This station is one of the most important, and extensive, and complicated of the whole, and one where steam-vessels can be employed with the most beneficial effects. The prevailing winds and currents, however, render it necessary that the vessels employed should be of high power, in order to enable them to stem those winds and currents. Into the Gulf of Mexico, through the Windward islands, sets; first, the equatorial current; secondly, the prodigious current occasioned by the influx of the waters of the great river Maranon, and of the several rivers which flow through British, Dutch, and French Guiana; thirdly, the current occasioned by the influx of the waters of the great river Oronoque, through the Gulf of Paria, between the island of Trinidad and the mainland of South America. These united waters, directed by the trade winds, blowing always from the eastward, occasion a current of such force, running westward from the Windward Islands to the shores of Mexico, that it is frequently impossible for the best sailing vessels to make their way through it. Steam-boats, therefore, of at least 240-horse power, are indispensably necessary, in order that they may not only be able to stem these winds and currents, and carry a sufficient quantity of coals, but also to afford spacious and well-ventilated accommodation, both for the crews attached to them, and also the passengers which may travel by them. Without such, neither the one nor the other could ever enjoy health, nor could the despatches of Government, and the correspondence of individuals, be conveyed with that celerity and regularity which these could otherwise be, and which it is necessary that they should be. In carrying a more general plan into effect, no reasonable or necessary expense ought to be spared by the country. In such a general plan it will be seen by the subsequent details, that the (p. 029) steam-boats of the power mentioned, assisted by nine sailing schooners (at present ten, are employed in less than half the work,) would be sufficient to convey the mails from Barbadoes to every place of importance in the western Tropical Archipelago, or connected with it. This force would give two mails each month to every island and colony from Demerara to Vera Cruz; taking in Laguayra, Carthagena, Chagres, Honduras, the principal parts of Cuba and Porto Rico. From Demerara to Havannah and Chagres, &c. inclusive, every colony and place would be able to reply to the letters received from Europe, or the Colonies, by the same packet which brought them; and still that packet remain in the West Indies a shorter period than the packets now do.