The New York herald., 1862-03-11


Secretary WelIes Tried and Found
Wanting.
Our late sea fight in Hampton Roads is
one of the most remarkable and instructive
events in the history of modern warfare. 1t
establishes the utter uselessness of wooden ships,
with their old fashioned popguns, against IRON
plated battering rams and Dahlgren cannon;
it shows that almost as by miracle We have
escaped burning national disgrace; and, most
important of all, it shows that the present head
of our Navy Department is behind the age, and
unequal to the duties of his position and the
Just demands of the country.
In April last, when the Norfolk Navy Yard
was burned by the federal officers in charge, to
prevent its immense naval stores from falling
into the hands OF a rebel mob, ten or more YES
sells of war, which could not be fired up or
towed off in season, were scuttled or burned,
including the new steam frigate Merrimac,
which was scuttled. The only one of our
war vessels in the port which escaped
was the Cumberland, which was towed out by
a steamtug captured few days before from
the enemy. We all know, however, that the
rebels had no sooner come into the occupation
of Norfolk than they commenced the work of
raising the Merrimac, and that they soon sue
ceeded in their undertaking. The fact has been
equally notorious to all the world that since
August last down to month ago, the rebels
were employed in converting said ship into an
iron-plated bomb-proof battering ram. In COM
mon with the public at large; we presume that
Secretary Welles was informed fortnight since
that the Merrimac was finished and ready for
sea; and that two other rebel steamers, the
Yorktown and Jamestown, also provided with
an iron casing, were waiting for dark night or
favorable opening to run our blockade of
Hampton Roads and put to sea.
How, then, are we to account for the sorry
blockading squadron in Hampton Roads on
Saturday morning last, and for the absence of
anything in the shape of an iron-plated
ship? All the required authority, means
and facilities had been possessed by the
Secretary of the Navy for half a dozen IRON
plated ships. Had he been able to comprehend
The necessity and the immense advantages of
such vessels, he might have had half dozen
aHoat in December last, competent to take Nor
folk, Beaufort, North Carolina; Charleston, Sa-
vannah, Pensacola, Mobile and New Orleans At
all events, we can find no excuse for the palpa-
BILE neglect of the blockade of James river, at
time when three iron-plated rebel steamers,
shut up in those waters, were watching for
favorable opportunity to run out to sea or to
pounce upon and destroy our helpless wooden
hulks standing in the way
Suppose the Ericsson double-koeled, cannon
proof nondescript, the Monitor, with her little
cooked hat, revolving and impregnable fort,
had been delayed day or two longer
in her passage to Fortress Monroe
are we exaggerating our dangers in
saying that the Merrimac might have as
cended the Potomac and shelled the President
out of the White House; and that the James
town and Yorktown, escaping to sea, swift
steamers as they are, might have cleaned the
whole Atlantic coast of our outgoing and in
coming merchantmen? The genius, skill and
enterprise of private citizen have saved us
from these dangers and from the disgrace which
would have followed the escape of those three
rebel vessels from the James river. We have
had narrow escape-so very narrow and so
trust our navy to any man of the old sailing
wooden ship school of Mr.. Secretary Welles.
We have realized the difference between
man of ordinary military abilities for an extra
ordinary crisis and man of superior energy,
activity and military genius. or the difference
between Secretary Cameron and Secretary
Stanton. as the controlling head of the War
tbo L.,
that a similar change was the great necessity in
the Navy Department--that Mr.. Welles was too
slow and too strongly attached to the ancien
regime for his important situation. We have
wanted and now want man in his place of
quick, active, fresh vigorous and comprehen-
sive intellect-a Jealous, earnest man, who un-
derstands the progressive spirit of the times,
and who appreciates the wants Of the country
as great commercial Power, and who will
know how to apply our inexhaustible means
and facilities to the creation Of navy equal to
all emergencies against domestic conspiracies
or foreign combinations.
Gov. sprague, of Rhode Island is just such
man. He is young, and yet he possesses the
matured intellect of ripper age in years; he is
Jealous and enthusiastic, but his enthusiasm is
regulated by sound judgment; he is man of
the age we live in, and his ideas in reference to
public affairs comprehend all the great me-
chanical inventions and revolutions of the pre-
sent century. prosperous millionaire,
through his enterprising business habits, and
universally esteemed as man of rare endow-
ments, and absolutely beyond the range of pr-
vate speculations upon the public Treasury,
Gov. Sprague, we submit, is the man for the
Navy Department at this crisis.
We respectfully invite the attention of Presi-
dent Lincoln to the superior qualifications of
Gov. sprague for the duties SO bunglingly dis
charged by Mr. Welles. The venerable Secre-
tary is too old in his notions for the time and
4ha rlana xubich ha nncuniaa GA naur Lraa..