With this exception, nothing whatever was done toward increase or betterment of our naval force from 1865 until 1883. However, in 1881, General Garfield, having been elected President the preceding year and inaugurated the 4th of March, 1881, appointed Judge William H. Hunt, of Louisiana, Secretary of the Navy. General Garfield understood the naval needs of the country, referred to the subject vigorously in his inaugural, and quite early in his administration, or about a month before he was assassinated, prompted his Secretary of the Navy to take measures looking to the modernization of our national marine. The result of this was the convening of a board early in the summer of 1881, of which Admiral John Rodgers was President. The instructions of this board were to investigate the existing state of foreign navies, to inquire into the immediate needs of our own, and to formulate a ship-building programme on modern lines, to be carried out as soon as the resources of the country would permit. On the 7th of November, 1881, this board, which is commonly known to history as the “First Naval Advisory Board,” reported in accordance with its instructions. It is not necessary here to go into detail with regard to the ship-building programme which they recommended. Suffice to say, that not one of the ships or types of ships which they recommended was ever actually built; but their deliberations and report attracted general public attention, caused the subject to be widely and patriotically, although not very intelligently, discussed in the newspapers, so that, while the action of this first Naval Advisory Board did not produce any actual or visible results, it at least served to popularize the subject of the “New Navy.” [Illustration: BATTLESHIP MAINE] In 1882, Mr. Hunt was appointed Minister to Russia, and was succeeded in the Secretaryship of the Navy by William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire. Mr. Chandler was a vigorous, active man, and lost no time in taking advantage of the public interest which had been aroused. The result of the further investigations and reports which he caused to be made, and his communications to the President, and through the President to Congress based thereon, resulted in an act, approved March 3, 1883, providing for the construction of four new cruising vessels, and the launching and engining of the four double-turreted monitors “Puritan,” “Terror,” “Amphitrite,” and “Monadnock,” which at that time had been on the stocks about eight years. These were built of iron, and took the places in the Navy Register of the worthless wooden monitors of the same names.