But at this time it was generally thought that Lake Nicaragua provided the best route for a trans-Isthmian canal.
The Pacific seaboard having recently acquired importance to the United States, the Government desired to further the canal project on that account. The only practicable Atlantic terminal of a Nicaraguan canal lay within territory over which Great Britain had long exercised control. Further, the Pacific Coast of Canada had recently acquired importance to the eastern provinces and to the home country, and access thereto was extremely difficult. The outcome of these circumstances was the conclusion in 1850 of the celebrated Clayton-Bulwer treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which was duly ratified by Congress. By this instrument it was agreed that neither Government should ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control of any canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, nor erect fortifications commanding the same.
This treaty remained in force until 1901, and I shall have to refer to it again. Meanwhile the great rush of gold-seekers to California had supplied the needful stimulus to a scheme, already mooted, of an Isthmian railway terminating at Panama. In spite of the enormous difficulties entailed by the pestilential climate, the undertaking was completed in 1855. This achievement, originating in New York, was the work of W.H. Aspinwall, Henry Chauncey, and John L. Stephens.
RE-LOCATION OF RAILWAY ABOVE GATUN.
MOTOR TROLLEY FOR INSPECTION OF WORKS.
It was undertaken independently of any canal scheme, but it exercised a profound effect upon the fate of subsequent schemes. The facilities which the railway afforded determined de Lesseps's choice of route, and de Lesseps ploughed so deeply that those who came after him have found themselves constrained to follow his furrow. The "New World" is in fact no longer new, and its statesmen now have to solve problems presenting historical as well as physical factors.
The American Civil War interrupted the prosecution of canal schemes, but the examination of routes was recommenced by the United States Government in 1866, a Commission finally reporting in 1876[1] in favour of the Nicaraguan route.
[1] The report, however, was not published until 1879.