miles. Notwithstanding this increase of service, the net saving is over nine per cent, as compared with the previous term.

The total annual cost of the internal service in operation on the 30th of June last was $5,853,834, to which add the cost of the various agencies, route and local messengers, etc., etc., $460,630 92, and the cost of the service at that date is $6,314,464 92, which includes one million dollars for the Overland Mail Route, not before charged upon the revenues of this Department.

The saving in the lettings of the West to July, 1862, is attributed to a strict adherence to the law of 1845, authorizing what is known as star bids.

The report renews the recommendation for codifying all the postal laws, and hopes it may be done at this session.

Among the improvements under consideration by the Postmaster General, is that of embossing postal stamps on business and other envelopes supplied for that purpose by persons desiring to furnish their own designs. It is believed that this will largely increase the use of stamped envelopes in lieu of stamps, which is an object of great importance to the Department.

He also discourages the use of the mails for transmitting money, and speaks favorably of a limited money order system, and offers an amendment to the registry system, by which a return receipt shall be sent to the dispatching party, as evidence of the fact and date of delivery of his package.

He also proposes to abolish many of the discriminating rates of postage now existing, approximating, as far as possible, to uniformity, and increasing the efficiency and extent of the delivery and collection of letters by carriers in cities. These important changes have been very fully and ably advocated, as our readers are aware, in the Merchants Magazine during the past year.

The attention of the public is called to the great importance of good postal officers for a successful administration of this Department. If the postmasters and their clerks are selected without chief reference to their efficiency and personal fitness, no amount of good legislation will secure public satisfaction. An energetic, faithful, and efficient postmaster, devoted to the interests of the service, should be retained as long as he illustrates those qualities in his administration of the office. He attributes the success of the English system largely to the permanent character of their officers, and their familiarity with the laws and regulations. He regrets the extent to which other motives to appointments have prevailed in this country. He urges a return to the old standard of honesty, capaci ty, and fidelity, and anticipates more public satisfaction and administrative success from the adoption of such a principle than from any other single act of reform. He uses this language:

"It is my intention to adhere firmly to my determination to displace incompetency and indifference wherever found in official position under my control, without any discrimination in favor of appointments I may myself have made under misinformation of facts."

As a whole, we think this document well deserves careful attention, and we trust that many of its suggestions will be adopted by Congress.

NAUTICAL INTELLIGENCE.

THE NAVAL FORCE OF THE UNITED STATES, ETC.-REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.

As To the condition of our navy, the Secretary in his report says: When I entered upon the discharge of my public duties as the head of this department, in March, 1861, there were but 42 vessels in commission, and as stated in my last annual report, but 76 vessels then attached to the navy have been made available. Most of those in commission were abroad, and of the 7,600 seamen in the pay of the government, there were on the 10th of March, 1861, but 207 men in all the ports and receiving ships on the Atlantic coast to man our ships and protect the navy yards and depots, or to aid in suppressing the rising insurrection.

Neither the expiring administration, nor Congress, which had been in session until the 4th of March, had taken measures to increase or strengthen our naval power, notwithstanding the lowering aspect of our public affairs, so that when a few weeks after the inauguration I desired troops for the protection of the public property at Norfolk and Annapolis, or sailors to man and remove the vessels, neither soldiers nor sailors could be procared. There were no men to man our ships, nor were the few ships at our yards in a condition to be put into immediate service.

The proclamation of April, placing our entire coast from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande under blockade, found us with a naval force, even were every vessel on our coast, inadequate to the work required.

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We have at this time afloat or progressing to rapid completion a naval force consisting of 427 vessels, there having been added to those of the old navy enumerated in my report of July, 1861, exclusive of those that were lost, 353 vessels, armed in the aggregate with 1,577 guns, and of the capacity of 40,028 tons.

The annals of the world do not show so great an increase in so brief a period to the naval power of any country. It affords me satisfaction to state that the acquisitions made to the navy from the commercial marine have proved to be of an excellent character, and though these vessels were not built for war purposes, and consequently have not the strength of war vessels, they have performed all the service that was expected of them. No equal amount of tonnage was ever procured for any service at prices correspondingly low, and with so little disturbance to the commercial community, and no vessels were ever constructed on better terms for the government, or have better subserved the purposes for which they were designed, than the twenty-three gunboats for which the department contracted on its own responsibility at the commencement of hostilities, without waiting for the action of Congress. In no respects, during this war, has the government been better or more economically and faithfully served than in the additions that have beer, made by construction and purchase for the navy.

In order that the actual condition of the navy, past and present, from March 4, 1861, to November, 1862, and the expansion which has been made, may be seen, I present a tabular statement of the number of vessels, and the aggregate of their armament and tonnage:

NAVAL FORCE AT DATE OF THE LAST ANNUAL REPORT.

When the vessels now under construction are completed, the navy will

The appropriations for the fiscal year ending amounted to $43,615,551 77. The expenses were $42,200,529 96, leaving an unexpended balance of $1,115,021 81. The amount appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, is $52,814,359 07. The estimates submitted for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, are as follows:

The Secretary has the following in regard to the privateers fitted and fitting out in England: The rebel armed steamer Sumter, which, after committing depredations, was at the date of my last report, fleeing to escape our cruisers, crossed the Atlantic. She was tracked to Gibraltar, where she has since remained, one of our cruisers vigilantly guarding her from Algeciras. With this exception, no other armed vessel has plundered our commerce or inflicted injury on our countrymen, until within a recent period, when a steamer known as 290, or Alabama, built and fitted out in England -a vessel that had not been in any port or visited any waters but those of Great Britain-went forth from the shores of that country, ravaging, sinking, burning, and destroying the property of our merchants who, knowing our peaceful relations with England, and uninformed that such a cruiser had been permitted to leave Great Britain, were unprepared for such assault and devastation.

How far and to what results this abuse may be carried with impunity to the government which tolerates it, is matter of grave consideration. The piratical privateer 290, or Alabama, has no register nor record, no regular ship's papers nor evidence of transfer, and no vessel captured by her has ever been sent into any port for adjudication and condemnation. All forms

of law which civilization has introduced to protect and guard private rights, and all those regulations of public justice which distinguish and discriminate the legalized naval vessels from the pirate, are disregarded and violated by this lawless rover, which, though built in and sailing from England, has no acknowledged flag or recognized nationality, nor any accessible port to which to send any ship she may seize, nor any legal tribunal to adjudge her captures. Under the English flag, in which they confided, and by the torch of the incendiary, appealing to their humanity, our merchantmen

have been lured to destruction.

She was built and fitted out in British ports in flagrant violation of British law and of the royal proclamation of neutrality, and I have reason to believe that her crew is composed almost exclusively of British subjects, or persons who, pursuing a loyal voyage, would be entitled to ship and receive protection to British seamen.

Before this piratical cruiser left Great Britain, the authorities of that country were informed by the recognized official agents of this government of her character and purposes. The British Government, thus invoked, came too late to prevent her sailing. To what extent, under these circumstances, the government of Great Britain is bound in honor and justice to make indemnification for the destruction of private property which this lawless vessel may perpetrate, is a question that may present itself for disposal. It is alluded to now and here, not only from a sense of duty towards our commercial interests and rights, but also by reason of the fact that recent intelligence indicates that still other vessels of a similar character are being fitted out in British ports to depredate upon our commerce.

Our own cruisers not being permitted to remain in British ports to guard against these outrages, nor to coal while cruising, nor to repair damages in their harbors when injuries are sustained, the arrest of them is difficult and attended with great uncertainty. This Department has dispatched cruisers to effect the capture of the Alabama, and there is now quite a fleet on the ocean in pursuit of her.

AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE IRON-CLAD NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES.

The following is a list of the iron-clads of the American navy, now in service and in process of construction:

St. Louis.