Note 14 — Chapter I · THE NAVAL COMMITTEE
Reading edition
Works of John Adams, II, 469-83. In one of these debates, according to Adams, George Wythe of Virginia said: “Why should not America have a navy? No maritime power near the seacoast can be safe without it. It is no chimera. The Romans suddenly built one in their Carthaginian war. Why may not we lay a foundation for it? We abound with firs, iron ore, tar, pitch, turpentine; we have all the materials for the construction of a navy.”—Works of John Adams, II, 479.