264 



ty), something is necessary to be done ia 

 order to arrest an evil, which appears not 

 only increasing, but to threaten conse-r 

 quenccs too serious for an Englishman to 

 contemplate with indifference. 



If the circumstances disclosed in the 

 last two months be attentively consider-r 

 ed, they lead to this interesting conclu- 

 sion, that if our country cannot, or do not, 

 maintain the empire of the seas, we shall 

 soon have neither country nor empire to 

 maintain. 



The plain fact is, that we cannot exist, 

 as a nation, without ships, both for War 

 and Commerce, and these cannot be con- 

 structed, nor maintained, without im- 

 jTiense masses of Oak Timber. 



It will be observed, that while the 

 statesman (whose opinion we have 

 quoted), asserts the prevailing scarcity, 

 he attempts to explain the cause ; but 



