Halifax is five hundred and fifty miles nearer Liverpool than is New York, and consequently gained two days on the ocean voyage. But, in point of time, the odds were hopelessly against Halifax, as the landing port for the Canadian mails. The obvious political reasons, however, for maintaining Halifax as the port of exchange between the North American provinces, as a whole, and the mother country, provoked a determined effort to remove, as far as possible, the natural obstacles which seemed to prevent the achievement of that end.
Inquiry was directed first to the question of the best route. From Halifax to Fredericton, the first important point at which the courier arrived on his western journey, there were alternative routes, both of which had been used in the conveyance of the mails to Canada. Since the war of 1812, the courier had travelled along the northern shore of the bay of Fundy, passing Truro, Dorchester and the bend of the Petitcodiac, now Moncton.
This route was adopted first to avoid the necessity of the mails crossing the bay of Fundy from Annapolis to St. John, with the risks of falling in with American privateers, but after the termination of the war, it was continued from choice.
The earlier route, from Halifax to Windsor and along the Annapolis valley to Annapolis, still had its advocates, however; and inquiry was made as to the advisability of returning to it. Under certain ideal conditions, a better journey could be made by this route, but as these involved heavy additional expense, and a nicety of connection between the couriers and the packet boat at Annapolis, which was frequently unattainable, the proposition was rejected.
The real difficulties for the courier began when he left Fredericton on his journey to Quebec. The route lay along the shore of the St. John river to the point where the Madawaska empties into it; thence in a generally northern direction until the St. Lawrence is reached at the head of the portage.
At this period—1840—there was no road whatever over any part of this section of the route, though in 1839, a road called the Royal Road was in course of construction between Fredericton and Grand Falls. The schemes for the building of a road were embarrassed by the fact that for nearly one hundred miles, the proposed road lay in the territory claimed by the state of Maine, with the resulting risk that the expenditure upon it might be lost.
The only mode of travel from Fredericton northward to the mouth of the Madawaska was by canoe in summer. In the winter, when the ice was well set, travel was very easy. But during the early spring and late autumn, the floating ice made the journey in this part of the country one of great hardship. On a trip made in April 1842, it required three men and twelve horses to carry over this section a mail weighing not more than seven or eight hundred pounds.
The Special Council of Quebec, which was in existence in 1838-1840, owing to the suppression of the legislature due to suspension of the constitution of 1791 in Lower Canada, at the urgent instance of Sydenham, appropriated £5000 for a road over the portage between the St. Lawrence and the St. John rivers. The legislature of New Brunswick also made a liberal grant for the section lying in that province.
It is evident, therefore, that Halifax stood at an insurmountable disadvantage as compared with the New York route during the winter season. But, at least so far as concerned eastern Canada, the provincial route was not greatly inferior to that through the United States, during the period of open navigation on the St. Lawrence. The passage from Liverpool to Quebec did not usually exceed sixteen days, and to Montreal eighteen days.
An essential link in this conveyance was the overland route from Halifax to Pictou. As this service furnished the connection between the steamers on the Atlantic and those on the St. Lawrence, it was of the first importance that the route should be traversed at a high rate of speed. The route had been in use for many years for the exchange of local mails, but the means of conveyance, which were sufficient for that purpose, were entirely inadequate to the requirements of the ocean mail service.