Carson.] OU [Dec. 5, 



cially, and his views, which had been communicated to the Hon. Robert 

 Morris, in a letter dated January 6th, 1793, but more in detail to Gen. 

 Knox, then Secretary of War, were, in tlie main, adopted. He was the 

 first naval constructor of the United States, and several of our first ships of 

 war, the Constitution, the GJiesapeake, the Congress, the Constellation and 

 the P)'esident were built according to his plans, and the United States was 

 built at his own yard under his immediate direction.* These Avere the fa- 

 mous ships whose marvelous success may be gathered from the annals of 

 the naval warfare with Tripoli in 1804 and with Great Britain in 1812. f 



Very justly Mr. Humphreys has been called the Father of the Ameri- 

 can Navy. The last thirty years of his life were spent in quiet retirement 

 on a part of his patrimonial estate, PonteReading, in Haverford. Here 

 he died in 1838, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years, with mental 

 faculties unimpaired. 



Samuel Humphreys, a son of Joshua, was educated by his father as a 

 naval constructor, and some of the most l)eautiful ships in our navy were 

 from his models. X 



In 1813 he was appointed naval constructor for the Philadelphia Navy 

 Yard, and, in 1826, by President John Quiucy Adams, Chief Naval Con- 

 structor of the United States, a position which he held until his death in 

 1846. One incident in his career deserves to be narrated. When Izakofi", 

 a special ambassador, who had been sent to America by the Emperor 

 Alexander, with authority to engage the best shipbuilding talent for the 

 construction of a Russian navy, sought to fulfill the imperial instructions, 

 he sent, through Mr. Richard Peters, for "Sam. Humphreys." He offered 

 him a salary of $60,000 per annum, a town house and a country residence 



* The Lives of Eminent Pljiladelphlans, now deceasefl, p. 588. 



Xaval History of the United States, by J. Fenimoie Cooper, Vol. i, p. 149. 



American State Papers. Vol. 1, p. 402. 



The Commencement of the United States Navy, 1794, by Rear Admiral George 

 H. Preble, The United Service, February, 1S84, pp. 139-149. 



tThe main idea of Mr. Humpbreys was that the slrlps should be heavier in 

 tonnage and artillery than their rates would seem to authorize; they proved 

 fast sailers, capable of enduring heavy battering, and ot inflicting severe inju- 

 ries in a short space of time. So terrible was their armament that the British 

 termed them " 74's in disguise." 



t Clement Humphreys, the eldest son of Joshua, gave evidence, when a mere 

 lad, of spirit and daring. Infuriated over an attack in the columns of the ^«<rora 

 upon the Federalists and upon the late President Washington, on the 4th of April , 

 1T97, he violently assaulted the editor, who was visiting the frigate, the United 

 States, then on the stocks at Philadelphia. He was tried for assault and battery 

 and convicted, and was lined $50, and ordered to give security in the sum of two 

 thousand dollars to keep the peace. Such was the admiration of bis conduct on 

 the part ot the Federalist merchants of the city that they paid the line and fur. 

 nished the security. President Adams subsequently sent him to France with 

 special despatches— a reward, as hostile critics asserted, for having thrashed a 

 Kepublican. 



The Aurora, General Advertizer, Philadelphia, April 6, 1797. History of 

 Philadelphia, by Thompson Westcott, Chap, cccxxxiii. HiJ4i'eth's History of 

 the United States, second series, Vol. ii, p. 44. 



