In pursuance of this law, a site was selected within the city of Memphis, by a board of officers duly appointed for that purpose. A number of private lots, and a large portion of the "public landing,' and of several streets and alleys, were included within the limits of the site thus selected for the navy yard and depot. These private lots were sold by the owners to the corporation of Memphis at a price believed to have been very inadequate; and the said corporation, with the consent and approval of the citizens, in public meeting assembled, conveyed the whole property to the United States, without demanding anything more than the cost of the private property which had been purchased as aforesaid. The motive for this liberality on the part of the citizens and public authorities of Memphis was to secure to that city the advantages of such a naval establishment as had been provided for in the law above quoted. For the same reason, the legislature of the State surrendered jurisdiction over the premises to the United States.

It is now insisted by the State, in its memorial, as well as by the citizens and public authorities of Memphis, that the faith of the United States is engaged to build up an establishment for the construction and repair, and for the accommodation and supply of vessels of war, and that it would be a violation of the public faith to divert the property to a use different from that for which it was surrendered. The committee are of opinion that in this, as in all other cases of the kind, the public and general interest must prevail, and not the local interests of Memphis, or even of the State of Tennessee. If circumstances have occurred to render it useless and unwise to make a large expenditure of the public money at this point-if such an expenditure would promote no useful object of public policy-the public is under no obligation to throw away its means by pursuing a project which has proved to be impracticable and unwise. If, on the other hand, there be no good reason for a change of the original purpose for which this property was ceded to the United States, such a change would be a just ground of complaint, and ought not to be adopted. Already eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars, including the building and machinery of the rope-walk, have been expended upon this yard. Much work has been done, and some costly buildings erected, with a view to carry out the original design of the establishment. In the judgment of the committee, after this large expenditure, it would be unwise to suspend the work in an unfinished condition, except under the pressure of most imperative considerations. Do such considerations exist? The committee have not been able to concur in the conclusion that they do.

But the attention of the committee has been turned to the report of Messrs. Ogden, Chase, and Shields, a board of commissioners recently instituted by the Secretary of the Navy for the examination of this yard, in which it is recommended that the establishment be confined to the manufacture of rope and cordage. The grounds upon which this recommendation is made are confined chiefly to some general propositions in reference to the inland situation of Memphis. It is boldly asserted in the report of these gentlemen, that Memphis is wholly unfit for a navy yard, because it is distant from the sea, and

not easy of access, and because there is not sufficient water in the channel, and on the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi river. These objections have not the merit of originality. They were urged with great pertinacity, and they certainly existed with all their present force, at the time of the selection of Memphis as the site of this establishment. A board of officers and engineers then came to a conclusion different from that which has been announced by the recent board. There is only, therefore, the opinion of one set of officers against that of another; and it is the judgment of the committee that the more recent opinion is not the wiser of the two.

Memphis is well adapted to the construction and equipment of a most important class of ships-of-war. The iron steamer Alleghany, a vessel of about eleven hundred tons, was built at Pittsburg, which is on the Ohio river, twelve hundred miles above Memphis. If such a ship could thread the Ohio and Mississippi rivers for two thousand miles to the sea, it is very plain that vessels of a much larger size could be safely carried from Memphis down. It is further well known that the steamers Ohio and Georgia, of the New York and Chagres mail line, are in the habit of regularly crossing the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi, and ascending to New Orleans. For nearly one-half the year they could ascend to Memphis. These are steamers of the first class, having a tonnage of from 2,500 to 3,000.

The committee think it must be admitted that steamers of the largest class can be built at Memphis, and safely carried out to the Gulf during the season of high water. This fact, however, in the absence of other considerations, would not be sufficient to justify the location of an important naval establishment at that point. But there are other considerations of great force, which must have conduced to the original selection of this site, and which continue to mark it as admirably adapted for the purpose to which it has been assigned. The committee will proceed briefly to state their views of the subject.

The importance of the position of Memphis as a naval depot and building yard, arises from the fact that it is in the heart of the Mississippi valley, in the midst of those immense productions from which our navy must be built, equipped, and provisioned. Iron, coal, and copper; oak, cedar, cypress, pine, and locust timber; hemp; and every other production for ship-building, are to be had here, cheaper and in greater abundance than in any other part of the country. Statistical facts are unnecessary; the resources of this vast region are almost infinite. In the judgment of the committee, it would be wise, on the part of the government, to prepare, by suitable arrangements at Memphis, to avail itself of these inexhaustible resources, for the defence of the Gulf of Mexico in time of war. Any number of steam-vessels could be built at this point, and safely carried to the gulf. Cannon and smallarms, shot and shells, chains, anchors, and machinery, could be manufactured here with as much advantage as at any other navy yard in the United States. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that Memphis has advantages, for these objects, beyond any other point above or below it on the river, or within the Gulf of Mexico. It is at the head of uninterrupted navigation of the Mississippi; it is in a temperate

and salubrious climate, where the yellow fever has never been known. The building of steamboats, for the river, has already caused the establishment of foundries and machine shops, and opened up the channels for procuring timber, iron, and the other materials of construction. The committee deem it a sound position, that the nearer the operation of ship building can be brought to the materials of which the structures are made, the better and more economical will be the process. If ships could be built in the forest from which their timbers are taken, and could be thence easily and cheaply conducted to the sea, a great saving would be effected by the operation. If this be true, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the nearer the point of construction approaches the source of the material, the greater the advantage in point of economy. It is different, however, with the operation of repairing ships. These, though built at Memphis, need not be carried there again to be repaired. Pensacola is provided with a sectional floating dry-dock, basin, and railway. By means of this important apparatus, at least a dozen vessels of the largest size could be placed on land for repairs at the same time. The repair of vessels requires comparatively few materials, and these may be easily accumulated at Pensacola; while most of the materials of construction would have to be conveyed thither, at great expense, either from the Atlantic coast or from the Mississippi valley. Memphis, therefore, has much greater facilities for the construction of ships, while Pensacola already has the means for their repair.

The importance of maintaining naval ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico, cannot be easily magnified or overrated. The vast commerce of the Mississippi valley, joined to that of the Amazon and Orinoco; the command of the various routes across the isthmus, or through Mexico, to the Pacific ocean; and, by consequence, our communication with California and Oregon, as well as the safety of our commerce with the East, and in the northern seas-all these vast interests are, in a great measure, dependent upon the supremacy of our navy in the Gulf of Mexico. This subject has been ably presented in the report of Lieutenant M. F. Maury to the Secretary of War, on the policy of our system of fortifications, (Ex. Doc. No. 5, 1st session of 32d Congress, pp. 180 and 181,) from which the following paragraphs are extracted:

"In a commercial and military sense, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribean sea are but an expansion of the Mississippi and Amazon rivers. In this view of the subject, the mouth of the Mississippi is not at the Balize, nor that of the Amazon at Paia. They are both in the Florida Pass, between Key West and Cuba.

"For one-half of the year there is a sort of monsoon in the Gulf of Mexico; during this period the winds are from the southeast; at this season, therefore, the winds and the currents in the Yucatan Pass are such as to prevent the passage that way of vessels from the gulf.

"Morever, the island of Jamaica, where the English have a naval station, overlooks the Yucatan Pass. When the northeast wind prevails, the Yucatan Pass is open to sailing vessels; but a few steamers, with Jamaica as the centre of operations, would close it to our com

merce.

"When the southeast winds prevail, the route of a sailing vessel bound from the gulf to Jamaica, is not through the Straits of Yucatan; it is through the Florida Pass by Key West, and then back on the south side of Cuba. Now a maritime enemy seizing upon Key West and the Tortugas, could land a few heavy guns from his ship and make it difficult for us to dislodge him. Here, railroads and the telegraph do not reach; and as long as he should hold that position, so long would he control the commercial mouth of the great Mississippi valley.

"In that position he would shut up in the gulf whatever force inferior to his own we might have there. He would prevent reinforcements sent to relieve it from Boston, New York, and Norfolk, from entering the gulf. Indeed, in a war with England, the Tortugas and Key West being in her possession, it might be more advisable, instead of sending from our Atlantic dock yards a fleet to the gulf, to send it over to the British islands, and sound the Irish people as to throwing off allegiance.

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"In the next maritime war, (and in such a war we have nothing to fear from any quarter except one,) it is not upon the Atlantic, properly speaking, that the great sea-fight is to take place; it is in the Gulf of Mexico, or near the English shores.

"Jamaica is an important naval station; it commands one entrance to the gulf. There Great Britain can assemble her fleet, and within three days have it off the Balize, in position to strike a terrible blow at the commerce of that valley; shutting up the Florida Pass, she would have complete control of the gulf. Norfolk and New York are inconveniently situated to defend it. Some years ago a man-of-war was sent with despatches from Norfolk to Pensacola; she was fifty-odd days in making the passage.

"The means of defence for the gulf should be within the valley that belongs to it. The resources of this valley are ample, its means most abundant, and its people are its best and most appropriate defenders. Pensacola should therefore be built up as a naval station, and the depot at Memphis fostered with care and solicitude. Instead of draining the treasury for forts, under the system of 1816, these two places should be put in condition for building, equipping, and fitting, upon a scale sufficient to secure to us, in war, the naval supremacy at least in the gulf.

"In a war with England, and with those two places as the centres of operations, it probably would be found desirable to move upon Jamaica and other British islands in that quarter. New York and the Atlantic dock-yards would probably be the centre of other operations; and if Jamaica fall in such a war, it must fall under the guns and before the gallantry of the West; the East will have need and occupation for all its forces in other quarters.

Memphis is fast rising in importance as a place of construction. Private enterprise has already commenced to establish building-yards there, and in that teeming region there is no lack of naval and maritime resources. The ropewalk there is of no consequence. We want docks, storehouses, machine-shops, and foundries, for casting, forging,

making, and building anchors and cables, ships and engines; and for preparing and keeping in store, out of the excellent materials to be found in that valley, all the arms and munitions of war which would be required for the defence of the gulf, the capture of Jamaica or any other British possessions, if Britain be the enemy.

"I have, on former occasions, presented my views at large with regard to the importance of Memphis as a naval depot. These views are before the public, and therefore I deem it unnecessary to repeat them here. We have turned the corner, and are now going ahead in the peaceful race for the commercial supremacy of the seas; the next trial is to be for maritime supremacy of another sort. It is hoped that the day for that contest is far distant. But every people are liable to war; and it is a fact which we cannot blink, that in providing for the contingency, our statesmen and warriors must, for many years to come, have an eye to the forces which Great Britain, rather than any other power, can bring against us. But let that contest come when it may, it is most likely to be decided in the Gulf of Mexico and its twin basin, the Caribean sea; they are the receptacles of all that the two grandest systems of river basins in the world will have to pour into the lap of commerce. The valley of the Mississippi on one side, and the valley of the Amazon on the other, will in time make these two arms of the sea the commercial centre of the world. "The mouth of the Amazon, the mouth of the Oronoco, and the mouth of the Magdalena, are, commercially speaking, almost as much in the Florida Pass as is the mouth of the Mississippi river. Such is the course of the currents, and such the direction of the winds, in that part of the world, that a vessel sailing from the mouth of any one of these rivers for Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, or for India, or for the markets of the Pacific around Cape Horn, or for Africa, or for Europe, has first to steer to the northward and westward, until she reaches the parallel of 25° or 30° north. This brings her off our own shores; and it is impossible for her to pursue any other route, so long as the northeast trade-winds prevail, or the great equatorial current which feeds the gulf-stream continues to flow across the Atlantic. No vessel trading under canvass from the mouth of these rivers to the markets of South America, Europe, Asia, or Africa, can go any other way. They must pass by our doors.

"Therefore, in planning a system of national defences, who can over-estimate the importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a nucleus of naval means, the centre of naval operations? That centre is at Key West and the Tortugas; hence the great need of strong works there. "Interests of the most delicate, valuable, and, to an enemy, of the most attractive kind, are even now daily springing up and expanding themselves out upon the waters and about the borders of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribean sea-interests which, if they should be injured or put in needless jeopardy, will create a greater sensation throughout this country than would the landing of a hundred thousand men at arms upon our shores. These interests are maritime-they are American; their defences and protection are naval; they must be watched and guarded from the Mississippi valley. Memphis and Pen