12 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[June, 
charge of the executive officer until she should, arrive in the port 
of New- York. 
During the whole month of May the most active preparations 
were going on aboard, so that by the 31st she was hauled out 
from the navy yard wharf, and by the aid of two ste^m-boats 
was towed over the bar, and moored head and stern off the mouth 
of the eastern branch of the Potomac. Previous to her removal 
from the navy yard, she had been visited by the President and 
Honourable Secretary of the Navy. 
The period from the 1st to the 14th of June was exclusively 
occupied in the outfits of the ship, and in getting off stores and 
various other articles ; though all the sea-stores could not be 
taken in at this place, owing to the want of a sufficient depth of 
water in many parts of the Potomac river. In the mean time 
the ship had undergone a material change in her appearance and 
internal arrangements, and not only began to assume more of the 
regularity of a man-of-war among her inmates, but in every other 
respect bespoke preparation for a distant voyage. She was at 
this time, 15th, again visited and inspected by the Honomable 
Secretary of the Navy and Navy Commissioners. 
On the following morning, the 16th, orders were issued to the 
coramanding officer to proceed with the Potomac down the river 
to Norfolk. The anchor was immediately weighed, and the 
frigate put in motion by the aid of a fine steam-boat selected for 
towing her dov^^n the river to Hampton-Roads, 
The movements of a vessel of such dimensions down the 
intricate channel of a river which rises so many leagues from the 
ocean, was not only calculated to produce a painful anxiety, but 
was, in fact, a matter of no small responsibility. The city of 
Washington, it is well known, is that point in the United States 
to which the largest vessels can be navigated the farthest into the 
interior of tho' continent. This single fact evinces the wisdom 
and foresight of him whose advice thus located the capital of the 
empire which he founded. 
Neither sectional partiality nor prejudice, it appears, had the 
least influence in determining this important matter ; for the father 
of his country did not recommend the spot where the city of 
Washington now stands, until he had bestowed great and un- 
wearied pains, and made laborious and interesting reconnoissance 
DBl 
