"Your Committee would again repeat that the question to be considered is not one of mere dollars and cents, or whether certain individuals are to be sustained, or not, but one of infinitely greater consequence--whether this proud republic shall now and hereafter exist as a power competent to maintain her rights upon the ocean. The present condition of political affairs in Europe is such as, in the opinion of many, to threaten a general war among the nations of that quarter of the globe, and the United States should stand ready, and able too, to protect the rights of her citizens upon the ocean, in such an event. Were such a crisis to take place to-morrow, or the next year, or within the next five years, is the country prepared for it? The steam navy proper amounts to sixteen steamers of all classes, which, together with the twenty-four ocean mail steamers in the employ of the Post Office Department, would give us a steam naval force not exceeding forty in all. Is this the position we should occupy, while Great Britain has at command upwards of three hundred war and mail steamers? France has, it is believed, upwards of a hundred, and the secondary powers of Europe have naval steam armaments in proportion, most of them exceeding our own. This question will be decided by the continuation or rejection of the system under consideration, which, with all the difficulties attendant upon new enterprises and under the most embarrassing circumstances, has gone very far to sustain itself, and promises, at no distant period, to become a source of large revenue to the Government, and incalculable commercial advantages, pecuniarily and otherwise, to the country." The following is copied from the Report made by Mr. Rusk in 1850, and published in Special Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1852. Speaking of the services of the mail steamers in our system of defenses, the Report says: