimates of the Enterprise, are charged seven or eight prices for Commissioners for data, would be enough to cut warrant officers' stores, and they are called repairs--the live-oak from the evergreens of Florida, and (I once heard of a galley (kitchen) being furnished to build and launch three double-banked frigates as clothing);—by this beautiful figment of the law, and ten sloops-of-war of the first class-upwards vessels are nearly rebuilt from this broad appropri- of 12,000 tons of shipping—a force which, if equipation, and that too at double their original cost, as ped and put in the place of the Ohio, would prove was the case with the Shark;-and by it, vessels, nearly, if not quite, a match for all the vessels beas the Vincennes, which cost originally but 117,000 sides, of all our Naval squadrons put together, and dollars, are actually repaired at a cost of 133,000 as they were, according to the Commissioners' dollars-and by it, other wild works are carried on Report of vessels at sea, in 1840. under the sweeping name of repairs. But these are not all the evils of such sweeping What is there to be said in excuse for repairing appropriations and such irresponsibility. In subthe schooner Shark at twice her original cost? or mitting the yearly estimates for the support of the of completing the ship-of-the-line Ohio at such an Navy, it has been customary of late to state what enormous expense? This ship had performed no force it was proposed to keep in active service. gallant deed had accomplished no daring achieve- That force was made the basis of the estimates ment. Her decks had never, like our favorite which were submitted for the support of the Navy. United States and Constitution, been drenched with Congress, by making the required appropriations, the brave blood of the land. For their preserva- virtually acknowledged that the honor of the nation, tion, no amount that can be necessary would be too the welfare of its citizens, and the interests of their great in the eyes of the country. But there were commerce, required this force. Congress having no associations connected with this ship-there had voted the money, the Executive Department was, been nothing to consecrate her name to the recol-in duty, as in honor, bound, to maintain it, or to set lections of the people, nothing to endear her to the forth at the first opportunity, the reasons which innation-she was a mere unendowed mass of wood duced a departure from the first intention. But I and iron, that had never bowed to the sea nor bent have never in one instance known the estimated to the breeze. If Congress had been asked for a force to be put in service, or the reasons for not specific appropriation of $600,000 to get this ship keeping it in commission, made known-unless inready for sea, when in the opinion of the best deed some such remarks as these be considered as judges-the Commissioners of the Navy-Board- a statement of such reasons:-"All the services a new ship of her class could be built and equip-required of our Naval force have been promptly ped out and out, for but little more than half that performed"-"Commerce has been protected," &c. sum-if any one had had the hardihood to ask a Among the force, promised in the estimates, to be specific appropriation of $45,000 to repair the kept in service for 1836, were six frigates and fourShark in 1839, when at first, it cost but $23,000 teen sloops-of-war. The Navy Register shows to build her-what, think you, would have been that at the end of that year, there were in actual the action of Congress on the subject? If esti- service but five of the former and eight of the mates for any such appropriations had been ventur- latter. For the next year, the estimates were ed forth from the Navy-Board, you understand too for the same. The Navy Register reports, in well the genius of the American people, not to like manner, one frigate and four sloops-of-war know, that that Board would long ago have been short of the estimate. In the next year, approprioverturned. Can any thing more strikingly than ations were asked for six frigates and twelve sloopsthis, illustrate the irresponsibility of the Navy-of-war. The Navy Register shows that there was Board? Without the consent of Congress, which one more sloop-of-war than the estimate called for; might have been ascertained by asking for a speci- but, to make up for this, the frigates were deficient fic appropriation, that Board undertakes to repair by three, one of which was getting ready.' In ships at twice their original cost, and no one is 1839, the estimates called for six frigates and seheld responsible for it. In the private affairs be-venteen sloops-of-war, and in 1840, for six frigates tween man and man, what would become of the agent who should thus manage for his principal? la rigid accountability less important in public, than it is in private affairs? and nineteen sloops-of-war-but five frigates and thirteen sloops-of-war is the greatest active force shown on the Register for either of these years. You have seen the various purposes to which "All the other vessels were built, or have been rebuilt, the appropriation of "Repairs, &c." is applied. under special appropriations, or from the annual appropria- The aggregate number of frigates and sloops estitions for repairs of vessels,' &c." Letter from Navy Commissioners, December 14, 1840. * Not equip guns. mated for 1836, 1837 and 1838, exceeded the ac- | swelling of the budget, is the difference between tual number kept in service for those years, by the active force of 1834 and 1840 Ninety-two thirteen. They were the years in which such wild works were carried on in repairing the Ohio, This half a million [$590,000] of 1834 borrowed the Vincennes and John Adams-which three ships $100,000, from provisions, or some other head, and alone, were repaired at an aggregate cost of more kept 452 guns in active service; and the million of than $840,000. So, the appropriation for Repairs 1840 borrowed $300,000, and could keep but 544 had been exhausted before it reached the thirteen guns at sea! And we shall see how much the two other vessels; and though money had been granted millions of 1841 will borrow, and what force to pay their crews, the ships could not be equipped it will keep in repair. If $700,000 in 1834 for sea, because the money appropriated for that could keep a force of 452 guns in repair, why purpose, had been squandered in repairing others, should it take double that sum in 1840 to keep in at more than it would cost to build new ones. And repair a force of only 92 guns more? Must strongthis, I suspect, is the reason why all the ships from er proof be brought against the Navy-Board, beyear to year for which appropriations are regularly fore Legislators will perceive that it is at best a made, are not employed. Nor is this all. The tuft of marine misletoe, that is exhausting the appropriations for the pay and subsistence for the Treasury and killing the Navy? Under its mancrews of the unemployed vessels, form an unex-agement, two dollars are required in 1840, to do pended balance under this head, which the Presi- the work that was accomplished with one dollar in dent may transfer to some other appropriation; and even this balance sometimes passes off through this great leak of "Repairs" in the system-e. g. "$200,000 was by authority of the President of the United States, on 30th November, 1839, taken from the appropriation for Provisions, and carried to the appropriation of Repairs and wear and tear of vessels."* 1834. Even the Commissioners cannot keep pace with the reckless prodigalities that are practised under this system. In 1832 their estimates for 'Repairs,' called for half a million for the next year; and $600,000 were expended. In 1834, they called for $600,000, and expended $700,000. In 1836, they called for a million, and expended a million and a quarter. In 1837, they called for a million and a By official statements to Congress from the 2nd quarter. and expended-I don't know how much, for Comptroller's office, it appears that in 1836, up- I could not find the 2d Comptroller's returns to Couwards of $200,000;† in 1838, $168,000; in 1839, gress :-but their last estimates called for a million $399,000; in 1840, $316,000,§ more, than was and a half for 'Repairs,' and Congress gave them appropriated, were in those years drawn out of the two millions. Will no one ask to know the cause Treasury for 'Repairs.' And notwithstanding that of this disproportionate increase of expenditures for upwards of $300,000 more than the appropriation repairs? And shall there be no end to such a allowed, or the estimates called for, were thus add-growth? Every year, with one exception,* for the ed for Repairs in 1840, but thirteen of the nineteen sloops-of-war proposed and authorized, could be kept in commission. past six or eight years, more money has been regularly spent than was voted to this appropriation. It takes money from other heads, and this is called a repayment.† Abuses have grown out of this repairing system, like evil weeds upon the Navy. By the facts It is said, "Repeal the law creating the Navyquoted above, it appears that even the Commission- Board, substitute Bureaux for Commissioners, and ers have not been able to keep pace with their we shall be better off." The change must be more growth. The expenditures have regularly gone thorough than this-though this is an important beyond the appropriations-the estimates have been step towards reform. Experience once taught us increased, and the appropriations enlarged from that Schoolmasters were of little or no use in a year to year-but they have invariably proved in-man-of-war, and their name was changed for Prosufficient for the required force. The Commis- fessors of Mathematics; but the plan of teaching sioners don't know what the annual cost of repairs will be; and how should they, when it is shown by this Report, that in many cases they don't know what the repairs for a ship do cost? In 1833, they asked for a half a million for repairs-in 1836, for a million-in 1837, for a million and a quarter-the Commissioners of the Navy-Board, but the and in 1841, for a million and a half, and they got two millions. And what do you think, with this * Secretary of the Navy to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, 23d Dec. 1839. + H. of R. Doc. 126, 2d Sess. 24th Congress. ↑ H. of R Doc. 135, 3d Sess. 25th Congress. H. of R. Doc. 88, 2d Sess. 26th Congress. remained the same in all other respects-and Professors now, are as useless in our men-of-war, as Schoolmasters used to be. If the title of Commissioner be exchanged for that of "Chief of Bcreaux," it will be but a change of name. It is not plan-the whole system, that is at fault. In the I have not been able to ascertain how much was drawn out of the Treasury in 1837, for Repairs. For an example of this singular mode of keeping se counts, see an official statement of the amount of appropr ations and expenditures for the Naval service for 1840transmitted by the late Secretary of the Navy to the House of Representatives.-Doc. 88-2nd Session, 26th Congres |