5726. NAVIGATION, Nurseries of.—
We have three nurseries for forming seamen:
1. Our coasting trade, already on a
safe footing. 2. Our fisheries, which in spite
of natural advantages, give just cause of
anxiety. 3. Our carrying trade, our only resource
of indemnification for what we lose
in the other. The produce of the United
States, which is carried to foreign markets,
is extremely bulky. That part of it which
is now in the hands of foreigners, and which
we may resume into our own, without touching
the rights of those nations who have met
us in fair arrangements by treaty, or the interests
of those who, by their voluntary regulations,
have paid so just and liberal a respect
to our interests, as being measured
back to them again, places both parties on as
good ground, perhaps, as treaties could place
them—the proportion, I say, of our carrying
trade, which may be resumed without affecting
either of these descriptions of nations,
will find constant employment for ten thousand
seamen, be worth two millions of dollars,
annually, will go on augmenting with
the population of the United States, secure
to us a full indemnification for the seamen
we lose, and be taken wholly from those
who force us to this act of self-protection in
navigation. * * * If regulations exactly
the counterpart of those established against
us, would be ineffectual, from a difference of
circumstances, other regulations equivalent can
give no reasonable ground of complaint to any
nation. Admitting their right of keeping their
markets to themselves, ours cannot be denied
of keeping our carrying trade to ourselves.
And if there be anything unfriendly
in this, it was in the first example.—
Report on the Fisheries. Washington ed. vii, 553.
(1791)
