Mr. Smilie said it would be remembered that his object in voting to strike out this part of the bill was to introduce the amendment he had offered in Committee of the Whole, viz: to place the Navy on the same footing as in 1806.
The following were the votes on concurrence with the Committee in striking out so much of the bill as relates to the frigates—yeas 76, nays 32.
So that part of the bill was struck out.
The first section, which requires the dismissal of all the seamen in service, except so many as sufficient to man three frigates, &c., was struck out—ayes 60.
The next amendment made by the committee was to insert "Washington" among the navy-yards to be retained.
The yeas and nays on concurrence with the committee—58 to 46.
So the navy-yard at Washington is among those to be retained.
The next amendment was to strike out the section of the bill which reduces the Marine Corps to two companies.
Mr. Randolph said on recurring to the documents he found the price of the ratio in 1800 to have been 28 cents, whilst in the last year it was put 20; so that rations were now nearly a third cheaper than they were nine years ago, and the difference in the expenses of the Naval Establishment was, therefore, the more unaccountable. I had also taken it for granted, said Mr. R., that my colleague (Mr. Bassett) was right in his statement of the seamen's wages being only eight dollars per month. But, sir, here is a statement on the subject—and I only wish that in the estimate of last year we had had the same valuable details as there are in the estimate of the year 1800—for the estimate in relation to the Navy Department for the last year is most shamefully deficient, as I could demonstrate if the House had time and patience and I had lungs. I find that there is in this estimate of 1800 a minute and detailed statement of every item of expense. Instead of the wages being eight dollars then and twelve now, as my colleague has been told, the pay was then for able-bodied seamen seventeen dollars per month, ordinary seamen twelve, and boys eight; so that this saving in the pay does not account for the monstrous difference. I have not time to examine into the article of duck, but I believe the gentleman's duck will not swim any more than the rest of his arguments.
I trust, sir, that the House will not agree to the report of the committee for this reason: Referring to these documents, I discover that in 1800, when we had nearly 8,000 seamen, we had 890 marines; and in the year 1809, when we have only 2,700 seamen employed, we have agreeably to estimate precisely the same number of 890 marines. It would appear that something has taken place to render this species of force peculiarly valuable, or that these gentlemen possess a very successful art of keeping in, of not going out with others. And, sir, when I recollect the statements which I have heard on this floor and the sources whence some of them have probably been derived, I am not at all surprised that this navy-yard and this Prætorian camp, and everything connected with it, should keep up to the old height when every thing else has diminished. Eight hundred and ninety men! Call them 900, and you have one mariner for every three seamen. I have no doubt, if the House act on the principle on which they have done heretofore, that we shall have very polite assurances that these men are of the greatest imaginable service and have wrought wonders in defence of the country, but I cannot for my soul understand how this species of force goes to quiet the mind of my colleague or of his constituents on the Chesapeake.