earlier reply to your communication, to which cause I beg you will attribute it, and not to a want of proper attention or courtesy.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES BUCHANAN, Esq.

British Consul, &c., New York.

W. FORWARD, Secretary of the Treasury.

P. S. That portion of your inquiry which appertains to the laws regulating the Post Office establishment has been referred to the Postmaster General, who will no doubt communicate his views to you.

2d Session.

Navy Dept.

OFFICERS OF THE NAVY-PAY, EMOLUMENTS, &c.

LETTER

FROM

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY,

IN RELATION TO

The service, pay, and emoluments of officers of the navy, &c.

MARCH 31, 1842.

Referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, March 28, 1842.

SIR: I have the honor to submit, herewith, two tabular statements, marked A and B, prepared in compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 30th August, 1841.

Statement A contains "a list of the names of all officers of the navy, from lieutenants to captains, inclusive, who have been on shore for the term of five years without going to sea or without applying for orders;" and "a statement of the services rendered by each of such officers, respectively," during the same period.

Statement B contains a similar list of those who have been on shore "for ten years, and for a period longer than ten years."

The greater period of course including the lesser, the same names do not appear on both statements.

The resolution also calls for "the causes, if any, which prevented their going to sea." This is a point on which it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to give the information asked for, from the fact that I entered the Department since the adoption of the resolution, and that I cannot undertake to assume the motives of my predecessors in office, for any act of commission or omission. Where physical disability is known to have existed, and to have been the cause which prevented officers going to sea, it is so stated. When a selection is made from among officers of the same grade, for any particular duty, the Department, having a knowledge of the character and capacities of all, it is to be presuined, has ordered those who were thought most suitable, or who had the strongest claims, growing out of prior service, for that particular duty.

It has frequently happened, that whenever officers, ofeither of the three grades enumerated in the resolution, were required for service, those highest on the list have been passed over, because they had already performed their full share; and the good of the navy requires that all should partici

pate alike in the agreeable and disagreeable portions of duty, if health and other controlling circumstances will permit.

The yearly pay and emoluments which these officers have received have been regulated according to law and usage. Prior to the act of March 3, 1835, "to regulate the pay of the navy," the pay of the several grades was as follows:

Captains

Masters commandant, or commanders
Lieutenants commanding -

50

4

Lieutenants Commanders of squadrons received double rations; and commandants as well as other officers of navy yards were either furnished with quarters and fuel in kind, or commutation therefor, and allowance for service. Since the passage of that law, their pay has been regulated strictly in conformity thereto.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, &c.

Hon. JOHN WHITE,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

A. P. UPSHUR.

A.

List of the names of all officers of the navy, from lieutenants to captains, inclusive, who have been on shore for five years (previously to the 30th of August, 11841) without going to sea, or without applying for orders; with a statement of the causes, if any, which prevented their going to sea; and a statement of the services rendered by each of such officers, respectively, and the yearly pay and emoluments of each.

Chronic disease of liver,

contracted in the Pacific

Services rendered, (for five years previously to August

In command of navy yard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from August

1841.)

1840. Commissioner of the Navy Board, from April 29, 1841.st 16, 1832, to April 16,
Governor of naval asylum near Philadelphia, since August 1, 1838.

In command of navy yard, Boston, since February 28, 1835.
Commissioner of the Navy Board, from July 16, 1841.

None.

At navy yard, Gosport, Va., as commander, from January 27, 1836, to December 22, 1838.
In command of rendezvous, New York, from March 22, 1837, to March 3, 1839.

At

In

yard, Boston, since May 29, 1839.

and of rendezvous,

In command of receiving ship at Belphia, since July 6, 1840.

June 1, 1839.

None.

None.

None.

Boston, as lieutenant commandant, from March 9, 1837, to

At navy yard, Gosport, Virginia, as lieutenant, from July 1, 1835, to June 15, 1838; at navy
yard, Washington, as lieutenant, from September 29, 1838, to July 1, 1840; and then or-
dered as superintendent of the naval hospital, Norfolk, Virginia.

At receiving ship, New York, as lieutenant, from August 16 to November 21, 1836.
At navy yard, Boston, as lieutenant, from December 21, 1836, to July 31, 1840.
None. On furlough from October 1, 1833, to January 1, 1838.

At navy yard and receiving ship, Boston, as lieutenant, from March 8, 1838, to March 24, 1841.
At rendezvous, Philadelphia, as lieutenant, from June 6, 1837, to July 31, 1840.

At navy yard, Gosport, Virginia, as lieutenant, from June

At receiving ship, New York, as lieutenant, from August 19 from October 5, 1810, to September 25, 1841.

None.

1838, to September 21, 1841.

to November 11, 1836, and

In charge of the depot of charts, instruments, &c., Washington, since November 1, 1836.

Yearly pay and
emoluments.

B'