“I know,” he began, “how many and how strong are the prejudices, how numerous and how deeply laid are the errors which I have to encounter in the discussion of this question,--errors and prejudices the more formidable as they come recommended by the virtues and shielded by the estimable motives of those who indulge them. I have been told that this subject is unpopular, and it has been not indistinctly hinted that those who become the zealous advocates of the bill will not advance by their exertions the personal estimation in which they may be held by their political associates.” In few words Cheves avowed that while he preferred to act with the Republican party, he was in truth independent, and he warned his friends that on the subject of a navy they must in the end either conquer their prejudices or quit office. After this preamble, Cheves struck once more at the foundations of his party. His argument, as a matter of expediency, was convincing; for every American ship-of-war, even when blockaded in port, would oblige the British to employ three ships of equal or greater size to relieve each other in blockading and watching it. The blockading service of the American station was peculiarly severe. England had no port nearer than Halifax for equipments or repairs; in general all her equipments must be made in Europe, and for only three months’ service; in winter she must for months at a time abandon the blockade, and leave the coast free. No method could be devised by which, with so small risk and so little waste of money and life, the resources of England could be so rapidly drained as by the construction of heavy war-vessels. Once at sea, an American seventy-four had nothing to fear except a squadron; and even when dismantled in port, she required the attention of a hostile fleet. The House had submitted with slowly rising ill-temper to each successive demand of the war it would have preferred to avoid; but this last requirement threw it into open revolt. Cheves found himself for a time almost alone. Even Richard M. Johnson, always ardent for war, became mournful with prophecies of the evils that Cheves was about to bring upon the country. “I will refer to Tyre and Sidon, Crete and Rhodes, to Athens and to Carthage.” Plunder, piracy, perpetual war, followed the creation of every navy known to history. Armies might be temporary, but navies were permanent, and even more dangerous to freedom. “Navies have been and always will be engines of power, employed in projects of ambition and war.”