ng us the means of laying the seaports
of the Union under a contribution for ages to come, and warranting the
belief that our present shipping interest will be sustained and employed
and a great increase required.

About one-third of the most valuable portion of our territory is claimed
by Great Britain, and the history of this protracted controversy from
its commencement to the present time is such as to awaken general
anxiety. We are admonished by recent events that we have not yet reached
the termination of our toils and embarrassments, and they have awakened
the painful apprehension that our just rights may not be secured by
honorable negotiation or patient submission to unprovoked injuries.
These considerations, in the opinion of your committee, call loudly for
the interposition of the General Government, and require at their hands
all needful preparation for possible contingencies. The late Governor
Lincoln nearly ten years since called the attention of the Government
to the importance of erecting a strong fortification in some eligible
position on the confines of that portion of our territory to which
an adverse claim is set up by Great Britain. In the opinion of your
committee, the subject has lost none of its interest since that
period, but, on the contrary, the events to which we have alluded
give to it vastly augmented importance; and to our view, irrespective
of any conditions growing out of the present controversy, a strong
fortification upon the northeastern boundary of the United States,
situated far in the interior and upon the confines of a foreign country,
and surrounded by millions of acres of fertile land, destined soon to
be peopled with a numerous population of hardy yeomanry, is of high
importance.

Our isolated situation, being the northeastern boundary of the
nation, with an interior frontier upward of 600 miles upon a foreign
country and a large proportion of our territory lying between two
Provinces of Great Britain and so situated as to render it greatly to
the advantage of that nation to possess it; the inflexible determination
which she manifests to pursue the course which interest dictates should
not be forgotten; the extent of our seacoast; the exposed situation of
our seaport towns, lying within a few hours' sail of the British naval
depot in the neighborhood of Maine; the disastrous consequences of our
defenseless situation during the last war; the great and increasing
maritime intere