Messrs. Dana, Tallmadge, and Story, urged a reference to a Committee of the Whole on account of the great importance of the subject, on which a full discussion would be proper; and Messrs. Macon, G. W. Campbell, and Holland opposed it, because the seamen proposed by the original bill were now wanted, and the subject of the amendment was already referred to a Committee of the Whole in a distinct bill. Motion lost, 58 to 55.
Mr. Macon observed, that the immediate expense of this arrangement, if agreed to, would be at least five or six millions of dollars, and but four hundred thousand were appropriated by the bill. When he compared this bill with the report of a select committee made to the House of Representatives, he said he was astonished. A part of that report was a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, in which the very number (two thousand) contained in the bill as it went from this House, was desired. Mr. M. adverted to the observation of Mr. Story, that it would cost Great Britain as much to keep one frigate as it would cost us to keep two. He thought the expense would be about equal. The expense of the transportation of provisions would be counterbalanced by the difference of expense between the pay of the British and American seamen, the latter being double of the former generally. He objected to this bill from the Senate because no estimate accompanied it. He thought they would go far enough if they gave the departments all that they asked. This House had indeed as much right to judge of the force requisite, as any other department; but he did not wish to be called upon to supply a deficit in the appropriation, which never failed to occur even in the ordinary appropriations for the Navy Department. Give the four hundred thousand dollars asked for, and the deficit in the appropriation will be at least ten times the amount of the sum appropriated.
Mr. Cook contended strenuously in favor of a naval force. He detailed the advantages which would accrue to the nation from a few fast sailing frigates. He said they were essentially necessary to defence. He expatiated on the difficulty with which any foreign power could maintain a force on our coast.
Mr. Holland did not profess to have much knowledge on this subject, but he said it did not require much to overthrow the arguments of gentlemen on the subject. What defence a few frigates would be to the extensive coast of this country, he could not understand. There certainly never had been a time when this country should rely on a maritime force as a sufficient protection. Indeed, he said, if we had fifteen or twenty or more sail-of-the-line, he should hesitate much before he would go to war with Great Britain, because these would undoubtedly be lost. Our power of coercion was not on the ocean. Great Britain had possessions on this continent which were valuable to her; they were in the power of the United States, and the way to coerce her to respect our rights on water, would be attacking them on land. He said he certainly did not undervalue the disposition and prowess of our seamen; and it was because he valued them, that he did not wish them to go into an unequal contest, in which they must certainly yield. Gentlemen might understand naval matters; but it was no reason that they should therefore understand the efficiency of a naval force. There was sufficient evidence in history to warn the United States against it.
Mr. Troup said he rose but for the purpose of stating facts which struck him as being applicable to the subject before the House. He referred chiefly to an extract of a letter written to himself and published in the paper of to-day. [Mr. T. then read the extract which appeared in the National Intelligencer on the 9th instant.] In addition to these facts, letters had been received, in the course of this morning, containing further particulars, which he begged leave to state to the House. After the officer (commander of a British armed vessel) had been forced on board his vessel, and while lying in our waters and within our jurisdiction, he had fired several shots at pilot-boats, passing and repassing, had been very abusive, and threatened the town with what he called vengeance; and, in addition to these facts, letters had reached Savannah from Liverpool, giving satisfactory information that vessels of fifteen or twenty guns had been fitted out for the purpose of forcing a cotton trade with South Carolina and Georgia. This information, Mr. T. said, came from unquestionable authority. And it was because he was unwilling that the people of this country should longer submit to the abuse of British naval officers; because he was unwilling that they should be exposed to the insolence of every British commissioned puppy who chose to insult us; because he was unwilling that armed vessels should force a cotton trade, when every man knew that nine-tenths of the people of Georgia would treat as traitors the violators of the embargo; it was for this reason that he was disposed to vote for the amendments from the Senate. The great objection which had been taken to them was the expense which they would produce. Economy, Mr. T. said, was a good thing in time of peace; but if this contracted spirit of economy predominated in our war councils, if we were forced into a war, so help him God, he would rather at once tamely submit our honor and independence than maintain them in this economical way. If we went to war, we ought not to adopt little measures for the purpose of executing them with little means; neither should we refuse to adopt great measures, because they could not be executed but with great means. It was very true that, in war as well as in peace, calculation to a certain extent was necessary; but, if they once resolved on an object, it must be executed at whatever expense. He was no advocate for standing armies or navies, generally speaking; but, in discharging his duties here, he must be governed by the circumstances of every case which presented itself for his decision, and then ask himself, Is it wise, politic, and prudent, to do this or omit that? He said he would never go back to yesterday to discover what he had then said or done, in order to ascertain what he should now do or say. Political conduct must depend on circumstances. What was right yesterday might be wrong to-day. Nay, what was right at the moment he rose to address the House, might, ere this, be palpably wrong. Conduct depended on events, which depended on the folly or caprice of men; and, as they changed, events would change. It might have been a good doctrine long ago that this country ought to have a navy competent to cope with a detachment of the British navy; it might have been good doctrine then, but was shocking doctrine now.
At that time England had to contend with the navies of Russia, Denmark, France, Holland, Spain, &c. Now England was sole mistress of the ocean. To fight her ship to ship and man to man, and it was impossible that gentlemen could think of fighting her otherwise, if they fought her at all, we must build up a huge navy at an immense expense. We must determine to become less agricultural and more commercial; to incur a debt of five hundred or a thousand million of dollars, and all the loans and taxes attendant on such a system, and all the corruption attendant on them. He should as soon think of embarking an hundred thousand men for the purpose of attacking France at her threshold, as of building so many ships to oppose the British navy. It was out of the question; no rational man could think of it. But that was not now the question. It was, whether we would call into actual service the little navy we possessed. It was not even a question whether we would have a navy at all or not. If that were the question, he would not hesitate to say that even our present political condition required a navy to a certain extent, to protect our commerce against the Barbary Powers in peace, and in time of war for convoys to our merchantmen. He only meant a few fast-sailing frigates, such a navy as we have at present, for the purpose of harassing the commerce of our enemies also. He therefore thought our present naval force ought to be put in service. As far as the appropriation ($400,000) would go, it would be employed; but if Congress should hereafter see cause to countermand or delay the preparation, they would have it in their power to do so by refusing a further appropriation.
Mr. D. R. Williams said it was his misfortune to differ with gentlemen upon all points on the subject of the navy. He was opposed to it from stem to stern; and gentlemen who attempted to argue in favor of it as a matter of necessity, involved themselves in absurdities they were not aware of. When money had been appropriated for fortifications, there had been no intimation that it would be necessary to prop them up with a naval force. If our towns could not be defended by fortifications, he asked, would ten frigates defend them? The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Story) had even gone so far as to say that a single gunboat could sweep one-half of our harbors. If a single gunboat could now sweep most of our harbors, Mr. W. said he should like to know what eleven hundred and thirty vessels of war could do, even when opposed by our whole force of ten frigates! The gentleman from Massachusetts had said it would be cheaper to keep these vessels in actual service than in their present situation. Mr. W. said he supposed that the gentlemen meant that they would rot faster in their present situation than if they were at sea. He said he was for keeping them where they were, and would rather contribute to place them in a situation where they would rot faster. Mr. W. combated the arguments that employing the navy would afford relief to our seamen, and that the maintaining a navy on our coast would be more expensive to an European power than the support of a larger naval force by us. And he said we should never be able to man any considerable fleet except the constitution were amended to permit impressments, following the example of Great Britain.
The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Story) had said that except we begun with this bill, and got his fast-sailing frigates, we should never regain our rights. If that were really the case, Mr. W. said he was ready to abandon them. He considered that the sort of maintenance of our rights adverted to by the gentleman from Massachusetts, would be destructive to those rights. Gentlemen must have forgotten that when Hamburg was in the greatest state of prosperity, she did not possess even a single gunboat. Why! there was not wealth enough in this whole nation, if every one were to carry his all, thus to maintain our rights against the navy of Great Britain. If we were carried into a war, and every thing really seemed to be tending that way, we must rely upon the enterprise of our citizens; and that, when set at liberty, would be found more desperate than the navy of any country. When we arrived at the end of the Revolutionary war we had but one frigate, and the best thing we ever did was to give that one away. The State of South Carolina had not yet got clear of the curse. She embarked one frigate in the general struggle, and she had not rid herself of the debts incurred by it yet. Private enterprise must be depended upon. The people from the Eastward had shown in the last war what they would do. When vessels were loaded with sugar they would fight like bull-dogs for it. He recollected a story, he said, of one of our privateers being beat off by a Jamaica man, whom they attacked. The captain not liking to lose the prize, and finding his crew disheartened, told them she was full of sugar. "Is she?" said they, "by G—d; let us at them again." They scarcely ever failed in their enterprises.
In allusion to the case at Savannah, Mr. W. regretted that an insult should be offered to the people of the country. The insult at Savannah had by this time been redressed, he had no doubt. He had no information to induce him to believe so, but the knowledge that the sloop-of-war Hornet was stationed off Charleston, and of course cruised near the place. The Hornet was perfectly adequate to drive any vessel of twenty guns out of our waters. She was one of the best vessels of the United States, and as well officered as any. [Mr. Troup observed that the Hornet was off Charleston. Now, he wanted a frigate at Savannah.] Mr. W. said that Savannah was the very place where gunboats would be perfectly effectual. He meant to make no reflection against the proposer of the gunboat system, but he did against those who had only given one-half of the system, and omitted the other—the marine militia. And now, when an attack was menaced at Savannah, gentlemen wanted a frigate! If nine-tenths of the people were opposed to the evasions of the embargo law, Mr. W. said it would not be evaded. The evaders would be considered as traitors—as the worst of traitors. As to preparing a force for the protection of navigation, the gentleman from Georgia must well know that the whole revenue of the United States would not be competent to maintain a sufficient number of vessels to convoy our merchantmen.
Mr. W. concluded by saying, that he wished the nation to be protected, and its wrongs to be redressed; but when he reflected that at Castine the soil had been most abominably violated, he could not view the insults in our waters as being equal to it; for, said he, touch the soil and you touch the life-blood of every man in it.