Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

For the Alexandria Advertiser.

THE SHOWMAN.

NUMBER III.

I shall now present you with the sight of a fleet at sea, on a most extraordinary expedition. It is the fleet of the greatest pirate upon earth, making war upon the greatest, but the least resisting land, in the known world.

There you see six ships of war belonging to that redoubted hero, the Dey of Algiers--and by the pull of my string, I again shew you a superior fleet of that great nation, upon whom he is preying, decaying in Dry Docks, or economising in harbours, at a few thousand miles distance from the barbarians. Now see the greatest man there, in a great bustle--re-launching his fettered men of war, and ordering them to chastise the robbers--which will take only six months in doing.

But, I will now shew you a much readier way to build and equip a fleet, than that of repairing ships out of dry docks--taken from the very words of the great man himself:

"For either of these purposes the sea is the field on which we should meet an European enemy; on that element it is necessary we should possess some power, it will be enough if we enable ourselves to prevent insults from those nations of Europe, which are weak on the sea, because circumstances exist which render even the stronger ones weak to us: the dangers to which the element expose them are too well known; they can attack us by detachment only, and it will suffice to make ourselves equal to what they may detach. Even a smaller force than they may detach will be rendered equal or superior by the quickness which any check may be repaired with us, while losses with them will be unrepairable 'till too late; a small naval force then is sufficient for us and a small one is necessary."

Suppose the million of dollars, or 300,000l. which Virginia could annually spare, without distress, to be applied to the creating of a navy. A single year's contribution would build, equip, man, and send to sea a force which should carry 300 guns. The rest of the confederacy exerting themselves in the same proportion would equip in the same time 1500 guns more. So that one year's contributions would set up a navy of 1800 guns.

The British ships of the line average 76 guns, their frigates 35. 1800 guns then, would form a fleet of 30 ships, 18 of which might be of the line, and 12 frigates; allowing 8 men, the British average, for every gun, their annual expence, including subsistence, cloathing, pay and ordinary repairs would be about 130 dollars for every gun, or 2,304,000 dollars for the whole. I state this only as one year's possible exertion. All by computation!