d on account of a partial
failure to perform such contract, or the payment of the sum still
remaining unpaid upon her price in case a full performance is adjudged.

The contractor, by reason of his failure in business, being unable to
complete the other three vessels, they were taken possession of by the
Government in their unfinished state under a clause in the contract
permitting such a course, and are now in process of completion in the
yard of the contractor, but under the supervision of the Navy
Department.

Congress at its last session authorized the construction of two
additional new cruisers and two gunboats, at a cost not exceeding in the
aggregate $2,995,000. The appropriation for this purpose having become
available on the 1st day of July last, steps were at once taken for the
procurement of such plans for the construction of these vessels as would
be likely to insure their usefulness when completed. These are of the
utmost importance, considering the constant advance in the art of
building vessels of this character, and the time is not lost which is
spent in their careful consideration and selection.

All must admit the importance of an effective navy to a nation like
ours, having such an extended seacoast to protect; and yet we have not
a single vessel of war that could keep the seas against a first-class
vessel of any important power. Such a condition ought not longer to
continue. The nation that can not resist aggression is constantly
exposed to it. Its foreign policy is of necessity weak and its
negotiations are conducted with disadvantage because it is not in
condition to enforce the terms dictated by its sense of right and
justice.

Inspired, as I am, by the hope, shared by all patriotic citizens, that
the day is not very far distant when our Navy will be such as befits our
standing among the nations of the earth, and rejoiced at every step that
leads in the direction of such a consummation, I deem it my duty to
especially direct the attention of Congress to the close of the report
of the Secretary of the Navy, in which the humiliating weakness of the
present organization of his Department is exhibited and the startling
abuses and waste of its present methods are exposed. The conviction is
forced upon us with the certainty of mathematical demonstration that
before we proceed further in the, restoration of a Navy we need a
thoroughly reorganized Navy Department. The fact that within seventeen
years