Mr. B. would here drop details, and economize his remarks. He had arrived at a point at which he would stop, and take a position. It was the commencement of the second term of Washington's presidency, and the successful establishment of his great policy recommended in the messages of 1790, '91, '93, and '95, for clothing his country with the armor of defence, fortifying all her ports and harbors, and putting her in a condition to maintain among nations the rank to which she was entitled. This policy was now completely established; and the historical view which he had attempted to sketch, no longer encumbered with documentary evidences and minute details, would proceed with ease and rapidity. The system of fortifying, thus established under Washington's administration, went on with an accelerated pace under that of his successor, the first Mr. Adams, stimulated as it was by impending difficulties with France. But a frost, a killing frost, fell upon that policy on the accession of Mr. Jefferson. The difficulties with France had vanished, and, besides, he was not favorable to the policy in itself; and his first message was sufficiently indicative of his views to decide the fate of the fortifications. To do justice to him, an extract from that message will be read. "The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within it, others are so extensive, will cost so much in their erection, so much in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them, as to make it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of those commenced or projected of the expenses already incurred, and estimates of their future cost, as far as can be foreseen, shall be laid before you, that you may be enabled to judge whether any alteration is necessary in the laws respecting this subject." Under this message (resumed Mr. B.) the fortifications languished and declined. Appropriations became Jess and less; the old works decayed; garrisons were reduced, and new ones were not begun; but difficulties with England arose; some outrages were committed within our waters, and the States possessing seaport towns began to remonstrate, and to demand defences for their ports and harbors. The legislative resolves of the State of New York, as coming from a State friendly to the administration, as containing an argument within themselves, as being a sample of what came from other States, and as being strictly pertinent to the present debate, Mr. B. would read: "NEW YORK LEGISLATURE, March 20, 1807. "Resolved, as the sense of this Legislature, That every consideration of policy and duty requires that adequate ineasures should be adopted by the national Government for the protection of the port of New York. "That the agricultural as well as commercial interests of the State are deeply interested in this most desirable object. "That in surrendering to the United States the reve. nue arising from imposts, this State anticipated, and has now a right to expect, that a competent portion of that revenue would be appropriated for its defence, and that the Congress of the United States are bound by their constitutional duties, as guardians of the common defence and general welfare, to satisfy this proper and reasonable expectation. "Resolved, That an application be made to the President of the United States, in behalf of this State, to fix upon a plan of durable and permanent defence for the port of New York, fully adequate to the importance of [SENATE. the object, and that he be also respectfully requested to appropriate, out of the moneys placed at his disposal, as large a sum as can be usefully expended for that purpose, until Congress shall have it in their power to make further provision in the premises. "Resolved, That the Legislature of this State fully approve of the conduct of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, in advocating and enforcing the claims of this State in this respect, and that they be requested to support and enforce such further measures as may be necessary for the permanent defence of this State, and to obtain, either by annual appropriation or by general provision, a sum competent to that impor tant object." Under this appeal from New York, continued Mr. B., backed by others from other States, and stimulated by the increasing aggressions, contempt of the proclamation of inhibition, and multiplied violations of jurisdiction within our waters, by British ships of war, the adminis tration of Mr. Jefferson found it necessary to do something, and the experiment of gun-boats was resorted to. The gun-boats were tried. They had their day, and a brief day it was, for the end of Mr. Jefferson's adminis tration saw the end of their glory. Mr. Madison came into office in March, 1809-convoked Congress for May of the same year-informed them that the gun-boats were put into a situation to require no further expense, and that large appropriations for fortifications demanded their early consideration. This was the farewell to gunboats, and the revival of the great system of defence planned and established by Washington. The Congress of 1809 concurred with Mr. Madison, and at that very session the largest appropriation was made for fortifications which has ever been made in any year, from the foundation of the federal Government to this day. It was $1,419,000, being a quarter of a million more than was appropriated in the first year of the war, and within $300,000 of the sum contained in this bill; the amount of which seems to astonish some gentlemen so much. The Secretary at War, Dr. Eustis, made a report upon fortifications, in which may be found nearly every port and harbor now proposed to be fortified, from Passamaquoddy bay to the mouth of the Mississippi; and the appropriations continued to be large and annual, no less than $3,405,000 in the first four years of Mr. Madison's administration, which were years of peace, but menaced with war. The next four years, which covered the war, saw a further sum of $2,200,000 appropriated to this object. At the return of peace every body took warn ing from the past, and all the departments of Government entered cordially upon the business of repairing past errors by providing for the future, and covering the coast with permanent and durable works. Crawford, who was in Paris, sent us an engineer from the school of the great Napoleon; Congress took him into service; a board was formed to plan and direct the works, and appropriations of eight or nine hundred thousand dollars were annually made to carry them on. The messages of President Monroe, and the reports of the Secretary at War at that period, in favor of the system, are too well known to be repeated here. The result of this spirit was the formation of the board alluded to; Bernard, Totten, of the army, and Elliot of the navy; and their laborious examinations and various reports, especially of 1821, revised in 1826, by which the one hundred and seven forts, besides field works and floating batteries, were resolved upon for the defence of the maritime and gulf frontier. The system of Washington, thus revived at the end of the war, has been pursued ever since, with some relaxation in 1820, '21, and '22, when the treasury, from a surplus of sixteen millions, run out in about four years, had to overdraw in the Bank of the United States; and the Government, to avoid the Mr. SENATE.] Fort fication Bill. disgrace of a public loan for current expenses, had to reduce the annual appropriation for the increase of the navy from one million of dollars to half a million, disbanded four thousand men out of its little army, diminished the fortification appropriations one half, and enforced a rigid economy and minute curtailment at all points. With the return of a prosperous treasury, the usual appropriations for fortifications were resumed, and the sum of two millions seven hundred and forty thousand dollars under the second Mr. Adams's administration, and of about five millions under President Jackson's, have been applied to that object, with the great consolation that all that has been applied since the war, amounting to twelve and a half millions of dollars, is saved, the works being constructed of durable and permanent materials, while the seven and a half millions previously laid out may be considered as lost, the works being done in perishable materials, for want of means in the time of Washington and Adams, and for want of time, and under the pressure of danger, in the time of Mr. Madison. Here, Mr. B. said, there was room for precious and valuable retrospection. Seven and a half millions of dollars, applied to fortifications, had been lost, partly by pernicious economy in using perishable material, but more by improvident neglect of time and means when we possessed both, and consequent waste and hurry when danger was pressing. There was a time, anterior to the late war, when the United States possessed both the means and the leisure to have entered upon a system of permanent fortifications; it was in the second term of Mr. Jefferson's administration; and if the sur. pluses of revenue had been then so applied, the large appropriations afterwards made during Mr. Madison's administration would have been saved from a hurried and wasteful expenditure on temporary works, and many of the disasters and disgraces of the late war would have been prevented. Unhappily, Mr. Jefferson, even in his last message, in 1808, could not bring himself to Washington's policy; and while taxing the inventive genius of Congress to find out constitutional modes of expending the accumulating surpluses, and in default of finding such objects recommending alterations in the constitution to enable them to be turned to roads and canals, totally overlooked the fortifications! without which it is now certain that an extended seaboard, with its rich and populous cities, must lie at the mercy not merely of the bombs and crews of an enemy's fleet in time of war, but even of the daring enterprise of pirates and bucaniers! A similar period has come round again; we have surplus revenue, and we have peace. We can now lay it out in our defences, with the skill and care which durability and true economy require; and if it is not so laid out, there is one department of the Government at least which will not be to blame-the executive department--whose multiplied messages to this effect, and especially the one on the anniversary of the birthday of Washington, and re-enforced by the sentiments of the Father of his Country, cannot be lost either upon the Senate or the country. Having finished his historical view, and deduced the history of our fortifications from 1794 to the present day, Mr. B. came to the great question which must now engage the attention of the Senate and of the country: Shall the system of fortification go on, or shall it halt? Shall the surplus revenues be applied to fortifications and other defences, or shall they be divided among the States? These are the questions-or rather this is the question, for the two make but one, and are convertible in their essence, though distinct in their terms-this is the question, and the time has arrived for deciding it. If the money be divided among the States, then the great public defences, of which fortifications are only one [FEB. 23, 1836. branch, must halt where they are, beginning no new the bill. He deemed such a course utterly unjust to the States which, as yet, had had nothing done for them. Of the 14 forts finished, Louisiana and Alabama have 7; Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, not one. Of the forts under construction, Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, have 8, or which about $3,824,000 have been expended, and a further expenditure of $1,700,000 is to take place; while Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, have nothing under construction, and will have nothing for a long time, unless the bill becomes a law. It is the peculiar province of this bill to provide for the States whose claims have been postponed. It provides chiefly for those States which have had least, or nothing; three for Maine, one for New Hampshire, three for Massachusetts, one for Rhode Island, one for Connecticut, one for New York, two for Pennsylvania and Delaware, and three for Maryland. Shall these States be disappointed? Shall their commercial capitals remain exposed? Shall Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, remain without defence, while New Orleans has been completely covered and protected? Shall that of New York still remain without defence, which so strongly demanded it as a right in 1807? in 1807, near thirty years ago, and before New Orleans was acquired? Mr. B. said the view which he had taken of this subject would be incomplete, if he did not pursue it still further, and look into some of the objections urged against fortifications, and some of the advantages resulting from them. First, as to the objections. It was objected to fortifications that they were expensive, costing a great deal to erect them, and a great deal afterwards to garrison and maintain them. This, he said, was an error of such perverse character that the reverse of it was true. The cheapness of this species of defence was one of its absolute recommendations, and he should reserve the head for enumeration under the advantages of forts. When he came to speak of those advantages, he would show that fortifications, instead of being the dearest, were the cheapest of defences, not only in money, but in the more important consideration of men and lives; as it was a mode of defence which abstracted fewer men from the other pursuits of life to accomplish the same object, and was attended with less loss of life, either from the casualties of battle or the diseases of the camp. Another objection was to the garrison which fortifications required, amounting, as it was supposed, to a standing army in time of peace. This objection, (Mr. B. said,) if true, would be serious; but it was untrue and unfounded, and the answer which he should give to it, founded upon the reply of the chief of the Engineer department, General Gratiot, to the precise questions which he had put to him, would astonish gentlemen, in exposing to them the magnitude of their mistake. His answer would be twofold: first, positive, showing the number that would be required to garrison the forts, in peace and in war; secondly, comparative, showing that this number, the relative state of the country considered, would not be equal to the reduced military peace establishment prescribed by Mr. Jefferson in 1802: a rule of proportion, and a standard, to which he presumed no Senator, not even the most fastidious opponent to standing armies in time of peace, would object. As to the numbers, General Gratiot shows that 1,820 men will be sufficient, in time of peace, to take care of all the forts now built, all now building, and all now proposed in the bill before the Senate; and that 34,140 will be sufficient to garrison them in time of war. These numbers will be sufficient for 46 of the forts; the remaining 61 will require a less number; because the forts, though more [SENATE. numerous, will be much smaller, and will mount fewer guns; these 61 will then require, to keep them in order in time of peace, 1,538 men; and to garrison them in time of war, 22,092 men. Here will be a totality, when all the forts are finished, of about 3,500 men in time of peace, and of about 60,000 in time of war; the whole of which, except about 5,600 artillerists, may be the militia and volunteers of the adjacent country, called into service when a siege is apprehended, and discharged when it is over. Such were the numbers that would be sufficient both in peace and war; but for peace, the garrisons, if regulated with a military eye, with a view to discipline, police, and martial spirit, would be about double, say 7,000 in the whole, as these subjects would require that companies should not be divided. Taking, then, 3,500 men as sufficient to take care of the whole 107 forts, when completed, and that 7,000 men would constitute the proper garrisons in ordinary, Mr. B. would proceed to his comparative view, and show that the largest of these numbers would not require an addition to our present peace establishment, which would make it equal, the relative state of the country considered, to the peace establishment of Mr. Jefferson. To verify this comparative view, Mr. B. took, first, the number of the troops and of the population then and now; and, secondly, the extent of territory then and now. Under the first aspect, he showed that the peace establishment of 1802 was 3,080 men; that of the present period was 6,000; the population in 1802 was 5 millions; at present, about 16 millions. Here was a difference of about three to one in the population, so that a peace establishment, upon the mere data of relative population, of 9,240 now, would be no greater, in 1836, than 3,080 was in 1802. But the comparison was not to be limited to this data; extent of territorial limit, and by consequence of frontier outline to be guarded, must be combined with it, and this of itself would double the numbers of 1802. The territorial limit on the map in 1802 was the parallel of thirty-one degrees to the south, and the Mississippi to the west: the actual frontier to be guarded at that time was through Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. The limits on the map now, are the gulf coast to the south, and the Pacific ocean to the west; the actual frontier to be guarded now, to the south approaches the tropic of cancer, at Key West; to the west lies along the Sabine, crosses the Red river, the Arkansas, and the Missouri, extends to the Falls of St. Anthony, and to the outlet of Lake Superior; with occasional expeditions to the confines of Mexico and to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Thus both the territorial limits and the actual frontier are doubled since 1802; and, allowing for this increase, the peace establishment of 1836 might be raised to 12,320 men, without exceeding the ratio of that of 1802. Thus, if the whole number of 107 forts were now completed and full garrisons in ordinary were allowed them, there would still remain about 6,000 men for the Western or land frontier, and the whole would be within the limits of Mr. Jefferson's reduced peace establishment. But the whole of the forts are not now finished, and cannot, with all the men and means that can be employed upon them, be finished under ten years from this time. By that time our population will have increased five millions more, and would furnish another three thousand and eighty men to keep in the ratio of Mr. Jefferson's peace establishment: fifteen thousand might then be kept up on the basis of 1802; but that number will not be wanted; about twelve thousand will even then be enough; and for the present, ten thousand men, allowing six thousand for the Western and Northwestern frontier, and four thousand to the forts, will be sufficient; and this number, in the present state of the country, would be nearly three thousand under the ratio of 1802. Upon this data, about which there could be no dispute, Mr. B. considered the objection of the standing army in time of peace, to garrison the forts, to be completely exploded, and would dismiss it without taking in another element naturally belonging to the comparison, to wit, the increase of revenue, which would render an es tablishment of ten thousand men now less burdensome than the three thousand and eighty were in the time of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. B. took for his basis the military establishment of 1802, presented by Mr. Jefferson, who came into power upon the full cry against standing armies in time of peace; and he presumed that no person would ever object to a military establishment which kept within the ratio of the one he presented. [FEB. 23, 1836. many fortifications would have on the price of labor. It was supposed that it would create so large a demand for labor that the price would be greatly enhanced, to the prejudice of railroad, turnpike, and canal companies and makers. Mr. B. had two answers to this objection: first, that it was not valid, if true; secondly, that it was not true, if valid. To him it seemed no great harm that the fact should be as supposed, and that the railroad, turnpike, and canal companies should have to pay the laborer a few cents more per diem. It was written in the holy scriptures that the laborer was worthy of his hire; and, for his own part, he knew no one better entitled to all that he could get than the man who works with his two hands from sun to sun. Certain he was, the freight and He would, therefore, dismiss this head with informing the toll on the road and the canal would not be a penny the Senate that, since the United States had precipitated the less because the laborer had been hired at a reduced all the Indians upon the Western frontier, an increase of price. But Mr. B..denied the fact. The fortifications the regular force would be demanded by the voice of were so remote from each other, they had to be built the West. Forts or no forts, ten thousand men were upon such an extended line, stretching from the Pasrequired in the present state of the country, of which samaquoddy bay to the delta of the Mississippi, that the six thousand should be on the Western and Northwest-building of one would have no effect upon the cost of ern frontier; and upon this number the Congress would building another, and the cost of the whole would have be called to vote at the present session. no influence upon the rate of labor in the country. Even if all the defence bills passed, and their appropriations of ten or eleven millions took effect, it would be but no more than what is annually spent for labor and materials in single cities, while this would be diffused over a line of four thousand miles. A third objection to the fortifications was as to the locality of the expenditure which they would involve. It was said the money would be expended on the coast, to the prejudice of the interior. Mr. B. demurred to this objection. It was anti-national and anti social. It was against the letter of the constitution, and against the nature and the principles of the social compact. Protection and allegiance went together; every part of the country owed allegiance to the Government, and the Government owed protection to every part. Happy, most happy, those who needed no protection. After all that can be expended on the exposed coasts, the inhabitants of the coasts will still be less secure than those of the interior, on which nothing is expended for defence. The objection is not only anti-national and anti-social, but it is fallacious. It is a fallacy in itself, and must deceive those who rest their faith upon it. An expendi ture upon the seacoast, for the defence of a seaport, a harbor, or the mouth of a river, is not a local expenditure. It is not an expenditure the benefit of which is confined to the town, to the harbor, or to the mouth of the river; but it is an expenditure national in its nature, constitutional in its obligation, redounding to the benefit of all, and beneficial to the farmer at the head of the river and in the gorge of the mountain as well as to the merchant on the seaboard; for unless the seaport is protected, and the mouth of the river is kept open, the crop raised at the head of the river, and the stock driven from the gorge of the mountain, will return valueless upon the hands of the owner. It was, therefore, an unfounded objection; and although the expenditure might be unequal, yet that inequality was neither unjust nor injurious. It afforded no argument for the distribution bills, in whose aid it was certainly invoked. Those bills were repudiated by most of the interior States, and by nearly all the new States; and as for the old ones, which had asked for the distribution of surpluses, they had also asked for forts and navies, and they could not have the same money for both objects. The true aid to the new States would be in reducing the price of public lands, as they have often requested; and all the interior States will have the benefit of the national defences, both in the use and in the expenditure for them, by the armories and arsenals established within them, the increased troops on the frontier, and the annual expenditure for supporting the whole. The forts, the navies, the troops, will be supplied and supported from the interior; the armories and arsenals will be in the interior. A fourth objection which had caught Mr. B's atten tion was the supposed effect which the building of so A fifth objection was somewhat akin to the last, and imported that the amount proposed to be appropriated was too large to be usefully and beneficially expended within the year. The validity of this objection, Mr. B. said, depended upon the time when the appropriation bills should pass. If delayed till the spring was advanced, and the working season partly lost, the objection would acquire more weight. Time was already lost, especially in the South; and if these important bills. were to be pushed aside to make room for abolition debates, and land bills for distributing the public moneys, so much more time might be lost as to make it impossible to use the money after it was voted. But still it was an objection of which the objectors could not take advantage; no man may take advantage of his own wrong; and if it is wrong to appropriate money that cannot be expended, it is certainly wrong to stave off the appropriation till the time for expending it is lost. And here Mr. B. would invoke attention to the debate just closed, on the loss of the fortification bill and of the three millions at the last session. All parties have just been washing their hands of the merits of those losses. And shall any of us, in the same instant, go on to frustrate the present appropriations, or to make them inoperative for want of time? Besides, the money appropriated for this year is not obliged to be expended within the year; it may be expended in the commencement of the next year, and thus enable the year's operations to commence, and especially in the South, before the appropriations can be got through Congress. The sixth objection which Mr. B. would mention, and the one perhaps which was progenitor to all the rest, was the very palpable assumption that the application of so much money to the defence of the country would be fatal to the schemes of distributing the surplus revenues and the proceeds of the public lands among the States and the people. This objection, he acknowledged was well founded. The defence of the country and the distribution of the public money were antagonistical objects, and the success of either was fatal to the other. It would take more surpluses than ever would be found in the treasury to defend the country. The military arm alone would require above forty millions; the naval arm would require more than as much more. The two objects, then, being antagonistical, and incompatible with each other, must come before the Senate, and go before the country, upon the respective merits and demerits of each; the defensive scheme resting upon a duty of constitutional obligation, upon a consideration of national independence, upon the sense of national interest, and upon the sanctioned system of forty years' decision; the distributive scheme resting upon the seductions of prof fered pelf, without warrant in the constitution, unknown to our history, oppressive to the new States, demoralizing to the old ones, corrupting in its tendencies, and bringing the element of the public property to enter into the canvass for the presidential office. Upon these intrinsic and overruling considerations, Mr. B. would rely for the decision of the Senate and of the country between the two objects. He would not descend from the high level of such elevated considerations to the low comparison of sordid and pecuniary inducements. He could not insult his countrymen by referring to them the seductions of a sordid money scheme on one hand, and the enlightened obligations of duty and patriotism on the other. If he could do so, and could present the two schemes in a mere trafficking, trading, profit and loss point of view, the one divested of its patriotic attrac tions, the other stripped of its moral deformities, it would be easy to show that there would be more money diffused among the people by defending their country than by pillaging it themselves, and leaving it to be pillaged by foreign enemies afterwards. For such is the extent and variety of the means and objects to be combined in a great and durable system of national defence, that every part of the Union would receive its share in the first disbursements and in the annual expenditures thereafter. Forts, navies, navy yards, and dock yards, on the coasts; armories, arsenals, foundries, depots of arms and munitions, in the interior; troops on the western frontier; and annual supplies from the interior for all the establishments on the vast circumference of the Union: such would be the sources of expenditure. The first outlay and the perennial expenditure for all these objects would be great; and if the system of defence required for the country be now adopted, many great objects heretofore planned must go into effect: a grand naval national arsenal at Burwell's bay, in Virginia,* as recommended by the military and naval board of 1821; a navy yard at Charleston, South Carolina, and another at Pensacola; with a fort and naval station at Key West, to command the Gulf of Mexico--to make that gulf what the Mediterranean sea was to the Romans, mare nostrum, our sea, belonging, as it ought, to the masters of the Mississippi, and considered and treated as the outlet and estuary of the King of Floods. In such great establishments, and the numerous others indicated by the hand of defence, the people would find moneyed reasons for preferring the defence of their country to its pillage. But I do not present such reasons; I resume my position; I defer to their intelligence and to "The navy yards (excepting that of Charlestown, near Boston) have all been improperly placed; the conveniences for the erection of the necessary establishments having alone been taken into consideration, while all the other requisites for points so important, such as security against attack by sea and land, facility for receiving all kinds of building materials in time of war as well as in time of peace, vicinity to a place of rendezvous have been overlooked. "A defensive system for the frontiers of the United States is therefore yet to be created. Its bases are, 1st, a navy; 2d, fortifications; 3d, regular troops and wellorganized militia; 4th, interior communication by land and water. These means must all be combined so as to form a complete system. [SENATE. their patriotism, and rest the choice between the defen. sive and the distributive schemes upon all the lofty and holy considerations which recommend one and condemn the other. Finally, and by way of concluding his notice of the objections to fortifications, he would bring forward one which he had not heard mentioned by any speaker, but which he had found in the reports of one of the French engineers employed by President Washington in 1794. It was Monsieur Rivardi, and might be interesting as a reminiscence now, as the novelists call it, and to show what kind of objectors there were to fortifications forty years ago, although the race may be now extinct, and the reference may remain without application: "I thought (said this ingenuous soldier) that, in a small community, where public welfare ought to be the chief aim of every individual, no jealousy, no parties, could be found. I do not think, however, that there exists any where else such ridiculous divisions as here. There is a large number of dissatisfied men who object altogether to fortifications, from the same principle for which they object to every measure of Government. Some would rather bush fight, as they call it, in case of a war; and the fact is, I fancy they had rather not fight at all. I drop this disagreeable subject: the only thing is to be deaf, and do what the safety of the country requires."-Letter of Rivardi to Gen. Knox, Secretary at War, July 28, 1794. Next, as to the advantages of fortifications. On this head Mr. B. would be brief, referring the Senate for a full understanding of the subject to the masterly reports of the board of engineers for 1821 and 1826, and confining what he should say chiefly to statements and reflections resulting from those reports. 1. Fortifications close up all important inlets to ports and harbors against enemies; they give security, confidence, and tranquillity, in time of war, to the cities and coasts covered by them; the truth of which is exemplified in the opposite coasts of France and Great Britain, where the coast inhabitants and cities, covered by fortifications, are as tranquil in the pursuit of their business in time of war between these countries as in time of peace. 2. They give security and protection to the commercial and naval marine; as ships, either of war or of commerce, pursued by an enemy, fly to them for refuge, and lie in safety under the guns of a fort, or within a harbor defended by it. We have a vast commercial marine to which we owe protection; we have determined on the creation of a navy; and, for the preservation of both, we must have fortified harbors for their refuge and protection. 3. Forts are often necessary at points where there are are not cities to defend, as at positions which an enemy might occupy in time of war, and from which he could assail, annoy, devastate, or alarm, the neighboring proper establishments for construction and repair, harbors of rendezvous, stations, and ports of refuge. It is only by taking into view the general character, as well as the details of the whole frontier, that we can fix on the most advantageous points for receiving these naval depots, harbors of rendezvous, stations, and ports of refuge. "On these considerations, Burwell's bay, in James river, and Charlestown, near Boston, have been especially recommended by the commission as the most proper sites for the great naval arsenals of the South and of the North; Hampton roads and Boston roads as the chief rendezvous, and Narraganset bay as an indispensable accessary to Boston roads."-Reports of 1819, 1820, 1821, by the Military and Naval Board, Gen. Ber "The navy must, in the first place, be provided with | nard, Col. Totten, and Com. Elliott. VOL. XII.-39 |