hese vessels is _more than seven
per cent. per annum_ on their first cost.

We have as yet had but little experience in the use of war-steamers. The
Fulton, four guns, built in 1838-'39, cost three hundred and
thirty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy dollars and
seventy-seven cents; the Mississippi and Missouri, ten guns each, built
in 1841, cost about six hundred thousand dollars a piece; making an
average cost for war-steamers of _over sixty thousand dollars per gun._
The cost of repairs of steam ships will be much greater than those for
vessels of war; but we have not yet had sufficient experience to
determine the exact amount. It has been estimated, however, by competent
judges, that when kept, the expense of repairs will at least equal
twelve per cent. of the first cost. The expense of keeping them in
commission is enormously great. "Their engines," says the Secretary of
the Navy, in his annual report in 1842, "consume so much fuel as to add
enormously to their expenses; and the necessity that they should return
to port, after short intervals of time, for fresh supplies, renders it
impossible to send them on any distant service. They cannot be relied on
as cruisers, and are altogether too expensive for service in time of
peace. I have therefore determined to take them out of commission, and
substitute for them other and less expensive vessels."

The average cost of permanent fortifications is but _little more than
three thousand dollars per gun_. And it must be obvious, from the nature
of the materials of which they are constructed, that the expense of
their support must be inconsiderable. It is true that for some years
past a large item of annual expenditure for fortifications has been
under the head of "repairs;" but much of this sum is for alterations and
enlargements of temporary and inefficient works, erected anterior to the
war of 1812. Some of it, however, has been for actual repairs of decayed
or injured portions of the forts; these injuries resulting from the
nature of the climate, the foundations, the use of poor materials and
poor workmanship, and from neglect and abandonment. But if we include
the risk of abandonment at times, it is estimated, upon data drawn from
past experience, that _one-third of one per cent. per annum_, of the
first cost, will keep in perfect repair any of our forts that have been
constructed since the last war.

But it is unnecessary to further discuss this question We re