his
service and having so conducted it as to meet the entire approbation
of the Government, it is suggested, as an act of grace and generosity,
that the same allowance of extra pay and emoluments be extended to them
that were made to the officers and men of like rating in the late
exploring expedition to the South Seas.

I earnestly recommend to your attention the necessity of reorganizing
the naval establishment, apportioning and fixing the number of officers
in each grade, providing some mode of promotion to the higher grades of
the Navy having reference to merit and capacity rather than seniority or
date of entry into the service, and for retiring from the effective list
upon reduced pay those who may be incompetent to the performance of
active duty. As a measure of economy, as well as of efficiency, in this
arm of the service, the provision last mentioned is eminently worthy of
your consideration.

The determination of the questions of relative rank between the sea
officers and civil officers of the Navy, and between officers of
the Army and Navy, in the various grades of each, will also merit
your attention. The failure to provide any substitute when corporal
punishment was abolished for offenses in the Navy has occasioned the
convening of numerous courts-martial upon the arrival of vessels
in port, and is believed to have had an injurious effect upon the
discipline and efficiency of the service. To moderate punishment from
one grade to another is among the humane reforms of the age, but to
abolish one of severity, which applied so generally to offenses on
shipboard, and provide nothing in its stead is to suppose a progress of
improvement in every individual among seamen which is not assumed by
the Legislature in respect to any other class of men. It is hoped that
Congress, in the ample opportunity afforded by the present session, will
thoroughly investigate this important subject, and establish such modes
of determining guilt and such gradations of punishment as are consistent
with humanity and the personal rights of individuals, and at the same
time shall insure the most energetic and efficient performance of duty
and the suppression of crime in our ships of war.

The stone dock in the navy-yard at New York, which was ten years in
process of construction, has been so far finished as to be surrendered
up to the authorities of the yard. The dry dock at Philadelphia is
reported as completed, and is expected soon