F 
 
 857 
 .54 
 
COMMERCE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWAKD, 
 
 // J 
 
 \ ?*o i - i g 7 ^ 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 JULY 29, 1852. 
 
 WASHINGTON : 
 BUELL & BLANCHARD 
 
 1852. 
 
U OH 1 
 lun Ur 
 
 IN SENATE, JULY 29, 1852. 
 
 A bill reported by Mr. SEWARD, from the Committee on Commerce, 
 for a survey and reconnaissance of Bhering's Straits, the Arctic Ocean, 
 and the courses of trade between America and China, was read. 
 Mr. SEWARD rose and said : 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT : Some years ago, when ascending the Alabama, I 
 
 saw a stag, plunge into the river, and gallantly gain the western bank, 
 
 , while the desponding sportsman, whose rifle he had escaped, sat down 
 
 > to mourn his ill luck under the deep magnolia forest that shaded the 
 
 * eastern shore. You, sir, are a dweller in that region, and are, as all 
 "the world knows, a gentleman of cultivated taste and liberal fortunes. 
 , Perhaps, then, you may have been that unfortunate hunter. Howsoever 
 
 that may have been, I wish to converse with you now of the chase, and 
 
 yet not of deer, or hawk, or hound, but of a chase upon the seas ; and 
 still not of angling or trolling, nor of the busy toil of those worthy fish 
 ermen who seem likely to embroil us, certainly without reluctance on 
 
 Jour part, in a controversy about their rights in the Bay of Fundy, but 
 'of a nobler sport and more adventurous sportsmen than Izaak Walton, 
 "or Daniel Boone, or even Nimrod, the mightiest as well as most ancient 
 jjof hunters, ever dreamed of the chase of the whale over his broad 
 '.range of the universal ocean. 
 
 Do not hastily pronounce the subject out of order or unprofitable, or 
 unworthy of this high presence. The Phoenicians, the earliest mercan 
 tile nation known to us, enriched themselves by selling the celebrated 
 Tyrian dye, and glass made of sand taken from the sea ; and they ac 
 quired not only those sources of wealth, but the art of navigation itself, 
 in the practice of their humble calling as fishermen. A thousand years 
 ago, King Alfred was laying the foundations of empire for Young Eng 
 land, as we are now doing for Young America. The monarch whom 
 men justly have surnamed the Wise as well as the Great, did not dis 
 dain to listen to Octher, who related the adventures of a voyage along 
 the coast of Norway, " so far north as commonly the whale hunters 
 used to travel-; " nor was the stranger suffered to depart until he had 
 submitted to the King "a most just survey and description" of the 
 Northern Seas, not only as they extended upwards to the North Cape, 
 but also as they bore away downwards along the southeast coast of Lap 
 land, and so following the icy beach of Russia to where the river Dwina 
 discharged its waters into the White Sea, or, as it was then called, the 
 Sea of Archangel. Perhaps iny poor speech may end in some similar 
 
W ' . * 4 > 
 
 lesson. The incident I have related is the burthen of the earliest his 
 torical notice of the subjugation of the monster of the seas to the uses 
 of man. The fishery was carried on then, and near six hundred years 
 afterwards, by the Basques, Biscayans, and Norwegians, for the food 
 yielded by the tongue, and the oil obtained from the fat of the animal. 
 Whalebone entered into commerce in the fifteenth century, and at first 
 commanded the enormous price of seven hundred pounds sterling per 
 ton, exceeding a value in this age of ten thousand dollars. Those were 
 merry times, if not for science, at least for Royalty, when, although 
 the material for stays and hoops was taken from the mouth, the law 
 appropriated the tail of every whale taken by an English subject to the 
 use of the Queen, for the supply of the Royal wardrobe. 
 
 In 1846 the Portuguese reached the Cape of Storms, and in happy 
 augury of an ultimate passage to India, changed its ill-omened name to 
 that of " Good Hope ; " and immediately thereafter the Northern 
 States of Europe, especially England and Holland, began that series of 
 voyages, not even yet ended, in search of a passage to the East through 
 the floating fields and rolling mountains of ice in the Arctic Ocean. The 
 unsuccessful search disclosed the refuge of the whales in the bays and 
 creeks of Spitzbergen. In 1575 a London merchant wrote to a foreign 
 correspondent for " advice and direction as to killing the whale," and 
 received instructions how to build and equip a vessel of two hundred 
 tons, and to man it exclusively with experienced whale hunters of Bis 
 cay. The attraction of dominion was stronger in that age than the 
 lust of profit. The English now claimed Spitzbergen, and all its sur 
 rounding ice and waters, by discovery. The Dutch, with truth, alleged 
 an earlier exploration, while the Danes claimed the whole region as a 
 part of Greenland a pretension that could not then be disproved ; and 
 all these parties sent armed forces upon the fishing ground, less to 
 protect their few fishermen, than to establish exclusive rights there. 
 After some fifty years, these nations discovered, first, that it was absurd 
 to claim jurisdiction where no permanent possession could ever be estab 
 lished, by reason of the rigors of climate ; and secondly, that there 
 were fish enough and room enough for all competitors. Thenceforward, 
 the whale fishery in the Arctic Ocean has been free to all nations. 
 
 The Dutch perfected the harpoon, the reel, the line, and the spear,i 
 as well as the art of using them. And they established, also, the 
 system which we have since found indispensable, of rewarding all thej 
 officers and crews employed in the fishery, not with direct wages or 
 salaries, but with shares in the spoils of the game, proportioned to ski! 
 and experience. Combining with these the advantages of favorable 
 position, and of frugality and perseverance quite proverbial, the Dutch 
 even founded a fishing settlement called Smeerenburgh, on the coast of 
 Spitzbergen, within eleven degrees of the North Pole, and they took 
 whales in its vicinity in such abundance that ships were needed to go 
 out in ballast, to carry home the surplus oil and bone above the capacity 
 of the whaling vessels. The whales, thus vigorously attacked, again 
 changed their lurking place. Spitzbergen was abandoned by the fish 
 ermen, and the very site of Smeerenburgh is now unknown. In the 
 year 1496, Sebastian Cabot, in the spirit of that age, seeking a north 
 western passage to the Indies, gave to the world the discovery of Prime 
 Vista, or, as we call it, Newfoundland, and the Basques, Biscayans 
 
Dutch, and English, immediately thereafter commenced the chase for 
 whales in the waters surrounding it. 
 
 Scarcely had the colonists of Massachusetts planted themselves at 
 Plymouth, before the sterility of the soil and the rigor of the climate 
 forced them to resort to the sea to eke out their subsistence. Pursuing 
 the whales out from their own bays, in vessels of only forty tons bur 
 then, they appeared on the fishing ground off Newfoundland in the year 
 1690. Profiting by nearness of position and economy in building and 
 equipping ships, and sharing also in the bounties with which England 
 was then stimulating the whale fishery, they soon excelled all their 
 rivals on the Newfoundland waters, as well as in Baffin's Bay and off 
 the coast of Greenland. Thus encouraged, they ran down the coasts 
 of America and Africa, and in the waters rolling between them they 
 discovered the black whale, a new and inferior species, yet worthy of 
 capture ; and then stretching off toward the South Pole, they found 
 still another species, t/he sperm whale, whose oil is still preferred above 
 all other ; and thus they enlarged the whale fishery for the benefit of 
 the world, which since that time has distinguished the two branches of 
 that enterprise geographically by the designation of the Northern and 
 Southern fisheries. In 17 75 the fisheries were carried on by the 
 Americans, the English, the Dutch, and the French. The French 
 employed only a small fleet, the Dutch a larger one of 129 sail. The 
 English had only 96 ships, while the Americans had 132 vessels in the 
 Southern fishery, and 177 in the Northern fishery, manned with 4,000 
 persons, and bringing in oil and whalebone of the value of one million 
 one hundred and eleven thousand dollars. This precociousness of Amer 
 ican nautical enterprise elicited from Burke, in his great speech for con 
 ciliation to the colonies, a tribute familiar to our countrymen, and per 
 haps the most glowing passage that even that great orator ever wrote or 
 spake : 
 
 li Look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried 
 on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of 
 ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest recesses of Hudson's Bay and 
 Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, we hear 
 that they have pierced into the opposite region of Polar cold that they are at the 
 Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, 
 which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambi 
 tion, is but a stage and resting place in the progress of their victorious industry. 
 Nor is the Equatorial heat more discouraging to them -than the accumulated winter 
 of both the Poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike 
 the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their 
 gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No ocean but what is vexed with their 
 fisheries, no elimate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of 
 Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English 
 enterprise, ever carried this perilous mode of hardy enterprise to the extent to 
 which it has been pushed by this recent people a people who are still, as it were, 
 in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." 
 
 But Britain did not conciliate. The Revolution went on, and the 
 American whale fishery perished, leaving not one vessel on either fish 
 ing ground. 
 
 Yet it is curious, Mr. President, to mark the elasticity of our coun 
 trymen in this their favorite enterprise. A provisional treaty of peace 
 between the United States and Great Britain was concluded on the 
 30th of November, 1782. " On the 3d of February, 1783," (I read 
 
from an English paper of that period,) " tlie ship Bedford, Captain 
 Moores, belonging to Massachusetts, arrived in the Downs. She 
 passed Gravesend on the 4th, and on the 6th was reported at the cus 
 tom-house in London. She was not allowed regular entry until after 
 some consultation between the commissioners of customs and the Lords 
 of the Council, on account of the many acts of Parliament yet in force 
 against the rebels of America. She was loaded with 587 barrels of 
 whale oil, and manned wholly with American seamen, and belonged to 
 the island of Nantucket. The vessel lay at the Horsley-Downs, a 
 little below the Tower, and was the first which displayed the thirteen 
 stripes of America in any British port." 
 
 Nevertheless, the lost vantage ground was not easily nor speedily 
 regained. The eifort was made without protection, against exclusion 
 in foreign markets, and against bounties by the English Government 
 equivalent to forty dollars per man employed, or sixty per cent, on the 
 value of every cargo obtained bounties not occasionally nor irregularly 
 offered, but continued from 1750 to 1824, and amounting in the aggre 
 gate to three millions of pounds sterling. Nor was this all. These 
 bounties, enhanced with additional inducements, were offered to the 
 Nantucket fishermen, on condition of their abandoning their country 
 and becoming inhabitants of the adjacent British Colonies, or of the 
 British Islands. It seemed, indeed, that a crisis in this great national 
 interest had come. Happily there was, on the French side of the 
 Channel, at least, one unwearied friend of America, as there were 
 many watchful enemies of England. Lafayette wrote several letters 
 to Boston, and arrested an immigration from Nantucket to the British 
 Colonies and Islands already on the eve of embarkation, and then ad 
 dressed himself to the French monarch and his Court. France saw at 
 once the dangers of a transfer of so great a number of seamen, together 
 with the very secret, art and mystery of whale hunting, to her heredi 
 tary and relentless enemy. The good but ill-fated Louis XVI equipped 
 six whaling vessels, with American harpooners, on his own account, and 
 offered a bounty of nine dollars per man, payable by the Royal Treas 
 ury, to every American fisherman who should emigrate to France. In 
 a whole 3 T ear, only nine families, containing thirty-three persons, ac 
 cepted this offer ; and therefore the King, in compliance with Lafay 
 ette's first advice, adopted the expedient of discriminating in favor of 
 American cargoes of oil and whalebone in the French market. The 
 American whale fishery began to revive, and in 1787, 1788, and 1789, 
 it employed an average of 122 vessels. But it still labored under the 
 pressure of competition, stimulated by bounties both in England and in 
 France. In 1790, the Great and General Council of Massachusetts 
 appealed to Congress for protection to this great interest of that Com 
 monwealth. Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, submitted an elab 
 orate reply, which, while it was liberal in its spirit, nevertheless closed 
 with the declaration, that " the whale fishery was a branch of industry 
 so poor as to come to nothing with distant nations who did not support 
 it from their treasuries that our position placed our fishing on ground 
 somewhat higher, such as to relieve the National Treasury from giving 
 it support, but not to permit it to derive support from the fishery, nor 
 to relieve the Government from the obligation to provide free markets 
 for the productions of the fishery, if possible." 
 
The enterprise had not yet languished into life, when the French 
 Revolution of 1789 occurred, which involved Europe, and ultimately 
 the United States, in wars that swept the latter, as well as the French 
 and Dutch, from all the fisheries, and left them in the exclusive enjoy 
 ment of Britain, who achieved in those wars her now established pre- 
 minence as the conqueror of the seas. At their close, the British had 
 146 vessels in the Northern whaling ground, which captured no less 
 than 733 whales, and thus obtained 13,590 tons of oil and 438 tons of 
 whalebone ; and 56 ships in the Southern whale fishery equally success- 
 iul. The Americans now re-entered the game, and the tables were 
 speedily and, as we think, permanently turned in their favor. In 
 1824 the British became discouraged, and withdrew their bounties ; 
 and in 1842 they had no more than 18 vessels in the North fishery, 
 which captured only 24 whales. The Southern fishery declined still 
 more rapidly; so that, in 1845, not one British whaler appeared in the 
 South Seas. Since that time, all nations have virtually abandoned this 
 
 hardy form of perilous enterprise" in favor of the Americans. The 
 entire whaling fleet of the world, in 1847, consisted of about 900 ves 
 sels, 40 of which belonged to France, 20 to Bremen and other ports in 
 Northern Europe, 20 to New Holland and other British Polynesian 
 Colonies ; and all others, more than 800 in number, with a tonnage of 
 240,000 tons, belonged to the United States. The capital thus em 
 ployed exceeded twenty millions of dollars, and the annual productions 
 of the fisheries amounted to thirteen millions of dollars. With the de 
 cline of this enterprise in Great Britain, her commercial writers began 
 bo discountenance whale fishing altogether ; and while they now repre 
 sent it as a mere gambling adventure, they endeavor to stimulate the 
 people of Continental Europe to substitute vegetable oils for those pro 
 cured in the seas. 
 
 Mr. President : Pray consider the cost, time, dangers, and hazards of 
 the whale fishery. Each vessel with its outfit is worth $30,000, and 
 carries thirty able-bodied seamen^ and is afloat on a single voyage one 
 or two, perhaps three years. It finds the whale nowhere below the 
 sixtieth degree of latitude, and can remain there only during the brief 
 Polar summer of three months. The whole time may elapse without a 
 whale being seen. When discovered, every stage of his capture is toil 
 some, and attended with multiplied dangers to the assailants, increased 
 by the shoals, the ice, the storms, and the fogs, which protect the 
 animal against his pursuers. The statistics are absolutely frightful to 
 a landsman or a common seaman. In 1819, of sixty-three British 
 ships sent to Davis's Straits, ten were lost. In 1821, out of sixty- 
 nine, eleven were lost. Of eighty-seven ships that sailed for Davis's 
 Straits in 1830, no less than eighteen were lost, twenty-four returned 
 clean, while not one of the remainder had a full cargo, and only one or 
 two half fished. 
 
 Pray consider now, sir, that the great triumph of the American fish 
 ermen was achieved, and is still sustained, not only without aid from 
 the Government, but practically also without aid from the capital or 
 enterprise of general commerce, and, indeed, to quote the nervous lan 
 guage of Jefferson, " with no auxiliaries but poverty and rigorous 
 economy." The whaling fleet of the United States, in 1846, consisted 
 of seven hundred and thirty-seven vessels. Of the thirty States, only 
 
8 
 
 fiv e New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and 
 New York were represented ; and all of these except New York are 
 the States least blessed in fertility and climate. New Hampshire, 
 having only a single port, sent out only one vessel. Rhode Island, one 
 of the three most diminutive States, equipped fifty-two. Connecticut, 
 a small Statej sent out one hundred and twenty-four. New York, with 
 her extended territory, vast wealth, and stupendous commercial estab 
 lishments, sent only eighty-five ; and all the rest proceeded from that 
 State, inferior to many others in extent, wealth, and commerce, but 
 superior to them all in intellectual and social development Massachu 
 setts. 
 
 Wealth does nothing, patronage does nothing, while vigor does every 
 thing for the whale fishery. In Great Britain, London resigned it in 
 favor of those poor and obsolete towns, Hull, in England, and Peter- 
 head, in Scotland, as soon as the Government bounties ceased. So of 
 the eighty-five vessels which in 1846 represented New York in the 
 fishery, only one went up from the port of New York, the commercial 
 capital of the State and of the continent, while no less then eight pro 
 ceeded from Cold Spring, a mere nook in the mountains which crowd 
 toward each other just above the city, as if to prevent the waters of 
 the Hudson from their destined meeting with the tides of the ocean. 
 All the others were sent forth from New Suffolk, Greenport, and Sag 
 Harbor, inconsiderable villages or hamlets on the outward coast of 
 Long Island. Massachusetts exhibits the same case. Boston finds 
 more lucrative employment for her capital in spindles, in railroads, and 
 even in her fields of ice and quarries of granite ; and so leaves the 
 profits and toils of the whale fisher) 7 to Freetown, Falmouth, Sippican, 
 Wareham, Plymouth, Holmes' Hole, Fall River, Provincetown, Fair- 
 haven, New Bedford, and Nantucket towns which but for their pur 
 suit of the whale fishery would scarcely have been honored with designa 
 tion on the chart or names in the gazetteer. Most wondrous of all, 
 Nantucket is a* sandy island, fifteen miles long and three miles broad, 
 capable of maintaining by agriculture only one hundred persons, and 
 yet it was the cradle of the whale fishery ; and neither any town in 
 America, nor in England, nor even in France, has ever successfully 
 established or at all maintained the whale fishery, without drawing, not 
 merely its knowledge of whale-hunting, but the officers and crews of its 
 vessels, chiefly from that sandy shoal thus rising above the surface of 
 the sea. 
 
 Need I dwell here on the whale fishery as a source of national wealth 
 and an element of national force and strength ? The number of those 
 who are actively afloat in the pursuit ranges from 15,000 to 20,000, 
 while twenty times that greatest number of persons are indirectly 
 engaged in the culture of hemp and the manufacture of cordage, the 
 building of ships, furnishing their supplies, manufacturing and prepar 
 ing the oil and whalebone, in sending them to market, and in the vari 
 ous other occupations incidentally connected with the trade. The 
 wealth thus acquired leaves all the resources of the country untouched. 
 Dr. Franklin cheered the fishermen of his day with the apothegm that 
 whosoever took a fish out of the sea always found a piece of silver in 
 his mouth, and our experience has confirmed its truth, although it is 
 now rejected by the commercial writers of England. 
 
We are the second in rank among commercial nations. Our superi 
 ority over so many results from our greater skill in ship-building, and 
 our greater dexterity in navigation, and our greater frugality at sea. 
 These elements were developed in the fisheries, and especially in the 
 Northern fishery. We think that we are inferior to no nation in naval 
 warfare. The seamen who have won our brilliant victories on the 
 ocean and on the lakes were trained and disciplined in this the severest 
 of all marine service ; and our naval historians agree that it constituted 
 the elementary school of all our nautical science. What, then, would 
 compensate us for the loss or for the decline of the whale fishery ! 
 
 Mr. President, I have tried to win the favor of the Senate toward 
 the National whale fishery for a purpose. The whales have found a 
 new retreat in the Seas of Ochotsk and Anadir, south of Bhering 
 Straits, and in that part of the Arctic Ocean lying north of them. In 
 1848, Captain Roys, in the whale ship Superior, passed through those 
 seas and through the straits, braving the perils of an unknown way and 
 an inhospitable climate. He filled his ship in a few weeks, and the 
 news of his success went abroad. In 1849, a fleet of 154 sail went 
 up to this new fishing ground ; in 1850, a fleet of 144 ; and in 1851, a 
 fleet of 145. The vessels are manned with 30 persons each ; and their 
 value, including that of the average annual cargoes procured there, is 
 equal to nine millions and thus exceeds by near two millions the 
 highest annual import from China. But these fleets are beset by not 
 only such dangers of their calling as customarily occur on well- explored 
 fishing grounds, but also by the multiplied dangers of shipwreck 
 resulting from the want of accurate topographical knowledge the only 
 charts of those seas being imperfect and unsatisfactory. While many 
 and deplorable losses were sustained by the fleets of 1849-'50, we have 
 already information of the loss of eleven vessels, one-thirteenth part of 
 the whole fleet of 1851, many of which disasters might have been 
 avoided had there been charts, accurately indicating the shoals and 
 headlands, and also places of sheltered anchorage near them. These 
 facts are represented to us by the merchants, ship-owners, and under 
 writers, and are confirmed by Lieutenant Maury, who presides in this 
 department of science in the navy as well as in the labors and studies 
 of the National Observatory. We want, then, not bounties nor protec 
 tion, nor even an accurate survey, but simply an exploration and recon- 
 noissance of those seas, which have so recently become the theatre of 
 profitable adventure and brave achievement of our whale hunters. This 
 service can be performed by officers and crews now belonging to the 
 navy, in two or three vessels which already belong or may be added to 
 it, and would continue at most only throughout two or three years. 
 Happily, the measure involves nothing new, untried, or uncommon. 
 To say nothing of our recent search for the lamented Sir John Frank 
 lin, nor of our great exploring expedition under Captain Wilkes, we 
 are already engaged in triangulating a coast survey of the Atlantic shore. 
 Charts, light-houses, and beacons, show the pilot his way, not only over 
 that ocean and among its islands, but along all our rivers and even 
 upon our inland lakes. The absence of similar guides and beacons in 
 the waters now in question results from the fact, that the Pacific coast 
 has but recently fallen under our sway, and Bhering's Straits and the 
 seas they connect have not until now been frequently navigated by the 
 
10 
 
 seamen of any nation. Certainly somebody must do this service. But 
 who will 1 The whalers cannot. No foreign nation will, for none is 
 interested. The constitutional power and responsibility rests with the 
 Federal Government, and its means are adequate. 
 
 California is near this fishing ground. Her enterprising citizens are 
 already engaged in this pursuit, and henceforward the whale hunters of 
 Nantuckct must compete with new rivals possessing the advantage of 
 nearness to the scenes of their labors. California, therefore, joins 
 Massachusetts in this reasonable demand. 
 
 Mr. President, the small exploring fleet thus proposed would be 
 obliged to quit the Northern seas early in September, and could not 
 return to them until the succeeding June. I propose that it should 
 spend that long season in performing a service not dissimilar under 
 milder skies, in that part of the Pacific Ocean and its adjoining seas, 
 which is usually traversed by vessels sailing from New York and San 
 Francisco to China and the Indies. Remember, sir, if you please, that 
 not only has no Asiatic prince, merchant, or navigator, ever explored 
 this one of all the oceans the broadest and most crowded and crowned 
 with islands, but that they have forbidden that exploration by Euro 
 pean navigators, who have performed whatever has been done at the 
 peril, and often at the cost of, imprisonment and death. We have 
 made no accurate survey, for we have only just now arrived and taken 
 our stand on the Pacific coast. We are new on that ocean nay, we 
 are only as of yesterday upon this continent ; and yet, maps and charts 
 are as necessary to the seafaring man on that ocean as on any other ; 
 and just as necessary on every ocean as monuments and guides are to 
 him who traverses deserts of unimpressible sand or wastes of trackless 
 snow. 
 
 Lieutenant Maury informs us that every navigator of those waters is 
 painfully impressed with a sense of surrounding dangers they exist, 
 and yet the only charts that have been made fail to indicate in what 
 forms or in what places they will appear. So imperfect is our topo 
 graphical information, that a large island called Ousima, supposed to 
 be thickly inhabited and highly cultivated, lies in the fair way to China, 
 and yet no vessel has ever touched or gone around it. It would repay 
 ten-fold the cost of the whole exploration, if we should find on that 
 island a good harbor and a friendly people.* Horsbergh's charts of 
 these passages are the best. But these are of old dates, and although 
 they have been corrected from time to time, yet they are very imper 
 fect. The shoals in the China Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Straits 
 of Gasper, are represented to us by navigators as being formed of 
 coral, a mixture of animal and vegetable organization, and therefore in 
 creasing rapidly in magnitude as they approach near to the surface of 
 the waters. It is particularly necessary to explore and note the shoals 
 and islands lying between the coast of Palawan on the China Sea and 
 that of Cochin China, and also the shoals in the vicinity of West Lon 
 don, Prince of Wales, and Paulo Sapata islands. The perils existing 
 there oblige ships going up and coming down through those seas against 
 the monsoons to beat at disadvantage, while an exploration would prob- 
 j- = . 
 
 * Within the last year, the Memnon, an American ship, valued with her cargo 
 at $500,000. was lost in the Straits of Gasper. 
 
11 
 
 ably disclose eddies and currents which would allow of straight courses 
 where now no one dares pursue them. Clements Strait and the Cara- 
 mata Passage are filled with the same dangers. Again, the great outlet 
 from the China Sea into the Pacific Ocean by the Bahee, and adjacent 
 passages between the islands of Luconia and the coasts of China and 
 Formosa, need to be surveyed, although the islands are generally well 
 designated on the maps. Then proceeding northwardly, a regard to* 
 the safety of the whaleman demands that the islands between the coasts 
 of China and Japan, and from thence to the Loo Choo islands, and so 
 on to the Russian possessions, and along them eastwardly to Bhering 
 Straits, should be surveyed. The last attempt to perform that duty 
 was made by a small Russian fleet, which was captured and destroyed, 
 while its officers and crew were imprisoned by the Japanese. Lastly, as 
 we advance eastwardly in the very track pursued by our whalers and 
 Chinamen, we encounter islands, and many shoals imperfectly defined, 
 and especially the Bonin islands ; while prudence requires a careful re- 
 connoissance also of the Fox islands, which, although lying somewhat 
 northwardly of the passage, might, if well know r n, afford shelter in case 
 of inclement weather. This reconnoissance in a temperate latitude is 
 demanded by the merchants, underwriters, and navigators, in all our 
 Atlantic as well as in our two principal Pacific ports, and the argument 
 for it rests on the same foundation with that which supports the propo 
 sition for the more northwardly exploration. Your mails and passen 
 gers of a certain class will be carried between San Francisco and 
 Shanghai in steamships. Nevertheless, without such a survey as this 
 bill proposes, you cannot establish a coaling station on the way, 
 although the voyage exceeds seven thousand miles. Will you leave this 
 survey and its benefits to England ? 
 
 Sir, have you looked recently at the China trade? It reaches 
 already seven millions in value annually. Have you watched the Cali 
 fornia trade? Its export of bullion alone already exceeds fifty millions 
 of dollars annually, and as yet the mineral development of that State 
 has only begun. The settlement of the Pacific coast is in a state of 
 sheer infancy. There is, speaking relatively, neither capital nor labor 
 there adequate to exhibit the forces of industry that might be employed 
 in that wonderful region. Nor is California yet conveniently accessible. 
 The railway across Panama is not yet completed. The passage 
 through Nicaragua is not perfect ; that which leads through Tehuante- 
 pec is not begun ; nor have we yet extended, even so far as to the Mis 
 sissippi, the most important and necessary one of them all, the railroad 
 across our own country to San Francisco. The emigrant to the Atlan 
 tic coast arrives speedily and cheaply from whatever quarter of the 
 world ; while he who would seek the Pacific shore encounters charges 
 and delays which few can sustain. Nevertheless, the commercial, 
 social, political movements of the world are now in the direction of 
 California. Separated as it is from us by foreign lands, or more im 
 passable mountains, we are establishing there a custom-house, a mint, 
 a dry dock, Indian agencies, and ordinary and extraordinary tribunals 
 of justice. Without waiting for perfect or safe channels, a strong and 
 steady stream of emigration flows thither from every State and every 
 district eastward of the Rocky Mountains. Similar torrents of emi 
 gration are pouring into California and Australia from the South 
 
12 
 
 American States, from Europe, and from Asia. This movement is not 
 a sudden, or accidental, or irregular, or convulsive one ; but it is one 
 for which men and Nature have been preparing through near four hun 
 dred years. During all that time, merchants and princes have been 
 seeking how they could reach cheaply and expeditiously, " Cathay," 
 " China," " the East," that intercourse and commerce might be es 
 tablished between its ancient nations and the newer ones of the West. 
 To these objects De Gama, Columbus, Americus, Cabot, Hudson, and 
 other navigators, devoted their talents, their labors, and their lives. 
 Even the discovery of this continent and its islands, and the organiza 
 tion of society and government upon them, grand and important as 
 these events have been, were but conditional, preliminary, and ancil 
 lary to the more sublime result, now in the act of consummation the 
 reunion of the two civilizations, which, having parted on the plains of 
 Asia four thousand years ago, and having travelled ever afterwards in 
 opposite directions around the world, now meet again on the coasts and 
 islands of the Pacific Ocean. Certainly, no mere human event of equal 
 dignity and importance has ever occurred upon the earth. It will be 
 followed by the equalization of the condition of society and the restora 
 tion of the unity of the human family. We see plainly enough why 
 this event could not have come before, and why it has come now. A 
 certain amount of human freedom, a certain amount of human intelli 
 gence, a certain extent of human control over the physical obstacles to 
 such a reunion, were necessary. All the conditions have happened and 
 concurred. Liberty has developed under improved forms of govern 
 ment, and science has subjected Nature in Western Europe and in 
 America. Navigation, improved by steam, enables men to outstrip the 
 winds, and intelligence convej T ed by electricity excels in velocity the 
 light. With these favoring circumstances there has come also a sudden 
 abundance of gold, that largely relieves labor from its long subjection 
 to realized capital. Sir, this movement is no delusion. It will no 
 more stop than the emigration from Europe to our own Atlantic shores 
 has stopped, or can stop, while labor is worth there twenty cents and 
 here fifty cents a day. Emigration from China cannot stop while labor 
 is worth in California five dollars a day, and in the West Indies ten 
 dollars a month, and yet is "north in China only five dollars for that 
 period. Accordingly, we have seen sixty-seven ships filled, in three 
 months of the present year, with 17,000 emigrants in the ports of 
 Hong Kong, Macao, and Whampoa, and afterwards discharge them on 
 the shores of California, and of Cuba and other islands of the West 
 Indies. 
 
 Sir, have you considered the basis of this movement, that this conti 
 nent and Australia are capable of sustaining, and need for their develop 
 ment, five hundred millions, while their population is confined to fifty 
 millions, and yet that Asia has two hundred millions of excess? As 
 for those who doubt that this great movement will quicken activity and 
 create wealth and power in California and Oregon, I leave them to 
 consider what changes the movements, similar in nature but inferior in 
 force and slower in effect, have produced already on the Atlantic coast 
 of America. As to those who cannot see how this movement will 
 improve the condition of Asia, I leave them to reflect upon the improve 
 ments in the condition of Europe since the discovery and colonization 
 
13 
 
 of America. Who does not see, then, that every year hereafter, Euro 
 pean commerce, European politics, European thoughts, and European 
 activity, although actually gaining greater force and European con 
 nections, although actually becoming more intimate will nevertheless 
 relatively sink in importance ; while the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its 
 islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of 
 events in the World's great Hereafter 1 Who does not see that this 
 movement must effect our own complete emancipation from what 
 remains of European influence and prejudice, and in turn develop the 
 American opinion and influence which shall remould constitutions, laws, 
 and customs, in the land that is first greeted by the rising sun 1 Sir, 
 although I am no Socialist, no dreamer of a suddenly-coming millen 
 nium, I nevertheless cannot reject the hope that Peace is now to have 
 her sway, and that as War has hitherto defaced and saddened the 
 Atlantic world, the better passions of mankind will soon have their 
 development in the new theatre of human activity. 
 
 Commerce is the great agent of this movement. Whatever nation 
 shall put that commerce into full employment, and shall conduct it 
 steadily with adequate expansion, will become necessarily the greatest 
 of existing States ; greater than any that has ever existed. Sir, you 
 will claim that responsibility and that high destiny for our own coun 
 try. Are you so sure that by assuming the one she will gain the 
 other ? They imply nothing less than universal commerce and the 
 supremacy of the seas. We are second to England, indeed, but, never 
 theless, how far are we not behind her in commerce and in extent of 
 Empire ! I pray to know where you will go that you will not meet 
 the flag of England, fixed, planted, rooted into the very earth 1 If you 
 go northward, it waves over half of this Continent of North America, 
 which we call our own. If you go southward, it greets you on the 
 Bermudas, the Bahamas, and the Caribbee Islands. On the Falkland 
 Islands it guards the Straits of Magellan ; on the South Shetland 
 Island it watches the passage round the Horn ; and at Adelaide Island 
 it warns you that you have reached the Antarctic Circle. When you 
 ascend along the southwestern coast of America, it is seen at Gal- 
 opagos, overlooking the Isthmus of Panama; and having saluted it 
 there, and at Vancouver, you only take leave of it in the far North 
 west, when you are entering the Arctic Ocean. If you visit Africa, 
 you find the same victorious cross guarding the coast of Gambia and 
 Sierra Leone and St. Helena. It watches you at Cape Town as you 
 pass into the Indian Ocean ; while on the northern passage to that vast 
 sea it demands your recognition from Gibraltar, as you enter the Med 
 iterranean ; from Malta, when you pass through the Sicilian Straits ; 
 on the Ionian Islands it waves in protection of Turkey ; and at Aden 
 it guards the passage from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. Wher 
 ever Western commerce has gained an entrance to the Continent of 
 Asia, there that flag is seen waving over subjugated millions at Bom 
 bay, at Ceylon, at Singapore, at Calcutta, at Lahore, and at Hong 
 Kong ; while Australia and nearly all the Islands of Polynesia acknowl 
 edge its protection. 
 
 Sir, I need not tell you that wherever that flag waves, it is support 
 ed and cheered by the martial airs of England. But I care not for 
 that. The sword is not the most winning messenger that can be sent 
 
14 
 
 abroad; and commerce, like power, upheld by armies and navies, 
 may in time be found to cost too much. But what is to be regarded 
 with more concern is, that England employs the steam engine even 
 more vigorously and more universally than her military force. Steam 
 engines, punctually departing and arriving between every one of her 
 various possessions and her island seat of power, bring in the raw 
 material for every manufacture and supplies for every want. The 
 steam engine plies incessantly there, day and night, converting these 
 materials into fabrics of every variety, for the use of man. And again 
 the steam engine forever and without rest moves over the face of the 
 deep, not only distributing these fabrics to every part of the globe, but 
 disseminating also the thoughts, the principles, the language and reli 
 gion of England. Sir, we are bold indeed to dare competition with 
 such a Power. Nevertheless, the resources for it are adequate. We 
 . have coal and iron no less than she, while corn, timber, cattle, hemp, 
 wool, cotton, silk, oil, sugar, and the grape, quicksilver, lead, copper, 
 silver, and gold, are all found within our own broad domain in inex 
 haustible profusion. What energies we have already expended prove 
 that we have in reserve all that are needful. What inventions we 
 have made prove our equality to any exigency. Our capital increases, 
 while labor scarcely knows the burthen of taxation. Our Panama 
 route to China has a decided advantage over that of the Isthmus of 
 Suez, and at the same time vessels leaving that country and coming 
 round the Horn, will reach New York always at least five days sooner 
 than vessels of equal speed can double the Cape of Good Hope and 
 make the port of Liverpool. 
 
 Mr. President, we now see how conspicuous a part in the great 
 movement of the age, California and Oregon are to sustain, and that, 
 as yet, they are separated from us and isolated. They will adhere to 
 us only so long as our Government over them shall be conducted, not for 
 our benefit, but for their own. Their loyalty is great, but it cannot 
 exceed that of the thirteen ancient American colonies to Great Britain ; 
 and yet the neglect and oppression of their commerce undermined that 
 loyalty, and resulted in their independence. I hear often of dangers to the 
 Union, and see lines of threatened separation drawn by passionate men 
 or alarmists, on parallels of latitude ; but, in my judgment, there is 
 only one danger of severance and that is involved in the possibility of 
 criminal neglect of the new communities on the Pacific coast, while 
 the summits of the Rocky Mountains, or of the Snowy Mountains, 
 mark the only possible line of dismemberment. Against that danger I 
 would guard as against the worst calamity that could befal, not only 
 my country, at her most auspicious stage of progress, but mankind 
 also, in the hour of their brightest hopes. I would guard against it by 
 practising impartial justice toward the new and remote States and 
 Territories, whose political power is small, while their wants are great, 
 and by pursuing at the same time, with liberality and constancy, the 
 lofty course which they indicate, of an aspiring yet generous and 
 humane national ambition.