REMARKS ON A STRING OF RESOLUTIONS OFFERED BY MR. HALE, TO THE NEW YORK HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT ALBANY. THESE resolutions have the appearance of being what is sometimes called an electioneering trick, similar to that about fortifications, practised at New York when the election for charter officers was to come on. They are like baits thrown out to catch gudgeons. I will examine each of the resolutions separately, and shew their defects. First, "Resolved, if the honourable Senate concur herein, that in the present state of our national concerns, it becomes the duty of the people of this State, represented in Senate and Assembly, to express their sentiments on the important subject of fortifying the port and harbour of New York, and of protecting the valuable and extensive commerce of the United States." Remarks.—Is Mr. Hale acquainted with the subject he speaks upon? Does he know enough of the principles of fortification to explain to the House what is practicable, and what is impracticable? Did he ever see a fortified town, fortified, I mean, on the established principles of fortification? Does he know, scientifically or practically, what places can be fortified and what cannot? If he does not know these things, he has waded out of his depth in making his resolves. He speaks of the "port and harbour of New York." Bul what ideas does he affix to the terms "port and harbour?" If by port, he means the city of New York, it proves he knows nothing of fortification; for the condition of New York, as well by nature as by the irregularity of its outline, renders fortifying it impossible. Again, if by the term harbour, he means the waters at the wharfs within the range of the Harbour Master, the case is, that to begin a fortification there, the ships must be sent up the East or North River, and the wharfs turned into parapet batteries with embrazures, and planted with cannon. Commerce and fortification cannot be in the same place. But if by harbour, he means the bay between the city and the narrows, the most effectual defence would be by gun-boats, each carrying a twenty-pounder. A gun-boat being a moveable fortification has a large sphere to act in, and a battery on land a small one. A ship can always keep out of the reach of a land battery, or with a brisk wind and tide, can be out of the range of its shot in fifteen minutes, and being a moving object all the time, the chance is, that not a shot would strike her. Before men assume to make motions, and resolve about fortifications, they should endeavour to understand them. The history of fortifications during the revolutionary war, is the history of traps. All our principal losses in that war were occasioned by trusting to fortifications. Fort Washington, with two thousand five hundred men, was taken in less than four hours, and the men made prisoners of war. The same would have befallen the garrison at Fort Lee, on the opposite shore, had not General Greene marched suddenly off and gained Hackensack-bridge. In the spring and summer of 1776, General Washington had possession of New York, and fortified it, General Howe passed up the East River, landed his troops about twenty miles above the city, and after taking possession of King's Bridge, marched down upon the city, and had not General Washington stole off on the North River side of York Island, he and the army with him had been prisoners. General Lincoln undertook to fortify Charleston, and he and the garrison were shut up in it by the enemy and made prisoners of war. It is an imposition on the public to hold up the idea of fortifications as places of safety. The open field is always the best. One of the principal cares of a general is to secure a retreat in case of a defeat, but there is no retreat for men besieged in a fortified town. I pass on to his second resolve. "Resolved, that when this State in acceding to the Government of the United States, surrendered its valuable and increasing impost revenue for the general benefit of the Union, it was done under a full conviction that it would then become the indispensable duty of the United States in return, to afford the capital, harbour, and commerce of this State, fulland competent protection." This Resolve is founded in error, and every position it contains is fallacious. The several States agreed to consolidate the impost revenue for the benefit of the whole. There was no surrender in the case. Every State did the same thing, because it was its duty to do it. This consolidation of the impost revenue was for the purpose of sinking the debt, as well foreign as domestic, incurred by the war, and also to defray the expence of the general Government; and had it not been for the extravagance of former administrations, which increased the debt instead of diminishing it, the debt would have been sunk before this time. The present administration had a dead horse to pull out of the mire. It is also to be observed, that the prosperity of New York arises from the very circumstance of which this resolve complains. Had New York not agreed to consolidate the impost revenue in common with the other States, she would have been excluded from the commerce and carrying trade of all the other States, and have sunk into solitary insignifiHer wharfs would not have been crowded with cance. ships as they are now. It is by consolidating the impost revenue into a whole, and thereby leaving every State to choose its port of export or import, either in its own or in another State, that the commerce, or rather the carrying trade, of New York, has of late years increased so much. Were New York confined to the exports of her own State, and to import only for the consumption of her own State, she would not have more than a third of the commerce and of the carrying trade she has now. The consolidation of the impost revenue has operated as a bounty to New York, and this short-sighted legislator complains of it. But though men, as merchants, tied down to the study of their ledgers and cash-books, are in general bat dull politicians, it is necessary for them to understand their own affairs, and they ought to have advised Mr. Hale not to have brought in the string of foolish and ill-founded resolves he has done. C****n S***e. Remarks on Mr. Hale's String of Resolves concluded. In my former number I examined Mr. Hale's two first resolves, and shewed the fallacy of them. In this, I shall extract such parts of his remaining resolves as expose themselves most to public notice. His third Resolve is mere declamation about the old bugbear of fortifications. His fourth Resolve is an indecent invective against Congress, on the same subject. In his fifth Resolve, he speaks of " the public debt being materially reduced, and of the favourable prospect of its total extinction in a few years, by the happy and successful opera tion, (he says) of the funding system." But what funding system does he mean? It certainly is not by the operation of any funding in the administration of Washington or Adams. The public debt increased in both those administrations; and as to John Adams, he left the treasury overflowing with debt and the country overrun with internal taxes. It is by the economy and wise management of the present administration only that the happy effects of which Mr. Hale speaks has been produced, but it does not suit him to say so. Malignancy, thou art a hateful monster! Mr. Hale concludes this resolve by proposing, in consequence of this flourishing state of the revenue, that Congress should appropriate to each State a sum equal to the impost revenue which each State may produce, to be employed for the purpose of fortifications. This is what in common life is called "a take in." There is something insidious in it, which I shall expose when I come to remark on the resolve which follows, to which this is an introduction. "Resolved, that under all existing circumstances, this State is entitled to ask and demand of the Government of the United States the appropriation of a sum equal to the amount of the impost revenue of the port of New York to be applied to the purpose of defending the port and harbour of the said city (of New York.)" I now go to examine the ground of this resolve, and to detect the fallacy of it, by laying down a certain rule whereby to ascertain the quantity of impost revenue arising from the quantity of population in any of the States, and to distinguish that quantity from the gross amount of impost revenue collected in any port of entry. The total amount of impost revenue arising from the total population of all the States is 12,000,000 dollars, of which sum each State contributes a part in proportion to its quantity of population, whether it imports into its own State, or purchases imported articles in other States with the import duty upon them. For example: The State of Jersey does not import any thing. The eastern part of that State purchase imported articles at the port of New York, and the western part at the port of Philadelphia, and these two ports are the collectors of the impost revenue of Jersey, which according to its population is above 400,000 dollars, as I shall shew; and the merchants of whom those purchases are made have the use of that money without interest till they pay it into the treasury of the United States. I now come to lay down the rule for ascertaining the quantity of impost revenue paid by each State, which is : As the total population of all the States is to the total impost revenue of 12,000,000 dollars, so is the population of any State to the portion it pays of that 12,000,000 dollars. The total population of all the States, according to the last census, taken in 1801, was, at that time, 5,309,758 The population of New York............ Of Pennsylvania.. Of Jersey..... 586,050 602,545 211,149 According to the progressive increase of population in the United States, which doubles itself in every twenty-four or twenty-five years, the population in 1801 will now be increased one-fourth, and therefore the present population of the State of New York is........ Ditto of Pennsylvania.. .... ... 732,560 753,181 264,648 And the total population of all the States is 6,637,197 To find what portion of 12,000,000 is paid by the State of New York, say, as 6,637,197, the total population, is to 12,000,000, so is 732,560, the population of New York, to the portion it pays of that sum, and The quotient will be......... That of Pennsylvania........ 1,324,426 1,361,743 478,245 Pennsylvania pays 37,317 more impost revenue than the State of New York pays. But the case with New York is, that she exports and imports for a large part of the Southern States, and also for a part of the Eastern States, and this increases her collection of impost revenue to more than three times the amount of what she pays herself. It is this that enables her merchants, many of which are British or British agents, to carry on trade. They sell imported articles to other States with the impost duty upon them, and receive that impost duty either in money or in produce time enough to make a second voyage with it before they pay it into the Treasury of the United States. The capitals of those merchants are made up, in a great measure, of the impost revenue that rests in |