Note 53 — Chapter III · OUTLINE OF NEGOTIATIONS IN RESPECT TO THE PROPOSED CANAL.

The following paragraph from the pamphlet in question furnishes a remarkable commentary on the “enlightened views and liberal policy” attributed to the emperor by his partisans:

“France, England, Holland, Russia, and the United States have a great commercial interest in the establishment of communication between the two oceans; but England has, more than the other powers, a political interest in the execution of the project. England will see with pleasure Central America become a flourishing and powerful State, which will establish a balance of power, by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise powerful enough to give rise to a great feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachment from the north.”