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seamen of any nation. Certainly somebody must do this service. But who will? 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 Nantucket 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 European 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 topographical 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 imperfect. 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 increasing 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 London, 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

* Within the last year, the Memnon, an American ship, valued with her cargo at $500,000, was lost in the Straits of Gasper.

ably disclose eddies and currents which would allow of straight courses where now no one dares pursue them. Clements Strait and the Caramata 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 reconnoissance also of the Fox islands, which, although lying somewhat northwardly of the passage, might, if well known, 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 proposition for the more northwardly exploration. Your mails and passengers 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 California 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 Tehuantepec is not begun; nor have we yet extended, even so far as to the Mississippi, the most important and necessary one of them all, the railroad across our own country to San Francisco. The emigrant to the Atlantic 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 impassable 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 emigration are pouring into California and Australia from the South

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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 hundred 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 established 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 organization of society and government upon them, grand and important as these events have been, were but conditional, preliminary, and ancillary 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 restoration 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 intelligence, 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 government, and science has subjected Nature in Western Europe and in America. Navigation, improved by steam, enables men to outstrip the winds, and intelligence conveyed 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 worth 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 continent and Australia are capable of sustaining, and need for their development, 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 improvements in the condition of Europe since the discovery and colonization

of America. Who does not see, then, that every year hereafter, European commerce, European politics, European thoughts, and European activity, although actually gaining greater force-and European connections, 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? 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? Sir, although I am no Socialist, no dreamer of a suddenly-coming millennium, 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 country. 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, nevertheless, 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? 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 Galopagos, overlooking the Isthmus of Panama; and having saluted it there, and at Vancouver, you only take leave of it in the far Northwest, 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 Mediterranean; 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. Wherever Western commerce has gained an entrance to the Continent of Asia, there that flag is seen waving over subjugated millions-at Bombay, at Ceylon, at Singapore, at Calcutta, at Lahore, and at Hong Kong; while Australia and nearly all the Islands of Polynesia acknowledge its protection.

Sir, I need not tell you that wherever that flag waves, it is supported 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

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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 religion 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 inexhaustible 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 Í 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.