58 TRINIDAD. 



pelago has been placed by nature on this national highway as a 

 vast caravanserai for the reception of travellers, traders, and mer- 

 chandise ; and this is particularly the case with the islands of 

 Jamaica, Cuba, and Hayti. Now, are we to believe that these 

 islands will be allowed to retrograde into barbarism, and to become 

 so many buccaneering or pirate haunts, in which to enact the 

 scenes of bygone days, or so many cours des miracles from which 

 swarms of vagabond beggars will crawl forth and obstruct the way ? 

 This I do not, I cannot, believe. These islands must, of necessity, 

 become more and more civilized, either from the direct or indirect 

 intervention of the great commercial nations of the world. The 

 great obstacle of slavery has already been removed from many ; the 

 foundation has been laid ; it now remains to raise the superstruc- 

 ture. I am only surprised that so little attention is paid to the 

 subject by European statesmen whilst those of the great republic 

 of the North are keenly aroused to a sense of its importance. 

 Why are the latter so exceedingly anxious about the possession of 

 Cuba? Why have they been negotiating with the Dominicans 

 for the cession of the port of Samana ? Because they know well 

 that once in possession of the "Queen of the Antilles" they change 

 the Gulf of Mexico into an American lake, the only free outlet 

 being the canal of Yucatan, which they would command by means 

 of Havana, and the Ensenada de Cortez. And by obtaining the 

 cession of Samana they evidently expect to pave a way for the 

 annexation of the Dominican republic first, and the ultimate 

 submission of Soulouque: meantime, they are at once placing 

 Cuba between two imminences, viz., from the N.E. and the S.E. 

 It is, nevertheless, to be expected, that in case they cannot make 

 themselves masters of Cuba, or by negotiation obtain a footing in 

 the island of Hayti, they will soon find a pretext for a rupture 

 either with Soulouque or the Dominicans, and then Samana, or 

 the still more important station of Mole St. Nicolas, at the N.W. 

 extremity of Hayti, just opposite Santiago de Cuba, and com- 

 manding the outward passage, will become their prize. What 

 could the busy statesmen of England and France object to such 

 proceedings ? Let them rouse themselves, therefore, and make 

 some attempts at relieving these colonies, and thereby creating some 

 counterpoise to the usurping propensities of the Americans, or at 

 once declare their willingness and readiness to yield to their pre- 

 ponderancy. 



From the preceding statements it does not appear unreason- 

 able to expect that, within a given time, the Western Archipelago 

 will recover the high position which it once occupied, and which 

 by nature it must eventually occupy. It only requires population 

 and ere long a tide of population will set in from the United 

 States, as also from Asia, and these people will become the re- 

 settlers of the now comparatively insignificant West India islands : 



