guished themselves by heroic actions in the naval and military service of their country: those pensions are in a rational proportion to the merits of the parties. None of them appear to be extravagant, or to bear any marks of the prodigality which is generally assumed as characteristic of the system. The whole number of the persons in this list is about twenty, of whom half were elevated to the peerage, in addition to the pecuniary rewards. The pensions amount to £45,623, equal to about $200,000. I annex a few specimens of the highest grades. Descendants of the Duke of Marlborough £ 5000 2023 2000 2000 7000 1000 2000 4000 £ 25,923* Who can say that these pensions exceed the value of the services rendered by the individuals? The sailors who served on board the fleet at the battle of Trafalgar, received £300,000, equal to $1,350,000. Monuments have been erected to sixteen naval and military commanders, most of whom lost their lives in the defence of their country. The total expense £51,388, equal to about $230,000.† Where are the American monuments, some of them solemnly ordered about forty years since? "Besides these acts of national benevolence, a regular pension, according to the rank of the deceased, is granted to the widow of every naval and military officer, whose life is lost in the service of his country; while in cases where particular officers eminently distinguish themselves, an addition is made to the ordinary pension."‡ These proceedings display not merely the honourable and ennobling feature of national gratitude, but a most sagacious and profound policy. Those rewards make irresistible appeals to the most powerful principles that actuate human nature the ambition of honour and distinction-and the hope of reward. Hence British officers are impelled by potent stimuli to 244. Colquhoun on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of Great Britain, page 1 Idem, p. 245. Ibid. brave every danger in the service of their country, confident that if they distinguish themselves by acts of heroism, their reward will be in proportion to their merits and services. Let us impartially and fearlessly consider the course we pursue. In England, as we have seen, titles and liberal rewards follow, as they ought, glorious deeds. We have no titles to bestow, and we shrink from pecuniary rewards! In the whole course of our government, now fifty years old, there has not been, I believe, a single pecuniary compensation given to any of the men who have immortalized themselves, and rendered inappreciable services to this country, except the magnificent donation to general Lafayette. Many of their deeds would vie with those of the Greeks and Romans, which have been the subjects of universal applause and admiration for above two thousand years. A cannon or two-a few swords-and a few medals have discharged the debts of the nation in this respect, and been all the rewards for past, or the incentives to future heroism!!! Who has forgotten the miserable debates in congress on the subject of the hero of Derne, whose exploit is among the most glorious of the incidents of the American annals? The mighty question at issue was, whether the national sense of the splendid action should be displayed by the gift of a sword or a medal!!! Every man who felt for the honour of the country was mortified at a discussion, more suitable for the common council of a petty borough than for the legislature of a rising empire. Massachusetts in some degree retrieved the honour of the country by awarding general Eaton a tract of land, I believe ten thousand acres. Let us trace our system to its consequences. Suppose a future war, in which a general, oppressed with the res angusta domi, is about to engage in a battle, or has to defend an all-important post, on either of which much of the national prosperity depends. Suppose a foreign emissary to tender him a bribe of ten, twenty, or fifty thousand dollars to betray his * Mrs. Decatur's case is highly discreditable to the nation, and cannot be regarded without deep regret and mortification, by all who set a due value upon national character. Few more glorious exploits are to be found in the annals of warfare, than that of her gallant husband, in the destruction of the Philadelphia, never was reward more richly carned than the amount claimed for his widow-yet twenty-six years have now elapsed [June, 1830,] since it occurred, and she is still kept in anxious suspense !! country-an unimportant sum compared with the value of the treason. Such things are common in war. History greatly belies the memory of Louis XVI. if he did not owe a large portion of his conquests to such means. The general is placed in a situation to which human nature ought not to be exposed. The temptation to an aberration from duty is very great. If he prove faithful, he is scarcely thanked for his services. Rewards of any sort, except perhaps a sword or a medal, are wholly out of the question; whereas, by turning traitor, which he can readily contrive to do without fear of detection, he becomes independent for life. On the cessation of the war, he is thrown on the world with perhaps a large family to support, to which his means are utterly inadequate. His business or profession, whatever it may have been, has fallen into other hands, and it is out of his power to compete successfully with those who have preoccupied the ground.* This is truly a revolting state of things, and the procedure ought to be corrected. National resources are never more wisely bestowed, than in affording judicious rewards for eminent achievements. Thus may a nation at all times command the talents and services of its best citizens. It is to the last degree painful to compare our treatment of the revolutionary armies which secured the independence of the country, with that of the loyalists by Great Britain. The former, many of whom were covered with wounds, and had spent their fortunes in the service, were, at the close of the war, disbanded, entirely unpaid, and exposed to pinching poverty and distress. The certificates they received for their services, for the payment of which no provision had been made by their ungrateful country, sunk down to 10, 12, 15, and 18 cents in the dollar, and were in numerous cases purchased by men who had been ill-affected to the cause of their country, some of whom probably owed their wealth to their disaffection. These certificates were afterwards funded at par, and the accumulated interest was likewise funded at an interest of three per cent. Thus a dollar in the hands of an officer or soldier, was, by national ingratitude and bankruptcy, converted into 10, 12, 15, or 18 cents and by a dextrous stroke of political hocus pocus, 10, 12, 15, or 18 cents in the hands of a speculator, were con * I could quote heart-rending cases of this kind, at the close of the late war, but my limits forbid. verted into a dollar, with seven years' interest, at three per cent. and hence the revolution spread ruin and desolation among those who had been the efficient means of effecting it, and enriched numbers of its most decided enemies! In 1806, after a lapse of above twenty years from the ratification of the treaty of peace, when probably two-thirds of the common soldiers had paid the debt of nature, a tardy justice was rendered such of them as survived, who were obliged to swear that they had not means of support-but to this hour little or nothing has been done for the officers, many of whom have suffered and still suffer intense distress. Let us now turn to the case of the loyalists, and we shall behold as great a contrast, as the world has ever exhibited. Never was there such a display of national gratitude. Their losses were compensated, and their services remunerated, by the enormous sum of $15,750,000. "The following statement will show the amount of the benevolence of the British government manifested towards the American loyalists:— "1. Sums paid prior to, and since the appointment of the commisioners of inquiry, exclusive of the sums distributed under their direction "2. Loyalists' certificates by the 28th Geo. III. "3. Unliquidated claims, estimated at £720,873 1,228,289 300,000 " 4. Annual incomes of loyalists, if reduced to £35,000, at ten years' purchase : 350,000 "5. Half pay to the officers of the provincial corps raised in America, £60,000 at eight years' purchase 480,000 "6. The expense of the commissioners, estimated at 501,000 "7. Lands purchased for the loyalists in the Bahamas and St. Vincents, and the expense attending their settlement in the North American provinces 250,000 "8. Fees at the Exchequer 3,750 "9. Loyalists' certificates of East Florida 113,952 "10. Expenses of the East Florida commission 3,750 £3,500,614* "Thus it appears that more than three millions and a half have been furnished from the resources of Great Britain, and from the labour of its people, for the purpose of communicating assistance and comfort to their fellow subjects, whose loyalty and attachment to the parent state had driven them from their homes, and their means of subsistence, in a part of the dominions of the * It is not intended to defend this prodigious amount. It is perhaps as incorrect on the side of lavish expenditure as our own system on the side of illiberality and parsimony. In medio tutissimus ibis. crown, which, after a struggle of nearly eight years, had been ultimately se-. vered from this country. "The national liberality in this instance is without parallel, and places the government, the legislature, and the people, in a point of view which must excite the admiration of all civilized countries; and more especially as the pecuniary sacrifices were made partly under the pressure of heavy burdens, the result of an expensive war, and ultimately at a period when the resources of the nation had become extremely limited, and when a temporary gloom had overspread the country, in consequence of a stagnation of trade and other calamities at the conclusion of this unfortunate war.' A nation that thus magnanimously and liberally indemnifies for losses incurred, and compensates services rendered, in its defence, richly deserves to be served with fidelity. How stands the case with a nation that abandoned its heroes and defenders after a successful struggle, for the first of earthly blessings, to pinching poverty and distress, many of them to linger in jails for debts, some of those debts contracted in its service; and even at this late hour, after a lapse of forty years, hesitates to do justice to the few hoaryheaded veterans that remain, the youngest of whom, I am assured, is verging towards seventy years of age? Philadelphia, May 5, 1828. To the Hon. James Barbour, Secretary of War. Sir, I wish to call your attention to a subject not without interest as regards the treasury of the United States, and of the most serious importance to the comfort and happiness of the officers of the army. I mean the system recently adopted, of periodically transporting the regiments of artillery from north to south, often at distances of 3, 4, 5, 6, and 700 miles. It is difficult to conceive any solid or substantial advantage to be derived from this system, to counterbalance its numerous and obvious disadvantages. The only reason assigned, to justify it, as far as I have learned, is, that as some stations are more comfortable and healthy than others, it is but justice that the advantages and disadvantages should be impartially enjoyed and suffered. This is somewhat plausible-but it is merely plausible. Let us examine it. We will suppose a corps stationed at some disadvantageous place, where dangerous fevers prevail in the autumn, as, for in * Colquhoun on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of Great Britain, page 216. |