Meanwhile, Congress had been rapidly going out of the naval business, by formally ending the war at sea, by providing for the settlement of marine accounts, and by disposing of its naval stock. On March 24, 1783, it ordered the Agent of Marine to recall all armed vessels cruising under the American colors. On April 11 it issued a “Proclamation, Declaring the Cessation of arms, as well by Sea as by Land, agreed upon between the United States of America and His Britannic Majesty; and enjoining the observance thereof.” On April 15 it ordered the Agent of Marine to set free all the naval prisoners of the enemy.[302]
During the last year of the Revolution and for several years after its close, one of the principal administrative tasks of the government was the settling of the outstanding accounts of the several executive departments. This was a work fraught with extraordinary difficulties. The administration of a government founded and conducted amid the distractions of war was necessarily marked by irregularities in official procedure, the lack of system in accounting, and in general by haphazard ways of business. On February 27, 1782, Congress acting on the recommendation of Morris authorized him to appoint five commissioners with full power and authority to liquidate and finally settle the Revolutionary accounts. Each commissioner was paid $1,500 a year; he was permitted to employ a clerk. The states were recommended to empower the commissioners to examine witnesses under oath. Each commissioner was given charge of a certain class of accounts; to one of the five men fell the settling of the accounts of the Naval Department. Owing to Morris’s caution in making appointments, and to the obstacles that stood in the way of a wise choice, the “commissioner for settling the accounts of the marine department” was not selected until June 19, 1783, when Joseph Pennell, the paymaster of the Marine Office, was named for the place.[303] By the fall of 1783 Pennell was settled in his work, and was complaining of its arduousness. He soon found himself involved in a dispute with the members of the old Naval Committee. He said that they had received money from Congress for which they had not accounted; and that, according to the vouchers, they had paid one debt twice. He found that the members of the Marine Committee were individually charged with the moneys they had received; and that when they left the Committee, they made no settlement. In many instances vouchers were lacking. Statements from members of the Navy Boards and from the naval agents could be obtained only with great difficulty, as these men were now discharged, and they were often scattered. He discovered that the prize agents made no uniform charge for their services; some exacted five, and others two and a half per cent on the receipts from the sale of prizes. Offices for settling the naval accounts were opened in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. On the retirement of Morris, Pennell became responsible to the new Board of Treasury.[304]
In the last year of the war Congress began to dispose of its naval craft. On September 3, 1782, the 74-gun ship “America” now at last almost ready for launching was on the recommendation of the Agent of Marine given to France to replace the ship of the line “Magnifique,” 74, which the French fleet had recently lost in Boston harbor. Congress, “desirous of testifying on this occasion to his Majesty, the sense they entertain of his generous exertions in behalf of the United States,” directed the Agent of Marine to present the “America” to Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia, for the service of His Most Christian Majesty.[305] It was a gracious act of international friendship. In April, 1783, the “Duc de Lauzun” was lent to the French minister to carry home some French troops, after which service she was to be sold.[306] In July Morris ordered the “Hague” to be sold, and recommended to Congress a like disposition of the “Bourbon,” which latter ship in all probability had been recently launched.[307] In March, 1784, Morris recommended the sale of the “Alliance,” as she was “now a mere bill of costs;” and also the “Washington,” because much money would be required to repair her, and there was no need to employ her as a packet, since the French and English had established a mail service.[308] Lieutenant Joshua Barney, acting as the agent for the Naval Department, sold the “Washington” in Baltimore in the summer of 1784.
The members of Congress were not unanimous on the question of the proper disposition of the “Alliance.” On January 15, 1784, a committee of three reported: “That the honour of the Flag of the United States and the protection of its trade and coasts from the insults of pirates require that the Frigate of Alliance should be repaired.”[309] A committee in March, 1784, and another in May, 1785, recommended her sale.[310] Finally, on June 3, 1785, Congress directed the Board of Treasury “to sell for specie or public securities, at public or private sale, the frigate Alliance, with her tackle and appurtenances.”[311] In August, 1785, the Board of Treasury sold this vessel for £2,887, to be paid in United States certificates of public debt. The purchasers afterwards sold the “Alliance” at a great profit to Robert Morris. In June, 1787, this vessel sailed for Canton, China, as a merchantman.[312] From the sale of the “Alliance” until the establishment of a new navy under the Constitution in 1794 it was left to the stars and stripes floating from American merchantmen to familiarize foreign ports and seas with the symbol of the new Nation.
Congress did not formally end the naval establishment by act or resolution, unless one considers that such was the effect of the resolution of January 25, 1780, which provided that the pay of all naval officers except those in actual service should cease. After this date it would seem that as the vessels were captured, sold, or thrown out of commission, the names of the officers were taken from the pay-roll. In September, 1783, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Congress to discontinue the Agent of Marine.[313] Morris continued in office until November 1, 1784, when he retired from public service. Congress made no move to fill his place as Agent of Marine, for there was little need for such an official. Certain unimportant naval business, chiefly concerned with the settlement of naval accounts, remained, however, to be transacted. This for the most part naturally fell to the Board of Treasury, organized in the spring of 1785. This Board, aided by the commissioner for settling the marine accounts, and by James Read, the efficient secretary to the Agent of Marine, with whom Morris on retiring left the books and papers of the Naval Department, wound up the small, unimportant, and dwindling business of the navy.
FOOTNOTES:
[266] Ford’s Washington, IX, 75-76, Washington to James Duane, December 26, 1780; 33-5, Washington to John Sullivan, November 20, 1780; 125, Washington to R. R. Livingston, January 31, 1781; 131-34, Washington to John Sullivan, February 4, 1781; 246, Washington to John Sullivan, May 11, 1781.
[267] Hamilton’s Hamilton, I, 127, note, Hamilton to Robert Morris, 1780; 154-55, 159, Hamilton to James Duane, September 3, 1780.
[268] Sparks’s Gouverneur Morris, I, 229-30.
[269] Sparks’s Gouverneur Morris, I, 227-28; Reed’s Reed, II, 296.