These were wise suggestions, and unanswerable; but although they could not be answered they could be prevented from becoming law. Instead of reform of abuses, reduction of expense, and speedy termination of the work, all the evils intended to be reformed went on and became greater than ever, and all are still kept up upon the same arguments that sustained the former. It is worthy of note to hear the same reason now given for continuing the civilian, Mr. Bache, at the head of this work, which was given for thirty years for retaining Mr. Hassler in the same place, namely, that there is no other man in the country that can conduct the work. But that is a tribute which servility and interest will pay to any man who is at the head of a great establishment; and is always paid more punctually where the establishment ought to be abolished than where it ought to be preserved; and for the obvious reason, that the better one can stand on its own merits, while the worse needs the support of incessant adulation. Mr. Brown's proposal was rejected—the other adopted; and the coast survey now costs above five hundred thousand dollars a year in direct appropriations, besides an immense amount indirectly in the employment of government vessels and officers: and no prospect of its termination. But the friends of this great reform did not abandon their cause with the defeat of Mr. Brown's proposition. Another was offered by Mr. Aycrigg of New Jersey, who moved to discontinue the survey until a report could be made upon it at the next session; and for this motion there were 75 yeas—a respectable proportion of the House, but not a majority. The yeas were:
"Messrs. Landaff W. Andrews, Sherlock J. Andrews, Thomas D. Arnold, John B. Aycrigg, Alfred Babcock, Henry W. Beeson, Benjamin A. Bidlack, David Bronson, Aaron V. Brown, Milton Brown, Edmund Burke, William B. Campbell, Thomas J. Campbell, Robert L. Caruthers, Zadok Casey, Reuben Chapman, Thomas C. Chittenden, James Cooper, Mark A. Cooper, Benjamin S. Cowen, James H. Cravens, John R. J. Daniel, Garrett Davis, Ezra Dean, Edmund Deberry, Andrew W. Doig, John Edwards, John C. Edwards, Joseph Egbert, William P. Fessenden, Roger L. Gamble, Thomas W. Gilmer, Willis Green, William Halsted, Jacob Houck, jr., Francis James, Cave Johnson, Nathaniel S. Littlefield, Abraham McClellan, James J. McKay, Alfred Marshall, John Mattocks, John P. B. Maxwell, John Maynard, William Medill, Christopher Morgan, William M. Oliver, Bryan Y. Owsley, William W. Payne, Nathaniel G. Pendleton, Francis W. Pickens, John Pope, Joseph F. Randolph, Kenneth Rayner, Abraham Rencher, John Reynolds, Romulus M. Saunders, Tristram Shaw, Augustine H. Shepperd, Benjamin G. Shields, William Slade, Samuel Stokely, Charles C. Stratton, John T. Stuart, John B. Thompson, Philip Triplett. Hopkins L. Turney, David Wallace, Aaron Ward, Edward D. White, Joseph L. White, Joseph L. Williams, Thomas Jones Yorke, John Young."
The friends of economy in Congress, when once more strong enough to form a party, will have a sacred duty to perform to the country—that of diminishing, by nearly one-half, the present mad expenditures of the government: and the abolition of the present coast-survey establishment should be among the primary objects of retrenchment. It is a reproach to our naval and military officers, and besides untrue in point of fact, to assume them to be incapable of conducting and of performing this work: it is a reproach to Congress to vote annually an immense sum on the civil superintendence and conduct of this work, when there are more idle officers on the pay-roll than could be employed upon it.
[CHAPTER CXVIII.]
DEATH OF COMMODORE PORTER, AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER.
The naval career of Commodore Porter illustrates in the highest degree that which almost the whole of our naval officers, each according to his opportunity, illustrated more or less—the benefits of the cruising system in our naval warfare. It was the system followed in the war of the Revolution, in the quasi war with France, and in the war of 1812—imposed upon us by necessity in each case, not adopted through choice. In neither of these wars did we possess ships-of-the-line and fleets to fight battles for the dominion of the seas; fortunately, we had not the means to engage in that expensive and fatal folly; but we had smaller vessels (frigates the largest) to penetrate every sea, attack every thing not too much over size, to capture merchantmen, and take shelter when pressed where ships-of-the-line and fleets could not follow. We had the enterprising officers which a system of separate commands so favorably developes, and the ardent seamen who looked to the honors of the service for their greatest reward. Wages were low; but reward was high when the man before the mast, or the boy in the cabin, could look upon his officer, and see in his past condition what he himself was, and in his present rank what he himself might be. Merit had raised one and might raise the other.
The ardor for the service was then great; the service itself heroic. A crew for a frigate has been raised in three hours. Instant sailing followed the reception of the order. Distant and dangerous ground was sought, fierce and desperate combat engaged; and woe to the enemy that was not too much over size! Five, ten, twenty minutes would make her a wreck and a prize. Almost every officer that obtained a command showed himself an able commander. Every crew was heroic; every cruise daring: every combat a victory, where proximate equality rendered it possible. Never did any service, in any age or country, exhibit so large a proportion of skilful, daring, victorious commanders, mainly developed by the system of warfare which gave so many a chance to show what they were. Necessity imposed that system; judgment should continue it. Economy, efficiency, utility, the impossibility of building a navy to cope with the navies of the great maritime Powers, and the insanity of doing it if we could, all combine to recommend to the United States the system of naval warfare which does the most damage to the enemy with the least expense to ourselves, which avoids the expensive establishments which oppress the finances of other nations, and which renders useless, for want of an antagonist, the great fleets which they support at so much cost.
Universally illustrated as the advantages of this system were by almost all our officers in the wars of the Revolution, of '98, and 1812, it was the fortune of Commodore Porter, in the late war with Great Britain, to carry that illustration to its highest point, and to show, in the most brilliant manner, what an American cruiser could do. Of course we speak of his cruise in the Pacific Ocean, prefaced by a little preliminary run to the Grand Banks, which may be considered as part of it—a cruise which the boy at school would read for its romance, the mature man for its history, the statesman for the lesson which it teaches.
The Essex, a small frigate of thirty-two guns, chiefly carronades, and but little superior to a first-class sloop-of-war of the present day, with a crew of some three hundred men, had the honor to make this illustrious cruise. Leaving New York in June, soon after the declaration of war, and making some small captures, she ran up towards the Grand Banks, and in the night discovered a fleet steering north, all under easy sail and in open order, wide spaces being between the ships. From their numbers and the course they steered Captain Porter judged them to be enemies, and wished to know more about them.