HE RESORTS TO THE PEN 37 



fruitful regions beyond, and calculate, if you can, the 

 important and future greatness of that point to a com- 

 mercial and enterprising people. Yet the first line in the 

 hydrography of such a point remains to be run. It has 

 been more than twenty years since an American man-of- 

 war so much as looked into the mouth of the Columbia 

 River. Upon what more important service could a small 

 force be dispatched than to survey and bring home cor- 

 rect charts of that river and its vicinity?" 



He then pointed out the unprepared ness of the country 

 for war, and dwelt upon how the United States was 

 forced weakly to acquiesce in the blockading of Mexico 

 and the La Plata by France, and make no protest at the 

 strengthening of her forts on the Great Lakes by England 

 who was thus violating her treaty with this government. 

 The navy should, he declared, experiment with steam 

 vessels of war, and Pensacola and some point on the coast 

 of Georgia or the eastern coast of Florida should be forti- 

 fied . Turning then to personnel , he cont inued : * * 1 1 takes 

 something more than spars and guns, and walls of wood 

 to constitute a navy. These are only the body — the 

 arms and legs without the thews and sinews. It requires 

 the muscle of the brawny seaman, and the spirit of the 

 well-trained officer to impart life and motion to such a 

 body, to give vigor and energy to the whole system". 



A real system of education for the navy should be de- 

 vised. The army, he said, had a Military Academy at 

 West Point, "affording the most useful and practical 

 education to be obtained in the country" ; while the navy 

 was forced to make out with inefficient schoolmasters on 

 board ship, and the midshipmen secured only a practical 

 knowledge of seamanship, the manipulation of the sex- 

 tant, a few rules by rote from Bowditch's "Epitome of 



