“Some persons assert that the Viceroy of Egypt’s project will meet with opposition in England. I cannot believe it: your statesmen are too enlightened for me to entertain such a supposition under present circumstances. What! England herself transacts more than half the general commerce with India and China; she has an immense empire in Asia; she may reduce by one-third the charges on her commerce, and bring that Eastern Empire nearer by one-half; and she would not allow it to be done. Wherefore? To prevent the Mediterranean nations from taking advantage of their situation to increase their commerce in the Eastern Seas,—she would deprive herself of the immense advantages which must accrue to her, in material respects, and in a political point of view, from this new communication, solely because others are more favourably situated than herself, as if geographical position was all-in-all, and as if, everything considered, England had not more to gain by this work than all the nations together. Finally, England, it is said, must dread the reduction in the number of vessels employed in Indian commerce which would result from the diminution of more than one-third in the duration of the voyage. And has not England proved in her experience of railways, by results which have surpassed the boldest anticipations, that the necessary consequence of shortening the distance and diminishing the duration of a journey, is the infinite augmentation of intercourse and circulation. One cannot understand why those who entertain this fear do not advise the English Government to direct, that the voyage to India now shall be _viâ_ Cape Horn, for that would employ still more ships than the way by the Cape of Good Hope and furnish better sailors. “If, as is not unlikely, the difficulties with which I am threatened should be brought forward, public opinion, so powerful in England, will soon do justice to interested opposition and superannuated objections.” Her Majesty’s Government concluded with the United States, on the 19th of April, 1850, a treaty of neutrality for the projected canal through the American Isthmus. The cabinets of London and Paris are now on such intimate terms as to make it a matter of no difficulty for them to agree upon a convention, if it suited their political interests to do so, relative to the passage of the Isthmus of Suez, assimilating it to that of the Dardanelles. The other powers would not fail to give in their adhesion to the convention, which would be open to them. In this manner commercial navigation would be guaranteed against the chances of war, and military armaments could neither remain in nor pass through the Isthmus without the permission of the Sovereign of the country.