most eligible and most advisable. To lay open such a
communication as this would prove, is an object of the first
importance, worthy of the attention of any body of men, and of any
nation, but more especially of a nation like Great Britain, to support
and to patronize in every way. By this route, all vessels, mails, and
merchandise could reach the more distant and wealthy parts of Asia and
Australasia, sooner and safer, and through seas comparatively always
tranquil, borne by winds scarcely ever varying, and always favourable,
than these can do by any other course that is known, or that remains
to be discovered. In an especial manner, this would be the case as
regards all the western coasts of America, North and South, the
Islands in the Pacific, New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, Japan,
China, Eastern Siberia, &c. The perpetual trade-winds would bear
vessels before them from Madeira to Canton, and almost to Sydney,
while in returning they would merely have to run through these
trade-winds, with a steady breeze on the beam, until they reached the
latitude of 30 deg. to 32 deg. north, when the steady and certain, and strong
westerly and south-west winds, would bear them in these parallels
first, to the west coast of America; from which point winds off the
land, and north-easterly trade-winds, would carry them, in the second
place, to the point of communication with the Atlantic, through the
Isthmus of central America; from which they, in the third place, would
run to the north, carried by the trade-winds and the Gulf stream, into
and through the Gulf of Florida, into the variable winds, which would
quickly bear them to all the eastern ports of North America, and (p. 085)
to all the ports in Europe, or along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

By this channel, namely, through the Isthmus of central America, the
valuable, but almost unknown, British territory on the west coast of
North America, would be brought near, and cleared, and cultivated. So
also would the whole remaining western coast of America, from Nootka
Sound to the southern extremity of Chili, be brought near to the
civilized world, and become, in consequence, also peopled, cleared,
and cultivated. Without such a communication is opened up, these
coasts, and states upon them, can scarcely ever be brought to this
state, but to which it is most desirable for the general interests of
the world, and of the human race in it, that they should be brought.
Situat