But a more extensive naval plan than this was in Morris’s mind, and one which could be undertaken independent of foreign ships. On July 30, 1782, he submitted to Congress an estimate for the public services of the United States for the year 1783, amounting in all to eleven millions of dollars. More than one-fifth of this sum was to be spent on the navy. “Congress will observe,” he said, “that the estimates for the Marine Department amount to two Millions and a half, whereas there was no Estimate made for that Service in the last year any more than for the civil list.” Morris based this most remarkable recommendation for a naval increase on the belief that the enemy had changed his mode of warfare, and that it was now his purpose to annihilate the commerce of America, and thus starve her into submission. With this sort of a campaign, conducted by the enemy, an American army without a navy would be burdensome without being able to accomplish anything. With a navy, we could prevent the enemy from making predatory excursions, ruining our commerce, and capturing our supplies; he would either be compelled to keep a superior naval force in this country, which would give our allies a naval superiority elsewhere; or else he must permit the balance of naval strength in America to be on our side; in which latter case we could protect our trade, annoy his commerce and cut off the supplies which he would be sending to his posts in America. Then, concluded Morris in words which remind one of the annual report of some recent Secretary of the Navy asking for the yearly quota of battleships: “By oeconomizing our Funds and constructing six ships annually we should advance so rapidly to Maritime importance that our enemy would be convinced not only of the Impossibility of subduing us, but also of the Certainty that his forces in this Country must eventually be lost without being able to produce him any possible Advantage;” and we should in this way regain the “full Possession of our Country without the Expence of Blood, or treasure, which must attend any other Mode of Operations, and while we are pursuing those Steps which lead to the Possession of our natural Strength and Defence.”[299]