e United
States, postal, mercantile, and naval, is to-day so insignificant in
extent that we do not feel entirely certain that it is a sufficient
nucleus for the growth of a respectable maritime power. The few ships
that we possess are among the fleetest and the most comfortable that
traverse the ocean, and have excited the admiration of the world
wherever they have been seen. But their number is so small, their
service so limited, their field of operation so contracted, that our
large commerce and travel are dependent, in most parts of the world,
on British steam mail lines for correspondence and transport, or on
the slow, irregular, and uncertain communications of sailing vessels.
The question here naturally suggests itself: Have we progressed in
ocean steam navigation in a ratio commensurate with the improvements
of the age, or of our own improvement in every thing else? And has the
Government of the country afforded to the people the facilities of
enterprise and commercial competition which are clearly necessary to
enable them to enter the contest on equal terms with other commercial
countries? (_See Section VII._)

The Ocean Mail Service of the United States, consists of eight lines,
and twenty one steamers in commission, with an aggregate tonnage of
48,027 tons. Three of these lines are transatlantic; the Collins, the
Havre, and the Bremen. Two connect us with our Pacific possessions,
and incidentally with Cuba and New-Granada. They are however
indispensable lines of coast navigation. One connects the ports of
Charleston, in the United States, and Havana, in Cuba, another
connects New-Orleans with Vera Cruz, and another connects Havana and
New-Orleans. Beyond these, we have a line of two steamers running
between New-York and New-Orleans, touching at Havana, and one steamer
touching at the same point between New-York and Mobile. Also four
steamers between New-York and Savannah, four between New-York and
Charleston, two between New-York and Norfolk, two between Philadelphia
and Savannah, two between Boston and Baltimore, four between
New-Orleans and Texas, and two between New-Orleans and Key West. All
of these are coast steamers of the best quality; and some few of them
have a nominal mail pay. We have also several transient steamers which
have no routes or mail contracts, and which are consequently employed
in irregular and accidental service, or laid up. They are the
Ericsson, the Washington and the Hermann, the