Doc. No 73. 



65 



ments of some other nations, to undertake that which should have been 

 accomplished by ourselves long ago, if our government could have been 

 stimulated into action by the good example of our neighbors. What would 

 be at this moment the condition of the people of New York, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and Ohio, if they were still waiting with folded arms, as we are 

 doing, for foreign proposals to build the very canals and railways to the ex- 

 istence of which their prosperity is mainly to be attributed? They would 

 be, as we are, surrounded by the elements of poverty and wretchedness, 

 oppressed with taxes without name and without character; but probably 

 not with the reputation for inertness and indolence which we are fast 

 establishing, for the advantages which nature has bestowed upon us are 

 too well known and envied by the world to suppose that our neglect, in 

 availing ourselves of them, will be attributed to anything else except to 

 ignorance or apathy. The governments of those three States that re- 

 sorted to loaBS, in order to carry out their projects of local improvements, 

 never contemplated such results as we have in prospect; for it never 

 could have fallen within the scope of their calculations to anticipate so 

 large a revenue from the contributions of foreign commerce as the amount 

 I have aheady named. 



The system of loans supersedes the necessity of making ruinous con- 

 cessions, and spares a nation the humiliating alternative of placing her 

 interests under the influence and control of a foreign power, which might 

 stipulate for the privilege of a contract by treaty, as it was contemplated 

 to do with the King of Holland. Foreign influence is at all times dan- 

 gerous: particularly so with a nation like ours, which is yet in its in- 

 fancy, and consequently very weak. 



Whatever aspect the canal question may be made to assume — and I 

 have examined the subject from every point of view — I still consider the 

 project as one of the most stupendous of its kind that has ever yet engaged 

 the attention of the world. If England or the United States had been 

 favored with the same resources that fortune has placed at our disposal, and 

 if a project of similar magnitude and importance as that of the Ncaragua 

 canal were submitted to the consideration of the government of either 

 country, there would not be the least hesitation in raising the necessary 

 funds, so as to execute the work vdth as little delay as possible. With 

 regard to ourselves, a regard for truth compels me to make the ac^ 

 knowledgment, we hardly know what we possess. Lost in the scientiic 

 mazes of nice commercial calculations, we are led to undervalue that 

 v/hich, for want of proper information, we are utterly unable to appreciate. 

 Indolent by habit, and not a little puffed up with conceit and presump- 

 tion, Ave make no inquiries, believing that we know a great deal; whereas 

 we have not even yet learnt to calculate understandingly in regard to our 

 own proper interests. It is true, that the subject of the canal has, at various 

 times, occupied the attention of our government, but the work has never 

 been considered in the light of a national undertaking, to be carried into 

 execution under its immediate auspices and direction. This is the point 

 upon which I must now insist — as much out of consideration for the pub- 

 lic interest, which demands it, as from a positive conviction that the exe- 

 cution of this project by the government would, of itself, enhance the 

 credit of the administration, and afford it the means to establish relations 

 with the governments of other nations under very advantageous circum- 

 stances. In the course of this memorial; I have recommended the sys- 

 5 



