2d Session.

PAY-CAPTAINS, &c., NAVY UNITED STATES.

FEBRUARY 16, 1831.

Mr. DORSEY, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, made the following

REPORT:

The Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred so much of the President's message as relates to the Navy, beg leave to report (on so much thereof as recommends an increase of the Navy pay:)

That, in the infancy of the Government, when the national treasury was oppressed with a heavy debt, and the resources of our country for the purposes of national revenue had not been fully developed, statesmen of unquestionable patriotism and eminent political sagacity resisted the policy of creating a permanent national Navy, under a belief that the expenses thereof would be too oppressive on the people, and who also feared that our vessels of war could not contend, with any expectation of conquest, with the old navies of Europe, and predicted, that, whenever they should put to sea in time of war, they were destined to flatter the pride, and to increase the fleets of our enemies.

The depredations committed on our commerce, and the wrongs inflicted on our seamen, by the corsairs of Algiers, at length induced Congress, in 1794, to provide for the building of a few vessels of war.

To raise the funds necessary for this purpose, an additional duty was laid on the importation of certain enumerated articles, and a loan was authorized, reimbursable from the proceeds of these duties. In 1797 and 1798, the eruizers of France entered within our jurisdictional limits, captured the vessels of her enemy, and committed spoliations on our commerce.

To repress these lawless acts of aggression, Congress provided for a further increase of our Navy. The pressure on the national revenue had not then been lessened, neither had those doubts and fears as to the policy of creating a permanent Navy subsided. These acts did not look to such an establishment. They owed their origin to the immediate necessities of the nation for maritime defence, and were to be inoperative if peace should be restored.

This indisposition towards a permanent Navy, the temporary character of the service, and the necessity for the immediate addition to the public burthens which this increase of our naval armament imposed, must have induced Congress to have graduated the Navy pay as low as practicable, consistently with the public service. No certain and regular addition has since been made fo it. The brilliant achievements of the Navy during the late war produced a revolution in the public opinion in its favor. The na tion became convinced of the expediency of fostering its growth, and that

the pay of its gallant officers was too small; and Congress, by the act of 1815, vested in the President a discretionary power of enlarging it twentyfive per cent. whenever the nature of the service in which the Navy should be employed should in his judgment require it.

At the close of the late war, the public debt had been much increased. An anxiety for its prompt reduction pervaded the community.

A system of general retrenchment was adopted by Congress, and the discretionary power vested in the President by the act of 1815 was withdrawn by the act of February, 1817.

The committee submit herewith a tabular statement, showing the Navy pay from 1794 until the present time.

Congress, after many appeals to its munificence and justice, expressed its conviction that the pay of lieutenants and surgeons in the Navy was inadequate, and, by the acts of 18, and 18, increased theirs.

The committee have presented this historical account of the rise, progress, and present state of the Navy pay, to aid Congress in its deliberations on the question now presented-do justice and sound policy require an increase of the of captains and masters commandant?

The late and present chief magistrate (notwithstanding his solicitude to prevent any diversion of the revenue from the early extinguishment of the national debt) have, in their annual communications, earnestly recommended to Congress to increase the Navy pay.

The committee mean not to avocate the degrading doctrine that the recommendations of the chief magistrate ought, without inquiry, to be adopted; but it must be conceded that his opinion, communicated to Congress on his high responsibility, as to the expediency of measures within his own immediate and personal knowledge and observation, is entitled to very high consideration.

His military life eminently qualifies him to judge as to the expenses necessarily incurred by officers in either branch of the public defence.

Distributive justice requires that the pay and emoluments of officers of equal grade, rendering like services, discharging like duties, and exposed to like dangers, should approximate. A legislation which neglects this great fundamental principle of national justice, engenders repinings, dissatisfaction, and jealousies. It cannot but be regretted that the laws of Congress furnish, in relation to the Army and Navy, most glaring departures from this harmonizing principle. The relative rank of the officers of the Army and Navy is graduated thus:

A captain under 5 years, whose pay is $1,930, ranks with a lieutenant colonel, who receives $2,372 32.

A captain over 5 years and under 10, ranks with a colonel, who receives $2,941 32.

A captain over 10 years and under 15, ranks with a brigadier general, who receives $4,422 49.

A captain over 15 years ranks with a major general, who receives $6,512 64.

A master commandant, whose pay is $1,176, ranks with a major, who receives $2,106 32.

The land officer is selected in his youth, placed under the control of professors eminent for their moral worth and scientific attainments, and paid by the Government. After remaining four years in this state of pupilage and probation, he is called into the Army, and in a very short time appointed to ser

vices, carrying with them pay and emoluments greater than those of a sea officer who may have spent twenty years in the service.

No system of instruction at the public expense has been adopted for the Navy service.

The midshipman may devote any portion of his time, which can be spared from his naval duties, to obtain instruction in the line of his profession, and at his own expense.

This is not the only inequality. The various grades of rank in the Army give room for promotion. It is not so with the naval service. The captain of to-day, notwithstanding he may remain in the public service during a long life, must die a captain, as Congress has not yet deemed it expedient to establish a higher rank in the naval service.

But the inequality does not stop here; the Army officer is rewarded for ten years of meritorious service with a brevet rank, conferring honor, and bringing with it an increase of pay.

The officer of the Navy receives from his country no such flattering mark of distinction, although he may have, from the vigor of youth to the decrepitude of old age, spent his life without intermission in the exercise of his profession, with honor to himself and with profit and glory to his country, as there is no brevet rank established for the Navy.

The committee have deemed it proper to collect information from official sources, as to the relative number of promotions which have taken place in the Army and Navy since 1816, and, also, the number of brevet rank which has been granted from that period.

While Congress has thus made such honorable and provident provision for the gallant officers of the Army, those of the Navy (who have, with such consummate valor, admirable skill, and noble daring, sustained the honor of our infant flag against every foe, and who, at the proudest period of the naval glory of England, dispelled by successive victories that confidence in her naval invincibility, which a series of brilliant and exterminating triumphs over the combined navies of Europe had produced) have experienced from Congress a mortifying indifference to every appeal and recommendation, made to it, to approximate their pay to that of the Army. Is there any thing in the character of the two services which vindicates this disparity in emoluments and honors, and this indifference to the claims of the Navy officers?

Does the Army service require a higher order of intellect, or greater professional attainments? Is it more exposed to danger, or attended with greater deprivations?

Does it impose higher responsibilities? or have the present Army incumbents a greater claim on the justice, gratitude, and munificence of their country, than those of the Navy.

The committee have deemed it expedient to procure a list of deaths in the Navy since 1816. It presents a picture of mortality at which (when contrasted with the number of those employed) the naval officer looks with the most fearful and agonizing forebodings, whenever he is ordered to cruize under a tropical sun, more fraught with danger to human life than even the carnage of battle-a risk from which the Army officer is exempted, as he is most generally employed at salubrious stations. Great as the disparity between these two branches of our national defence is thus demonstrated to be, that between the civil list and Navy is still more glaring.

The committee exhibit herewith a statement of the progressive and pre sent pay of the civil list, from which it appears that the clerk who transcribes the executive orders to the naval officer, and who gives not to his official duties more than six hours in the day, enjoying all the comforts of domestic life, receives from his Government a higher pay than the naval officer, who, leaving his home. and while guarding with parental solicitude the lives of his crew, exposes his own in every climate, protecting our commerce, vindicating our honor, regulating, upon a high and fearful responsibility, our intercourse with foreign nations, and exposing himself in battle whenever his country calls.

This inequality in our legislation does not stop even here.

The present Navy pay was graduated in 1799. The pay of all the officers of the Government on the civil list established before them, has been increased.

Either the enhanced price of the necessaries of life, the changed condition of society, or the increased resources of the Government, giving rise to more liberal notions as to the value of official services, must have conduced to this increase of compensation.

The Navy officers have a right to expect, upon every principle of justice, that the same causes should be productive of the like result in relation to

them.

The original sphere of action of no branch of the public service has been so enlarged as that of the Navy. The pay was fixed at a period when the operations of the Navy were limited, principally, to the duty of convoy. Its most enthusiastic friends, then, never anticipated that our naval flag would visit every part of the habitable globe, waving over ships of war which would attract attention, excite admiration and be adopted as models for imitation by the principal maritime power of Europe.

This event, so flattering to our national pride, has been realized. This attractive condition of our Navy, and its expanded intercourse, impose upon its officers the most distressing pecuniary expenditures.

Our national character, and the obligations of society, constrain them to reciprocate the courtesies which are extended to them, and which they could not decline without incurring the imputations of mercenary motives.

The naval officer, when afloat, requires two separate establishments. His family must be housed, clothed, and fed, and his children educated. His ow: table must be supplied from foreign markets, and at the most exorbitant prices. The efficiency and harmony of the service require that he should extend to the officers of the ship, and of the squadron, the hospitality of his table. It appears to the committee that every observer of domestic expenditure, of the present state of society, and of our naval character and operations, must be convinced that the Navy pay is not sufficient for these double establishments. So oppressive have they been, that, in the general, there has been no saving of money among our naval officers.

Naval

There are very few of them who are not constrained, when they go to sea, to leave with their families allotment tickets of their monthly pay. officers of admitted prudence and economy have returned from a long cruize without saving a dollar of their pay. While the simplicity of our republican institutions requires that there shall be no prodigal expenditure of public money to gratify the vanity of official station, a just and provident policy requires that those who devote themselves to the public service, and their lives to danger, for the public good, should receive from the public treasu

ry the means of supporting their families, and those expenses which the stations to which they are called imperiously impose, and from which they cannot shrink without degradation of national and individual character.

The committee have procured a statement of the Navy pay of some of the European nations, and it is submitted, so that Congress may contrast theirs with ours.

Immediately after the late European war, in a time of profound peace, and when their national debt was the most oppressive, the people of England loudly murmured against the disparity of pay between their land and Navy forces, and remonstrated against the lowness of the Navy pay. These murmurings and remonstrances were not disregarded. An order of council, in 1817, passed, approximating the Navy pay to that of the Army, and was received with general satisfaction.

The committee verily believe that a similar approximation of pay would be received by the American people, in this moment of national wealth, with high approbation. A high minded and magnanimous people are always pleased at seeing the vindicators of their rights receiving from their Government adequate remuneration.

Great Britain graduates her pay according to the ratings of her ships.

This is in consonance with the frame of her Government, which recognises the necessity of sustaining the executive department by an increase of its patronage. Such a scale of graduation ought not, therefore, to be incorporated into the naval code of this country, because of that very tendency to enlarge the sphere of executive patronage.

The experience of the last war has produced an universal opinion, that, in all future wars with European powers, our national honor is to be sustained, that our rights are to be vindieated, and our homes are to be protected, by a Navy. Under this conviction, millions of the public money have been expended in providing for the permanent increase of the Navy.

At the present time, when Europe is convulsed by revolution, portending an appeal to arms, and which may eventually drive us from our pacific relations, it is all important that a fair compensation should tranquillize the mind of the Navy officer, reconcile him to the service, and render it desirable to others.

Under the influence of the preceding considerations, the committee are of opinion that a just and enlightened policy requires that the pay of the captains and masters commandant should be increased.

The committee have forborne to interfere with that of lieutenants and surgeons, inasmuch as they have no reason to believe that any recent circumstances require any legislation in relation to their pay.

The committee find, that, from the first organization of the Navy, a practice has prevailed in the Navy Department of allowing to the Navy officers emoluments, contingent on services performed by them, supposed to be not strictly within the range of their naval duties.

From the nature of the service, it was impracticable to foresee and to provide by legislation for all the duties which the officer might be called on to perform.

Much, therefore, was left for executive discretion.

These contingent emoluments have been productive of much embarrassment in their adjustment to the head of the Department, and of much jealousy and discontent among the officers; and, as experience has now pointed out the general character of these duties, the spirit of the Government re