and Great Britain, of shipping the tobacco of James river coastwise to Boston or New York, it was transported over land at a cost, for carriage only, equivalent to its ordinary value of ninety dollars per hogshead, being one hundred per cent. paid, as a substitute for insurance, from Hampton roads, above which the British never ascended, to New York, which they neither regularly attacked, nor blockaded.

Whatever war might add to the ordinary rates of insurance against the risks of the sea, in the intercourse between the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of the world, must be charged upon the insecurity of American commerce, arising from the absence of adequate naval protection. If it be but a moiety of what has been stated, then the annual loss upon a trade of one hundred would be $50,000,000. How much of that commerce would bear such an additional charge, I have not the means of estimating; but that much of it would not, while rival supplies can be had from other quarters, is very apparent. The American debt, contracted in the war of 1812, though it endured but two years and a half, exceeded $120,000,000; but this sum was not a moiety of the private and personal losses sustained in that war, from the prostration of American commerce and agriculture. And this leads me, sir, to the purpose of this letter, which is, to call your attention to the defenceless condition of the coast and commerce of the Gulf of Mexico at the 'present moment.

Pensacola is the only naval station where an American ship of war, of any description, can seek shelter from a pursuing enemy of superior strength; and Pensacola, not merely the city, but the fleets that might lie in its harbors, are defenceless against a coup de main from the land side, while the harbor itself is shut, by the bar at its entrance, against the the admission of a frigate of the second class, in many states of the wind and tide, but is at all times inaccessible to a frigate of the largest dimensions. These facts are disclosed in sundry reports filed amongst the public documents of the two Houses of Congress.

During the administration of Mr. Adams, the subject was presented, with great force, to the consideration of Congress by the able Secretary then at the head of the Navy Department, but without effect. It would be tedious to number the names of the many naval officers who have since been consulted, and have, separately, made reports to the Executive on the same subject.

To refer to one, for all, that of Commodore Stewart, of 1836, demonstrates that, with all that has been supposed to be attained at Pensacola, there is not a port on the Gulf of Mexico where the most humble of all conceivable repairs of a ship, the renewing of the caulking of its bottom, can be effected, the tide rising and falling there less than three feet; so that, by means of it, she cannot be laid low enough on her side. But to your acquaintance with the subject I appeal, to verify the position I here lay down, that it is absolutely absurd to contemplate the repairs of a ship of war where no ship of war has ever been built, or intended to be constructed. Are ship carpenters and naval constructors-are all the numer ous arts employed in building and equipping a navy, or even a single ship of any magnitude, to be expected to exist where no occupation, but the occasional repair of a vessel once in a year, or in a series of years, is afforded them, by which they can purchase their subsistence, and that of their families? But what is even more inexcusable, the expense of deepening the entrance of the harbor of Pensacola, so as to admit ships of the

greatest draught of water, has been estimated to cost less than $150,000; and, although this estimate has been for many years before Congress, no action upon it has been proposed, either in the shape of an appropriation, or a recommendation by the Executive to Congress.

In the interim, some light has been shed, by American enterprise, on the facility, cheapness, and efficacy of such operations in water; and sufficient time has been allowed, if diligently used, to gather information of more ancient date, from that part of the maritime coast of France, Holland, and England, where dredging has been found essential to the formation of harbors: as, at Dunkirk, Calais, Dover, &c. On the southern shore of the northwestern lakes of the United States, all the harbors have been so formed, of necessity, and under circumstances, apparently, less favorable than those that are presented by the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. Among these, the singular fact is furnished, in consulting Spanish charts, as old as 1709 and 1719, and the British charts of 1763, as well as American surveys of subsequent date, down to those of the last year, that no sensible change has occurred in the depth of water on the bar in the entrance of the harbor of Pensacola in a period of more than one hundred years. An indication, this, of the permanency of the natural shape or formation of that part of the gulf coast, rendering it probable that, if a new form be given, by deepening it, the change thus effected would not be liable to sudden alteration. Further consideration of the cause of the immobility of the sand on this bar, for it has sand for its upper cover, whatever may be its foundation, which is probably calcareous earth or rotten limestone, would seem to confirm the hope that permanent benefit might result from dredging the present, or opening a new, channel across this bar, for the admission of ships of the line. The breadth of the bar where the excavation might be made, to the extent of affording thirty feet water, is by the chart, in possession of the Navy Board, 1g of a mile. The greatest depth of the excavation measured, at the least depth of the water, in its natural state, would be six feet, or eight at most. Dredging and the removal of earth, even in five and twenty feet water, is, by the agency of steam, rendered nearly, or quite, as cheap an operation as digging, and the transportation of like quantities of earth, on dry land, at similar depths below its natural surface; and the railroads of the United States, and canals, furnish repeated examples of excavations effected for greater distances, and at greater depths, under circumstances much more unfavor able.

The bay of Pensacola receives, it is possible, some influx of alluvial earth from the river Escambia. It has the roll of the ocean from the coast of Africa, propelled upon its front by the trade winds, which occasion the gulf stream; but, as has been shown, neither agent has rendered its bar more shoal than it was found and reported to be one hundred and forty years ago. Thus it receives no accumulation of sand, in front or rear; and to guard any increased depth of water that may be given to the entrance of the harbor by excavation, from the lateral pressure of the adjacent sand or other earth, cribbing or walling, as practised in the formation of the lake harbors, might be resorted to with a confidence of success.

As to the expense of the first experiment, or that of its periodical renewal, should such repetition be found necessary, what comparison can be instituted, of a cost so inconsiderable, with the unappreciable consequence of continued neglect?

In a successful naval conflict on that gulf, which floats annually one hundred millions of American property, the immediate fruit of the returned value of American labor and enterprise, what would be the result of the inability of the victor to bring his prizes into port? What, if obliged to fly from defeat, of his incapacity to find shelter from pursuit, or to refit his dismantled or shattered squadron? Should he be obliged to double Capes Sable, Florida, and Hatteras, and to navigate the most dangerous coast in the world, to reach Gosport, and there, probably, to be locked up, by a fleet, in Lynhaven bay for the residue of the war, if, indeed, it should let him pass into Hampton roads? Or shall Congress provide by law, as they will make no port on the gulf for the reception of ships of the line, that no hostile fleet shall enter its waters with vessels of larger size than frigates of five and forty guns?

A similar suggestion was made by General Washington, while President of the Convention which formed the American Constitution, when a member proposed to limit the regular or standing army to three thousand men. He called to him the youngest delegate of the body, a late Governor of Maryland, and requested him to move a proviso to the proposition, that no foreign enemy should ever invade the United States with more than three thousand men at any one time.

Not only will this theatre of maritime war offer the most powerful attraction to plunder, but the rich commerce of the Antilles, in which every commercial nation of Europe has some interest, would need protection, and offer a like incentive to the American navy, under circumstances most favorable to the exertion of its acknowledged bravery, skill, and enterprise, if provided with proper harbors for preparation, retreat, and attack. An essential quality of such harbors, for, upon a coast so extended, and for a commerce so important, there should be more than one, should be perfect security from sudden attack, by land or water. And here it must be confessed that Pensacola, in its present state, is liable to great exception, if considered as the only navy yard for the construction and repair of armed vessels, and the sole depot of naval stores and materials, on the gulf. Surrounded on the land side by a comparatively barren pine forest, it has no local population in its vicinity, to call in to its defence from sudden attack, nor any prompt means of approach, for that purpose, from the interior of the adjacent States.

A railroad begun, but abandoned for want of means to complete it, would, if finished, as it should be, supply, in part, this defect; but an extensive commerce is not likely, for many years to come, to supply Pensacola itself with an adequate city population for its defence, or a commercial marine capable of furnishing, on short notice, experienced seamen, for the occasional demands of the fleets destined for its protection, and that of the commerce in its vicinity.

Important, therefore, as this, the best natural harbor on the Gulf of Mexico, is to be regarded, it is desirable to find another, at least, which, combining all its natural advantages, may have superadded an extensive commerce, and a ready communication with a dense and efficient population, competent to its defence from sudden invasion.

And, happily, the late reports of many navigators, long familiar with the harbor of St. Joseph, in Florida, and the recent survey of Lieutenant Powell, of the United States navy, discloses the important fact that, with an equal depth of water on the bar at its entrance, that bar is so much narrower

than that of Pensacola, that, by an excavation of eight feet at the shoalest point, or summit of the bar, extending but five-eighths of a mile at each entrance, of such artificial channel, thirty feet water would be found.

In addition to this, the substratum of the sand, which, in certain places, covers the harbor of St. Joseph, has been found to be a stiff blue clay, affording good anchorage; and the probability of a limestone base, at no great distance beneath it, on which the lateral cribbing in walling of the new channel might be confidently rested.

Above all, the river Chatahooche, passing near the bay of St. Joseph, is navigable by steamboats of a large class for more that four hundred and fifty miles. It constitutes the natural boundary, throughout its whole extent, of the large and flourishing States of Alabama and Georgia, and receives the river Flint, at its entrance into Florida, where it becomes the Appalachicola. The Flint is navigable for a considerable distance above its junction with the Chatahooche; and both, united with the bay of St. Joseph, now annually add to the exports of the Gulf of Mexico one hundred and ten thousand bales of cotton-a quantity capable of being extended to any amount. It is also confidently believed, that a canal from above the point of junction of these rivers, first carried from the Chatahooche into the Chipola, and thence across to the bay of St. Joseph, over a space less than fifteen miles in extent, would afford a continuous steamboat navigation from the Gulf of Mexico, through the bay and harbor of St. Joseph, up to the city of Columbus, in Georgia; and thence, at some future and no distant period, to a point above the railroad which the State of Georgia is now diligently extending to her common boundary with Alabama.

The canal, computed to cost less than a million, would afford a water power adequate to every purpose of manufacture required by the most extended construction of vessels of war; and, affording facilities for constructing dry docks for their repair, and basins of fresh water for the destruction of the worm, so fatal to the hulls of vessels floating in salt water to the South, would seem to leave nothing to be desired, in the site afforded by the bay of St. Joseph, for a navy yard.

St. Joseph receives no river in the rear of its bar; a still-water canal would carry to it no deposit. It is regarded, with its capacious and beauti ful bay, as one of the healthiest towns on the Gulf of Mexico; all of which, however, have, as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, been, some time or other, as St. Joseph has once been, visited by the yellow fever.

Were occasional epedemics made an insuperable objection to a naval station, for the construction or repair of ships of war, no navy would exist in this ocean. It is a fact worthy of consideration, that the bills of mortality of New Orleans, visited as it annually is by the yellow fever, exhibits fewer deaths, in proportion to its population, than the city of New York, which has not, for many years, been visited by that frightful disease. One other consideration should moreover be weighed, that diseases of climate are mitigated, and at last remedied, by acclimation. The mechan. ics of a Southern navy yard are to be taught from the North; but, when instructed, their knowledge will be perpetuated and extended among their successors, in a climate much more favorable to out-door labor than that of any port on the Atlantic, north of Charleston, in South Carolina-itself the subject of a malady fatal, at certain seasons, to strangers from a distance.

As to the relative cost of ship building in Florida and any harbors north of Charleston, a doubt cannot exist but that, if greater to the South for the first two or three years of the experiment, it must be ultimately not only less, but much less, than to the North-since, not only the timber, an article of great bulk, used in the construction of ships, is now derived from the South, and the heaviest part of it from Florida, but the other materials necessary for the construction, equipment, and victualling of a fleet, are all, except the seamen, now drawn from or abound to the South as, for example, the copper of Cuba, surpassed by none other in quality; the lead of Missouri and Wiskonsan, floated down the Mississippi; the iron, hemp, and gunpowder of Kentucky; the naval stores of Carolina; and the provisions of the Western States in general. Nor can seamen be long wanted where heavy or bulky cargoes of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and provisions invite numerous vessels to come in quest of freights, which the manufactures of the North, comprising a great value in less bulk, cannot furnish. And, after all, can a doubt exist, but that the seamen, to man a fleet, can be more readily carried to the South than all the heavy materials entering into the construction of a fleet can be transported from the South to the Northern navy yards?

It is not proposed to dispense, but to co-operate, with the latter in the noble purpose of national defence; and if a rivalship should ensue between the naval architects of the two great maritime sections of the Union, it will be calculated to improve the skill of both, for the security and honor of our great bulwark, a navy, which has already covered itself with glory. I will not intermingle, with the many considerations I have presented in favor of a change of policy towards the South, allusions to the local jealousies or sordid influences which have hitherto impeded every effort for the more effectual protection of the coast and commerce of the Gulf of Mexico, in which thirteen States of the Union have a direct, and the whole Union a common, interest.

Hoping that they will yield to a sense of justice, as well as a regard for the national honor, I close this communication with an apology, added to that with which it commenced, that this is a topic dear to every American heart, and, as a citizen of Florida, impressed with double force on,

Sir, yours, with much respect,

C. F. MERCER.