“Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force, competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If, then, the war must be continued, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theater where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s edge. They are lost in attachment to national character on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may enable yourselves to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered, and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon.” My young reader, without knowing much about the matter at issue, will nevertheless be struck with the statesmanlike character of these utterances. It is not often that a new member of Congress is able to discuss public matters with such fullness of knowledge, and in a tone of such dignity and elevation of sentiment. His fellow legislators were not long in learning that the new member from New Hampshire was no raw novice, but a publicist of remarkable ability, knowledge, and a trained orator. In a discussion which sprang up between Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun, the conceded leader of the House, the honors were at least divided, if Mr. Webster did not win the larger portion. While the young man was thus coming into national prominence his residence in Washington helped him in a professional way. He began to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, being employed in several prize cases. Judge Marshall was at that time chief justice, and of him the young lawyer formed an exalted opinion. “I have never seen a man,” he writes, “of whose intellect I had a higher opinion.” On the 18th of April, 1814, the session of Congress terminated, and Mr. Webster undertook the long and toilsome journey from Washington to his New Hampshire home. It was not the same home which he left when he was called a year earlier to attend the special session. His house and library were destroyed by fire, and though the loss was but six thousand dollars, it was a severe set-back to a lawyer whose professional income had never exceeded two thousand dollars. He bore the loss, however, with equanimity, since it involved only a loss of money. His talent and education remained, and these were to earn him hundreds of thousands of dollars in the years to come. CHAPTER XXIII. JOHN RANDOLPH AND WILLIAM PINKNEY.