he country, the class did not exist from
which such a force could be recruited.

This consideration did not apply to the navy. Seamen could be had
abundantly from the merchant shipping, the activities of which must
necessarily be much curtailed by war with a great naval power.
Nevertheless, the dominance of Jefferson, though in this particular
already shaken, remained upon the mass of his party. The new Secretary
of the Navy was from South Carolina, not reckoned among the commercial
states; but, however influenced, he ventured to intimate doubts as to
the gunboat system. Of one thing there was no doubt. On a gunboat a
gun cost twelve thousand dollars a year; the same on a frigate cost
but four thousand.[354] In the House of Representatives, the strongest
support to the development of the navy as a permanent force came from
the Secretary's state, backed by Henry Clay from Kentucky, and by the
commercial states; the leading representative of which, Josiah Quincy,
expressed, however, a certain diffidence, because in the embittered
politics of the day the mere fact of Federalist support tended rather
to damage the cause.

So much of the President's message as related to the navy--three
lines, wholly non-committal--was referred to a special committee. The
report[355] was made by Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, whose clear
and cogent exposition of the capabilities of the country and the
possibility of providing a force efficient against Great Britain,
under her existing embarrassments, was supported powerfully and
perspicuously by William Lowndes of the same state. The text for their
remarks was supplied by a sentence in the committee's report: "The
important engine of national strength and national security, which is
formed by a naval force, has hitherto been treated with a neglect
highly impolitic, or supported by a spirit so languid, as, while it
has preserved the existence of the establishment, has had the effect
of loading it with the imputations of wasteful expense, and
comparative inefficiency.... Such a course is impolitic under any
circumstances." This was the condemnation of the party's past. Clay
found his delight in dealing with some of the oratory, which on the
present occasion still sustained--and for the moment successfully
sustained--the prepossessions of Jefferson. Carthage, Rome, Venice,
Genoa, were republics with free institutions and great navies;
Carthage, Rome, Venice, and Genoa had lost their libert