[212] Publications of Rhode Island Historical Society, VIII, 259.
[213] See Chapter IX and X, Naval Duties of American Representatives in Foreign Countries.
[214] Marine Committee Letter Book, Morris to Jones, February, 1, 1777; Morris to Commodore Hopkins, February 5, 1777.
[215] Files of newspapers for the period of the Revolution.
[216] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Navy Board at Boston, May 8, November 9, 1778.
CHAPTER VII
THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY
It is speaking tritely, although accurately, to say that our present executive departments at Washington did not spring into perfect being in 1789 like panoplied Minerva from the head of Jove. Not a little of the interest and value of a study of the administration of the Revolution comes from the fact that the administrative practices and experiences of this period gave rootage to the later and more perfect executive organs. The development of the Continental Naval Department, both in the variety and in the character of its forms, is typical of that of the other administrative departments of the Revolution. We have already seen how the naval business of the Continental Congress was first vested in the small Naval Committee; and how this Committee, early in 1776, was overshadowed and absorbed by the more numerous and more active Marine Committee. We now come to the third step in this evolution, the superseding of the Marine Committee by the Board of Admiralty.
The Marine Committee had proved slow, cumbrous, inexpert, and irresponsible. The wiser members of Congress had long seen that it was a prime defect in governmental practice to add to the duties of a legislative committee, those of an executive office; for it threw upon the same men too much work of too diverse kinds, and it removed from the administrative organ its most essential attributes of permanency, technical skill, and responsibility. In December, 1776, Robert Morris had urged the employment of a corps of executives chosen outside the membership of Congress, as a requisite to a proper and orderly management of the business of the Revolutionary government.[217]
As early as February 26, 1777, William Ellery, a member of the Marine Committee from Rhode Island, wrote to William Vernon at Providence, who was soon to become a member of the Navy Board at Boston, that a proper Board of Admiralty was very much wanted. “The members of Congress,” he said, “are unacquainted with this Department. As one of the Marine Committee I sensibly feel my ignorance in this respect. Under a mortifying Sense of this I wrote to you for Information in this Matter. Books cannot be had here; and I should have been glad to have been pointed to proper Authors on this Subject when I should be in a Place where Books may be had.”[218] Early in 1779 when Congress was groping in search of a more efficient naval executive, Ellery again expressed regret at the lack of technical skill in the management of the navy. He said that the marine affairs would never be “well conducted so long as the supreme direction of them is in the hands of Judges, Lawyers, Planters, &c.”[219] Even before Morris and Ellery had declared for better executives, John Paul Jones, while distressed by a loss in naval rank caused by the appointing and the placing above him of certain “political skippers,” wrote that efficient naval officers could never be obtained, until Congress “in their wisdom see proper to appoint a Board of Admiralty competent to determine impartially the respective merits and abilities of their officers, and to superintend, regulate, and point out all the motions and operations of the navy.”[220]
During 1778 and 1779 Congress hit upon a system of executive departments that did little violence to its lust for power, and at the same time secured a permanent body of administrators and advisors. This was the system of executive boards, composed jointly of commissioners selected outside the membership of Congress, and of members of Congress. Congress and the Marine Committee probably derived a part of their knowledge of executive boards from the practice of the English government and of the states. “Board of Admiralty” was the name during the Revolution, as now, of the British Naval Office. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina had early in the Revolution established “Navy Boards.” In October, 1777, Congress had formed a Board of War composed of five commissioners. In October, 1778, Congress attempted to clip the wings of this Board and bring it under Congressional control by substituting two members of Congress for two of its five commissioners.[221] On July 30, 1779, a Board of Treasury was constituted on exactly this plan, being composed of three commissioners and two members of Congress.[222]