"So then, M. le Duc," said I, laughing, "you have adopted the ideas of the British navigation act. But suppose the United States should adopt them too, and make a law, that no commerce should be carried on with any West India Islands, French, English, Spanish, Dutch, or Danish, but in ships built in America, and navigated with American seamen? We can import sugar from Europe. But give me leave to tell you, that this trade can never be carried on without a great number of seamen, which the French vessels being all large require, and your navigators are too slow. The trade itself was only profitable to us as a system, and little vessels, with a few hands, run away at any season of the year, from any creek or river, with a multitude of little articles, collected in haste. Your merchants and mariners have neither the patience to content themselves with much and long labor, and dangerous voyages for small profits, nor have they the economy, nor can they navigate vessels with so few hands." "Aye, but we think," said the Duke, "if we do not try, we shall never learn to do these things as well and as cheap as you." The Duke told me, some days before, that he had had a great deal of conversation with the Count de Vergennes, and he found he had a great many good ideas of commerce. The Count himself told me a few weeks ago, "in our regulations of the commerce between our Islands and you, we must have regard to our shipping, and our nurseries of seamen for our marine; for," said he, smiling politely enough, "without a marine, we cannot go to your succor."