Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 by Various
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Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861
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What were the causes that confined the young giant to a Procrustean bed
for a quarter of a century?
The subject has become history, and we can now calmly investigate it
by the light of the past and the present. May not this investigation
illumine the path of the future? Let us examine the maritime policy of
our nation during each period.
At the close of the Revolution there was no navy, and few ships to be
protected. Our private armed vessels were converted into merchantmen,
our solitary ship of the line was presented to France, and we had no
frigates worth preserving.
The first great effort of the country was to form a constitution; the
second, to provide for the creditors who had sustained the nation; the
third, to provide a revenue to meet expenses and interest. And these
were all successful. As commerce advanced, the Federal party under
Washington revived the idea of a navy, and on March 11th, 1794, against
the opposition of Madison, they carried a bill through Congress for
the construction of six frigates. Under this bill, the Constitution,
Constellation, and United States, all since identified with the fame
of our country, were commenced, but they were not launched until the
accession of John Adams in 1797.
Washington, in his Farewell Address, gave the sanction of his name to
a navy, as well as to the West Point Academy, and to a system of
harbor-defence. He thus marked out the great outlines; but the
founder of the navy was John Adams. Nurtured among the hardy sons of
Massachusetts, familiar with their exploits upon the ocean during the
war both in private and public service, he felt assured of their ability
to cope with the Mistress of the Seas. When France seized our ships and
undertook to involve us in European wars, Adams renounced her alliance
and called for the creation of a navy. In his annual message in 1797,
he spoke of "a navy as next to the militia the natural defence of the
United States." In 1798 the three frigates above-mentioned were
finished and sent to sea, and soon after the Constellation captured the
Insurgent. During the same year Congress voted to construct six
more frigates, twelve sloops-of-war, and six smaller vessels, and
appropriated a million for the frames of six ships of the line, two
millions for timber, and fifty thousand dollars for two dock-yards.
At the same time, in response to a vote of Congress authorizing the
acceptance of additional ships, $711,700 were subscribed, and the
frigates Essex, Connecticut, Merrimack, and other vessels, constructed
and turned over to the Government by the merchants of Salem,
Newburyport, Hartford, and other seaports.
To illustrate the spirit with which the merchants responded to the call
for a navy, we may cite the action of the Federal county of Essex, none
of whose towns at that period contained over ten thousand inhabitants.
This county had contributed more armed ships and men to the War of the
Revolution than any other county in the Union, and was conspicuous for
its enterprise and patriotism before the embargo, non-intercourse, and
war had crushed its commerce.
The merchants of Essex assembled and subscribed the funds for the
frigates Essex and Merrimack, the first of which was built at Salem and
the other at Newburyport, and both of New-England oak; and this effort
was the more remarkable, as they advanced the money while the Government
found it difficult to borrow at eight per cent., and these patriotic men
afterwards took their pay in depreciated six per cent. stock at par.
We have not the history of the Merrimack; but the Essex, a frigate of
thirty-two guns, begun in April, was launched in September, 1799, and
the best commentary upon the policy of the measure and upon the skill
and fidelity of her builders is the fact that she proved the fastest
ship in the navy, that she lasted thirty-eight years, namely, till 1837,
that she cost for hull, spars, sails, and rigging, when ready to receive
her armament and stores, but $75,473.59, and that under the gallant
Porter, in the War of 1812, she captured the British corvette Alert, of
twenty guns, a transport with one hundred and ninety-seven troops
for Canada, and twenty-three other prizes, valued at two millions of
dollars; she also broke up the British whale-fishing in the Pacific; and
when finally captured at Valparaiso by two ships of superior force, who
would not venture within reach of her carronades, she fought a battle
of three hours' duration, which does honor to the country. While this
frigate was building, so fast did the timber come in, that the spirited
contractor, Mr. Briggs, was obliged to insert the following notice in
the Salem paper to check the supply.
"THE SALEM FRIGATE.
"Through the medium of the Gazette the subscriber pays his
acknowledgments to the good people of the County of Essex, for their
spirited exertions in bringing down the trees of the Forest for building
the Frigate.
"In the short space of four weeks the full complement of timber has been
furnished. Those who have contributed to their country's defence are
invited to come forward and receive the reward of their patriotism. They
are informed that with the permission of a kind Providence who hath
hitherto favored the undertaking, that
"Next September is the time
When we'll launch her from the strand,
And our cannon load and prime
With tribute due to Talleyrand."
The promise was fulfilled on September 30th, 1799. The hills in the
vicinity and the rocks upon the shores were covered with people
assembled to witness the launch, and the guns of the frigate were
planted on an eminence "to speak aloud the joy of the occasion."
A correspondent of the "Gazette" gave the following jubilant account of
the affair.
"And Adams said, Let there be a Navy, and there was a Navy. To build a
navy was the advice of our venerable sage. How far it has been adhered
to is demonstrated by almost every town' in the United States that is
capable of floating a Galley or Gunboat. Salem has not been backward in
this laudable design; impressed with a due sense of the importance of
a Navy, the patriotic citizens of this town put out a subscription and
thereby obtained an equivalent for building a vessel of force. Among
the foremost in this good work were Messrs. Derby & Gray, who set the
example by subscribing ten thousand dollars each,--but, alas, the former
is no more; we trust his good deeds follow him. Yesterday the stars and
stripes were unfurled on board the Frigate Essex, and at twelve o'clock
she made a majestic movement into her destined element, there to join
her sister-craft in repelling foreign invasion and maintaining the
rights and liberties of 'a great, free, peaceful, and independent
Republic.'"
The early reports under Adams give the estimated cost of a ship of the
line as $400,000; and the first frigates actually cost as follows:--
Constellation $314,212
Constitution 302,718
United States 299,336
President 220,910
Chesapeake 220,679
Congress 197,246
Essex, with armament and stores 139,202
In 1799 the estimates for the navy were raised to four millions and
a half, and large appropriations were continued in 1800. Under these
appropriations several navy-yards were established, and frames of
live-oak and cedar were furnished for eight ships of the line. The
energy of the Administration produced corresponding effects, convoys
were provided for our merchantmen, insurance fell from twenty to ten per
cent., and France, impressed by our spirit and armament, retired from
the contest.
At the close of 1800 the navy had made great progress; and the Secretary
of the Navy, Hon. Benjamin Stoddard of Baltimore, proposed in 1801 an
annual appropriation of one million for its increase.
But in 1801 the spirited administration of Adams came to an end. He had
favored the payment of the national debt; he had dared to anticipate the
future, to impose taxes and provide ships; he had aided the formation
of a military academy and advocated a system of coast-defence, and had
boldly asserted our national rights against the French Republic; and yet
he loved peace so well, that, against the advice and wishes of his party
and his cabinet, he sent a minister to France, who made an honorable
treaty. Posterity sees little to censure in all these measures, for
they evince the courage and forecast of the great Statesman of the
Revolution; but they were assailed by his opponents, and aided in
effecting his defeat.
Jefferson came into power as the advocate of retrenchment and
reform,--captivating terms! Under his administration the military
academy was thrown into the shade, the coast-defences were forgotten,
most of the new frigates and sloops built by patriotic citizens were
sold, the navy reduced to ten frigates, half of which were suffered to
decay, the frames of the ships of the line were used for repairs, and
the appropriations for the increase of the navy were reduced to the
pitiful sum of a quarter of a million, which was applied principally to
gunboats. Of these Jefferson built no less than one hundred and seventy,
at a cost of $10,500 each,--incurring for the construction and
maintenance of this flotilla an expense of nearly three millions,
without a particle of benefit to the country.
We would not detract from the services of Jefferson. Posterity will
honor him as the Patriot of the Revolution, as the champion of the
rights of man; but will it not trace to his policy as a statesman, in
the cabinet of Washington, in the opposition to Adams, and in the
office of President, the grave errors from which sprang the embargo,
non-intercourse, and the second war with England? At the close of his
administration in 1809, he claimed credit for having left eighteen
millions in the Treasury after payment of twenty-six millions of the
debt of the Revolution in less than seven years, and his successor,
Madison, in 1812, had over eleven millions in funds and cash in the
Treasury after the extinguishment of forty-nine millions of the
Revolutionary debt,--the expenses of Government, in the mean time,
exclusive of the debt, having averaged from five to seven millions only.
But parsimony is not always economy.
The embargo cost the nation at least forty millions; non-intercourse
twenty more; the war in three years added one hundred and thirteen
millions to the debt, with at least an equal loss by the sacrifice of
commerce and heavy drafts by taxes: and if the embargo, non-intercourse,
and war can be traced to the loss of the navy, we find a saving of a
million per annum in ships dearly purchased by a loss of capital which,
at compound interest, would exceed to-day one-third the computed wealth
of the nation.
Had the policy of Adams been continued from 1800 to 1808, the annual
million, aided by the live-oak and cedar frames, the three millions paid
for gun-boats, and the frigates on hand when Jefferson came into power,
would have provided or placed upon the stocks ten ships of the line,
forty frigates, and ten sloops-of-war. If with the increase of revenue
this estimate had been doubled in 1808, the material collected and the
ships held back until the latter part of 1812, the country would have
been supplied with twenty sail of the line, fifty frigates, and thirty
sloops-of-war,--a force which would have employed at least threefold its
number of English ships, upon our coast, upon the passage, and in the
dock-yards. Impressment, orders in council, paper blockades, would have
gone down before such a force of American ships ere one-tenth of it had
left our harbors; for England, distressed for men and at war with the
Continent, could not have spared the ships required to meet such a navy.
The reports of Jefferson and Madison now make it apparent, that, without
omitting to pay one instalment of the debt, they could have carried out
the policy of Adams and provided a navy the very aspect of which would
have commanded the respect and deference of the only foe we had occasion
to dread.
This point is most forcibly illustrated by the speeches of Lowndes and
Cheves of South Carolina in Congress a few years later, cited by Henry
Clay in 1812, in which they very justly say,--"If England should
determine to station permanently on our coast a squadron of twelve ships
of the line, she would require for this service thirty-six ships of
the line, one-third in port repairing, one-third on the passage, and
one-third on the station; but that is a force which it has been shown
England, with her limited navy, could not spare for the American
service." For once, at least, two of the gifted sons of South Carolina
sustained the views of Massachusetts. The War of the Revolution and
the War of 1812 have both demonstrated that England can maintain no
permanent blockade through the winter on our waters, and the largest
fleet upon our Atlantic coast during the last war did not exceed twenty
sail of armed vessels of all sizes.
Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," in 1785 had expressed his views
on our maritime policy in the following terms:--
"You ask me what I think of the expediency of encouraging our States
to become commercial. Were I to indulge my own theory, I wish them to
practise neither commerce or navigation, but to stand with respect to
Europe precisely on the footing of China."
We have seen the commercial policy of Adams illustrated by the
creation of a navy; we now see the anti-commercial theory of Jefferson
illustrated by its overthrow.
He was once tempted to concede that we might apply a year's revenue to
a navy, but that year he never designated. Perhaps, if he could have
foreseen the unceremonious way in which a few English frigates have
of late years dealt with China, or the facility with which they have
compelled her to pay millions for a drug alike pernicious to character
and health, or the report of the treaty and tribute dictated from
the walls of Pekin,--or could he have foreseen the progress of Lord
Cochrane's frigates up the Potomac, regardless of his gunboats,--could
he have foreshadowed the conflagration of the Capitol and the exit of
the Cabinet,--he would perhaps have attached more importance to a navy
and found less to admire in the policy of China, and doubtless his
immediate successor would not have aimed a side-blow at our army and
navy, as he did, in suggesting "that the fifteenth century was the
unhappy epoch of military establishments in the time of peace."
But our country, under Jefferson and Madison, for twelve years adopted
the blind policy of China. The navy was suffered to decay. In 1807 but
one frigate and five sloops-of-war were in commission. The Federal
party, however, although in a weak minority, did not tamely submit to
the unhappy policy of Southern statesmen; and individuals even of the
dominant party opposed it. Among these, the late Justice Story, who in
1807 represented the County of Essex in Congress, made an effort for
the revival of the navy. But it was objected, on the part of the
Administration, that such a force would be impotent against Great
Britain. Williams, subsequently Governor of South Carolina, insisted,
that, if we built ships, they would all fall into the hands of the
British; and the capture of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen was
instanced,--the fall of Genoa, Venice, and Carthage, notwithstanding
their navies, being also cited. Story, with almost a prescience of the
future, urged in its favor,--"I was born among the hardy sons of the
ocean, and I cannot doubt their courage or their skill; if Great Britain
ever gets possession of our present little navy, it will be at the
expense of the best blood of the country, and after a struggle which
will call for more of her strength than she has ever found necessary for
a European enemy." To which Williams replied,--"If our rights are only
so to be saved, I would abandon the ocean." And in December, 1807, the
ocean was abandoned.
No additions were made to the navy during the period of the embargo or
non-intercourse, nor was a new ship sent to sea until after the peace;
and at the commencement of the war, in June, 1812, the country had
neither navy, fortifications, nor disciplined troops. The relics of the
Federal navy then consisted of five frigates and seven sloops and brigs
in commission, and three frigates under repair,--a feeble force, indeed,
with which to meet the Mistress of the Seas, but which demonstrated by
its achievements what fifty or a hundred sail might have accomplished.
In 1812, Quincy, in the House, and Lloyd, in the Senate, both from
Massachusetts, advocated a navy, and Clay and Davies, of the West,
raised their voices in its support; but their efforts were unavailing.
James Lloyd, who combined the intelligent merchant with the statesman,
thus addressed the Senate:--"To make an impression on England, we must
have a navy. Give us thirty swift-sailing, well-appointed frigates. In
line-of-battle ships and fleet engagements, skill and experience would
decide the victory. We are not ripe for them; but bolt together a
British and American frigate side by side, and though we should lose
sometimes, we should win as often. Give us this little fleet. Place your
Navy Department under an able and spirited administration; cashier every
officer who strikes his flag; and you will soon have a good account of
your navy. This may be thought a hard tenure of service; but, hard or
easy, I will engage in five weeks, yes, in five days, to officer this
fleet from New England alone. Give us this little fleet, and in a
quarter of the time in which you would operate upon her in any other
way, we would bring Great Britain to terms. To terms, not to your feet.
No, Sir! Great Britain is at this moment the most colossal power the
world ever saw. It is true she has an enormous national debt. Her daily
expenditure would in six short weeks wipe off all we owe. But will these
millstones sink her? will they subject her to the power of France? No,
Sir! let the bubble burst to-morrow,--destroy the fragile basis on which
her public credit stands,--sponge out her national debt,--and, dreadful
as would be the process, she would rise with renewed vigor from the
fall, and present to her enemy a more imposing, irresistible front than
ever. No, Sir! Great Britain cannot be subjected by France. The genius
of her institutions, the genuine game-cock, bulldog spirit of her
people, will lift her head above the waves. From this belief I
acknowledge I derive a satisfaction. In New England our blood is
unmixed. We are the direct descendants of Englishmen. We are natives of
the soil. In the Legislature, now in session, of the once powerful and
still respectable State of Massachusetts, composed of more than seven
hundred members, to my knowledge not a single foreigner holds a seat. As
Great Britain wrongs us, I would fight her. Yet I should be worse than
a barbarian, did I not rejoice that the sepulchres of our forefathers,
which are in that country, shall remain unsacked, and their coffins rest
undisturbed, by the unhallowed rapacity of the Goths and Saracens of
modern Europe. Let us have these thirty frigates. Powerful as Great
Britain is, she could not blockade them; with our hazardous shores and
tempestuous northwest gales, from November to March, all the navies in
the world could not blockade them. Divide them into six squadrons; place
those squadrons in the Northern ports, ready for sea; and at favorable
moments we would pounce upon her West India Islands,--repeating the game
of De Grasse and D'Estaing in '79 and '80. By the time she was ready to
meet us there, we would be round Cape Horn, cutting up her whalemen.
Pursued thither, we could skim away to the Indian Seas, and would give
an account of her China and India ships very different from that of the
French cruisers. Now we would follow her Quebec, and now her Jamaica
convoys; sometimes make our appearance in the chops of the Channel, and
even sometimes wind north about into the Baltic. It would require a
hundred British frigates to watch the movements of these thirty. Such
are the means by which I would bring Great Britain to her senses. By
harassing her commerce with this fleet, we could make the people ask the
Government why they continued to violate our rights; whether it were for
her interest to sever the chief tie between her and us, by compelling
us to become a manufacturing people (and on this head we could make an
exhibition that would astonish both friends and foes); what she was to
gain by forcing us prematurely to become a naval power, destined one
day or other to dispute with her the sceptre of the ocean? We could, in
short, bring the people to ask the Government, For whose benefit is this
war? And the moment this is brought about on both sides of the water,
the business is finished; you would only have to agree on fair and equal
terms of peace."
And Daniel Webster, just entering upon public life, made one of his
earliest efforts in Congress for a navy. In his characteristic manner,
he urged, in 1814,--"If war must continue, go to the ocean; let it no
longer be said, not one ship of force built by your hands since the war
yet floats; if you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to
the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every
indication of your future calls you. There the united wishes and
exertions of the nation will go with you."
But a Southern Cabinet still clung to the Chinese policy, and the war
for maritime rights was confided to a raw militia upon the land, while
Hull, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter, and Barney were performing the very
feats which Lloyd had pictured to the Senate. A vote, it is true, was at
length passed, to build four ships of the line, six frigates, and six
sloops; but none were finished before the close of the war; and it
was not until after its conclusion that the Democratic party, so long
opposed to Federal measures, and triumphant from their very opposition,
after a loss of at least three hundred millions, caused by their
abandonment, gave the most conclusive proof of their value by funding
the debt, re-establishing the navy, reviving the Military Academy at
West Point, fortifying the coast, and making a tariff for revenue with
incidental protection. Well might party-strife cease under the veteran
Monroe; for Democracy had become Federalized.
The sketch thus given of the rise and progress of our navigation, and of
the origin and decline of our navy, affords us a commanding view of the
position of our nation when it adopted the Chinese policy and withdrew
from the ocean.
Let us now glance for a moment at the state of Europe at the close
of 1807. The great struggle of England and France was in progress.
Napoleon, by his brilliant exploits, had subdued Italy and Holland,
established the Empire, and by the battles of Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz,
and Friedland, humbled Austria, overwhelmed Prussia, and conquered a
peace with Russia. The Continent, from the Pyrenees to the Vistula, was
subject to his sway, and he had closed it against the manufactures
of England. This nation, alike victorious on the sea, had nearly
annihilated the navy of France, captured the fleet of Denmark, swept
the French and Dutch ships from the ocean, and was now seizing the
possessions of France and Holland in the Indies. Regardless of neutral
rights, she had declared every part of the Continent, from the Pyrenees
to the Elbe, in a state of blockade.
To escape impressment, or to obtain higher wages, many of her seamen
enlisted in our service. Anxious to reclaim them and to man all her
ships, she followed them into American vessels, and impressed American
seamen as Englishmen, without the least respect to the rights of a
neutral that did not assert by arms the dignity of its flag.
Neither of the parties in the excitement of the great conflict was
disposed to respect the rights of the United States, a neutral without
an army or a fleet, and too timid to arm its own merchantmen; and the
purpose of both seemed to be to compel these merchantmen to contribute
to the war. England, in addition to her blockade, required all neutrals
bound for the Continent to pay duties in her ports; and France
retaliated by declaring all neutral ships which had paid such tribute
denationalized and subject to confiscation, and without a frigate on the
ocean declared all the ports of England in a state of blockade. There
can be no question now that the acts of both parties were a violation of
the rights of every neutral.
England, in her sober moments, has tacitly relinquished her claim to
impress beneath the American flag; paper blockades and the right of
search are no longer recognized in the maritime code of either England
or France; and there can be no doubt that our country could, at a later
period, have made reclamation on England for seizures, as she has done
upon France, Naples, and Denmark; but the policy of our rulers had left
us destitute of means either of offence or defence, and of the power to
resent any indignity. Three courses were open to us. The first was to
devote the funds in the Treasury at once to the creation of a navy; to
commence ten or twelve ships of the line in our dock-yards, and twenty
frigates in the ship-yards of Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, New York, and
Philadelphia; to build them as the Constitution and Constellation were
built before; and to appeal to the merchants who built the Essex and
Connecticut to build more, and to take their pay in certificates of
stock. In one twelvemonth a navy might have been created; and the note
of preparation sounded by a nation enriched by the peaceful commerce of
a quarter of a century, and now refreshed for a new struggle, would have
been most influential with the conflicting powers.
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