COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES, 57 



certainly be entitled to plead in defence the fact that you were asked to do 

 the impossible thing, and you may, if you choose, summon me as witness 

 in your defense. "* 



The two first topics of my theme, C ommerce and Navigation, are so 

 far connected, in the limited sense in which the former word is ordinarily 

 used and in which 1 have used it, that they may properly be taken together. 

 Commerce, in its widest signification, means intercourse between different 

 individuals or communities for the purpose of exchanging commodities. 

 Practically it is synonymous with trade or traffic, but its use is preferred 

 where the trade is carried on upon an extensive scale, the distinction being 

 one of degree and not of kind. Of course, in this sense, it matters not 

 how its operations be conducted — whether in vessels upon open waters; in 

 boats upon canals or rivers or lakes; in wagons upon public lOads; in 

 railway cars or whatever otTier conveyances. I'o commerce between 

 different places within the same country the qualifying terms internal or 

 domestic are applied; to describe the commerce between different coun- 

 tries the vv'ord foreign is used. In the United States the commerce between 

 ports in the same or different States on the seaboard is called the coasting- 

 trade, while the commerce with other countries is called foreign trade. 

 Though, properly speaking, as before noted, commerce takes no account 

 of the means or agencies by which its work is done, yet in common usage 

 we understand by it that kind of trade which is carried on upon the water 

 by means of vessels propelled by sails or steam power. It is in this latter 

 sense that I have chiefly considered the word as it concerns the present 

 occasion, and in this sense I have felt justified in treating it and its cog- 

 nate title Navigation as parts of one whole. Certainly this conjunction 

 must fairly be held to be allowable, if not an absolute necessity, during 

 more than four- fifths of the period over which we are called to cast a re- 

 trospective eye. Until after the extension of the Long Island Railroad 

 through the county, which was completed in 1844, and for a considerable 

 time afterwards, by far the largest part of the commerce of Suffolk County, 

 both domestic and foreign, was carried on in vessels engaged either in 

 coasdng or in .foreign trade. It is true that some intercourse was had by 

 stages running from different points to Brooklyn and New York, and an 

 exchange of some home-grown or home-made commodities was effected 

 between the north and south sides of the island by wagons, or rather by 

 ox-carts driven laboriously over the long and lonely forest roads; but the 

 stages seldom carried anything beside passengers and their personal lug- 

 C^age, and it was rare indeed that any of the products of fields or woods 

 were carted to the cities or that goods and merchandize were brought back 

 from the cities to the then relatively distant wilds of Suffolk. For all this 

 time, embracing fully 160 years, the main part, almost the whole, of the 

 'rade between the people in this county and New York was done in ves- 

 sels, as likewise, by a natural necessity, was all trade with their northern 

 neighbors of New England to whom they were continuously drawn by the 

 closest ties of an unbroken community Df sympathies, sentiments and in- 

 terests. 



* Beside its intrinsic value the letter here referred to may serve sufficiently to set forth 

 some phases of the general subject which, in order not to unduly extend the limits of this 

 paper and because of the recognized impossibility to give precise or even approximate 

 data, I deemed it best to omit from the reading altogether. It has therefore been thought 

 proper to print it in full as an appendix, and readers will find it of interest. 



