_What is the use of the Navy of the United States?_ The annual expense of our Navy, during recent years, has been upward of six millions of dollars. For what purpose is this paid? Not for the apprehension of pirates; for frigates and ships of the line are of too great bulk to be of service for this purpose. Not for the suppression of the Slave Trade; for under the stipulations with Great Britain, we employ only eighty guns in this holy alliance. Not to protect our coasts; for all agree that our few ships would form an unavailing defense against any serious attack. Not for these purposes, you will admit, _but for the protection of our Navigation_. This is not the occasion for minute calculations. Suffice it to say, that an intelligent merchant, who has been extensively engaged in commerce for the last twenty years, and who speaks, therefore, with the authority of knowledge, has demonstrated in a tract of perfect clearness, that the annual profits of the whole mercantile marine of the country do not equal the annual expenditure of our Navy. Admitting the profit of a merchant ship to be four thousand dollars a year, which is a large allowance, it will take the earnings of one hundred ships to build and employ for one year a single sloop of War—one hundred and fifty ships to build and employ a frigate, and nearly three hundred ships to build and employ a ship of the line. Thus more than five hundred ships must do a profitable business, in order to earn a sufficient sum to sustain this little fleet. Still further, taking a received estimate of the value of the mercantile marine of the United States at forty millions of dollars, we find that it is only a little more than six times the annual cost of the navy; so that this interest is protected at a charge of more than _fifteen per cent._ of its whole value! Protection at such price is more ruinous than one of Pyrrhus’s victories! ----- [3] Orations and Speeches by Charles Sumner, vol. I, page 71. [4] I have relied here and in subsequent pages upon McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary; The Edinburgh Geography, founded on the works of Malte Brun and Balbi; and the calculations of Mr. Jay in _Peace and War_, p. 16, and in his Address before the Peace Society, pp. 28, 29. [5] I have verified these results by the expenditures of these different nations, but I do little more than follow Mr. Jay, who has illustrated this important point with his accustomed accuracy.—_Address_, p. 30. [6] Jay’s Peace and War, p. 13. [7] American Almanac for 1845, p. 143. [8] Hon. Josiah Quincy. [9] Document No. 132, House of Representatives, 3rd session, 27th Congress. [10] Document; Report of Secretary of War; No. 2. Senate, 27th Congress, 2nd session; where it is proposed to invest in a general system of land defenses $51,677,929. [11] Exec. Documents of 1842-43, Vol. I. No. 3. * * * * * LINES ON SOME VIOLETS,