Receptecles of idleness and objects of waste and extravagance without utility

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 206. Reform of the nascent American navy in time of war.

Jones for his part began to send out a veritable gale of orders and correspondence in his first few weeks, going over lists of officers for promotion or transfer, reducing and redeploying the infamous Jeffersonian gunboats—Jones told his brother that they were “scattered about in every creek and corner as receptecles of idleness and objects of waste and extravagance without utility”—demanding that “trees be cut down immediately” for needed timber, asking Congress for reforms in procurement procedures and authorization to hire two more clerks, appointing a competent physician to take charge and straighten out the haphazard system of naval hospitals, which offered equally haphazard care in inadequate temporary buildings scattered around the various ports. He ordered a systematic review of every officer’s fitness, requiring commanding officers to report on each of their officers upon their return from each cruise, or once a year on July 4 for those on shore duty, and developed a form for personnel files that listed mental and physical qualifications; proficiency in mathematics, grammar, and nautical astronomy; and “moral and general character.” He instituted a general order forbidding squadron or station commanders from making any more acting appointments as they had long been accustomed: that power was henceforth to be exercised solely by the secretary, and Jones rebuffed a protest on this point even from his old friend Bainbridge. He ordered junior officers to correspond with the Navy Department only through their superiors and stop bombarding his office with personal requests and complaints. The new secretary was on the job scarcely a month before he reprimanded or cashiered several officers who, through incompetence or corruption, had spent large sums without department approval. To a lieutenant who had purchased an unsea-worthy hulk without authorization Jones wrote a blistering dismissal: “Your irregular and extravagant conduct … prove you utterly unfit for the station with which you have been honoured. You are, therefore, dismissed from the service of the U.S.”