[256] Marine Committee Letter Book, Board of Admiralty to Board of Treasury, January 7, 1780. [257] Ibid., Board of Admiralty, to Commissary-General of Issues, August 21, 1780. [258] Ibid., Board of Admiralty to Holker, August 29, 1780. [259] Records and Papers of New London Country Historical Society, part IV, I, 47-56; Boston Gazette, July 24, 1780; Gomer Williams, Liverpool Privateers, 272-75. [260] List of Officers in Revolutionary Navy, miscellaneous manuscripts in the Library of Congress. [261] See Chapter VIII, Secretary of Marine and Agent of Marine. [262] Journals of Continental Congress, July 9, 1781. [263] Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 78, XIV, 445-47. [264] Journals of Continental Congress, July 17, 1781. [265] Ibid., July 18, 1781. CHAPTER VIII THE SECRETARY OF MARINE AND THE AGENT OF MARINE On the question of the proper organization of the executive departments, the leaders of the Revolution were divided into two factions. Moved by their love of liberty, their distrust of governments, and their jealousy of delegated and concentrated powers, the members of one faction favored the vesting of the executive business in Congressional committees. The members of the other faction, who stood for governmental authority and control, for constructive legislation in the field of administration, and for the application of the principles of business to the affairs of state, declared for a system of permanent and single-headed executives chosen outside of the membership of Congress. The issue that was here joined in the special field of administration was of course a part of that perennial and perpetual conflict between the freedom of the individual and social control. In this case, as everywhere and always, the political doctrinaires, the iconoclasts and radicals, and the men of heart rather than of head, lined up on the side of liberty; while the practical and conservative men, the representatives of vested interests, and the cold, logical thinkers, stood together on the side of governmental control.