"There are eighty wharves and quays, chiefly on the east side of the town. Of these the most distinguished is Boston pier, or the Long Wharf, which extends from the bottom of State Street 1,743 feet into the harbor. Here the principal navigation of the town is carried on; vessels of all burdens load and unload; and the London ships generally discharge their cargoes.... The harbor of Boston is at this date crowded with vessels. It is reckoned that not less than 450 sail of ships, brigs, schooners, sloops, and small craft are now in this port." New York and Baltimore, in a large way; Salem, Hull, Portsmouth, New London, New Bedford, New Haven, and a host of smaller seaports, in a lesser degree, joined in this prosperous industry. It was the great interest of the United States, and so continued, though with interruptions, for more than half a century, influencing the thought, the legislation, and the literature of our people. When Daniel Webster, himself a son of a seafaring State, sought to awaken his countrymen to the peril into which the nation was drifting through sectional dissensions and avowed antagonism to the national authority, he chose as the opening metaphor of his reply to Hayne the description of a ship, drifting rudderless and helpless on the trackless ocean, exposed to perils both known and unknown. The orator knew his audience. To all New England the picture had the vivacity of life. The metaphors of the sea were on every tongue. The story is a familiar one of the Boston clergyman who, in one of his discourses, described a poor, sinful soul drifting toward shipwreck so vividly that a sailor in the audience, carried away by the preacher's imaginative skill, cried out: "Let go your best bower anchor, or you're lost." In another church, which had its pulpit set at the side instead of at the end, as customary, a sailor remarked critically: "I don't like this craft; it has its rudder amidships."