5709. NAVIGATION, Defensive value of.—
Our navigation * * * as a resource
of defence, [is] essential, [and] will admit
neither neglect nor forbearance. The position
and circumstances of the United States
leave them nothing to fear on their landboard,
and nothing to desire beyond their
present rights. But on their seaboard, they
are open to injury, and they have there, too,
a commerce which must be protected. This
can only be done by possessing a respectable
body of citizen-seamen, and of artists and establishments
in readiness for ship-building.
* * * If we lose the seamen and artists
whom [our navigation] now occupies, we lose
the present means of marine defence, and
time will be requisite to raise up others, when
disgrace or losses shall bring home to our
feelings the error of having abandoned them.—
Foreign Commerce Report. Washington ed. vii, 647. 8.
Ford ed., vi, 480.
(Dec. 1793)
