So far, then, we have done little as a nation to facilitate, or increase, the operations of our commerce in the quarter indicated; we have left the adventurous merchant and the hardy fisherman, to fight their way among reefs of dangerous rocks, and through the channels of undescribed Archipelagos, almost without any other guides than their own prudence and sagacity; but we have not hesitated to partake of the fruits of their unassisted toils, to appropriate to ourselves the credit, respect and consideration their enterprise has commanded, and to look to their class as the strongest support of that main prop of our national power,—a hardy, effective, and well disciplined national navy.
Secondly. Our pride as a vigorous commercial empire, should stimulate us to become our own pioneers in that vast island-studded ocean, destined, it may be, to become, not only the chief theatre of our traffic, but the arena of our future naval conflicts. Who can say, viewing the present rapid growth of our population, that the Rocky Mountains shall forever constitute the western boundary of our republic, or that it shall not stretch its dominion from sea to sea. This may not be desirable, but signs of the times render it an event by no means without the pale of possibility.
The intercourse carried on between the Pacific islands and the coast of China, is highly profitable, the immense returns of the whale fishery in the ocean which surrounds those islands, and along the continental coasts, have been already shown. Our whalers have traversed the wide expanse from Peru and Chili on the west, to the isles of Japan on the east, gathering national reverence, as well as individual emolument, in their course; and yet until the late appropriation, Congress has never yielded them any pecuniary assistance, leaving their very security to the scientific labors of countries far more distant, and infinitely less interested, than our own.
Thirdly. It is our duty, holding as we do a high rank in the scale of nations, to contribute a large share to that aggregate of useful knowledge, which is the common property of all. We have astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, botanists, eminent professors in every branch of physical science—we are unincumbered by the oppression of a national debt, and are free from many other drawbacks which fetter and control the measures of the trans-Atlantic governments. We possess, as a people, the mental elasticity which liberal institutions inspire, and a treasury which can afford to remunerate scientific research. Ought we not, therefore, to be foremost in the race of philanthropic discovery, in every department embraced by this comprehensive term? Our national honor and glory which, be it remembered, are to be “transmitted as well as enjoyed,” are involved. In building up the fabric of our commercial prosperity, let us not filch the corner stone. Let it not be said of us, in future ages, that we ingloriously availed ourselves of a stock of scientific knowledge, to which we had not contributed our quota—that we shunned as a people to put our shoulder to the wheel—that we reaped where we had never sown. It is not to be controverted that such has been hitherto the case. We have followed in the rear of discovery, when a sense of our moral and political responsibility should have impelled us in its van. Mr. Reynolds, in a letter to which we have already referred, deprecates this servile dependence upon foreign research in the following nervous and emphatic language.
The commercial nations of the earth have done much, and much remains to be accomplished. We stand a solitary instance among those who are considered commercial, as never having put forth a particle of strength or expended a dollar of our money, to add to the accumulated stock of commercial and geographical knowledge, except in partially exploring our own territory.
When our naval commanders and hardy tars have achieved a victory on the deep, they have to seek our harbors, and conduct their prizes into port by tables and charts furnished perhaps by the very people whom they have vanquished.
Is it honorable in the United States to use, forever, the knowledge furnished by others, to teach us how to shun a rock, escape a shoal, or find a harbor; and add nothing to the great mass of information that previous ages and other nations have brought to our hands.
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The exports, and, more emphatically, the imports of the United States, her receipts and expenditures, are written on every pillar erected by commerce on every sea and in every clime; but the amount of her subscription stock to erect those pillars and for the advancement of knowledge is no where to be found.
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