Chandler, in
his report of 1882, as follows:

"It is not the policy of the United States to maintain a large navy,
but its reputation, honor, and prosperity require that such naval
vessels as it possesses shall be the best which human ingenuity can
devise and modern artificers construct. Our present vessels are not
such and cannot be made such. They should be gradually replaced by
iron or steel cruisers, and allowed to go out of commission."

It may be of interest to add that in 1882 there was only one
high-power cannon in the navy, while there were nearly nineteen
hundred naval officers, making the proportion of fifty-nine officers
for each ship, and one for every five seamen.

As the result of Secretary Chandler's recommendations in his report of
1882, three steel warships and an armed despatch-steamer were
authorized by the next Congress. The building of these vessels, named
the "Chicago," the "Boston," the "Atlanta," and the "Dolphin," may be
regarded as the first movement toward the making of the new navy of
the United States.

While progress in naval construction has been so rapid that these
ships are a long distance behind the war-vessels of to-day in power,
they were then considered to be equal to any afloat in their
respective classes. All are unarmored. The "Chicago," of forty-five
hundred tons displacement and a speed of fourteen knots an hour, was
an example of the largest and best unarmored fighting and cruising
vessel then built, and, according to Secretary Chandler, had no
superior in speed, endurance, and armament. In the "Boston" and
"Atlanta," each of three thousand tons displacement and a speed of
thirteen knots an hour, speed and endurance were supposed to have been
given their greatest development, and their fighting power was
increased by placing the battery on a central superstructure on the
spar-deck and adopting a brig rig, so that the extremities would be
clear for a fore and aft fire. The "Dolphin," of fifteen hundred tons
displacement and a speed of fifteen knots, was designed as an
auxiliary in naval operations, and it was expected that she would
furnish a model for high-speed commerce-destroyers to be subsequently
built. These vessels were constructed at an aggregate cost of over
$2,400,000, in the shipyard of John Roach, of Chester, Pa. The
"Dolphin" was launched in 1884.

The Congress which authorized the building of the cruisers also
directed that the double-turreted monitors, "Pu