As inhabitants of a great commercial country, the benefits we derive from _naval_ architecture are unspeakably great; when we reflect that it operates as a medium of communication between us, an insulated people, and the whole earth, in its remotest colonies; that it serves to convey between our people and the most distant nations the native produce of the respective countries, with the effects of mutual industry; that it clothes, feeds, and furnishes employment to thousands of our fellow-countrymen; and, in a national point of view, our wooden bulwarks have been the wonder of the world, and continues to afford us protection from our enemies, should all other hopes fail. What can surpass its utility in the latter point of view? what can exceed the assistance derived from it? By the criterions formerly mentioned let us determine. We shall find, that of all the arts the world has ever boasted, there are but few, if any, that can claim a superiority. There are no other designs, whether necessary or superfluous, so certainly productive of their desired object, so beneficial in consequences, or so permanent in their effects, as is the art of the architect. Most other inventions which afford pleasure and satisfaction soon decay; their fashion fluctuates--their value is lost; but the productions of architecture command general attention, and are lasting monuments, beyond the reach of ephemeral modes: they proclaim to distant ages the consequence, genius, virtues, achievements, and munificence of those they commemorate to the latest posterity. The most obvious and immediate advantages of building are, the employment of numerous ingenious artificers, industrious workmen, and labourers of all kinds; converting materials of small value into the most noble productions, beautifying countries, multiplying the comforts and conveniences of life. But not the least desirable effects of the architect’s art, perhaps, remain yet to be noticed, in affording to the numerous train of arts and manufactures, concerned to furnish and adorn the works of architecture, which employ thousands, constituting many valuable branches of commerce. Also from that certain concourse of strangers to every country celebrated for stately structures, who extend your fame into other countries, where otherwise, it would never have been heard of; adopt your fashions, give reputation, and create a demand for your productions in foreign parts; these are circumstances which certainly should not be too lightly valued, and these circumstances result from architecture.