From five miles out at sea (I have seen a test of her "fortified"
ports) a ship of the power of H. M. S. "Collingwood" (they
haven't run her on a rock yet) would wipe out any or every town
from San Francisco to Long Branch; and three first-class
ironclads would account for New York, Bartholdi's Statue and all.
Reflect on this. 'Twould be "Pay up or go up" round the entire
coast of the United States. To this furiously answers the
patriotic American: - "We should not pay. We should invent a
Columbiad in Pittsburg or - or anywhere else, and blow any
outsider into h - l."
They might invent. They might lay waste their cities and retire
inland, for they can subsist entirely on their own produce.
Meantime, in a war waged the only way it could be waged by an
unscrupulous Power, their coast cities and their dock-yards would
be ashes. They could construct their navy inland if they liked,
but you could never bring a ship down to the water-ways, as they
stand now.
They could not, with an ordinary water patrol, despatch one
regiment of men six miles across the seas. There would be about
five million excessively angry, armed men pent up within American
limits. These men would require ships to get themselves afloat.
The country has no such ships, and until the ships were built New
York need not be allowed a single-wheeled carriage within her
limits.
Behold now the glorious condition of this Republic which has no
fear. There is ransom and loot past the counting of man on her
seaboard alone - plunder that would enrich a nation - and she has
neither a navy nor half a dozen first-class ports to guard the
whole. No man catches a snake by the tail, because the creature
will sting; but you can build a fire around a snake that will
make it squirm.
The country is supposed to be building a navy now. When the
ships are completed her alliance will be worth having - if the
alliance of any republic can be relied upon. For the next three
years she can be hurt, and badly hurt. Pity it is that she is of
our own blood, looking at the matter from a Pindarris point of
view. Dog cannot eat dog.
These sinful reflections were prompted by the sight of the
beautifully unprotected condition of Buffalo - a city that could
be made to pay up five million dollars without feeling it. There
are her companies of infantry in a sort of port there. A gun-boat
brought over in pieces from Niagara could get the money and get
away before she could be caught, while an unarmored gun-boat
guarding Toronto could ravage the towns on the lakes.
