no doubt that our country could, at a later
period, have made reclamation on England for seizures, as she has done
upon France, Naples, and Denmark; but the policy of our rulers had left
us destitute of means either of offence or defence, and of the power to
resent any indignity. Three courses were open to us. The first was to
devote the funds in the Treasury at once to the creation of a navy; to
commence ten or twelve ships of the line in our dock-yards, and twenty
frigates in the ship-yards of Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, New York, and
Philadelphia; to build them as the Constitution and Constellation were
built before; and to appeal to the merchants who built the Essex and
Connecticut to build more, and to take their pay in certificates of
stock. In one twelvemonth a navy might have been created; and the note
of preparation sounded by a nation enriched by the peaceful commerce of
a quarter of a century, and now refreshed for a new struggle, would have
been most influential with the conflicting powers.

Another course was open to us. More than two-thirds of our commerce was
with English ports, or ports remote from France; for England, Spain,
Sweden, Norway, Russia, the Indies were open to our commerce. The
premium of insurance against French capture was but five per cent, on
ships bound to those ports; for scarcely a French privateer dared show
itself on the ocean.

Our nation had cause of war with France, for France was at war with
commerce and had invaded her rights; and our little navy, small as it
was, and our merchantmen, if allowed to arm, might have bid defiance to
France. England, then, would have respected our rights as allies; or,
as our commerce was lucrative and paid profits that would cover an
occasional seizure, we might have put our merchants on their guard,
allowed them to arm their ships, and have temporized until the
conflicting powers of the Old World had exhausted their strength, and we
had grown strong enough to demand reparation.

We owned at this period from eight to ten thousand vessels, and built
annually nearly a thousand more. All the ships seized from 1800 to
1812 did not average one hundred and fifty yearly, of which more than
one-third were released, and indemnity finally paid for half the
residue: namely, there were 917 seized by England, more than half
released; 558 seized by France, one-fourth released; 70 seized by
Denmark; 47 seized by Naples, and more property was detained by France