44 ADDRESS. 



ing trade, with the property immediately connected with this 

 business, the aggregate may be safely put down at two hundred 

 thousand tons of shipping, and the capital directly and indirectly 

 dependant on it at sixty millions of dollars ! the annual gross 

 income from five to six millions; and the number of seamen 

 employed twelve thousand. There is no branch of business more 

 important to a nation than such an investment of its capital. It is 

 not the doubtful profit derived from the interchange of commerce, 

 but treasure gleaned from the ocean. The fisheries, and their 

 necessary accompaniment, ship building, have been the cradle of 

 our naval marine from its earliest infancy ; and they will continue 

 to be so, even to the end. On the numbers and hardihood of the 

 one, will depend, in no small degree, the efficiency of the other. 

 England has experienced this for the last hundred and fifty years ; 

 other nations have been aware of it also, and have done all in their 

 power to cherish and build up their fisheries. Ours, though twice 

 swept from the ocean, have grown up in despite of our neglect. 



Truly has it been said, that our great battle on the ocean has vet 

 to be fought. Come when it may, and come it will, our fisher- 

 men will participate largely in it. The history of the past is an 

 earnest of the future. From our colonial days to the present time, 

 in every ocean conflict they have borne a double share, in propor- 

 tion to their numbers, over every other class of our seamen. They 

 are " precisely such men as the nation requires for times of trial 

 and struggle." You cannot do without them. Soldiers may be 

 trained in a day ; sailors must be children of the sea. You may 

 fortify our coast, plant heavy ordnance at points most exposed ; but 

 you will find no enemy so rash as to attempt invasion, who has 

 not, in the first instance, become master of our seaboard. Twelve 

 thousand men, accustomed to grapple with the mightiest monsters 

 of the deep, inured to hardship and the vicissitudes of every clime, 

 called by the exigencies of their country to the defence of its flag, 

 on board our men of war, would of themselves form no inconsider- 





