The Arkansas banner., 1844-02-20

It all the principal towns in England and Nales.n
 4qagust Itth, TIT
 ''The number of line-of-batle ships now on cruises round England, and lying in the several ports of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Cheltenham, amount to thirty-two, from sixty to ninety gunsnz Led. .Ndg., August, l777, vol 8, pp. 443-4-5.
 eLoNDoX, August 25th, TIT.
 "The Secretary of the Admiralty has writ ten to Captain Battorel, (the regulating ofi- ceT at White Haven, informing him that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have directed the Navy Board to hire number of armed ships, capable of carrying twenty guns at least, 10 be employed as coasting conveys, for the protection of the trade of the several great trading towns of the king dom. provided such towns will respectively engage to raise men to man them"
 " NEWCASTLE, .4ugust 30h, TIT.
 :" In consequence of petition from the masters and owners of ships of this port to his Majesty, seconded by Sir Mathew White Ridley, Bart. one of our members, an order from his Majesty in council has this week been received 10 permit the ships in the coal tradc, to take on board guns and stores for defence i'll case of an attack from an enemy.o Lad. .Mag., September, l777, vol s, p. 499.
 The coasts of England were surrounded with amed cruisers and her harbors brstled with cannon, yet such is the picture drawn from the papers of that day of the alarm and distress created in the realm by three small armed cruisers from America. In comparl- son our Gulf commerce is perfectly defence less. Instead of passing from port at once out upon the broad ocean, it must first sail through long and narrow channel, with the uneecupied harbors of Key West and the Tortugas at it's very entrance, hundreds of miles removed from the nearest dock yards. With these harbors thus situated the enemy at the first notes of war will not fail to land his guns on them, throw up his water batte- ries to defend them, and thus secure posi- ton in this stronghold, from which he cannot be removed, and from which he may com mand the Gulf with it's floating millions Are the Southern and Western States content that their commerce and coasts should con- tinue in such defenceless and vulnerable state Are they willing that they should be left with their weakness to invite attack? II Silldll feSStiS Ill llt sNSif of miles from home, without harbor ol re- fuge or a place of rendezvous, could stop Chester Fair and the Dublin trade; Il they could destroy insurance. cause the ships in port to be unloaded, and linen to fall penny d yard if they could call out the whole Eng fish navy in pursuit, force the Crown to hire and to buy other ships, and compel artificers at the Deptford Docks to work double tides in building more; if they could cause press gangs to raise the voice of wo and lamen'a- ton in every town throughout the kingdom; if they eould alarm the laborer in the field and force the reaper in the harvest to lay down his sickle; if sloop, brig, and cutter, along the distant coasts of England and among swarms of arm ed cruisers, could do all this, in spite of her s' wooden walls" their strength and numbers-might not an enemy, equally bold and daring, and with few more dashing cruisers like these, having their ports of refuge in the West Indies close at hand, spread alarm among the people ol. the South, cause their cotton to fall its penny a pound. and create like distress among the ships of New Orleans and the trade of the Gulf?
  the Gulf bear sufficiently in mind the fact. that for years pastthev have contributed large ly of their substance in building up system of harbor and naval delences atdhe North. ,lmost to the entire neglect of their own !- They have given of their money 10 raise an island up from the bottom of the sea and to build Notifications upon it for the defence of a Northern harbor; but though Nature has formed for them her islands at the South and placed them in positions thousand times l more important than this, they have yet to receive from Congress the first dollar for for iifying these out-posts. What Is Long Island Sound, the Delaware, or the Chesapeake Bay, or all together, in comparison to the Gulf of Mexico? Millions upon millions have been voted and squandered and expended in pro- tecling them, bnt what for Gulf defences ?- Comparatively nothing. And yet there is no country in the world whose natural advan- tages are comparable to those of the Missis- sippi valley for naval means and wariike rel sources. Half the naval strength that now lies dormant and neglected in that valley, could not he put forth by any other nation for ten times the sum that would call this out. With proper naval establishments now on the banks of the Mississippi river; with | the necessary workshops, and munitions of war provided beforehand; with fit place of rendezvous at Key West or the Torugas, the West, with few months notice, could send down to the Gulf of Mexico fleet of war steamers such as the world never saw they would crown our weak points with strength, make her queen of the Gulf, and this country perfect mistress of the adjacent sea. On the Western waters every thing that is required for building O. equipping, arming, manning, and subssting navy, IS to be found in great abundance, of the best quality, and at the cheapest retes; coal at fear dollars the ton, hills full of iron, fields smil- ing with plenty, and forests of the finest tim- Der which may be lelled and fashioned almost where it falls into the stoutest vessels of war; the streams are alive with boats which con- tain engines, men, and machinery, that, with a moments warning, would be at their coun- try's service, ready in any numbers to be transferred from the frail river-cralt, to the l,,, .l,,