Virginia Argus

BRITISH MARITIME CLAIMS

We believe that as long as Great Britain may retain her supremacy on the ocean, all other commercial nations, and especially the United States, her great rivals, will be, more or less, exposed to constant insult, depredation and plunder. She claims the dominion of the ocean; and to demonstrate her superiority to the world, she exercises her tyrannic power in an unlawful and insolent system of maritime spoliation. There is no other navy with which she can cope in honorable combat. She thinks it would be useless to be supreme, without shewing her supremacy; and therefore America may rationally conclude that her commerce will be harassed and depressed, to as great an extent as possible, until a rival navy shall be established and used to keep in check the domineering disposition of the British marine.

The great body of the English nation, their naval seamen and officers, their poets, orators & statesmen, have all imbibed the notion that to them Heaven has committed the empire of the seas. In the following elegant Lines of an elegant British poet, may be discerned the general sentiment of England, from the humble peasant who lives in the cottage, to the lofty monarch who wears the glittering regal diadem, & dwells in the splendid palace of St. James.

"Britannia, riding awful on the prow,
"Gazed o'er the vassal-wave that rolled below:
"Wher'er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen
"To yield obsequious, and confess their Queen.
"The imperial trident graced her dexter-hand,
"Of power to rule the surge, like Moses' wand,
"THE ETERNAL EMPIRE OF THE MAIN TO
KEEP.
"And guide her squadrons o'er the trembling
"deep."

It is worthy of the deepest consideration whether, in self-defence, those nations, whom nature has cut out for maritime powers, ought not to progress, as rapidly as their means may allow, to raise navies, which shall at least compel England, if she do preserve the "eternal empire of the main," to use that empire with justice and discretion.—American.