In one of the many brilliant speeches made by this orator, the following graceful allusion to the mother-country may be mentioned here. “Great Britain,” he said, “had dotted over the whole surface of the globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of martial music.”
The geographical conditions of the Atlantic seaboard are so favourable for the development of naval power, that it is evident that the United States have every possible natural advantage placed at their disposal to enable them to become a great maritime nation.
There is, however, a difficulty for them to surmount. Serviceable American-born men do not readily volunteer to join their ships of war, and, consequently, the crews are largely composed of foreigners, chiefly of English and German origin. The reasons for this disinclination on the part of the Americans to accept sea service seem to be caused by the fact that the prospects for success in life in other directions are sufficiently good to prevent them from seeking an employment in which they would be subject to discipline and have to sacrifice their habits of independence. It will probably be found expedient, ultimately, to adopt a system of entry and training for seamen similar to that which has been found to succeed in England. The systems followed on the European continent, and which are based upon conscription, could find no place amongst a people with whom all service must be essentially voluntary.
If the difficulties with regard to men can be overcome, the naval strength of the United States may be as great as Congress may deem desirable, for, with respect to the capacities of harbours and dockyards and the means available for the construction and armaments of ships, there is practically no limit to the power of fitting out and maintaining large fleets.
In the summer of 1870 I went to the village of Dighton to look at the inscribed stone in the river near that place.
Upon my arrival there it was high water and the rock was covered. The next day, when the tide was low, I hired a boat, pulled down the stream and stopped by its side, which was then fully exposed, and examined it with care. It was a boulder formed of hard close grained granite.
As the inscription was originally supposed by Danish and other antiquarians to have had some relation with the history of the arrival of the Northmen upon that coast, I traced the figures and rude characters with particular attention.
I have seen rolls of birch bark scratched in the same manner by Chippewas, for the purpose of giving information of the movements of their hunting parties, and I think that the figures on the Dighton stone were meant to represent similar events. As, however, the inscriptions are deeply cut, and as it must have taken some considerable time to execute them, it may be granted that the Indians wished to leave, near the mouth of the river, a permanent record which would be intelligible to others.