Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)United States. Congress
History
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)
United States. Congress
Law -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. STORY) had said that except we
begun with this bill, and got his fast-sailing frigates, we should
never regain our rights. If that were really the case, Mr. W. said he
was ready to abandon them. He considered that the sort of maintenance
of our rights adverted to by the gentleman from Massachusetts, would be
destructive to those rights. Gentlemen must have forgotten that when
Hamburg was in the greatest state of prosperity, she did not possess
even a single gunboat. Why! there was not wealth enough in this whole
nation, if every one were to carry his all, thus to maintain our rights
against the navy of Great Britain. If we were carried into a war, and
every thing really seemed to be tending that way, we must rely upon
the enterprise of our citizens; and that, when set at liberty, would
be found more desperate than the navy of any country. When we arrived
at the end of the Revolutionary war we had but one frigate, and the
best thing we ever did was to give that one away. The State of South
Carolina had not yet got clear of the curse. She embarked one frigate
in the general struggle, and she had not rid herself of the debts
incurred by it yet. Private enterprise must be depended upon. The
people from the Eastward had shown in the last war what they would do.
When vessels were loaded with sugar they would fight like bull-dogs for
it. He recollected a story, he said, of one of our privateers being
beat off by a Jamaica man, whom they attacked. The captain not liking
to lose the prize, and finding his crew disheartened, told them she was
full of sugar. "Is she?" said they, "by G--d; let us at them again."
They scarcely ever failed in their enterprises.
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