But there was another position which he should take in opposition to gentlemen who supported the creation of a Navy, viz: that however useful or desirable a Navy might be, this country was not equal to the support of one. We might have two or three frigates indeed, but, when he said we could not support a Navy, he meant to say we could not support such a Navy as should claim respect, in the sense which those gentlemen spoke of it; such as being an object of terror to foreign nations. If they calculated what the three frigates had cost, considered the scanty manner in which this country was peopled, our inability to raise any very large revenue, and the high price of labor, the truth of this assertion would appear evident.
Again, if such a Navy were created, how was it to be manned? He wished gentlemen to point out any mode in which a Navy could be manned in this country without having recourse to the abominable practice of impressment. If the nations of Europe found it impossible to man their fleets without having recourse to these violent means, he believed it would be impossible, without breaking down those barriers which secured the liberty of every citizen, to man a Navy in this country.
Perhaps he might be asked, if we were, then, to be left without protection? He thought there were means of protection which arose from our peculiar situation, and that we ought not to borrow institutions from other nations for which we were not fit. If our commerce had increased, notwithstanding its want of protection; if we had a greater number of seamen than any other nation, except England, this, he thought, pointed out the way in which commerce ought to be protected. The fact was, that our only mode of warfare against European nations at sea, was by putting our seamen on board privateers, and covering the sea with them; these would annoy their trade, and distress them more than any other mode of defence we could adopt.[10]
Monday, February 13.
Purchase of Live Oak Lands.
Mr. Harper said, that though the House had declined coming to a resolution to authorize the President to purchase certain lands in Georgia, clothed with live oak and red cedar timber, as a reserve for future naval purposes, yet there seemed to be a disposition to cause an inquiry to be made on the subject. He therefore proposed a resolution to the House to the following effect:
"Resolved, That the President of the United States be authorized and requested to cause to be made and reported to this House as early as may be after the meeting of the next session of Congress, an inspection of lands furnished with live oak and red cedar timber, with the relative advantages of different situations with respect to their fitness for naval purposes, and the rates at which purchases may be made."
Ordered to lie on the table.
John de Neufville.
On motion of Mr. Madison, the House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the following report of the committee, to whom was referred the memorial of Anna de Neufville, widow of John de Neufville, deceased. They report—