and nine thousand marines, making an aggregate of thirtyfour thousand, exclusive of officers. France has an available force of forty-nine line of battle ships, fifty-seven frigates, twenty-five corvettes of the first class, and two hundred and six vessels of inferior force, among which are thirty-six steamers. Of this fleet, eight ships of the line are in actual commission abroad, nine equipped ready for immediate service. on the completion of their crews; also twelve frigates, thirtynine sloops, seventeen brigs, thirty-six smaller vessels, twentyseven transports, which are armed, and occasionally act as cruisers; and twenty-one steamers. These ships in commission are manned by a force of twenty-four thousand men,

exclusive of officers.

Turning from the condition of the English and French navies, and the formidable aspect in which they present themselves, what do we find to be the condition of our own? The last Navy Register shows it to consist of eleven ships of the line, sixteen frigates, twenty-one sloops, four brigs, nine schooners, four steamers, and a store ship. Some of these ships are unseaworthy, and many others require extensive repairs. Of this force there are only the following in actual commission four ships of the line-three of these being receiving ships, which never quit their moorings-five frigates, thirteen sloops, three brigs, eight schooners, two steamers, and the store ship, manned with a force in all of nine thousand one hundred and twenty-five men.

A consideration of the facts thus briefly stated with regard to the relative value of our commerce, as compared with that of England and France, and the extreme disproportion which our means of defending it bear to those of the powers in question, plainly shows that our navy is wholly inadequate to make head against the powers with which we are liable to be brought into collision. If any other argument were necessary to prove the importance of our possessing a navy commensurate with the exposure of our wide-spread and valuable commerce, and proportioned in some measure to the navies of other maritime powers, it might be found in the fact which our past history conclusively exhibits, that all our difficulties with foreign powers have sprung immediately from the want of a powerful navy. It was this deficiency which, soon after the establishment of our independence, invited the spoliations of the Barbary powers, and led to the Tripolitan war. The same want of naval preparations soon

after invited those predatory attacks on our rich and tempting commerce by France and England, which were carried to such a ruinous extent. In 1800, a season of almost universal war in Europe, we had nearly a million of tons of shipping, exposed without the slightest show of protection, on the high seas. And in 1805 our exports had reached the value of one hundred and eight millions of dollars. An annual expenditure of six or seven millions in the support of fleets and convoys would have secured the safe transit of the valuable products which we exported, and of the enhanced returns by which they should have been repaid, and protected our peaceful citizens, engaged in carrying on their lawful pursuits, from molestation, seizure, and restraint. It was not for want of patriotic warning, even at that early day, that we fell into the error of trusting to the generosity of powerful belligerents, and failed to provide the only means of causing our neutrality to be respected, in the creation of a powerful navy. In 1798, a distinguished statesman, foreseeing the evils that awaited us from a weak reliance upon the justice and generosity of other nations, expressed his perfect conviction that "twelve ships of seventy-four guns, as many frigates, and twenty or thirty smaller vessels, would probably be found, our geographical situation and our means of annoying the trade of the maritime powers considered, a force sufficient to secure our future peace with the nations of Europe."

There can be little doubt that had this opinion been acted upon by our government from that time forward, we should have escaped from those ruinous spoliations carried on in rivalry by France and her allies on the one hand, and England on the other, amounting to an aggregate of seventy millions of dollars, without counting the loss incurred by the consequent check given to our commerce throughout the world. Nor can there be any more doubt that the maintenance of a respectable navy would have prevented those aggressions and insults of every sort, which provoked our late war with England, in which we expended in the armaments which it rendered necessary, one hundred and twenty-eight millions, lost by labor diverted from productive occupations the sum of fifteen millions, and were cut off almost entirely from the lucrative profits on the exports of our productions; and by which we were subjected to the invasion and desolation of our coasts, the slaughter of our citizens, the temporary

suspension of our settlements in the west on account of the incursions of the savages in alliance with Britain, and a general interruption of enterprise throughout the land — an aggregate loss, altogether, of more capital than would have sustained for us a formidable navy in all time to come; and the whole of which, together with the temporary sacrifice of our national honor, only subsequently redeemed by the heroism and blood of our seamen, might have been saved by the creation of a navy coëval with our independence, and growing with our commerce and national power.

Instead, however, of fitting out a force sufficient for the protection of our commerce, when assailed by the French and English belligerents, we determined to withdraw that property from the high seas, to arrest our enterprise, and pass from a state of unbounded activity to one of self-suspended animation, thereby, in the hope of injuring our assailants, waging a war upon ourselves more ruinous than theirs. Our position was no less undignified than it was disastrous. Insult and oppression sought us out even on our own coasts; until at length, when stripped, impoverished, and unprepared, we were driven by the very excess of the contumely with which England treated us, to fight under every disadvantage. The circumstances under which we commenced this war, from which there was no means of honorable escape, were truly ominous. We were in a situation to send to sea seven frigates, three sloops, and eleven brigs and schooners, besides one hundred and seventy gun-boats, the paltry and miserable substitutes of our disbanded navy; while England had at sea ninety-six ships of the line, one hundred and fifty-one frigates, and two hundred smaller vessels; and in the neighborhood of our own coasts the overpowering force of seven ships of the line, twenty-three frigates, and seventy smaller vessels. Enormous, however, as was the disparity, we sustained an honorable struggle, and though suffering greatly from the destruction of our commerce, the glory which our little navy gained for us, healed the wounded honor of the country, and was accepted as an offset to our national misfortunes. We fought our way to self-respect, and to the respect of our enemy, winning for ourselves a name which, sustained by adequate preparation, will do us good service in all time to come.

Having at length settled our difficulties with England by an honorable peace, it still remained for us to seek redress

from France for injuries scarcely less grievous, and which might with equal propriety have led to an appeal to arms, had not our resentment been restrained by the recollection of her valuable services in our struggle for independence. After presenting ourselves through a succession of years to the various governments that have ruled the destinies of France, as suppliants for justice, we at length obtained, after submitting to be reviled from her tribunes as greedy and avaricious, a tardy promise to return a portion of what had been plundered from us; a promise which a fancied insult, and still more the fact of her being armed and ready to assault us, while we were wholly unprepared to defend ourselves, almost emboldened her to break. With shipping to the amount of one million seven hundred thousand tons, with a value of nearly four hundred millions of dollars, exposed with no commensurate protection on the ocean, and coasts undefended by fortifications, or the surer safeguard of a formidable fleet, we held out to France, in 1836, that temptation to a sudden coup-de-main, which she has ever been so little able to resist.

The crisis, however, was happily passed, in a great measure owing to the determined attitude which the country assumed, in the bearing of her chief magistrate. To the energy of President Jackson we are not a little indebted for the honorable yet peaceful result of our dispute with France; and it would have been well had we profited by the good counsel with which he soon after advised the representatives of the people to learn from the recent crisis in which the country had been placed, to prepare in season the means of defence for future emergencies.

"I submit it, then, to you," he remarked, "whether the first duty we owe to the people who have confided to us their power, is not to place our country in such an attitude as always to be so amply supplied with the means of defence, as to afford no inducement to other nations to presume upon our forbearance, or to expect important advantages from a sudden assault either on our commerce, our sea-coast, or our interior frontier. In case of the commencement of hostilities during the recess of Congress, the time inevitably elapsing before that body could be called together, even under the most favorable circumstances, would be pregnant with danger, and if we escaped without signal disaster, or national dishonor, the hazard of both unnecessarily incurred could not fail to excite a feeling of deep reproach. I earnestly recommend to you, there

fore, to make such provisions that in no future time shall we be found without ample means to repel aggression, even although it may come upon us without a note of warning."

This earnest and enlightened recommendation, enforced by such unanswerable arguments, and brought home to the convictions of the country by so recent a crisis, has, however, had the fate of every similar one that preceded it. No addi tional preparations of importance for naval defence have since been made, and our force in commission has been rather diminished than increased. This, too, has been the case during the existence of difficulties of a very complicated character between our country and the most formidable naval power of the day. As if the unsettled state of our conflicting claims with regard to the north-eastern boundary, and the difficulty of keeping the peace on our northern frontier, were not sufficient causes to warn us to be on our guard, we have recently added to the catalogue of our differences with England a question of an exceedingly delicate and exciting character, affecting the integrity of our soil from foreign invasion, and the life of one of our fellow citizens, recklessly destroyed by foreigners on our own territory, on the one hand; and on the other, the liberty and life of a British subject, in peril on a charge of having committed a crime against the laws of our country, while obeying the constituted authorities of his own. In the midst of such increasing embarrassments in our relations with the most formidable of naval powers, does it then become us still to remain indifferent to past admonitions, and impending and constantly increasing difficulties? Is it wise, is it prudent, yet to delay until a more fitting season, to place our naval defence on a formidable and imposing footing and so to maintain it, while we have a commerce to protect, and multiplied relations with foreign powers which may at any time become complicated? Is it asking too much, that from the charges on that commerce from which we derive our chief revenue, a sufficient portion should be set apart for the protection of commerce, and as a permanent means of national defence? We hope that there is no American among us who could answer in the negative, and that the present Congress will not rise without taking measures to place our navy on a permanent and formidable footing with the least possible delay.

We propose to inquire what would be a sufficient navy to