Napoleon III, when a prisoner in Ham, thoroughly examined the advantages of the American route. “In regard to the United States of America,” he observes, “all the distances would be shortened 1400 miles and fifteen days”——“Europe would gain forty-seven days in a voyage to the coast of South America, while the United States would gain sixty-two days. To China and Sidney, Europe would gain twenty-nine days, and the United States twenty-four days.”
But it is not as rivals that the two routes should be compared, but as parts of the same system by which maritime nations are brought into commercial union. The benefit which each route will confer upon commerce is doubled by considering the effects of both together. The one opens the gates to the East, the other to the West. While one route is favorable to outward ships, the other affords equal advantages to the homeward bound, so that in many cases the most desirable route would lead to a circumnavigation of the globe.
To appreciate the importance of such a system of navigation, and exhibit some of the advantages of the American route, it may be well to compare it with the old route, by the way of the Cape, which will still remain the principal highway to the East.
“The Englishman,” says Lieut. Maury, “meets the American in all the markets of the world with the advantage of ten days or upward. Cut through the Isthmus, and instead of some ten days’ sail or more, the scale would be turned, and we shall have the advantage of some twenty days’ sail, thus making a difference of thirty or forty days under canvas.” The distance between New York, China, India, and Australia, and the west coast of South America exceeds that by way of Cape Horn from 8,000 to 14,000 miles.
To the States lying in the great basin of the Mississippi, and to all the cities situated on its navigable waters, the gain is much greater. These parts of the continent, now secluded by their position from direct trade with the west coast of South America and the Indies, will be brought into closer commercial relations with these ports of the world. With but one transshipment, the silk, teas, spices, and fabrics of India, China, Japan, and the Pacific Islands may be landed on the banks of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio.