PROSPECT HILL, VA., SIR: On my return home, a few days since, I found your letter of the 7th instant, transmitting a series of complaints touching my official duties as commander-in-chief of the U. S. naval forces on the Pacific station, and asking my explanation or reply thereto, which I now proceed to render in full confidence, which no admission which I may deem proper to make explanatory of my multifarious duties and official acts during a command of nearly three years, under circumstances most of the time novel, and more intricate and embarrassing than ever before befel any commanding or executive officer, since the formation of the federal gov ernment. Notwithstanding the vexatious nature of the allegations preferred against me, they bring a solace to declining years, seeing that not even a combination of malice and self interest has been able to concoct any charge against me which is not either futile in its nature or perfectly susceptible of such explanations as will add to, rather than detract from, a reputation based upon near forty-five years' devotion to the public service, on land and water, in peace and in war, without ever having been called to answer before a court-matial. Is is not a little remarkable, sir, that those self constituted conservators of the morals, of the discipline, and of the expenses of the navy, should have failed to make any effort to clear their own skirts of my charges of restiveness and opposition to lawful or ders, by some other means than that of recrimination? Did those restive officers feel any security in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, it seems to me that they would have first sought, by a rigid and searching scrutiny into my charge against them, to establish their own innocence, and thereby place themselves on the immovable rock of justice, from which they might, with a better show of patriotism and fidelity to the public service, assume the highest judicial and executive functions they have most presumptuously attempted to exercise. As regards the charge "evil example," and all the specifications, touching the appropriation of public moneys to my own private use, a simple narrative of facts will enable you to determine its true character. Among the means adopted by President Polk for prosecuting the war against Mexico was one for the collection of what was termed " military contribution." See "circular instructions to collectors and other offi cers of the customs," dated "Treasury Department, April 7, 1847," with accompanying orders to the Secretaries of War and Navy. At page 4 of the honorable Secretary of the Treasury's letter to the President, Mr. Walker says: "These duties can only be collected as a military contribution, through the agency of our brave officers of the army and navy, who will no doubt cheerfully and faithfully collect and keep the moneys, and account for them, not to the treasury, but to the Secretary of War or of the Navy, respectively." Upon the return of peace in June, 1848, and on a winding up of all moneyed transactions. connected with the collection and expenditure of the military contribution collected by the squadron on the west coast of Mexico, there remained about $65,000 subject to my control; of that amount, about $40,000 was expended, after the war, in the removal of about three hundred Mexicans from Lower California, who, by their adhesion to the American cause during the war, had forfeited their allegiance to Mexico, and with that for feiture their estates, and even their lives, jeoparded At the close of this transaction, there still remained in my hands, of the military contribution collected during the war, subject to the order of the Navy Department, about $23,000, for which I was personally and officially responsible to the Secretary of the Navy, but not to the Treasury Department. And why not to the Treasury Department? Because both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury had declared that the fund in question was not collected under any authority of Congress, but under the laws of war and of nations-an "undoubted belligerant right." The liquidation of the just claims of the Lower California refugees was the last war claim to which I deemed the military contribution fund applicable; neither was it, nor any part of it, needed for the use of the squadron under my command, as there were ample funds on hand for current use, until I could receive instructions from the Navy Department as to what disposition to make of this surplus fund. The squadron arrived at the port of Monterey with the refugees and Colonel Burton's battalion of New York volunteers on board, in the forepart of October, 1848-a period of the greatest excitement which followed the development of the rich gold mines in California. Every necessary of life was from 1,000 to 5,000 per cent. above ordinary prices, and labor was equally exorbitant. There was nothing in California which did not command ten times its ordinary value, save only gold-uncoined gold— and this, chiefly for the want of coin as a circulating medium, was 50 per cent. below par when the squadron reached Monterey, and at Suter's Fort; and even at San Francisco it was still lower; and, as coin was in great demand on the sea board for the payment of custom-house dues, and in the mines for trade, the amount of coin in circulation was fast diminishing by accumulation in the custom house, while the disbursements were comparatively small. Vessels arriving with cargoes indispensable for the daily wants of the inhabitants of our newly-acquired territory, were often delayed in their entry for want of coin-coin alone being receivable at the custom houses. In this state of things, it was suggested to me by Purser Joseph Wilson, of the Lexington store-ship, that I ought to put the sur plus military contribution fund, then in my hauds, into circulation, for the benefit of the commercial as well as the consuming community, then suffering so much for the want of a circulating medium for all the purposes of life. At first I hesitated, and questioned the strict propriety of so doing; but, upon more mature reflection, and a thorough examination of the subject, and of the President's orders in connexion with the circulars already cited, I came to the conclusion that I might do so without infringing any law or order, provided I should pay over the full amount due the government, whenever required to do so. Accordingly, I gave Purser Joseph Wilson the following order: "FLAG SHIP OHIO, "Monterey Bay, November 1, 1848. "SIR: There being an unexpended balance of several thousand dollars of the military war contribution fund, collected at Mazatlan by the squadron during the late war with Mexico, over and above any legitimate claim which I can now foresee as likely to arise against it; and as the inhabitants of Upper California, and especially the miners in the gold regions, are greatly embarrassed in their dealings and operations for want of a silver circulating medium, you will, on your arrival at San Francisco, exchange so much of the aforesaid fund as may then be in your hands for uncoined gold, at the current market price; which gold you will hold subject to my further orders. "Very respectfully, &c., your obedient servant, "Commander in chief U. S. Naval Forces, Pacific Ocean. "Purser Jos. WILSON, Esq., "United States ship Lexington." It was not until April 1 that I received the honorable J. Y. Mason's letter of January 20, 1849-his first call on me for a "full account of the military contributions collected, and of their disposition;" and even that letter, to which I replied under date of the 28th of the same month, accompanied by a statement of the account, contains no order to pay over, or in any way to dispose of, any balance that might be in my hands. In the latter part of August, 1849, seeing or hearing that Congress had passed a law directing a transfer to the treasury of all balances of the military contribution remaining in the hands of receivers or collectors, I, of my own accord, without waiting for orders, paid to Purser Rodman M. Price, acting navy agent, and purser at San Francisco, (as his receipt in the Fourth Auditor's office, dated 30th of August, 1849, will show,) the sum of $18,000-about the amount I supposed would be due the government, after retaining between three and four thousand dollars for the payment of awards to several Lower California refugees who had not, up to that date, claimed the balances awarded them in La Paz, Lower California, in August, 1848. If there is any thing in the foregoing transaction which amounts to a misdemeanor, the offence, whatever it may be, is not of a military character; and the remedy must be by civil action, as provided by law for the punishment of public defaulters, &c. (See section sixteen of the act to provide for the better organization of the treasury, &c., approved August 6, 1846.) As to my failing to charge myself, or to give the government credit for "three thousand dollars, or thereabouts," of the military contribution fund, received from Purser McKean Buchanan, the boldness of that assertion is equalled only by the maliguity of its authors: my correspondence with the Navy Department, and my account-current filed in the Fourth Auditor's office, fully contradict first specification to second charge. Passing to the second charge and the first and second specifications thereto, the facts of the case must speak for themselves. On the 14th day of December, 1814, aiding in the defence of New Orleans, I received a musket ball, which, passing through the joint of my left shoulder, destroyed the articulation; and, from that hour to this, I have been unable to dress or undress myself without assistance; consequently, I have been compelled to keep constantly in my service, and about me, a body servant acquainted with my wants and necessities; that person has always, until less than one year, been my own slave. Since the close of the war with England, I have performed four long cruises on foreign service; and, on each and every such cruise, I had special permission from the Navy Department to take my slave for the purpose aforesaid, who, like other servants, has in every instance, even when I was a lieutenant in the Mediterranean squadron in 1816, 1817, and 1818, been borne on the ship's books, and I, as his master, received so much of his wages as was not necessary for his personal comfort and reasonable enjoyment. On my recent cruise, Griffin Dobson, my slave, who attended me on a former cruise to the Pacific in 1842, 1843, and 1844, accompanied me by permission of the Hon. J. Y. Mason. Early in July, 1848, while the Ohio was at the port of Guaymas, in Mexico, Griffin, to my great surprise, asked me one day if I would allow him to buy himself, if he could raise sufficient funds. In answer to my astonished inquiry as to what had put such a notion into his head, (for this was before we had received any intimation of the discovery of gold in California,) he replied that the men on board the Ohio, both white and colored, would not let him have any peace, and that they had offered to raise by subscription a sufficient fund to buy himhimself, if I would agree to it. Griffin being a faithful servant, and seeing how unpleasantly he was situated, I consented to the proposition; but with the express stipulation that the sale would be of no effect until we both returned to Virginia. Purser Forrest, of the Ohio, was made the depositary of both the free papers and the amount subscribed, which was about $400. I had often refused $1,000 for Griffin, and could have obtained that sum for him in October, 1847-the month I left home. Thus this affair stood till May, 1849, when I yielded to Griffin's earnest solicitations to allow him to anticipate the time fixed for his discharge from my service, so as to avail himself of the high wages of California to raise money enough to buy his wife and several children, still slaves in this State. This transaction, which was so gratifying to Griffin, and as I have reason to believe was, at the time, considered by all the squadron as both liberal and praiseworthy, I little supposed could ever be distorted into an offence against the rules and discipline of the navy, especially as Captains Taylor and Stribling, and many other officers of the Ohio, were contributors to the subscription. As regards the first and second specifications to the fourth charge, the record of the court, to which they allude, having been by me transmitted to the Navy Department, with Passed Midshipman John Posey Hall's sentence of dismissal from the navy, and not having seen the joint letter of Passed Midshipmen Hall and Strain since I returned it to them in the early part of 1848, I have no means of refreshing my memory. I know whatever I swore to I believed to be true, and was substantially true. The third specification to the fourth charge is answered by my charges against Lieutenants T. A. Craven, Joseph F. Green, and J. B. Marchand,* as is also the fifth charge and the specification thereto. To the additional charge of falsehood, I have only to say that my letter of the 17th of August, 1849, addressed to Lieutenant R. W. Meade, was written on shore at San Francisco. Separated from my files, I wrote from memory. It is not very remarkable that such discrepance should have occurred, as there could be no good reason for sending a worthless *It was my intention to submit to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy specific charges against Lieutenants Craven, Green, Marchand, and Stanly, based upon the accompanying official documents and other circumstances connected therewith; but, for the present, I deem it suficient for my own vindication to lay before you the lieutenants' rebellious letters of the 19th and 21st of October, 1848, to me directed, (Nos. 1 and 3, and my reply thereto, (No. 2, confidential, October 20th,) of the same series, and Commander C. K. Stribling's answer to my interrogatory, April 10, 1849, (No. 4,) to establish my allegation of restiveness and opposition to lawful orders, which merited allegation was the primum mobile of hostility to me. T. AP C. J. commander at great expense overland to a steamer, when, at the same time, all the other officers-and above all, her engineers-were left in the eastern States to take passage in a sloop-of war bound around Cape Horn, which did not reach San Francisco in less than eight months after the date of the Secretary of the Navy's letter of April 14, 1849, announcing Lieutenant Meade's appointment to the Edith. It is not the custom of the Navy Department to order commanders to ships and vessels of the navy six or eight months before a ship is ready to receive him or can get a crew. For the general as well as the specific discharge of my duties while in command of the Pacific squadron, I hold myself at all times strictly an swerable to the Navy Department; but I deny utterly any right in those under my command to do more than to make report to the department of facts. I deny in toto the right of inferiors to put their opinions in competition with the judgment of their superior and commanding officers. As regards so much of the additional charges preferred by Lieutenant T. A. Craven as relates to the mismanagement and waste of public stores, it is sufficient for me to say that the only semblance of truth therein set forth, is, that I ordered the store ship Chile to San Francisco instead of discharging her at Monterey. It is susceptible of proof that there was no public storehouse at Monterey into which the Chile's cargo could have been stored; neither was there a suitable storehouse to be rented at Monterey at any price. The assertion that any portion of the Chile's cargo was damaged by exposure at San Francisco is utterly false, having no other foundation for such assertion than the fact of landing at San Francisco, from the Southampton, after having been previously advertised and publicly sold to the highest bidder, a quantity of old provisions and clothing unfit, from age, to issue to the navy, in order to make room for the Chile's cargo, which was principally distributed to the squadron to save storage and to avoid desertion by the employment of our men on shore, as well as to save store-rent, which in San Francisco, at that time, was too high even to name. As to fraudulently selling and buying rice, or any other kind of stores, public or private, belonging to, or for the use of any ship or vessel belonging to the navy, I solemnly declare the assertion devoid of the slightest shadow of truth. It is a cunningly-devised tale, conjured up by a malicious combination of convicts and other unworthy members of our once honorable service, aiming to destroy my reputation as the only hope of escaping the odium which my clemency alone averted in 1848. As regards the exchange of portions of the Ohio's and Savannah's crews in September, 1849, my official reports, with reasons assigned, both before and after the act, were duly received by the Navy Department, and they speak for themselves. It now remains for me to notice the charge of "illegally inflicting capital punishment. " As full reports of those executions were duly rendered to the Navy Department, suffice it to say, that the 35th article of the act of Congress approved April 23, 1800, confers on the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Navy, the commander in-chief of the fleet, or the commander of a squadron while acting out of the United States, the power to convene courts-martial, and to carry sentences into execution, as well as to pardon or mitigate sentences after conviction. For any abuse of this high, I may say sovereign attribute of power, the remedy is by impeachment, or by an action for damages, which the ag |