Monday, January 9, 1809.
Another member, to wit, John Rowan, from Kentucky, appeared, and took his seat in the House.
Naval Establishment.
The amendments of the Senate to the bill sent from the House for employing an additional number of seamen and marines, were taken up. [The amendments propose the immediate arming, manning, &c., all the armed vessels of the United States.]
Mr. G. W. Campbell expressed a hope that the House would disagree to the amendments. The President was already authorized by law to fit out these vessels, whenever, in his opinion, the public service should require it; and the expense which would attend them was a sufficient argument against it, if no urgent occasion existed for their service, which he believed did not.
Mr. Story entertained a very different opinion from that of the gentleman from Tennessee. In case of war there must be some ships of war of one kind or other; and it would take six months at least to prepare all our ships for service. At present they were rotting in the docks. If it were never intended to use them, it would be better to burn them at once than to suffer them to remain in their present situation. He believed if out at sea they might be useful and would be well employed. Why keep them up at this place, whence they could not get out of the river perhaps in three weeks or a month? He believed that a naval force would form the most effectual protection to our seaports that could be devised. Part of our little navy was suffered to rot in the docks, and the other part was scarcely able to keep the ocean. Could not a single foreign frigate enter almost any of our harbors now and batter down our towns? Could not even a single gunboat sweep some of them? Mr. S. said he could not conceive why gentlemen should wish to paralyze the strength of the nation by keeping back our naval force, and now in particular, when many of our native seamen (and he was sorry to say that from his own knowledge he spoke it) were starving in our ports. Mr. S. enumerated some of the advantages which this country possessed in relation to naval force. For every ship which we employed on our coasts, he said, any foreign nation must incur a double expense to be able to cope with us. The truth was, that gentlemen well versed in the subject, had calculated that it would require, for a fleet competent to resist such a naval force as the United States might without difficulty provide, four or five hundred transport ships to supply them with provisions, the expense of which alone would be formidable as a coercive argument to Great Britain. He wished it to be shown, however small our naval force, that we do not undervalue it, or underrate the courage and ability of our seamen.
Mr. Cook followed Mr. Story on the same side of the question. He compared the nation to a fortress on which an attack was made, and the garrison of which, instead of guarding the portal, ran upon the battlements to secure every small aperture. He thought their attention should first be directed to the gates, and that a naval force would be the most efficient defence for our ports.
Mr. D. R. Williams called for the yeas and nays on the amendments.
Mr. Smilie said that raising a naval force for the purpose of resisting Great Britain, would be attacking her on her strong ground. If we were to have a war with her on the ocean, it could only be carried on by distressing her trade. Neither did he believe that these vessels of war would be of any effect as a defence. They did not constitute the defence on which he would rely. If we had a navy, it would form the strongest temptation for attack upon our ports and harbors. If Denmark had possessed no navy, Copenhagen would never have been attacked. The only way in which we could carry on a war on the ocean to advantage, Mr. S. said, would be by our enterprising citizens giving them sufficient encouragement. Were we to employ a naval force in case of war, it would but furnish our enemy with an addition to her navy. He hoped the House would disagree to the amendments of the Senate and appoint a committee of conference.
Mr. Dana said that the amendments sent from the Senate presented a question of no small importance to the nation. Without expressing any opinion on the question, it appeared to him to be at least of sufficient importance to be discussed in Committee of the Whole. Coming from the other branch of the Legislature, and being so interesting to the nation, he wished that it might be discussed fairly and fully; and, therefore, moved a reference to a Committee of the Whole.