Two others are yet to be laid up so soon as they shall
have received the repairs requisite to put them also into sound
condition. As a superintending officer will be necessary at each yard,
his duties and emoluments, hitherto fixed by the Executive, will be a
more proper subject for legislation. A communication will also be made
of our progress in the execution of the law respecting the vessels
directed to be sold.
The fortifications of our harbors, more or less advanced, present
considerations of great difficulty. While some of them are on a scale
sufficiently proportioned to the advantages of their position, to the
efficacy of their protection, and the importance of the points within
it, others are so extensive, will cost so much in their first erection,
so much in their maintenance, and require such a force to garrison them
as to make it questionable what is best now to be done. A statement of
those commenced or projected, of the expenses already incurred, and
estimates of their future cost, as far as can be foreseen, shall be laid
before you, that you may be enabled to judge whether any alteration is
necessary in the laws respecting this subject.
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of
our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual
enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may
sometimes be seasonably interposed.
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