1804. THE NAVY AND JEFFERSON'S GUNBOATS. 69 reduced to the figures anticipated when the excise tax was abolished, began rising so fast during the Tripolitan war that some new resource of revenue became necessary. This resource was found in a special 2 impost, known as the "Mediterranean Fund,"* sanctioned by Congress in the first place as a temporary duty, after the loss of the Philadelphia, but kept up by continuous acts for many years. Silently the young American navy was fostered and made quite as efficient as circumstances and good policy would allow. But a Republican administration had many prejudices to encounter among its friends in this respect. The agricultural South ridiculed such an establishment as a costly plaything, nor did Jefferson incline in the interest of peace and economy to do more than render it adequate for visible emergencies. Favoring a navy chiefly for coast defence, he recommended the building of light gunboats, as far as possible, after models employed in European inland waters. Congress indulged him in his experimental zeal too far, we must believe, for the welfare of the service; and Jefferson's gunboats, single or twomasted sailing craft, designated by numerals, mounting a twenty-four or thirty-pound gun, and bobbing up and down. in rough waters, never put to much use in the harbors to which they were assigned, never, fortunately, coming within range of an enemy's broadside, and finally condemned and laid up by his successors, provoked much mirth among salt-water sailors. The theory of superseding by divided commands those old line-of-battle ships, floating tenement-houses of immense cost, pierced for numerous cannon, contained, however, a kernel of sense; and through the modern application of steam to navigation the gunboat has long since been put to extensive practical use in our navy. Of all advisers Jefferson's most valuable were his two chief Secretaries; both men of excellent parts and experience, believers in his fundamental policy and in the sincerity with which he pursued it, respecters of one another. A combination so felicitous at the head of affairs as that of Jefferson, * Act March 26th, 1804. See reports of naval operations; Act February 28th, 1803; Messages 1802, 1805; Jefferson's Works, January 29th, Madison, and Gallatin has seldom been seen. The chief had the faculty of originating, the enthusiastic temperament, the wide philanthropy, the gift of managing men; the others, less buoyant and magnetic, more conservative, more respectful of precedent, more distrustful, fitted admirably their subordi nate, yet exalted station, and checked Jefferson in the disposition to doctrinize and innovate. It is worthy of notice that two men, marked hitherto as leaders in legislative proceedings, quickly developed good business methods in executive adminis tration; and still further, that transferred to the cabinet, in the prime of life, each devoted a long future to the public without ever entering a legislature again, or extending his fame as an orator. Madison, to be sure, held a department which the President was most competent to direct; while Gallatin became a financier and specialist, whose functions, less capable of guidance, were, for the present term certainly, more essential to the prosperity of a Republican administration whose prime concern it was to retrench expenditures, pay off the public debt, and collect a rising revenue. We are to picture the American Neckar at this time as a compact man of medium stature, with black hair, a bald head, dreamy, hazel eyes, dark complexion, and a countenance which indicated self-absorption, prudent calculation, reticence, and excessive caution; Swiss, not French, in temperament, a wholly different personage, in truth, from the crack-brained zealot, whiskey insurrectionist, and frog-eating foreigner, depicted by the imagination of those who had never beheld him. He was temperate in habits, somewhat shy, and the hardest worked man at the capital; taking little recreation, nor knowing well how to enjoy it. Not equal to Hamilton as a financier to rear a system from the foundation, Gallatin was a much safer custodian of the purse when economies and husbandry were the order. Cold and reserved, as always, commanding respect in his party for talents, purity, and principle, but no longer conspicuous, if ever so, for intolerance of ills incurable, Gallatin felt in his new position the necessity of conciliating capital and those money centres where only conservatism can command. An exile of choice, patrician in birth, he felt the exile's isolation; his heart expanded in the domestic circle, 1804. GALLATIN AND THE TREASURY. 71 but that circle was a narrow one; for the rest he found friends, and powerful ones, but not intimate, and such for the most part as watch the political barometer. Had prejudice availed, as he once feared it would, to keep him out of Jefferson's cabinet, he intended moving to New York city and practising at the bar. As a cabinet officer, and dependent upon his salary, he grew very nervous over the turmoil of factions in the State and section he represented, and unlike the President, would have temporized with Burr and held the rod over Duane. Not a false friend, Gallatin kept too much guard over his heart to be a firm one; and hence, among rivals and adversaries, of whom every politician finds plenty, he would have stumbled except for Jefferson, whose confidence was implicit and at the same time generous. Gallatin did not agree with the President on all points of administration policy, nor did the President require him to. He would have kept peace with the Barbary powers, in the calculation that tribute was cheaper than war.* Jefferson yielded to his judgment on various treasury matters, as in the establishment of a branch bank of the United States in New Orleans; the Secretary proving himself the friend of that fiscal institution which the President constantly disliked, without being able to develop more than the germ of our later sub-treasury system. Upon the annual budget they worked carefully together. Gallatin's scheme for reducing the debt while meeting at the same time the ordinary demands of government, was founded upon persevering investigation. He simplified Hamilton's methods, and the sinking fund contriv ance borrowed from Mr. Pitt, but attempted no radical departure from his system. His central idea was to obtain over and above current expenses of government, a regular annual fund to a fixed amount, as a surplus for discharging interest on the national debt, and a certain instalment of the principal; for which he relied, first, on frugality of expenditure; next, on the most economical taxation.‡ The balance-sheet of government at this period presented * Adams's Gallatin. Ib. See Jefferson's Works, December 13th, 1803. regularly a condition of affairs highly prosperous and encouraging. The excise, as we have seen, was early dispensed with.* Direct taxation too had been dropped, with its impediments and tedious processes.† Commerce rapidly expanded, and the receipts of custom crept constantly upwards. The modest revenue from the sale of public lands nearly trebled in four years. To use the President's words, the purse was supplied by economies so as to support the government properly and apply $7,300,000 a year towards reducing the public debt; discontinuing a great part of the former expense on armies and navies, and yet leaving enough to protect our country and commerce; purchasing a large country, and yet asking neither a new tax or another soldier, but providing that the country should pay for itself before the purchase-money fell due. With this annual surplus of $7,300,000 Gallatin expected to cancel the national debt about the year 1817. If economies fell somewhat short of the figures, the increase of import revenue beyond all estimates carried the American Union triumphantly in the direction desired, notwithstanding the Tripolitan war. Congress had adjourned from March 27th to November 5th; the Presidential canvass occurring meanwhile. No quorum appeared in the Senate until November 7th, nor was this final session of the legislature an important one. To reorganize our territorial domain now so vast in extent was the engrossing task of the government. Congress at the first session had concluded to divide Louisiana into two territories, providing for the southern, which comprised New Orleans and its vicinity, a temporary government, placed under the strict supervision of the President.§ It appeared from Claiborne's report, that the annexed people, but lately under Spanish rule, unaccustomed to free institutions, aud ignorant of the English language, were not at once to be safely trusted * Supra, p. 21. Treasury Report, March, 1803; Annals of Congress. Jefferson's Works, January 29th, 1804. See Act March 26th, 1804; also Acts February 24th, February 25th, and March 19th. 1804-5. OUR NEW WESTERN TERRITORIES. 73 with their own affairs. But American settlers hastened to the Crescent City to better their fortunes with its own, among them Edward Livingston; and upon their earnest petition a new act was now passed, permitting the inhabitants to elect a legislature of their own, and whenever the population should reach 60,000 to erect themselves into a State, form a republican constitution, and claim admission to the Union on the usual footing.* The primitive inhabitants of New Orleans, who prided themselves upon their Latin blood, were not easily assimilated with the Anglo-Saxon immigrants. Anonymous placards incited them to revolt against the new government. There was great corruption in the public offices. Spanish officials had so delayed their final evacuation of Louisiana as to cause serious apprehensions of mischief. That these diverse elements might coalesce the better, Jefferson had seriously thought of commissioning Lafayette as governor; and though politic reasons prevented the offer of such a trust to a French citizen, a grant of land, the earliest in the new acquisition, was voted by Congress in recognition of his services. That the foundation of private claims might rest ultimately in the United States as in other territories, commissioners were appointed to ascertain and adjust the titles in Louisiana under French and Spanish grants. Claiborne was continued in office as Governor of the new Orleans territory. The upper portion of Louisiana, which Congress proceeded to erect into a separate territory of the second class,§ or without a popular legislature, was confided to General Wilkinson of the army; its only considerable population being near the present site of St. Louis. For convenience, the Indiana, or Northwest territory, was separated into two portions; and to the upper, or Michigan territory, with Detroit for the capital, General Hull was assigned as the Governor; Harrison continuing Governor of the Indiana portion. Robert Williams was appointed Governor of the * Act March 2d, 1805. See Madison's Works, February 20th, 1804. Act March 2d, 1805. Act January 11th, 1805. VOL. II.-7 ? Act March 3d, 1805. |