ANNALS OF CONGRESS.

MAY 23, 1862 --Recommitted to the Committee on Printing, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. E. P. WALTON, from the Joint Committee on Printing, made the

following REPORT.

The Committee on Printing to whom was referred the petition of Gales & Seaton, report:

That the petition asks the House to purchase, for the use of its library, an additional number of the Annals of Congress and Register of Debates from the organization of government in 1789 to 1837. The committe considered a like proposition at the first session of the present Congress, and reported that the number of complete sets then in the library was eighty-five; that, if their value as books of reference on questions of unusual magnitude growing out of the pending rebellion should be properly estimated, this number would be inadequate to the demand; that the cost would be $355 per set, and $35,500 for one hundred sets of seventy-one volumes each; and that the committee had no reason to doubt the expediency of then purchasing additional copies, except that of the extraordinary drafts. upon the treasury for the prosecution of the war. A reconsideration of the question has induced the committee now to make an unreserved and earnest recommendation to purchase the work. It is the sole authoritative record of the debates of Congress for nearly the first half century of the federal government, of course embracing the opinions of its founders on questions of constitutional power and national policy; and as such, it is invaluable. There are only about three hundred sets remaining in the hands of the publishers, and we think these should be at once put under the control. of the government. Were it to permit them to pass into private hands, or to foreign governments, the loss would have to be repaired in the future, by reprinting, at great cost; and were it to leave the proprietors to a forced sale, under the pressure of present necessities, even though ultimately for the use of the government, it would be cruelly unjust to them. They are the authors, printers, and proprietors of the work, and they alone deserve whatever reward the government is to give. Joseph Gales, from whose hand came much of this great work, has closed a long, patriotic, and useful life. His

surviving widow, with his life-long associate, still perpetuate the firm of Gales & Seaton; but their declining years warn us that whatever of justice is to be done to them must be quickly done. A brief delay may be a denial of justice.

The committee therefore recommend the adoption of the accompanying resolution, in answer to the prayer of the petition:

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representatives be directed to procure from the publishers, for the use of the House library, at a cost not exceeding what has heretofore been paid for the said work, one hundred copies or sets of the Annals of Congress and Register of Debates, and pay for the same out of the contingent fund of the House: Provided, That the copies or sets remaining in the hands of the proprietors after the execution of this resolution shall not be sold or disposed of until they shall have been offered to Congress.

2d Session.

No. 114.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE LOCKS OF THE ERIE AND OSWEGO CANALS.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 288.]

JUNE 3, 1862.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, jr., from the Committee on Military Affairs, made the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Military Affairs, to whom were referred sundry petitions from Millard Fillmore and others, inhabitants of cities adjacent to the great northern and northwestern lakes, soliciting Congress to adopt without delay the measures necessary for enlarging the locks of the Erie and the Oswego canals to a size sufficient to pass vessels adequate to the defence of the lakes, report:

That the subject of canals of proper capacity, as integral and necessary portions of a general system of national defence, has already been fully and carefully considered by the committee, and forms a prominent feature in the report presented by them to the House of Representatives on the 23d of April last. It appears in that document under the third of the eight general heads of public defence, and is in the following words:

"The construction of channels in which to convey gunboats from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, and from the Atlantic into the lakes, and from one lake into any other."

It is fully in corroboration of the statements of that report in respect to the vast importance of providing without delay for defending the commerce of the lakes, and as to its present undefended condition, that President Fillmore and the other highly intelligent petitioners: assert that "the United States have no impediment to offer if, during the season of navigation, a fleet of British gunboats from the Atlantie shall propose to take possession of the entire chain of lakes and connecting rivers."

With less means of local information, the committee had nevertheless arrived at the same conclusion, and in their report they distinctly expressed their conviction that "a small fleet of light draught, heavilyarmed, iron-clad gunboats could in one short month, in despite of any opposition that could be made by extemporized batteries, pass up the St. Lawrence, and shell every city and village from Ogdensburg to

Chicago. At one blow it could sweep our commerce from that entire chain of waters. Such a fleet would have it in its power to inflict a loss to be reckoned only by hundreds of millions; so vast is the wealth thus exposed to the depredations of a maritime enemy."

Nor is the country without adequate and admonitory instruction on this subject from the foreign power itself under whose unrestrained will and dominant authority this great national injury could be inflicted.

A British officer, evidently well acquainted with our defenceless condition, in a communication in the London Times, of the 27th of December last, declares that, "Of these lakes," the British gov ernment, with its "large fleet of heavily-armed gunboats, which can be introduced by the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers and the Rideau canal into Lake Ontario, and thence by the Welland canal into Lake Erie, ought, the moment navigation is open, to obtain at once the undisputed command."

The propriety and expediency of this mode of national assault were still more distinctly enforced in the leading article of the same journal on the 7th of January following. Speaking of the hostile preparations so promptly, if not eagerly, commenced by England after the affair of the Trent, and referring to the temporary embarrassments in sending troops from Halifax during the winter months into the interior of Canada, the editor, in a tone, at least, of semi-official authority, declares that "as soon as the St. Lawrence is opened again there will be an end of our difficulty. We can then pour into the lakes such a fleet of gunboats and other craft as will give us the complete and immediate command of these waters. Directly the navigation is clear we can send up vessel after vessel without any restrictions, except such as are imposed by the size of the canals. The Americans would have no such resource. They would have no access to the lakes from the sea, and it is impossible that they could construct vessels of any considerable power in the interval that would elapse before the ice broke up. With the opening of spring the lakes would be ours, and if the mastery of these waters is indeed the mastery of all, we may expect the result with perfect satisfaction."

The "perfect satisfaction" so complacently expressed was further intensified by the statement that "so widely has the country been civilized since the last war that some of the most important towns of the federal States, such as Milwaukie and Chicago, have risen on the shores of these once remote waters, and are consequently exposed to the attacks of our squadrons."

It was under these menaces, and in view of the really undefended condition of our northern water frontier, and the dangerous facili ties for naval access acquired by the construction of the large canals of Canada, and especially in the consciousness of the fact that of the six great lakes (including Champlain) three were immediately adjacent to the territory of New York, that the chamber of commerce of its principal city, which is quite as emphatically the city of the nation, on the 3d of April last took measures to call the attention of the

State government to "the paramount importance of the commerce of the lakes," to "the unprotected condition of the cities and communities adjacent to those waters," and to "the dangerous facilities of access for naval purposes through the St. Lawrence and Welland canals now enjoyed by a foreign power."

On their memorial the legislature of the State of New York, on the 22d of April last, passed an act "to adapt the canals of the State to the defence of the northern and northwestern lakes."

By this law all the canals of the State connected with the lakes are placed at the service of the general government by a stipulation that whenever the United States shall provide the necessary means for enlarging the locks, with any necessary alterations of the channels, to a size sufficient to pass vessels adequate to the defence of the lakes, it "shall have the perpetual right of passage through the canals thus enlarged or built, free from toll or charge, for its vesselsof-war, boats, gunboats, transports, troops, supplies, or munitions of war.'

The works thus placed at the service of the government consisted, first, of the Erie and the Oswego canals, directly connecting the Hudson river with Lakes Erie and Ontario; second, a branch canal of about twelve miles, connecting the Erie canal with the safe and capacious harbor of Great Sodus bay, on Lake Ontario; and third, the Champlain canal, opening a direct and speedy access from the Hudson river, through Lake Champlain, with the St. Lawrence river below Montreal.

Under a joint resolution of the legislature of the State, the governor specially delegated Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles, for several years one of its canal commissioners, to attend at Washington "to invite the attention of the general government to the measures proposed in the act, and their great importance to the national interests." Mr. Ruggles, in behalf of the State, has attended before the committee and rendered full statements in respect to the cost of the works in question, together with much important information as to the commerce of the canals and of the lakes. From these statements it appears that the locks on the St. Lawrence canals are 45 feet broad and 200 feet long, and those of the Welland canal 26 by 150; and that the cost of enlarging the locks of the Erie and Oswego canals, at present 18 feet by 110, to a size sufficient to pass gunboats adequate to the defence of the lakes, with any necessary additional feeders and alterations of the channels, will not exceed $3,500,000. The expense of completing the branch canal (now partially constructed) to the harbor of Great Sodus bay is not yet definitely ascertained. The cost of enlarging the Champlain canal has been officially estimated by the engineer of the State at $3,700, 190-a sum which it claimed may be considerably reduced if the expenditure shall be economically conducted.

Of the works above mentioned, it will be obvious that the Erie and Oswego canals are of primary, and, indeed, of transcendent importance, in furnishing direct naval access from the Atlantic to the great chain of frontier lakes, from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior and into Lake Michigan, and, above all, in constituting the eastern link in an