32D CONG....2D SESS. when the duties of ordinary midshipmen are required of it. This class now perform the duty of masters, and I think it but proper that the duty and the rank should be associated by law. The change would require no increase of pay, and would, I have no doubt, be productive of good effects. graphical corps may require, shall be appropriated reduce it. It is proper for me to say, also, thai, The grade of masters might be established at one hundred, and might at once be filled by ap-system of instruction which the Academy may be pointing to it that number of passed midshipmen. The ultimate result of this plan would give, when all the present passed midshipmen shall have been absorbed in the regular course of promotion, two hundred and fifty midshipmen and one hundred masters to occupy the space now filled by the corps of four hundred and sixty-four officers-a reduction of one hundred and fourteen. This reduction of course would increase the ratio of promotion to the corps of lieutenants, and would leave a sufficient complement for all the demands of the service, estimated by the present size of the Navy. A future increase of the Navy would suggest a proportionate increase of officers of every grade. The promotions incident to this organization of the corps-that is to say, of two hundred and fifty midshipmen and one hundred masters-would supply about twenty-five vacancies a year. The present number of higher officers furnish something near this yearly average, and there is no reason to suppose that it will be reduced in future; the more active service of the Navy, even on the present establishment, may rather increase it. The school, therefore, may be regarded as subject to an annual demand for this number of its graduates to be advanced into the regular line of service. Estimating the number of graduates at twenty-five, the whole of them would thus find position and employment; an increase to thirty would of course give a remainder of five, which may also be disposed of. occasion. If the Department should be able to contribute any members to the corps from the present officers of the service, I think such appointments should not exceed twenty to each grade of masters and lieutenants and ten commanders, and, that no captain be appointed until after five years' service in the corps, there may be found the proper officers to occupy the vacancies in this grade. It should also be well understood that the Secretary of the Navy, in assigning present officers to the corps, should be governed alone in his selection by high qualification and accomplishment in the science required, and not by seniority in the service; and that no appointments should be made, unless there be found officers of approved reputation for their acquirements in reference to this service who may be willing to enter the corps. assigned will not be too large. These are the general views and considerations which have induced me to submit this plan to your approval and to the consideration of Congress. It will afford the annual appointment of sixtytwo candidates for the Navy. It will give greater permanency and efficiency to the school. It will quicken promotion in the Navy, and give to the younger officers hope of useful command whilst they yet possess the vigor and ambition of youth. It will establish a valuable corps of scientific officers, who will bring to the service equal devotion to the prosperity of the Navy and the highest attainments to promote it. And it may occasionally give to the country men carefully educated in useful knowledge, and bound by the strongest obligation of gratitude and honor to requite this public bounty by laudable service in the employments of civil life. I think it proper, in presenting this new organization of the school and of the officers which it is intended to supply, to ask of Congress that the grade of master in the service shall be entitled to a commission and recognized in that character by law. The masters are ward-room officers, and should be placed amongst the commissioned offcers of the Navy. No change of pay is necessary, and in that respect they may be left upon their present footing. It must be observed that some years will elapse if this organization be now authorized by law before it can be rendered complete; and the sooner, therefore, that it is adopted the better. The present class of passed midshipmen numdisposed of. One hundred of them may be commissioned as masters, and the grade may be at once established at that number by law. The remaining hundred and sixteen would be gradually absorbed by the grade of masters in a few years, after which the system will work according to its permanent regulation. The yearly graduates of the Academy will, according to this system, be assigned to the two branches of service I have described; that is to say, to the regular naval service and to the hydroI propose, in further organization of this system, graphical corps. The graduates required for these to construct a scientific corps in the Navy, to be two branches should be selected from those who established as the hydrographical crops; this corps are adjudged by the board of examination to stand to be designed, in its first formation, upon a basis highest on the roll of the class; and if at any time which shall provide for thirty masters, thirty lieu- it should happen that the requisitions should not tenants, fifteen commanders, and five captains, embrace the whole number of graduates in each making eighty in all. It should be specially edu- year, then those whose services are not required, cated for that scientific professional service in being the lowest on the roll, should receive an which some portion of the Navy is constantly em- honorable discharge from the school. These would ployed. Its chief duties should be connected with return to the occupations of private life well eduhydrographical surveys, astronomical observa- cated by the bounty of the Government, and qualtions, construction of charts, preparation and im-ified for useful employment in the many important provement of ordnance, the supervision of naval vocations connected with commerce and naviga-bers two hundred and sixteen. These are to be architecture and machinery, and the direction of tion, and especially in the various service of steamcivil engineering in the construction of docks and ships which create so large a demand for expert other structures requiring scientific knowledge and and accomplished officers. In whatever situation skill. they may be placed, they will find abundant occasion to rejoice in the advantages they shall have obtained at the school, and, by the proper use of these advantages, indemnify the country for the care and expense it may have bestowed upon their culture. These conditions and incidents of an admission to the Academy being understood in advance, both by the cadet and his friends, it is presumed, will prepare them to regard the discharge in its true point of view, as the necessary contingency of a most important good conferred, and not as a disappointment which should occasion regret. If, on the other hand, it should turn out that the annual number of graduates should not be adequate to the demands of these two branches of service, the basis of sixty-two in the class of beginners may be increased to the number at which experience may show that the desired result may be obtained. It will be easy, after the experiment of a few years, to ascertain this number with sufficient precision; and, as in the mean time the hydrographic corps is to be filled, the extra supply of the classes for the next three years, by the admission of the midshipmen of dates prior to 1851, will very opportunely enlarge the classes to a num The corps should be entirely separate from and independent of the regular naval service. Its line of promotion should be confined to its own organization, and its government should be under its own proper officers. In addition to the duties assigned to it on shore and in hydrographical surveys, some portion of it might be appropriated to service at sea, and one or more officers of the corps might be introduced into the complements of squadrons on foreign or home service. An experienced officer of this corps would find useful and active duty upon every cruise. It should be left to the Navy Department to regulate the character and contingencies of this service, and to make all the necessary rules and orders for its application. This corps should be built up under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy from the material afforded by the Academy, with such additions to it, in its commencement, from the regular line of naval service, as in his judgment the qualifications of the present officers might enable him to make with advantage. With a view to the supply of this corps from the Academy, I propose that, upon the yearly examination of the graduates, the Board of Examin-ber which will satisfy that requisition. ation shall be directed to bestow a close attention upon the class submitted to them, in order to ascertain the particular adaptation of any of the graduates to this species of service, and that they shall report to the Department the names of such as they may find qualified by study, talent, and acquirement for admission to the corps; and if, upon this report, the students so designated shall consent to enter the corps, they, or so many of them as the established complement of the hydro The present number of acting midshipmen is two hundred and six, of which the school contains, by the last report, eighty-one. Five appointments have been made for the next term, and there are yet thirty-seven vacancies. To the nominations already made for the new class of beginners to the next term of October, 1853, may be added at once, with the thirty-seven vacancies, as many as may be necessary to make sixty-two. The classes should then advance regularly to the end of their respective terms, without additions, and the law may provide for the annual supply henceforth of sixty-two, in the manner I have indicated. The grade of midshipmen might be at once declared to be limited to two hundred and fifty, and the filling of that complement should await the supply it may hereafter obtain from the graduates. If any of the present grade of passed midshipmen and masters should be found qualified for admission to the hydrographic corps, the vacancies which may be made by their appointment to it may be filled by promotion, and so hasten the period at which the new organization may be brought into full operation. In arranging the complement of officers to the hydrographic corps, I have proceeded upon a conjectural estimate of what I suppose may be found The school has yet to receive some classes of necessary to the service required of it. I submit midshipmen of the date previous to 1851. When this to the judgment of Congress for such altera- admitted, they will constitute an extra portion betions in the grades and numbers as their investi-yond the quota allowed to the Academy, and I gation of the subject may suggest. I have thought it safest to propose a number rather below what I think the service may ultimately demand, as it is easier to increase this complement than to would suggest in regard to them that they should be permitted, as heretofore, to constitute a part of any class for which they may be qualified, and upon their graduation to be entitled to their advance 32D CONG.....2D SESS. ment to the proper grade; it being mainly important to provide at present that each yearly class of new admissions should be constituted of the appointed number of sixty-two, and in no event to exceed that number. The future organization of the school will necessarily follow upon the observance of this provision. Report of the Secretary of the Navy. it is due to Commander Stribling, who has charge of the institution, and to the officers, professors, and assistants under his command, to say that the assiduity and intelligence with which they have performed the laborious and complicated duties assigned to them, merit the highest approbation; and that the prosperous condition of the school, and admirable arrangement of its details, particularly manifested in the deportment and proficiency of the young men confided to their care, eminently entitle it to the favorable opinion and encourage ment of the Government. I particularly commend to the notice of Congress the consideration of the appropriations asked for by the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, for the improvements necessary to purchase the grounds and complete the buildings required by the Academy. 5 ORGANIZATION AND DISCIPLINE OF SEAMEN. In proper connection with this subject of the Academy, it is my duty to apprise you that I have recently adopted regulations for the government of apprentices to be admitted at the several navyyards and workshops under the control of this Department. The propriety of these regulations has been suggested by the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and I am indebted to the intelligent labors of three distinguished officers of the department, Commodores Morris, Shubrick, and Smith, to whom I referred the subject for a report, which I have received, and which will be found amongst the documents accompanying this communication. The report presents the regulations which I have approved. The number of apprentices as estab-perity of the Navy that, in my estimate, better lished, for the present, by this system, is eightythree. They are required to undergo an examination twice in each year, and, after the first year, those most distinguished in the previous trials are to be subjected to another of a still more extensive and rigorous character, upon which such as shall be reported as worthy of the highest approbation and reward, and as demonstrating talent adapted to eminence in the public service, are to be commended to the Secretary of the Navy for such further advantages of instruction as he may have it in his power to confer. I regard it as a most salutary power to be invested in the Secretary of the Navy, for the beneficial performance of the duty thus assigned to him, that he should have authority to admit into the Naval Academy those apprentices whose good conduct and capabilities shall have earned this distinction; and to provide that they should there be conducted through a course of study appropriate to their intended future vocations, and calculated to advance them in mathematical and mechanical science, under such regulations in regard to the term of their application, their duties and deportment, as the Navy Department might think it expedient to adopt. Having completed this course of study, they should be returned to the yards from which they may have been received, or allotted to suitable employments in the service. It would be a useful provision in this scheme to give to the young men so educated a preference in the admissions to the corps of engineers for steamships, for which appointments their education would particularly qualify them; their admission into that corps, nevertheless, to be dependent upon successful examination and a favorable certificate to moral and intellectual character. In the operation of this scheme the Navy would derive the benefit of the best talents and acquirement for the supply of engineers, naval architects, and constructors and superintendents in the various departments of mechanical employment connected with the service. I take great pleasure in presenting this subject to your approval and to the attention of Congress. In view of this reorganization of the Academy, I submit, also, as a question worthy of considera tion, whether it would not be a salutary provision to require that the officers of the Marine Corps should be prepared for that service by an education at the school? My own opinion is, that it would be attended by manifest advantage, both as respects the necessary accomplishment for naval service in that corps, and the personal character and deportment of the officers belonging to it. It is amongst the incidents of their employment that they are sometimes required to perform important military duties on shore in which a necessity is found for that species of knowledge only to be gained in the military or naval school; and in every service to which they are called it is quite apparent that this knowledge, and the spirit to appreciate the duties of command that is inseparable from it, must increase the efficiency of the officer and elevate the character of the corps to which he is attached. If these considerations should influence the opinion of Congress as they do my own, they will suggest the expediency of making the provision to which I have invited their attention. In concluding this notice of the Naval Academy, There is no subject connected with the pros The deserves the attention of Congress than that relating to the condition of the corps of mariners, which constitutes the great working force in the navigation and management of the public vessels. In obedience to a sentiment which is prevalent throughout the country, and which is naturally suggested by those impulses that distinctively characterize the opinions and habits of our people, Congress has been recently led to the consideration of the ordinary mode of punishment, which it had heretofore been supposed was necessary to the preservation of the discipline of the Navy. The result of this consideration has been the passage of a law for the entire abolition of corporal punishment on board of our ships, both public and private. This punishment-which, for a long time, has been practised in the Navy and commercial marine, not only without question as to its efficacy in maintaining the proper observance of duty on ship-board, but which, indeed, had become so incorporated in the sober conviction of both officers and men, as an indispensable necessity of the service, that it had grown to be the most unquestioned usage and generally received incident of naval discipline-many judicious persons believed might be dispensed with, not only most acceptably to the feelings of the nation, but also without disadvantage to the service. adoption of this opinion by Congress, in the passage of the act of September, 1850, which 'forbade the accustomed penalty, without providing a substitute for it, has afforded the Navy the opportunity to make the experiment. I very sincerely regret to say that the records of this De|partment, as well as the almost entire concurrence of facts and opinions, brought to my notice from authentic sources, and vouched by intelligent and experienced observers, all tend to indicate a most unsatisfactory result. The omission of Congress to provide for the punishment of what may be called minor offenses against discipline and good order on ship-board may, perhaps, account in part for the failure; but the fact of the most serious detriment to the efficiency of our service is so unhappily forced upon my attention, as the effect of the recent change, that it becomes the gravest of my duties at this time to lay the subject once more before Congress, and to ask its attention to the consideration of such a corrective to the present condition of the service as I am confident it must find to be indispensable to the proper government of the Navy. We have evidence furnished to this Department, in the history of almost every cruise, of acts of insubordination that not only impair the usefulness of our ships, but which tend also to the gradual development of habits amongst the seamen that threaten to lead to extensive and un controllable mutinies. The multiplication of courtsmartial, and all the consequences of an increase of disorder and crime, are amongst the least of the apparent and growing evils of the new system. The demoralization of both men and officers is a yet more observable consequence. The absence or prohibition of the usual punishments known to seamen has led to the invention of new penalties of the most revolting kind, in the application of which full scope has been given, and the strongest provocations administered, to that exhibition of temper and passion which, however natural it may be to men of hasty and excitable natures, is sel dom indulged without leading to cruelties that must disgrace those who practice them; and, what is more to be feared, raise a sentiment in the public mind hostile to the Navy itself. The seaman, believing himself exempt from the speedy penalty of disobedience or neglect of duty, and looking with indifference to the remote and uncertain proceeding of a court-martial upon his delinquency, grows habitually contumacious to his superiors, and infuses the same sentiment into his comrades; and in the very fact of the diffusion of this spirit of insubordination finds ground to hope for immunity from punishment-naturally enough believing that what has grown to be common and frequent will also come to be more lightly considered when he is summoned to a trial at the end of his cruise. It may excite some surprise in the statement of what I learn to be true, that the most frequent complaints against the abolition of corporal punishment are made, in great part, by the seamen themselves. The difficulties arising out of its abrogation, and the absence of any substitute for it, now constitute the most prominent obstacles to the ready supply of our squadrons with seamen. This Department is familiar with complaints from the recruiting stations of the difficulty of enlisting the better class of seamen. Of that large number of men who have heretofore constituted the pride of our Navy, by their good seamanship and highly respectable personal deportment, comprising, I rejoice to say, the great body of the mariners who have sustained the honor and glory of our flag in its most perilous, as well as in its most useful career-of these men, it is a fact which invites the deepest concern of Congress, we are daily deprived, by their refusal to enter again into the service until, as they ask, they shall have some assurance that a better system of discipline may be restored. They reasonably complain, that whilst the worst portions of the crew are placed under arrest, and are exempt, in consequence, from the severe duties of the deck, they find their toil increased by the constantly-recurring exigencies which compel them, for weeks and months, during a cruise, to perform the extra work which the reduction of the force of the ship inevitably throws upon them. So oppressively is this evil felt, that I have reason to believe, if the best seamen, who have heretofore been accustomed to man our ships, could find an occasion to express their wishes to Congress, a majority of the whole number would be seen to prefer a restoration of that form of punishment which has been forbidden, rather than be subject to the severities imposed upon them by the present condition of disorder in the naval discipline. Looking at this state of things in the Navy, I think the occasion propitious to the adoption of a new system for the organization and government of the whole material constituting the crews of our ships; and I take advantage of the present time to submit to your consideration the outline of a plan, which I trust will engage your attention, and receive the approbation of Congress. The supply of our Navy with seamen has heretofore been obtained by a system of enlistment, modeled, in its principal elements, upon the plan adopted in Great Britain, from which nation we have derived, by old habit and national descent, the general features of our marine. Like England, we have looked to our commercial navigation for the reinforcement of the men of the Navy. We enlist the mercantile seamen for the national cruise, discharging and paying them off when it is finished, and returning them to the merchant service. The Navy, in general, has been sufficiently attractive to the sailor to be able to secure his service when needed; and this mode of enlistment being an easy and accessible resource, but little consideration has heretofore been bestowed upon its effect either on the Navy itself or upon the seamen. To the Navy it has given a large and meritorious class of mariners, not unmixed, however, with many of a different character, and from that mixture itself requiring a prompt and effective system of punishment adapted to secure a ready discharge of duty in every emergency. The effect of the system upon the men of the Navy has been overlooked, or, if regarded at all, it has not attracted the attention of the public authorities. The sailor is, in general, upon shore a helpless being. Between himself and all around him there is a palpable incongruity. He has come off a long cruise 32D CONG..... 2D SESS. Report of the Secretary of the Navy. SENATE & HO. OF REPS. commanding officer of a squadron, or of a single and has earned some three or four hundred dollars. He has no home; often no friends but his comrades. He knows no thrift, no saving economy: has no adviser. His only outlook is for some pastime, and his idea of that is confined to sensual enjoyment. Every one is familiar with his history in his brief sojourn on shore. He is a victim to that class of persons who pander to his appetites and who plunder him of his earnings. Necessity and inclination very soon drive him back to the sea, where he finds his natural home and the only friends who can understand his character and sympathize with it. It is very apparent that a man so organized and circumstanced stands 'very much in need of better culture than this course of life affords. A discreet attention to his condition by the Government, with a few salutary regulations that may teach him more thrift and furnish him guidance and encouragement, will make him more useful as a citizen, or at least more self-de-ject of it into the Navy; which certificates shall be pendent and respectable in his individual character, and render him at the same time certainly not less useful in his profession. I propose, for the consideration of Congress, a plan for the reorganization of this portion of the Navy, which, if matured by such experience as the future practice of it may afford, will, I am confident, enhance the respectability and value of our seamen, and secure to the country a most efficient corps of men permanently devoted to the public service. I think it cannot be doubted that the successful application of the Navy to the purposes for which it is designed would be better assured by the services of a well-disciplined and carefully-maintained body of seamen permanently attached to the public naval establishment and incorporated with it, than it ever has been, or is ever likely to be by the fluctuating and variable resource of frequent enlistment and discharge. The constant changes which this corps undergoes is unfavorable to the growth of that sentiment, so essential to the service, which makes a sailor proud of his flag. It is still more unfavorable to the acquirement of that peculiar adaptation of habit and training to the duties belonging to the employment of a manof-war, which all officers regard as the test and indispensable element of an efficient seaman in the Navy. In a large Navy like that of England, where all the seamen of the mercantile marine, in a certain sense, belong to the Government, the difference between the man-of-war's man and the seaman of civil employment is not so apparent or significant as it is in our service, in which the seamen bear so small a proportion to the whole body of mariners of the nation. Every English sailor has generally more or less service in the Navy, and passes so frequently from the private to the public employment as to give him to a great degree an actual incorporation in the national marine: the one service is so connected with the other that the seamen of both assimilate more in their training and education than the correspondent classes in this country. Our Navy, for obvious reasons connected with these considerations, is much more dependent upon a body of men nurtured by the Government and attached to the service than that of England. It is, therefore, a fundamental purpose in the plan which I submit to Congress to provide for the ultimate establishment of a permanent and recognized body of seamen, connected with the Navy by the strongest and most durable bonds of attachment and interest Whilst providing for the gradual and eventual organization of such a body, my attention has been directed also to the procurement of men of the highest character in personal and professional quality, in whose good deportment and faithful service will be found the most satisfactory reasons for protecting by legal enactment their whole class against the form of punishment which has of late so much excited the sensibility of the nation. The successful accomplishment of such an object, I trust, will commend the plan to the regard of all who desire to preserve that exemption, and who have hoped to find it in practice not incompatible with the highest efficiency of service on shipboard. The general outline of the plan may be exhibited in the following regulations: With a view to the commencement of this system, and to organize a body of efficient seamen of the most meritorious class, I propose that every That this report be submitted by the Department to the President, who shall thereupon issue a general order to admit into the Navy the seamen who have been distinguished in the report for good conduct. And the President shall transmit with this order to the commanding officer of the squadron or ship a certificate to each seaman, written on parchment and stamped with the signature of the President himself, expressing his approbation of his conduct and his permission to admit the subdelivered by the commanding officer of the squadron or ship to the men entitled to them before they are discharged from the ship. This delivery to be made in the presence of the crews and with suitable formality to attract public notice. That each seaman to whom this certificate shall be awarded shall, if he accept it, register his name in a book to be provided for that purpose and kept on board of the ship, by which registry he shall become a registered seaman of the Navy of the United States, and be entitled to all the privileges and be bound to all the obligations of that charac ter. This registry book shall be transmitted to the Navy Department, where it shall be preserved; and the entries made in it copied into a general registry, alphabetically arranged, and kept in the Department. The obligations incurred by every seaman who signs the register shall be those of faithful service and due performance of all seamanlike duty under the flag of the United States, good moral deportment, and prompt obedience to all orders that may be issued by his lawful superiors so long as he shall continue to be a member of the Navy. The privileges attached to this registry shall be: 1. For every five years of actual duty on board a public vessel an increase of one dollar a month over and above the established rates of ordinary pay; that is to say, for the first five years of such service one dollar per month; for a second term of five years of such service an additional dollar per month; for a third term of five years another dollar; and for a fourth term of five years-making a total of twenty years service-another dollar; amounting in all for such twenty years service to four dollars a month; after which no further increase to be made. This additional monthly pay, so earned by service, to be paid to each man so long as he may continue to be a registered seaman of the Navy; and, after twenty years of service, to be paid whether he continues a registered sea man or not. The right to this additional pay to be liable to to forfeiture at any time within the twenty years actual service by the resignation of any seaman on the registry, or by his being struck off the list of registered seamen; which may be done at any time; and shall only be done by the order of the Secretary of the Navy, or by the sentence of a naval court-martial, upon charges of misconduct; in either of which events-resignation or discharge by sentence of the Secretary of the Navy or of a court-martial-he shall cease to belong to the Navy, and shall lose all the privileges of such a character. 2. Every registered seaman to be entitled to resign his post in the Navy at any time after three years' service, if not engaged on a cruise. When engaged on a cruise and absent from the ports of the United States, he shall not resign without the consent of the commanding officer of his ship. A record of all resignations to be duly kept and reported to the Department. A registered seaman of more than twenty years' service continuing in the Navy, only to forfeit his additional pay when such forfeiture shall be adjudged by a court-martial as a punishment for grossly immoral or insubordinate conduct. By such sentence also for such offenses, his additional pay may be suspended by a court for such time as they may adjudge. 3. No registered seaman of the Navy to be subgrading character, and to such only as may be ordered by a court-martial on charges duly preferred and tried. This prohibition not to prevent the punishment without a court-martial of such minor delinquencies in conduct and discipline as may be corrected by withholding the usual indulgences of the service, stopping portions of the ra tion, or increasing ordinary duty. 4. Every registered seaman to be entitled after any term of three years' service to a furlough of such reasonable length as may enable him to make one or more voyages in the merchant marine, not extending, without special permission, to more than six months; such furlough to be granted by the commanding officer of the squadron, or the commandant of the navy-yard nearest to the print at which his cruise may terminate, and only to be granted in any case with an expressed reservation and notice that the seaman to whom it is givet shall report for duty in the Navy when any pub lic emergency shall render it necessary so to order him, the order for his return to duty to be issued by the Navy Department or by such officer as may be authorized by the Department to do so. A failure to report in accordance with this provision to render him liable to be struck off the regis try by the Secretary of the Navy. Every regis tered seaman reporting for duty within three months of his last cruise, and being thereupon ordered to duty, to be entitled to pay from the date of termination of his last cruise. All furloughs to be regularly reported and noted at the Navy Department. 5. Every registered seaman to be entitled to wear on his dress some appropriate badge by which he may be distinguished and known in the Navy, which badge will be designated and provided by the Navy Department. 6. The petty officers of each ship to be selected, as far as convenient, from the class of registered seamen, and the appointment always to be regarded as dependent upon the merit and good charac ter of the person selected, to be held on good behavior, during the term of a cruise. 7. A record to be kept, under the direction of every commanding officer of a squadron or ship, of the actual amount of sea service performed by each registered seaman whilst under his command. This record to be returned to the Department at the end of every cruise, and to be transferred to the general registry of seamen. Upon the evidence of this general registry the additional pay to be granted. 8. Every seaman to be admonished to give his true name, age, and place of birth, upon signing the registry, and to be required to engage not to ship in merchant or other vessels, whilst on furlough, by any other name. His being convicted of violating this engagement to render him liable to be struck from the list of registered seamen upon the order of the Secretary of the Navy. 9. In every case of dismissal from the service, as a registered seaman, the party so dismissed to receive whatever moneys may be due to him, unless the same shall have been forfeited by the sentence of a court-martial imposed as a punishment for an offense committed by him. A seaman dismissed from the registry not to be entitled to be restored but upon the permission of the head of the Navy Department, granted in consideration of the meritorious character of the applicant. 10. Seamen, ordinary seamen, and landsmen in the service, not belonging to the registry, to be subject to such discipline, duty, and penalties as Congress may provide in a code of regulations adapted to their government, under such restrictions or modifications as the Department may think proper to make. 11. A printed book or circular to be made by the Department, containing all the regulations and conditions relating to the establishment of regis tered seamen, giving a full description of the obligations to be contracted by them, and of the privi leges to which they may be entitled. Copies of this book or circulars to be furnished to every squadron or single vessel in commission, of which copies, one shall be given to every seaman, in order that he may be fully informed of the nature of the engagements to be incurred by him on entering the service of the United States. These 32D CONG.....2D SESS. regulations to be read and explained to the several crews, and as far as may be necessary to every seaman before he signs the registry. 12. The Department to be authorized to make, alter, and modify all rules and regulations, so far as it may be found expedient for the due establishment and support of this purpose of creating a corps of registered seamen, in accordance with the general objects intended to be promoted in the above plan, and for the supplying of any defect which experience may show to exist in it. Report of the Secretary of the Navy. cance, The term seamen, as used throughout this plan, is to be understood to embrace every class of mariners on board a public vessel, whether denomin-usual energy in the duty of guarding our citizens ated seamen, ordinary seamen, or landsmen. 13. A limited number of boys to be received into the Navy upon obligations contracted according to law, to serve until they arrive at the age of twenty-one years. Their number, the quota to be allowed to each vessel, and all needful and proper rules for their government and duties to be regulated by the orders of the Navy Department. This system of providing for a more effective marine I respectfully submit to your consideration. There already exists power in the Executive to adopt nearly the whole of its details. It may be proper, however, to submit it to the approval of Congress, with a view to obtain for it a legislative recognition, and especially to procure such enactments as may be necessary to give the sanction of law to the establishment of the registry, which constitutes the ground-work of the plan." INCREASE OF THE NAVY. tection of but two frigates and two sloops-of-war, Looking to the Atlantic, we find motives equally Whilst I am fully aware that the power of the In the activity and diversity of enterprise which United States happily consists more in their ability the busy spirit of this time has exacted from the to provide for the contingencies of invasion than Navy, it has now become manifest that the in- in the actual exhibition of an equipped force, and crease of the naval establishment of the country that we may dispense with much that is deemed is not only recommended by the most urgent pub-requisite in the relations of European Powers, lic considerations, but is also forced upon the at- still we cannot fail to recognize the fact, that the tention of Congress as an absolute necessity. The respect due to the interests of our people requires honor as well as the successful venture of the na- the habitual and familiar presence of our flag in tion, and I might even say the indispensable obli- every region of commerce, sustained by such an gation of national defense, and the constantly-re- amount of force, and of such a quality, as may curring need for the exhibition of the national give some significant token of the resources we power, all combine to present this question to command at home. A salutary conviction on this Congress as one of the first magnitude. During point is, to a great extent, inspired by the excelthe past year this Department has been impelled,lence of our armaments when brought into comby a due regard for the great public interests comparison with those of other-nations. We cannot mitted to its charge, to put in requisition nearly the whole disposable force of the Navy. The details of this report will show that constant and various employment has been demanded of officers, ships, and crews. I trust that Congress will see in these requisitions how much the demands of necessary service engross the means provided to accomplish it, and will deduce from this fact an argument in favor of enlarging the naval resources for still larger naval operations. Whilst other great maritime Powers are strengthening and extending their capabilities for aggression and defense, and are bestowing a sedulous labor upon the creation of steam navies of singular efficiency, they have imposed upon us a new obligation, if not to track their progress with equal steps, in an effort to bring ourselves abreast with them in their advance, at least to maintain that position of relative strength which it has been our policy heretofore to assume. The actual exigencies of our own service, so conspicuously multiplied by the rapid extension of our domain and the settlement of new marts of trade, and the establishment of new lines of commerce on the Pacific, cannot but present to every citizen of the United States an altogether irresistible - argument to persuade the nation to a much larger provision of ships and men than we have heretofore kept in commission. The Pacific, during the next ten years, is likely to become the theater of the most interesting events of our time. A nation is growing up upon its shores, which will both attract and supply an amount of commercial enterprise in the rapid growth and activity of which the world has yet had no parallel. The discovery of America did not give such an impulse to this spirit as we now witness in the energy and occupations of these recent settlements. At this moment we are without a public steamship in that ocean. Our various commerce scattered along the whole coast from Oregon to Chili, and our citizens who are found in every port throughout that extended line, are left to the pro SENATE & Ho. oF REPS. ing the establishment of one or more factories for the construction of all the machinery necessary to the complete equipment of the largest class of steamers. The great importance of such establishments to the Government is felt by this Department in the daily conviction that only by the command of such a resource may the Navy be promptly and surely supplied with the best machinery for the public vessels. The inspection and control of the work whilst it is in progress, the assurance of the best material, and the punctual compliance with the demands of the service, are advantages that may only be efficiently secured by having the workshop under the command of the Government. The experience of the past will also fully demonstrate that this mode of supplying the machinery of our public vessels must be, in its general result, more economical than any other, and will certainly secure much the most reliable kind of work. The plans would be more uniform, failure of machinery less frequent, and the improvement of the models of construction more certain. The mail contract law of 1847 contains a provision which authorizes the Government to appropriate any of the vessels built under it to the naval service. I would recommend that one of these, of the first class, be selected and equipped with the proper armament. I make this suggestion from a persuasion that it is a matter of importance to the Government practically to determine, by experiment, a question upon which much doubt is entertained, and which it is necessary to solve, whether these steamers are really adequate to the demands of the naval service, and may be usefully converted into ships of war. The determination of this question may settle a point of great moment touching the reliance to be placed upon these ships in any sudden emergency-a point much more safely to be settled in a time of peace than in moments of excitement and pressure, when no other resource may be at hand to meet the consequences of a failure. It is further necessary to make provision for an increase of seamen. The present limit of seven thousand five hundred men is insufficient even for the necessities of the service in its existing condition. If the full complement of men appropriated by the regulations of the Navy were now on board afford to lose or impair our reputation for produ- of the vessels in commission, more than the whole cing the best ships and the best disciplined crews number allowed would be required. I think it that navigate the ocean, however we may afford therefore indispensable to the proper efficiency of to exhibit them in smaller numbers. the service that an addition of not less than fifteen The principal maritime nations are now dili-hundred be authorized to be made to the establishgently intent upon the effort to build up powerful steam navies. Most of them are already far ahead of us in this species of force; and it is very obvious, from the urgency with which the new marine of Europe is pressed to assume this character, that there is a deep and earnest conviction of an impending necessity in which the improved force will be mainly relied on as the efficient element of war. Are we so far removed from the occasion or the scene of apprehended conflict as to warrant any indifference on our part to the possible issues of a collision? Are our affairs so little exposed abroad, or so concentrated at home, as to exempt us from all necessity to consider the effects which may follow the recent changes in the naval organization of Europe? These considerations, and others which they suggest, induce me to ask the attention of Congress to the recommendations of the Bureau of Construction accompanying this report, and to invite them, with the most earnest solicitude, to provide for the building of three first-class screw propeller frigates, and the same number of propeller sloops-of-war. To these might be added with advantage a few smaller steamers adapted to quick dispatch and coast navigation. Our navy-yards are abundantly supplied with stocks in Portsmouth and New York for the last In connection with this subject, I would call the ment, and that a correspondent addition be made to the yearly estimates of naval pay. It is equally necessary that provision be made for an increase of wages, either in monthly pay or in the shape of a bounty, to be given after enlistment. The amount of this increase should be regulated by some reference to the wages given in the merchant service, which are now so much higher than the naval pay as to increase the difficulty, to which I have heretofore alluded, in the procurement of the best men. A reference to the report of the Bureau of Medicine will inform Congress of the condition of the medical service of the Navy and the pressing necessity that exists for an increase of officers in that department. Great relief would be afforded by an authority to appoint a number, not exceeding twenty assistant surgeons, and to make a correspondent promotion of an equal number, or of so many as by proper length of service may be qualified for it, into the upper grades. I beg leave also to call the attention of Congress to the report of the commanding officer of the Marine Corps, which will show how inadequate is the present limitation of that corps to the ordinary demands of the service. The opinion of General Henderson upon this point, of itself entitled to great weight, is reënforced by that of many of the most experienced officers of the Navy, as will be seen in the correspondence accompanying the report, to which I'invite a careful attention. In conformity with these opinions, I respectfully recommend to Congress the passage of a law to authorize the enlargement of the corps by the addition of eighty sergeants, eighty corporals, thirty drummers and fifers, and one thousand privates, and that the four captains, four first and four second lieutenants, conditionally allowed to the service by the proviso to the naval appropria 32D Cong.....2d Sess. tion bill of March 3, 1849, be retained permanently in the corps. The same necessity which has led to this representation of the embarrassments of the service in those branches to which I have just alluded, compels me to ask for some addition to the corps of pursers. This important division of the naval organization is found to stand in need of more aid than the present allowance affords. The corps scarcely furnishes that proper rotation in service which the peculiar duties of the purser demands. It is necessary after every cruise to allow this officer a sufficient time on shore to settle his accounts-a period which will not always place him at the disposal of the Department for an early return to sea, if it were even proper to compel these officers to a repetition of duty without some time for such refreshment on shore as every officer requires. If Congress should think proper, in consideration of this condition of the corps, to sanction an increase of its members, I would earnestly recommend the establishment of a grade of assistant pursers, to which only the new appointments should be made; that these assistants should undergo an examination as to their physical and mental abilities previous to their appointment; that the age of admission should be regulated by the Navy Department; and that no applicant should be nominated for the corps without a satisfactory conformity to the preliminary condition. Promotion and pay should be regulated by law, and no promotion should be made but upon full evidence of the capability of the individual to comply with all the demands of service; this evidence to be obtained by such course of examination as the Department may prescribe. With such conditions, I would recommend that Congress should at present authorize the appointment of twenty assistant pursers to be attached to the corps. As a subject of great interest to the efficiency of the Navy, I beg leave to renew the recommendations heretofore made by this Department for the gradual reduction of the number of officers who are incapable of useful service, by the adoption of some suitable plan for retiring all of this character from the sphere of ordinary duty. A well-organized naval system requires that the officers charged with its administration should, as far as possible, be maintained in a condition for whatever employment may be demanded of them, and should always exhibit the utmost alacrity in their obedience to orders. There is no better test of the spirit of the corps, nor no more commendable sign of a good officer, than his readiness to accept every call of his profession. This high character can only be maintained in the Navy by exempting from command all who obstruct the path of duty. Those whose disability has been the result of long and faithful toil in the national service should be provided with an honorable retreat, in which old age and infirmity may find repose. They who, without service to plead for their incapacity, only stand in the way of more willing and more capable men, should be consigned to a retirement on smaller pay, by the operation of a law which should render their retirement compulsory. It may be worth the consideration of Congress to make permanent provision for these two classes of officers. This might be advantageously accomplished, perhaps, by a law which should confer upon the first class a rate of retired pay, graduated from half pay up to that allowed to leave of absence, according to the amount of sea service they may have performed, and adding to this an honorary promotion of one degree in rank, and which should dispose of the second class by retiring them on half of leave of absence pay. The details necessary to such a system may be easily regulated whenever Congress shall find occasion to take the subject into their deliberations. I repeat also my concurrence in the views presented by my predecessor in his report of November, 1850, on the propriety of "recognizing by law the office of Commodore, and the creation of at least two officers of the rank of Rear Admiral." I can add nothing to the satisfactory arguments with which that recommendation is enforced, and therefore content myself with a reference to the report, and an earnest invocation to Congress to give it a favorable consideration. MISCELLANEOUS. Report of the Secretary of the Navy. reaus of this Department will make Congress acquainted with the details of the naval service in each branch of its administration. I respectfully ask their attention to the many valuable suggestions these reports contain for the better government of the Navy. Amongst these, I select for a more special notice the recommendations of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, touching the mode of making contracts, in respect to which it is proposed that some discretion should be lodged in the bureau to authorize its rejection of a contract when offered by a bidder who has on any previous occasion failed to comply with his engagement. I particularly commend to the notice of Congress the representations of the Bureau of Yards and Docks in reference to the several navy-yards under its care. The yard at New York requires early consideration. A large portion of the land belonging to it has not yet been placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and is consequently subjected to onerous assessments for improvements by the city of Brooklyn, and exposed to the very inconvenient demands of that city in the opening of streets leading to the channel of the Wallabout, which, if opened, would seriously affect the security of the yard, and greatly incommode its operations. So important is it to the Government that this difficulty should be removed, that I think it would even be advisable to transfer the works of this yard to some other convenient location, unless the jurisdiction over the land be fully conceded to the United States. Efforts have been made, and are still making, to obtain this cession from the Legislature, and I trust will now be successful. If they should not, there is reason to believe a better site may be obtained for the yard, free from the present inconveniences; and that the expense of the new establishment might be defrayed by the sale of the old. The floating dry-dock in California, contracted for in obedience to the several acts of Congress heretofore passed, has been completed, and delivered at San Francisco. No appropriation was made for the basin and railway, without which the dock cannot be safely or usefully employed. I submit it to the decision of Congress whether these stiuctures should not be made without delay. The Naval Asylum at Philadelphia is well conducted, and is found a valuable refuge to the infirm and disabled seamen who have been admitted into it. I concur in the opinion expressed by the head of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, that its position is not the best adapted to its effective usefulness in the Navy; and as the property is believed to be very valuable, it may be worthy of consideration whether it would not be good policy to dispose of it, and reestablish this institution either at Annapolis or Norfolk, where its inmates would be removed from the temptations to disorder which the proximity to a large city throws in their way. The Naval Observatory continues to pursue its appropriate labors, with its usual good results, and is found to contribute the most important facilities to the improvement of navigation. I cannot better commend it to the regard of Congress than by a reference to the letter of Lieutenant Maury, which accompanies this report. The first volume of the Nautical Almanac, in charge of Lieutenant Davis, is now in press, and will be given to the public. His report will explain the progress and condition of his work. SENATE & HO. OF REPS. His full report will be made to this Department and as soon as received will be transmitted to Cop gress. Professor Espy during the past year has beer, as in the years before it, busy in the pursuit c' his meteorological observations and his theory s storms, prosecuting his researches without abate ment of zeal or assiduity. He promises soon give the world another volume of facts and dedus, tions, by which he hopes to bring the laws of the wind and the tempest into the category of a "exact science." His letter appended to this re port will explain his progress, and commend is industry to the friendly recognition of Congress. By the enactment of the naval appropriation 5. of August 31, 1852, this Department was author. ized and directed "to select a site for a navy-yan and naval depôt in the bay of San Francisco, California, or neighboring waters.' The board of officers who were dispatched to! make the necessary examinations for the selectis: of this site have performed the task intrusted :: them, and have returned to this city. They have not yet entirely completed their report. It will be à put in the possession of this Department in a few days, when I shall make it the subject of a specia communication to Congress. I renew the recommendations heretofore made. and now again referred to in the report of the B reau of Provisions and Clothing, in favor of stat discretionary change in the Navy ration as recen scientific research has proved to be useful, through the process by which vegetables may be preserved for consumption at sea. And I also adopt, and re spectfully beg leave to urge upon the attention the Legislature, the suggestions of the head of the bureau in reference to a prescribed limit on the commutation for stopped rations in money. Congress having at its last session made a retrospective provision for an increase of pay to the officers, petty officers, seamen, and marines of the Navy, and to the officers and men of the reverse service, who served in the Pacific ocean, on the coast of California and Mexico, since the 25th C September, 1850, it would seem to be but an equé table act, and strictly in accordance with the s eral design of this provision, to extend its openstions so far back in point of time as to embrac the case of those who served on that coast from the origin of the war. Indeed, every considerstion which could recommend the policy of the st propriation that was made will be found to appr with increased cogency to those to whom I have alluded. Their service is more severe, their ha ards greater, and the expenses to which they were subject in that quarter, when the country w more unprovided than in the subsequent period were still more onerous. An appropriation 1 their behalf of a similar character to that which was made in favor of their successors would bea acceptable and just tribute to a corps which ha | proved itself worthy of the high appreciation v the Government. The estimates for the support of the Navy and the Marine Corps for the year ending on the 3 day of June, 1854, and the statement of appropr ations required for all objects within the controid this Department, presentAn aggregate of...... Deduct for special objects.. Leaves for the support of the Navy and Marine Corps.... .$11,501.593 €. 4,031,921 7.469,671 @ Lieutenant Gilliss, who for more than three years past has been employed, in pursuance of the directions of Congress, in conducting in Chili the observations recommended to be made by the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Arts and Sciences, has recently returned to the United States, bringing with him a rich contribution to science, in a series of observations amounting to nearly forty thousand, and embracing a most extensive catalogue of stars. He deserves great praise for his assiduity in this labor, which, in conjunction with similar observations in other quarters of the globe, will supply important aid towards the determination of the solar parallax, a problem of great interest to navigation and science. Upon the conclusion of his work at Santiago, he was enabled to make a judicious sale of his observatory and its apparatus to the Chilian Government, which has manifested a most friendly inter-subtraction from what was deemed but an ade est in his service, and afforded him much useful The reports from the chiefs of the several bu-assistance. It is proper to remark, that the large increase !! some of the estimates made for the coming year over the actual amounts appropriated for the ser vice of the last two or three years, which it w be found are required for the improvement of yards and docks, construction, equipment, and repair e vessels, the expenses of ordnance, and the encour agement and support of the mail service, has be come necessary by the reduction which Congres has hitherto thought proper to make from the esti mates submitted for the expenditures which were thought essential to the public service in most of these branches of the naval administration. The appropriations now asked for may, therefore, be regarded as the necessary consequence of such & quate annual provision for the completion of worki of indispensable use. And being viewed in the |