remarkable perhaps than the usage which excludes them from sitting as members of courts martial. There is no law against appointing them to perform this duty; and there is no good reason why they should not be represented, when one of their respective grades is tried. Why should a surgeon in the navy be denied the right of trial by his peers? It is conceded to medical officers of the army, and every citizen "

Had this able writer been less exclusive in his efforts to correct naval abuses, and instead of looking solely to the wrongs of his own class, taken the part of the oppressed of every grade, his pen would have been more powerful in breaking up the aristocratic and oppressive usages of the English navy, which have been fastened upon the American navy and upon the American legislation. Justice and propriety alike demand the abrogation of the present law of usage here complained of. There is no way so effectual as a special statute, and we know not why the provisions of Article 1 should not be adopted. We presume that it will not be denied that the staff officers of the navy, composed principally of the engineers, pursers, and medical officers, are as intelligent and as patriotic as those of the lineal ranks, or that they would as promptly punish crime and maintain the honor of the country.

Section V-Special Mandates, &c.

ART. 1. It is earnestly recommended to all officers, and others in the navy, diligently to attend divine service, and at all times show a becoming respect to the forms of religion. Commandants will afford the chaplain, or whoever may be designated for the performance of sacred duties, all proper facilities for their faithful discharge.

ART. 2. A “naval fund" is hereby authorized to be created under the general superintendence and management of the Secretary of the Navy, for the intellectual and moral improvement of seamen, from the following sources: 1st. The proceeds of fines and forfeitures; 2d. The proceeds of the sales of slush; 3d. The half of all sums derived from freights upon money, jewels, &c.; 4th. Amounts due from intestates and from deserters. Private donations and bequests, whether of money or property, may likewise be received for its use. In pursuance of the object of this fund the Secretary of the Navy is authorized to purchase books, charts, or such other property as may be designed to enlighten the minds, and improve the conduct of men; and as far as the state of the funds shall admit, he may employ "instructors" on board ships in commission, and at the principal naval stations; but such instructors shall be of the religious denomination, or sect most acceptable to a majority of all persons attached to such ship or station. Said instructors shall mess in the ward-room, and be entitled to a ration and nine hundred dollars, when on duty, except in frigates and ships of the line, where they shall receive twelve hundred dollars and a ration.

The instructors to be thus appointed shall be competent to perform the duties of chaplain, and will be required to give instruction to all persons who may require their services in such studies, including book-keeping and navigation, as will best fit them for advancement in the vocation of the sailor. The grade of chaplains is hereby abolished, and the sum hitherto appropriated for their pay will be transferred to the naval fund until otherwise ordered by Congress, provided the amount so transferred does not exceed $25,000 per annum.

ART. 3. No person in the navy who has not been specially engaged for the purpose, shall be compelled to do menial offices as a servant of, or for the private benefit of another. This prohibition is not intended to forbid proper duties as laborers, such as cleaning the ship, rowing of boats, &c.; nor is it intended to prevent an officer from employing a private, with the consent of the latter, to attend to his bedding, clothing, or perform for him other services at a proper compensation; but no one shall be excused from any public duty on account of any private agreement for his services.

ART. 4. For sending or accepting a challenge to duel; for being a second, promoter, carrier, or conveyor of such challenge: for upbraiding or reproaching another for refusing a challenge; for, when in command of a ship, or as officer of the deck, or in command of a boat, or under any other circumstances, knowingly, or willingly permitting any one to go forth to fight a duel, and not doing his utmost to prevent the same, the punishment will in all cases be dismissal. But this article gives no authority to take cognizance of the giving or receiving a challenge when one of the principals is not subject to military law.

ART. 5. The people, by the voice of Congress, and executive of the United States, hereby discharges all persons in the navy from any disgrace, or opinion of disadvantage, which might arise from their having refused to accept of a challenge, and declares that in so refusing they act in obedience to the laws, and do their duty as gallant sailors who subject themselves to discipline, and who know that their lives are pledged for the defence of the country.

ART. 6. A deserter to an enemy will be punished with death.

ART. 7. Desertion will be punished according to the circumstances of its aggravation, at the discretion of a court-martial. A deserter, unless severed from service by sentence of court, is bound to make good all time lost by desertion, as well as the time he may lose by the sentence of close arrest, when inflicted as a punishment for desertion. The court not only may forfeit his pay to the extent of their power in other cases, but charge him with all reasonable and lawful expenses of his capture.

ART. 8. A court of inquest can in no case take cognizance of the crime of desertion. A court-martial is to be the sole judge of the fact of desertion, which differs from absence without leave, in being an unauthorized abandonment of the service, and not a mere absence therefrom without any design, or purpose of abandonment. But in time of peace, unauthorized absence of more than days, if in the United States, and — days if in a foreign port, will in all cases be tried as desertion. These provisions are not to be so construed as to prevent an accusation of desertion for even the shortest illegal absence, when accompanied by circumstances showing a design to desert. A court-martial on a trial for desertion may acquit the accused of desertion, but declare that there appears to be ground for an accusation of absence without leave, which will be investigated by the proper tribunal.

ART. 9. A deserter will, in all future time, be liable to be tried and punished for desertion; and it is enjoined on all persons belonging to the navy, to use every effort to make such known, and cause them to be brought to trial.

ART. 10. In cases of revolt, resistance, or combined disobedience against superiors, those who have excited it, and those who are the chiefs and leaders of the revolt, will be punished with death. Those who take

part, or join in it, will be punished at the discretion of a court-martial. Officers present, who have in any way connived at the mutiny, or who have not faithfully and honestly opposed by all means in their power, to the best of their ability, will be punished with death. If the combined disobedience consist in inert resistance, the sentence may be awarded against the chiefs of the revolt, at the discretion of a court-martial.

ART. 11. In case of a riotous, mutinous, or seditious assembly, the superiors will command it to disperse in the name of the law, and that each one withdraw. If they are not instantly obeyed, they will name or designate those who they deem to be the authors or chiefs of the assembly. If those designated do not at once return to their duty, they will from that moment be deemed chiefs of revolt, and punished accordingly. ART. 12. If the assembly is not dissolved on the command given in the name of the law, or if violence be used, it is the duty of the superiors to employ such means in their power as they may deem necessary promptly to suppress it, without prejudice to the penalties declared by law. The superiors can never be disturbed, or disquieted on account of the means used to make the law prevail. Officers, or petty officers, joining or taking part in any mutiny, will be deemed chiefs of revolt, and punished accordingly.

ART. 13. By mutiny, the law means combined revolt or resistance against lawful military authority. Generally the law requires three, at least, to constitute the crime of mutiny; but even two combined may be guilty of the crime of mutiny, when said number constitutes not less than one-third of the command.

ART. 14. No naval tribunal can attach any criminalty to the disobedience of an unlawful order; but if the order be lawful, the mere opinion, or even conviction, in the mind of the accused, that the order was illegal, will not be deemed a mitigating, or even extenuating circumstance.

ART. 15. Prompt and unhesitating obedience being so essential in the navy, and disobedience being, in most cases, a serious crime, and as such, severely punished, it is enacted that no one, subject to the law of the navy, shall be punished by any civil or military tribunal, for an act done in obedience to an order of his superior officer in the navy, even though said order be illegal; unless it appear from the nature of the case, or from the circumstances attending it, that the accused, at the time of the obeying of the order, knew that he was acting illegally. But in all such cases of illegal orders, he who gave the order, and he who having the order brought under his notice, does not countermand it, having the power to do so, will severally and jointly be held answerable for all wrongful acts done in pursuance of such illegal orders, in like manner as if such acts had been done by themselves in person.

ART. 16. When a court-martial is of opinion that the accusation against an officer is true, but the offence arose from the incapacity of the accused, such court will recommend that he be discharged the naval service without disgrace, or have the privilege of resigning; and, in either case he shall, if he has served in the navy thirty years, receive furlough pay for life; if he has served over twenty years, he shall receive furlough pay for ten years, over ten and under twenty years, he shall receive furlough pay for five years; and if under ten, he shall receive furlough pay for two years.

ART. 17. Will be deemed incompetent, and discharged with the advantages allotted in the preceding article, any commandant, the station,

squadron, or ship under whose command affords evidence, by its condition, of his incapacity for his post; or any officer whose ignorance, habits, temper, idiosyncrasy, or any peculiar mental character, disqualify him for the discharge of the duties of his station; or any person whose physical infirmities incapacitate him for a sea life, provided those infirmities or maladies arose from vicious indulgences, or faults of his own, or were contracted before entering the service, or were the consequences of hereditary or constitutional taint. Otherwise he will be honorably discharged (if declared incompetent) on half duty pay for life.

ART. 18. The Secretary of the Navy will cause this act to be published in map form, and direct that a copy in frame, or on rollers, be kept suspended in some public place at each United States rendezvous of seamen, and at such other places as will bring it under the observation of seafaring men. He shall likewise direct that one be suspended on board every ship of war belonging to the navy, in a part of the ship where it may at any time be read by the crew, and that such articles as refer to faults, offences, crimes, and the punishment thereof, shall be read once in every three months on board every ship in the navy and at every naval station.

ART. 19. The Secretary of the Navy will have published, annually, a "Seaman's Register," to contain the names of all privates in the navy, designating their rate, length of service, (dating from the passage of this act,) actual duty, place of birth, and present residences, also such as are picked men.

REMARKS. The experiment of affording the means of instruction to seamen ought not to meet with opposition, if it can be made without cost. Article second aims at this object. The transfer from the treasury to the Naval Fund, to the full extent of the limit named, $25,000, would be 1,800 less than chaplains now receive, as employed according to the last register. This transfer would not necessarily deprive them of their present means of support. Many of this grade, now in a position where they can do no good, and where Congress has not the constitutional right to put them, have every qualification for usefulness, and would doubtless enter on a proper field of labor with renewed zeal.

The money obtained from the sale of slush, or the grease skimmed from boiled pork, has been the occasion of unpleasant feeling, if not sometimes of discreditable conduct. The crew have sagacity enough to perceive that it properly belongs to themselves; and some commanders devote a portion of it to procure extra comforts and little luxuries for them; but the most usual application of this fund is to purchase gewgaws for the vessel, such as ornaments to go on boats and certain conspicuous parts of the ship, musical instruments, uniforms for musicians, &c. As the allowances for our ships are ample to meet the necessary wants for actual service, all these could be dispensed with, not only without injury, but with actual advantage, as its expenditure for these purposes only fosters the pernicious feeling in the minds of those directing the expenditure, that the national property is to be used for the gratification of their own personal vanity. In the English navy, we believe the proceeds of slush is paid to the cook, in lieu of other emoluments. As this has not yet obtained with us, the cook being otherwise compensated, the present is a favorable time to give the slush fund a direction, which will most benefit its proper owners.

(To be Continued.)

EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES:

UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE MONTGOMERY (ORANGE COUNTY) LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY, MAY 19, 1849.

THE subject for consideration this evening is of vast extent and of deep interest. Exclusive of the interest of the subject itself, it has been clothed with additional interest from the circumstance, that European philosophers, and especially many English authors, have pertinaciously endeavored to disparage our country, in all the particulars relating to the ability and facility of obtaining knowledge. It is true, they no longer insist on the truth of the dictum of Buffon, that animal nature degenerates in America; but they still assert that our progress is "stern foremost"-that we "have done nothing but propagating the species and chopping down forest timber, without advancing the cause of good government, or any branch of human knowledge, science, or art, one jot.". Happily, although there was a time when such sneers irritated us, that time has been succeeded by the consciousness of power too great to be affected by manifestations of malevolence, or by the sycophantic parasites of royal favor. It was natural that, when we were struggling for a place in the family of nations, before the beauty and power of our institutions became manifest to the world, we should exhibit some little impatience at the reproaches so illiberally bestowed upon us; but it is just as natural now, when our condition in every respect is among the foremost, and in some respects in advance of them, we should regard such reproaches with the pity due to jealousy, rather than with the contempt due to malice. I regret to be compelled to say, that, in part, we have contributed to the rise, progress, and continuance of these aspersions. The absence of an international copyright law, and the interest of American publishers, have contributed, in a very great degree, to depress American literature. We are now rapidly obtaining a literature of our own; but it is growing in despite of difficulties and opposition, because the vigor of American genius is too strong to be subdued. The discussion of the subject proposed for consideration this evening, will, probably, assist us to form a more correct opinion of our condition as a people than we have heretofore entertained; and I shall be exceedingly mistaken if it should not also make us rejoice that our lots have been cast where the facilities for obtaining knowledge abound to a degree unexampled in the most favored nation of Europe.

The question is." Which country presents greater facilities for obtaining knowledge-the United States or England?"

The first thing to be determined is, what are "facilities for obtaining knowledge?" What are the influences which operate to produce a desire for knowledge among a people? These I think are, 1st, Political influence, or the nature of the institutions under which a people live. 2d, Physical influences, or the climate, soil, rivers, mountains, extent of ter