y view of our agriculture, manufactures, and
internal improvements we turn to the state of our navigation and trade
with foreign nations and between the States, we shall scarcely find less
cause for gratulation. A beneficent Providence has provided for their
exercise and encouragement an extensive coast, indented by capacious
bays, noble rivers, inland seas; with a country productive of every
material for shipbuilding and every commodity for gainful commerce, and
filled with a population active, intelligent, well-informed, and
fearless of danger. These advantages are not neglected, and an impulse
has lately been given to commercial enterprise, which fills our
shipyards with new constructions, encourages all the arts and branches
of industry connected with them, crowds the wharves of our cities with
vessels, and covers the most distant seas with our canvas.

Let us be grateful for these blessings to the beneficent Being who has
conferred them, and who suffers us to indulge a reasonable hope of their
continuance and extension, while we neglect not the means by which they
may be preserved. If we may dare to judge of His future designs by the
manner in which His past favors have been bestowed, He has made our
national prosperity to depend on the preservation of our liberties, our
national force on our Federal Union, and our individual happiness on the
maintenance of our State rights and wise institutions. If we are
prosperous at home and respected abroad, it is because we are free,
united, industrious, and obedient to the laws. While we continue so we
shall by the blessing of Heaven go on in the happy career we have begun,
and which has brought us in the short period of our political existence
from a population of three to thirteen millions; from thirteen separate
colonies to twenty-four united States; from weakness to strength; from a
rank scarcely marked in the scale of nations to a high place in their
respect.

This last advantage is one that has resulted in a great degree from the
principles which have guided our intercourse with foreign powers since
we have assumed an equal station among them, and hence the annual
account which the Executive renders to the country of the manner in
which that branch of his duties has been fulfilled proves instructive
and salutary.

The pacific and wise policy of our Government kept us in a state of
neutrality during the wars that have at different periods since our
political existenc