5727. NAVIGATION, Nurseries of.—[continued].
The loss of seamen, unnoticed,
would be followed by other losses in
a long train. If we have no seamen, our
ships will be useless, consequently our shiptimber,
iron and hemp; our shipbuilding will
be at an end, ship carpenters go over to other
nations, our young men have no call to the
sea, our produce, carried in foreign bottoms,
be saddled with war freight and insurance in
times of war; and the history of the last
hundred years shows, that the nation which
is our carrier has three years of war for
every four years of peace. We lose, during
the same periods, the carriage for belligerent
powers, which the neutrality of our flag
would render an incalculable source of profit;
we lose at this moment the carriage of our
own produce to the annual amount of two
millions of dollars, which, in the possible
progress of the encroachment, may extend to
five or six millions, the worth of the whole,
with an increase in the proportion of the increase
of our members. It is easier, as well
as better, to stop this train at its entrance,
than when it shall have ruined or banished
whole classes of useful and industrious citizens.
It will doubtless be thought expedient that the resumption suggested should take effect
so gradually, as not to endanger the loss
of produce for the want of transportation;
but that, in order to create transportation,
the whole plan should be developed, and
made known at once, that the individuals
who may be disposed to lay themselves out
for the carrying business, may make their calculations
on a full view of all the circumstances.—
Report on the Fisheries. Washington ed. vii, 554.
(1791)
