lly aroused, when it is too late to
effect a change until two or three years have expired in building
ships. We thus find ourselves in the midst of the difficulty without
having foreseen it, and without being prepared for it. The wise man
planned the campaign before others had even contemplated any
disturbance of the peace. As a matter of course he controlled the
battle, and brought up the victory in his own way.

The only effectual means of accomplishing the foreign mail service in
this country is by liberally subsidizing private companies for a long
term of years, such as will induce them to provide first-class ships,
run them rapidly, and fit them for the most comfortable conveyance of
passengers. Lord Canning in his Report to both houses of Parliament on
the contract packet system in 1853, says, after showing that the naval
vessels have been abandoned for the mail service: "There is no
peculiarity in this branch of business which renders it an exception
to the general rule, that work is done more cheaply by contract than
by Government agency." But when the idea of performing the mail
service by naval vessels was wholly abandoned in 1837, another
question of equal importance arose, as to how far the mail steam
packets might be made efficient as vessels of war in times of
emergency. As a consequence of the discussion nearly all of the mail
contracts made from that day until this by Great Britain contained
stipulations requiring the vessels to be capable of carrying an
armament, in addition to the requirements of speed and punctuality.
The same thing was done in this country in 1846-7; and one of the
principal means of carrying the Collins bill through Congress was the
self-deception of making the steamers equivalent to vessels of war. It
was a plea to which statesmen and enterprising business men resorted,
and was used as a means of securing those commercial facilities which
constitutional quibblers would not vote for directly, but which they
would afford if allowed the subterfuge of "defenses" as a means of
protecting them against a certain set of constituencies who foolishly
opposed the extension of commerce. Many of these would not grant one
dollar for the aid of that commerce on which the revenues of the
country and their own real prosperity and wealth depended; but they
were willing to suffer long and bleed freely at the old and just,
though unrenewable war-cry: "The British and the Hessians." Our case
was rathe