The additions to these in your time, I need not note to you, who are well known to have ever been an advocate for the wooden walls of Themistocles.  Some of those you added, were sold under an act of Congress passed while you were in office.  I thought, afterwards, that the public safety might require some additional vessels of strength, to be prepared and in readiness for the first moment of a war, provided they could be preserved against the decay which is unavoidable if kept in the water, and clear of the expense of officers and men.  With this view I proposed that they should be built in dry docks, above the level of the tide waters, and covered with roofs.  I further advised, that places for these docks should be selected where there was a command of water on a high level, as that of the Tiber at Washington, by which the vessels might be floated out, on the principle of a lock.  But the majority of the legislature was against any addition to the navy, and the minority, although for it in judgment, voted against it on a principle of opposition.  We are now, I understand, building vessels to remain on the stocks, under shelter, until wanted, when they will be launched and finished.  On my plan they could be in service at an hour’s notice.  On this, the finishing, after launching, will be a work of time.

This is all I recollect about the origin and progress of our navy.  That of the late war, certainly raised our rank and character among nations.  Yet a navy is a very expensive engine.  It is admitted, that in ten or twelve years a vessel goes to entire decay; or, if kept in repair, costs as much as would build a new one:  and that a nation who could count on twelve or fifteen years’ of peace, would gain by burning its navy and building a new one in time.  Its extent, therefore, must be governed by circumstances.  Since my proposition for a force adequate to the piracies of the Mediterranean, a similar necessity has arisen in our own seas for considerable addition to that force.  Indeed, I wish we could have a convention with the naval powers of Europe, for them to keep down the pirates of the Mediterranean, and the slave ships on the coast of Africa, and for us to perform the same duties for the society of nations in our seas.  In this way, those collisions would be avoided between the vessels of war of different nations, which beget wars and constitute the weightiest objection to navies.  I salute you with constant affection and respect.

Th:  Jefferson.

     [The annexed is the letter to which the foregoing is a reply.]

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Montezillo, October 15, 1822.  Dear Sir,

I have long entertained scruples about writing this letter, upon a subject of some delicacy.  But old age has overcome them at last.