1st Session.

[TO ACCOMPANY BILL H. R. No. 85.]

NAVY DEPARTMENT,

20th December, 1831.

SIR: I avail myself of the proposition made yesterday by the Committee on Naval Affairs, to commence an explanation in detail of some of the recommendations contained in the last annual report from this department.

As the item concerning arrearages is of more pressing importance to the service at this moment than any other, I have prepared, and herewith submit, the outlines of a bill to effect the desired object of meeting early the past and present demands in arrear on the enumerated contingent appropriation.

In addition to what has been said in the annual report on the causes of the deficiencies in that appropriation for some years, I understand their operation cannot be distinctly traced without infinite labor; because the demands on that appropriation have never uniformly been confined for payment to that appropriation alone, but have been discharged by the disbursing officers out of any other appropriation, a balance of which happened to be on hand. In this way, there has seldom been an apparent deficiency to meet individual claims, if the whole gross amount of appropriations for all parts of the naval service were sufficient to meet the whole demands. Thus, also, in some years, a surplus may have appeared of the contingent appropriation, when in fact fifty or sixty thousand dollars more than its amount may have been taken at the different stations, and in different squadrons, from other appropriations, and applied to the discharge of claims on the contingent appropriation; and which would not be discovered till the accounts of the disbursing officers were finally settled. In this way it is, that the disbursing officers have paid, from unauthorized appropriations, over seven millions of dollars. When the whole appropriations under certain heads have not equalled the whole demands, the deficiency has at times been supplied, it is understood, by subsequent acts of Congress making provision for the arrearages.

As greater strictness has been introduced in keeping the accounts with the disbursing officers of the department, the inadequacy of the usual amount appropriated to pay contingencies has become more apparent on the books, and has led to such difficulties with individual claimants, as to keep up an occasional resort to the former practice of meeting the urgent demands beyond its amount, by taking the balances on hand from other appropriations. This was done from A. D. 1825 to A. D. 1828, to the amount of over 50,000 dollars yearly. But the efforts to induce the pursers, navy agents, and other disbursing officers, to keep their accounts more correctly, and not to pay from one appropriation claims on another, have so far been successful for about three years, as to leave unpaid the demands beyond the last appropriation,

and throw the real insufficiency of the amount upon the claimants rather than the disbursing officers. Small claims in favor of individuals are outstanding previous to that, though most of them have been discharged in some of the methods before named. Since that time, few have been discharged from any other appropriation, though the balances on hand of other appropriations were more than large enough to do it. The deficiency in this particular item for 1829 and 1830, is, therefore, from twenty to thirty thousand dollars each year, according to the best data obtainable. This is but little over half the real deficiency for three or four years preceding, as shown by the settlements of the disbursing officers. In 1831 it will probably be somewhat larger than in 1830; for, diminished as some items of expense have been, such as allowances for extra service and travel for certain purposes, and on certain routes, yet the transportation of seamen home from foreign stations, after the expiration of their terms of service, and the fitting out an unusually large number of vessels within the year, (more than double the number in 1830,) have, in some respects, been very onerous to this appropriation.

Again: the interests of the service are seriously endangered by our present inability to meet the deficiency, except in the informal and unwarranted manner once practised. There exist bills of exchange drawn on foreign stations, both in 1830 and 1831, chargeable to this appropriation, that cannot be paid, the former at any time, and the latter at maturity, without the aid of Congress. The work at some of the yards cannot proceed further till a new appropriation is made, unless on the hope merely that it will be made for the arrearages and for the coming year.

Three vessels now fitting out must have their full equipment suspended, or their wants from this fund supplied on credit. The last sloop of war piloted into New York harbor, after being blown off the coast over twenty days, has come in on a credit for the pilotage, and which cannot be discharged without the appropriation now asked for.

These circumstances are hastily alluded to as a few among many others illustrative of the urgency and importance of not only making this appropriation of 80,000, but of carrying it through at the earliest day practicable.

Most of the demands outstanding are for services and supplies of a highly useful character, such as money advanced abroad to assist our absent vessels, on implicit faith placed in the credit, justice, and punctuality of the Government; and such as expensive journeys in the performance of important, duties; the passages of seamen; and the labor and tools at yards, as well as fuel for forges and vessels. These demands, as before remarked, are mostly in the hands of individuals, and not of disbursing officers; as the latter are now strictly forbidden to pay any of them out of any balance on hand belonging to different heads of appropriation; and hence the deficiency is felt by a larger number of persons, and many of them ill able to endure it. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully, &c.

Hon. MICHAEL HOFFMAN,

Chairman Naval Com. H. R. U. S.

LEVI WOODBURY.

1st Session.

ADJUST FOURTH AUDITOR'S BOOKS.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 132.]

DECEMBER 27, 1831.

Printed by order of the House of Representatives.

Treas. Dept.

TREASURY Department,

FOURTH AUDITOR'S OFFICE, 16th February, 1831.

SIR: In compliance with your verbal request, I send you a specimen of three accounts, copied from the books of this office as they now stand, exhibiting in pencil the practical effect of the transfers proposed in my report of

The simplest of these accounts is that of D. Brodhead, contractor, &c. The sum of $10,697 86 was due to him from the appropriation for "pay and subsistence;" but that appropriation was exhausted. To pay him this amount, the Secretary of the Navy advanced him the same sum out of the appropriation for "provisions." He therefore owes the United States $10,697 86 under "provisions;" but the United States owe him the same sum under "pay and subsistence." The debt is therefore nominal; and there is not the slightest use in carrying it forward on the books. cannot balance it without the authority of Congress.

But we

The account of Conimodore Isaac Chauncey is more complicated, but the result is the same.

Nothing is in fact due to the one or the other. The amounts due on the fight hand have been paid out of those due on the left, and the aggregate amount is balanced. But it requires the authority of Congress to balance the account under each head of appropriation.

The account of George Macdaniel, late special agent, is one of the most complicated on the books of this office.

The balances are as follows:

Deduct the sum due to Mr. Macdaniel from the sum due to the United States, and it leaves a balance of $1,232 32, which is the real sum due to the United States. The proposed transfer would extinguish all the balances on both sides of the account, except that under "provisions," on the debit side, which would be reduced to the actual sum due to the United States, viz: $1,232 32.

Similar results will be produced in a great variety of accounts. Not a cent will be added to or taken from any sum actually due to the United States; but we shall rid ourselves of numberless useless balances under the different heads of appropiation, which afford not the slightest advantage to the public, but greatly encumber the books, increase the labor, and perplex the accounts of this office.

Nor will it at all affect the books of any other office in the Government. In all other books of the Treasury, upon which entries are made of sums paid out on account of the navy, no such difficulties appear. The accounts on those books are mere appropriation accounts, credited with annual appropriations and re-payments on one side, and debited with the sums drawn on the other; but they have no connexion with the accounts of the disbursing officers and others. They show the professed object for which the money is drawn; but not the real object on which it is expended. For instance, in relation to Mr. Brodhead's account, they show that the sum of $10,697 86 was drawn for the professed object of paying for "provisions," but they do not show that it was actually applied to pay for slop clothing; that is shown only by the books of this office.

In all these cases, the laws have been violated. Moneys have been applied to other objects than those for which they were appropriated. But the thing is done, and it cannot be recalled. The money is gone, and cannot be recalled. Rid us of the evils which that course has brought upon us, and we will be responsible that they do not again occur.

Circumstances prevented my sooner perfecting this communication so as

to make the subject plain.

Hon. MICHAEL HOFFMAN,

Chairman Naval Committee H. R.