ney which they pay for it, and have it nearly a month in market
before they need it, just to have it come on the "Leviathan." It must
come along in small lots, just as they need it, and it must be shipped
the day that it is bought, and delivered as soon as the ship is in,
without being the last lot of fifteen thousand tons, and without
keeping the owners so long out of their money. Suppose that A. puts
the first lot of freight in at London: he will be the last to receive,
it in New-York. A smaller steamer taking another lot two days after,
will deliver it before the large ship gets half way over. Or, again,
the small steamer may leave London with it when the large steamer has
nearly arrived at New-York, and deliver the lot here to the owner in
advance. Beside not wishing so large a lot at once, they do not wish
it all in one place. The double advantage of a great number of small
vessels is, that they bring cargo along as it is wanted, and at the
same time distribute it at all of the hundreds of large and small
ports, without first delivering it at some great mammoth terminus, and
then reshipping and distributing it to its final destination.

A gentleman, who is a prominent statesman, recently seriously advised
me not to think of establishing a line of mail steamers between the
United States and Brazil, for the accommodation of the hundreds of
sailing vessels engaged in that trade, but to get up a mammoth company
and run five or six thirty thousand ton steamers, like the Leviathan,
between Norfolk and Rio de Janeiro. He said that the increased size of
the steamer would enable me to carry freight cheaper than sailing
vessels. The reasoning was neither very clear nor convincing to me on
behalf of the mysterious capacities which he attributed to large
steamers. I suggested that, in the first place, there was no cargo
passing either way between the United States and Brazil which could
afford to pay steam transportation under any circumstances; that so
large a cargo could never be obtained at once in Rio de Janeiro or
elsewhere; that the merchants of this country did not wish it all
landed at one place; that it would cost as much to remove it from
Norfolk to the place of consumption, as it would from Rio de Janeiro
to its final destination; that they did not wish it delivered all at
once, but in small lots at a time, and distributed where it was
needed; and that, even if it were at all practicable, which no
business man could