[13]. “The English world-empire has two gigantic neighbours in the west and in the east. In the West she has the United States, and in the East Russia for a neighbour” (Prof. Seeley’s “Expansion of England,” p. 288).
[14]. Extracts from a pamphlet written in 1847 by His Imperial Majesty, Napoleon III.:—
“There are certain countries which, from their geographical situation, are destined to a highly prosperous future. Wealth, power, every national advantage, flows into them, provided that where Nature has done her utmost, man does not neglect to avail himself of her beneficent assistance.
“Those countries are in the most favourable conditions which are situated on the high road of commerce, and which offer to commerce the safest ports and harbours, as well as the most profitable interchange of commodities. Such countries, finding in the intercourse of foreign trade illimitable resources, are enabled to take advantage of the fertility of their soil; and in this way a home trade springs up commensurate with the increase of mercantile traffic. It is by such means that Tyre and Carthage, Constantinople, Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, Liverpool, and London attained to such great prosperity, rising from the condition of poor hamlets to extensive and affluent commercial cities, and exhibiting to surrounding nations the astonishing spectacle of powerful states springing suddenly from unwholesome swamps and marshes. Venice in particular was indebted for her overwhelming grandeur to the geographical position which constituted her for centuries the entrepôt between Europe and the East; and it was only when the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope opened a ship passage to the latter that her prosperity gradually declined. Notwithstanding, so great was her accumulation of wealth, and consequent commercial influence, that she withstood for three centuries the formidable competition thus created.
“There exists another city famous in history, although now fallen from its pristine grandeur, so admirably situated as to excite the jealousy of all the great European Powers, who combine to maintain in it a government so far barbarous as to be incapable of taking advantage of the great resources bestowed upon it by nature. The geographical position of Constantinople is such as rendered her the queen of the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, the central point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she could become the entrepôt of the commerce of all these countries, and obtain over them an immense preponderance; for in politics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the circumference. Situated between two seas, of which, like two great lakes, she commands the entrance, she could shut up in them, sheltered from the assaults of all other nations, the most formidable fleets, by which she could exercise dominion in the Mediterranean as well as in the Black Sea, thereby commanding the entrance of the Danube, which opens the way to Germany, as well as the sources of the Euphrates, which open the road to the Indies, dictating her own terms to the commerce of Greece, France, Italy, Spain, and Egypt. This is what the proud city of Constantine could be, and this is what she is not, ‘because’ as Montesquieu says, ‘God permitted that Turks should exist on earth, a people the most fit to possess uselessly a great empire.’
“There exists in the New World a state as admirably situated as Constantinople, and we must say, up to the present time, as uselessly occupied; we allude to the state of Nicaragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the ancient world, so is the town of Leon, or rather Massaya, the centre of the new; and if the tongue of land which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were cut through, she would command by her central position the entire coast of North and South America. Like Constantinople, Massaya is situated between two extensive natural harbours, capable of giving shelter to the largest fleets, safe from attack. The state of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, the necessary route for the great commerce of the world, for it is for the United States the shortest road to China and the East Indies, and for England and the rest of Europe to New Holland, Polynesia, and the whole of the western coast of America. The state of Nicaragua is, then, destined to attain to an extraordinary degree of prosperity and grandeur; for that which renders its political position more advantageous than that of Constantinople is, that the great maritime powers of Europe would witness with pleasure, and not with jealousy, its attainment of a station no less favourable to its individual interests than to the commerce of the world.
“France, England, Holland, Russia, and the United States, have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans; but England has more than the other powers a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America become a flourishing and powerful state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a great feeling of nationality and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachment from the north. England will witness with satisfaction the opening of a route which will enable her to communicate more speedily with Oregon, China, and her possessions in New Holland. She will find, in a word, that the advancement of Central America will renovate the declining commerce of Jamaica and the other English island in the Antilles, the progressive decay of which will be thereby stopped. It is a happy coincidence that the political and commercial prosperity of the state of Nicaragua is closely connected with the policy of that nation which has the greatest preponderance on the sea.”
[15]. “The total length of the canal from sea to sea would be little short of 200 miles, viz., 15½ miles from the Pacific to the lake, 56½ across the lake, and 119 to the Atlantic; total, 191 miles; and the Lake of Nicaragua is navigable for ships of the largest class down to the mouth of the river San Juan” (C. B. Pin’s “The Gate of the Pacific,” p. 133).
[16]. Prof. Seeley’s “Expansion of England,” p. 87.
[17]. “The negotiations with the Imperial Government for the establishment of a permanent line of first-class steamships, suitable for service as armed cruisers in case of need, resulted in an official notification that Her Majesty’s Government had decided to grant a subsidy of £60,000 per annum for a monthly service between Vancouver and Hong Kong, viâ Yokohama” (“Canada, Statistical Abstract and Record for the Year 1887,” p. 306).