To Thomas Jefferson from Robert Smith, 7 December 1804
From Robert Smith
Navy Dep 7 Decr. 1804
Sir,
There are eight gun boats now building for the maintenance of which no appropriation has as yet been required—If they should be put in commission with the number of officers & men necessary in time of war, we shall require for their maintenance during the year, 1805, the following appropriations,
If these eight gun boats should act in one division we shall only require for “pay & subsistence” the sum of 45324—because in that case there would be no occasion for a surgeon & a purser to each gun boat—one surgeon with 2 surgeon’s mates, & one Purser, with a steward for each gun boat, would be sufficient for the whole—The saving by this arrangement would be $6204 annually—which would reduce the whole sum required for the maintenance of these 8 gun boats from $71528, to $65324.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, sir, yr. mo ob. servt.
Rt Smith
RC (DLC); in a clerk’s hand, signed by Smith; notations by TJ in italics; at foot of text: “The President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received from the Navy Department on 8 Dec. and “gunboats” and so recorded in SJL. FC (Lb in DNA: RG 45, LSP).
gun boats: in the fall of 1804, Gunboats Nos. 3-9 were under construction at major seaports along the coast. They were launched between November 1804 and April 1805 (Spencer C. Tucker, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy [Columbia, S.C., 1993], 182-4).