And Daniel Webster, just entering upon public life, made one of his earliest efforts in Congress for a navy.  In his characteristic manner, he urged, in 1814,—­“If war must continue, go to the ocean; let it no longer be said, not one ship of force built by your hands since the war yet floats; if you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended.  Thither every indication of your future calls you.  There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you.”

But a Southern Cabinet still clung to the Chinese policy, and the war for maritime rights was confided to a raw militia upon the land, while Hull, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter, and Barney were performing the very feats which Lloyd had pictured to the Senate.  A vote, it is true, was at length passed, to build four ships of the line, six frigates, and six sloops; but none were finished before the close of the war; and it was not until after its conclusion that the Democratic party, so long opposed to Federal measures, and triumphant from their very opposition, after a loss of at least three hundred millions, caused by their abandonment, gave the most conclusive proof of their value by funding the debt, re-establishing the navy, reviving the Military Academy at West Point, fortifying the coast, and making a tariff for revenue with incidental protection.  Well might party-strife cease under the veteran Monroe; for Democracy had become Federalized.

The sketch thus given of the rise and progress of our navigation, and of the origin and decline of our navy, affords us a commanding view of the position of our nation when it adopted the Chinese policy and withdrew from the ocean.

Let us now glance for a moment at the state of Europe at the close of 1807.  The great struggle of England and France was in progress.  Napoleon, by his brilliant exploits, had subdued Italy and Holland, established the Empire, and by the battles of Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, and Friedland, humbled Austria, overwhelmed Prussia, and conquered a peace with Russia.  The Continent, from the Pyrenees to the Vistula, was subject to his sway, and he had closed it against the manufactures of England.  This nation, alike victorious on the sea, had nearly annihilated the navy of France, captured the fleet of Denmark, swept the French and Dutch ships from the ocean, and was now seizing the possessions of France and Holland in the Indies.  Regardless of neutral rights, she had declared every part of the Continent, from the Pyrenees to the Elbe, in a state of blockade.

To escape impressment, or to obtain higher wages, many of her seamen enlisted in our service.  Anxious to reclaim them and to man all her ships, she followed them into American vessels, and impressed American seamen as Englishmen, without the least respect to the rights of a neutral that did not assert by arms the dignity of its flag.