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After we drove away, this crippled man must have thought a long time about my elders and betters, as if he were reading their story out of a book. I suppose he has hauled many a stick of timber pine down for ship-yards, and gone through the village so early in the winter morning that I, waking in my warm bed, only heard the sleds creak through the frozen snow as the slow oxen plodded by.
And in estimating the resources of any power, the first question is, Has she sailors, not men of the land, but men of the sea? There is a second question, equally important. What is a nation's capacity for naval production? What ship-yards has it? What docks? What machine-shops? What stores of timber, iron, and hemp? And what skilled workmen to make these resources available?
Then, again, his being in the ship-yards so long, nominally as one of the workmen, gave him undoubtedly great facilities for observing every thing which it was important that he should know. Of course, he could not have seriously intended to make himself an actual and practical ship-carpenter, for, in the first place, the time was too short.
We hope to live to see the time when our navy will be built as economically as our guns are made by private contract and our public ship-yards confined to the repairing department. During the war which ended at the battle of Waterloo, the importance and prosperity of the gun-makers were great.
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