Your memorialists respectfully represent that the State of New York, a part of the State of Pennsylvania, the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the Michigan Territory, have all an obvious and direct interest in providing every possible means which may add facility, economy, expedition, or security to the navigation of the lakes. That the western part of the State of Virginia, and the States of Kentucky and Missouri, are also deeply interested in the successful prosecution of these objects; and that even the State of Tennessee, apparently remote in position from the lakes, is, in the opinion of your memorialists, by no means separated in interest from any thing which may contribute to their navigable facilities.

Your memorialists respectfully represent that experience upon the Hudson, the lakes, and the great rivers of the West, has satisfactorily ascertained the superiority in the great point of economy of natural communications over the constructions of art. Many of the productions of agriculture, which from bulk and weight can bear transportation but comparatively short distances on canals and railroads, may be advantageously conveyed to a market from the remotest points to which our natural navigable facilities extend. To the immense advantage which rivers and lakes possess over canals in the cheapness of transportation, may be mentioned the great additional considerations of expedition and certainty. Your memorialists represent that the northern lakes, which may be regarded as inland seas, and therefore to be measured by their extent of coast, were it not for the interruption of the falls of Niagara, would embrace the most extensive scene of inland navigation to be found on the globe, excepting only that comprehended within the limits of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

They submit, therefore, that, as the greater part of these immense waters belong to the Government of the United States, and not to that of any particular State; that, as they are the channels by which a great commercial intercourse exists between the States, and which may be almost infinitely extended; that, as they are the scenes of an already important foreign trade, which gives every promise of great future expansion; and that as they provide the natural and most expeditious facilities for the prosecution of a very large part of our trading intercourse with the Indians of the Northwest, they fall within the peculiar jurisdiction, and have a claim to the fostering legislation, of the Federal Government.

If it were only in consideration of the great benefits resulting to the foreign and domestic commerce of the United States, your memorialists believe this consideration would be an adequate inducement for the General Government to adopt measures for the construction of the works necessary to the creation of an uninterrupted navigation between the lakes. But your memorialists respectfully represent that mere considerations of commercial advantage, no matter how intimately connected with the interests of a very large part of the Union, are not the principal inducements which have urged them to solicit the attention of Congress to the subject of this memorial. Your memorialists believe that the time is rapidly approaching, if it has not already arrived, when the existence of a free navigable communication between Lakes Erie and Ontario will become of the most essential importance, perhaps indispensable to the national defence.

Your memorialists need scarcely remark that the most important, the most extensive, and the most assailable frontier of the Union, is that which is bounded by the lakes, the intervening rivers, and the St. Lawrence.

But whether the pacific relations, now so happily existing between Great Britain and the United States, shall hereafter be interrupted, will but in a small measure depend on them or their Canadian neighbors. And your memorialists cannot conceal from themselves, if it is the destiny of the two countries again to encounter in arms, that it is upon their own lakes and upon their shores, and perhaps in sight of their own dwellings, that the battle is to be fought the hardest.

Your memorialists, therefore, cannot refrain from reminding your honorable House, what experience and the precepts of political wisdom have so often taught, that the safest conservative of peace is preparation for war, and that in preparation for war, not less than in the spirit of chivalry, is to be found the cheap defence of nations.

The above considerations are most respectfully submitted for such order as your honorable House, in its wisdom, may deem just, and your memorialists will ever pray.