To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
I communicate, for the information of Congress, a letter from Cowles Mead, secretary of the Mississippi Territory, to the Secretary of War, by which it will be seen that Mr. Burr had reached that neighborhood on the 13th of January.
TH. JEFFERSON.
FEBRUARY 10, 1807.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with the request of the House of Representatives expressed in their resolution of the 5th instant, I proceed to give such information as is possessed of the effect of gunboats in the protection and defense of harbors, of the numbers thought necessary, and of the proposed distribution of them among the ports and harbors of the United States.
Under present circumstances, and governed by the intentions of the Legislature as manifested by their annual appropriations of money for the purposes of defense, it has been concluded to combine, first, land batteries furnished with heavy cannon and mortars, and established on all the points around the place favorable for preventing vessels from lying before it; second, movable artillery, which may be carried, as occasion may require, to points unprovided with fixed batteries; third, floating batteries, and fourth, gunboats which may oppose an enemy at his entrance and cooperate with the batteries for his expulsion.
On this subject professional men were consulted as far as we had opportunity. General Wilkinson and the late General Gates gave their opinions in writing in favor of the system, as will be seen by their letters now communicated. The higher officers of the Navy gave the same opinions in separate conferences, as their presence at the seat of Government offered occasions of consulting them, and no difference of judgment appeared on the subject. Those of Commodore Barren and Captain Tingey, now here, are recently furnished in writing, and transmitted herewith to the Legislature.
The efficacy of gunboats for the defense of harbors and of other smooth and inclosed waters may be estimated in part from that of galleys formerly much used but less powerful, more costly in their construction and maintenance, and requiring more men. But the gunboat itself is believed to be in use with every modern maritime nation for the purposes of defense. In the Mediterranean, on which are several small powers whose system, like ours, is peace and defense, few harbors are without this article of protection. Our own experience there of the effect of gunboats for harbor service is recent. Algiers is particularly known to have owed to a great provision of these vessels the safety of its city since the epoch of their construction, Before that it had been repeatedly insulted and injured. The effect of gunboats at present in the neighborhood of Gibraltar is well known, and how much they were used both in the attack and defense of that place during a former war. The extensive resort to them by the two greatest naval powers in the world on an enterprise of invasion not long since in prospect shews their confidence in their efficacy for the purposes for which they are suited. By the northern powers of Europe, whose seas are particularly adapted to them, they are still more used. The remarkable action between the Russian flotilla of gunboats and galleys and a Turkish fleet of ships of the line and frigates in the Liman Sea in 1788 will be readily recollected. The latter, commanded by their most celebrated admiral, were completely defeated, and several of their ships of the line destroyed.
From the opinions given as to the number of gunboats necessary for some of the principal seaports, and from a view of all the towns and ports from Orleans to Maine, inclusive, entitled to protection in proportion to their situation and circumstances, it is concluded that to give them a due measure of protection in times of war about 200 gunboats will be requisite.