eedy and pleasant. Time, labour,
money, would be saved. The returns would come in more quickly. Fewer
hands would be required to navigate the ships. The loss of a vessel
would be a rare event. The trade would increase fast. In a short time
it would double; and it would all pass through Darien. Whoever possessed
that door of the sea, that key of the universe,--such were the bold
figures which Paterson loved to employ,--would give law to both
hemispheres; and would, by peaceful arts, without shedding one drop of
blood, establish an empire as splendid as that of Cyrus or Alexander. Of
the kingdoms of Europe, Scotland was, as yet, the poorest and the least
considered. If she would but occupy Darien, if she would but become one
great free port, one great warehouse for the wealth which the soil of
Darien might produce, and for the still greater wealth which would be
poured into Darien from Canton and Siam, from Ceylon and the Moluccas,
from the mouths of the Ganges and the Gulf of Cambay, she would at once
take her place in the first rank among nations. No rival would be able
to contend with her either in the West Indian or in the East Indian
trade. The beggarly country, as it had been insolently called by the
inhabitants of warmer and more fruitful regions, would be the great mart
for the choicest luxuries, sugar, rum, coffee, chocolate, tobacco, the
tea and porcelain of China, the muslin of Dacca, the shawls of Cashmere,
the diamonds of Golconda, the pearls of Karrack, the delicious birds'
nests of Nicobar, cinnamon and pepper, ivory and sandal wood. From
Scotland would come all the finest jewels and brocade worn by duchesses
at the balls of St. James's and Versailles. From Scotland would come
all the saltpetre which would furnish the means of war to the fleets and
armies of contending potentates. And on all the vast riches which would
be constantly passing through the little kingdom a toll would be paid
which would remain behind. There would be a prosperity such as might
seem fabulous, a prosperity of which every Scotchman, from the peer to
the cadie, would partake. Soon, all along the now desolate shores of the
Forth and Clyde, villas and pleasure grounds would be as thick as along
the edges of the Dutch canals. Edinburgh would vie with London and
Paris; and the baillie of Glasgow or Dundee would have as stately and
well furnished a mansion, and as fine a gallery of pictures, as any
burgomaster of Amsterdam.

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