en Santo
Domingo and Puerto Rico, is particularly suited to sailing-vessels
from the northward, because free from dangers to navigation. This, of
course, in these days of steam, is a small matter militarily; in the
latter sense the Mona Passage is valuable because it is an alternative
to the Windward Passage, or to those to the eastward, in case of
hostile predominance in one quarter or the other. St. Thomas is on the
Anegada Passage, actually much used, and which better than any other
represents the course from Europe to the Isthmus, just as the Windward
Passage does that from the North American Atlantic ports. Neither of
these places can boast of great natural strength nor of resources; St.
Thomas, because it is a small island with the inherent weaknesses
attending all such, which have been mentioned; Samana Bay, because,
although the island on which it is is large and productive, it has not
now, and gives no hope of having, that political stability and
commercial prosperity which bring resources and power in their train.
Both places would need also considerable development of defensive
works to meet the requirements of a naval port. Despite these defects,
their situations on the passages named entitle them to paramount
consideration in a general study of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of
Mexico. Potentially, though not actually, they lend control of the
Mona and Anegada Passages, exactly as Kingston and Santiago do of the
Windward.

For, granting that the Isthmus is in the Caribbean the predominant
interest, commercial, and therefore concerning the whole world, but
also military, and so far possessing peculiar concern for those
nations whose territories lie on both oceans, which it now severs and
will one day unite--of which nations the United States is the most
prominent--granting this, and it follows that entrance to the
Caribbean, and transit across the Caribbean to the Isthmus, are two
prime essentials to the enjoyment of the advantages of the latter.
Therefore, in case of war, control of these two things becomes a
military object not second to the Isthmus itself, access to which
depends upon them; and in their bearing upon these two things the
various positions that are passed under consideration must be
viewed--individually first, and afterwards collectively.

The first process of individual consideration the writer has asked the
reader to take on faith; neither time nor space permits its
elaboration here; b