SOME VIEWS CONNECTED WITH THE 

 QUESTION OF COAST DEFENCE. 



By Verplanck Colvin. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Albany Institute :— 

 Last August, while encamped with a party of my men at a remote 

 point in the interior of our northern wilderness, intent upon measure- 

 ments and maps, thoughtless of cities and ships, coasts and cannon, 

 a guide brought — with other dispatches — a letter which has led me 

 to interest myself in the question of the coast defences of the United 

 States. 



The diplomatic humilations to which our government has in recent 

 years been subjected, by reason of the weakness of our navy and 

 the unguarded condition of our ports, makes the question of coast 

 defence a matter of profound and serious interest. 



There was a time when the mere privateers of the United States 

 terrified the world; when her vessels grappled in close conflict with 

 foreign ships and, with cannon muzzle to muzzle, thundered and 

 fought until the stars and stripes were run up to the masthead of the 

 foe, above the smoke of battle. There was a time when the pirates of 

 the Mediterranean trembled before our ships of war; as they did in 

 former ages before the fleets of Caesar and of Pompey; but now the 

 armed fishing smacks of Canada restrain our seamen on seas where 

 our revolutionary fathers fished in freedom, and the gunboats of Chili 

 and Japan are no longer to be despised — while England, France, Ger- 

 many, Russia, Italy and Turkey possess iron-clad fleets that make our 

 navy, in comparison, a subject of derision. It is doubtless true that a 

 great economy has been insured to us by the caution of our govern- 

 ment in avoiding extravagant experimental constructions, at a time 

 when ships of war and heavy artillery are undergoing such constant 

 modifications. It is quite probable that American inventive talent 

 will, upon occasion, supply us with more terrible engines of war and 

 more marvelous means of defence; but, when we consider the frequent 

 foreign complications that have recently arisen; the question of the 



