its neck. In the latter case the two entrances to the channel
would have indeed to be assured; but our shipping would not be forced
to pass through a long, narrow waterway, bordered throughout on one
side by foreign and possibly hostile territories. In case of war with
either Great Britain or Spain, this channel would be likely to be
infested by hostile cruisers, close to their own base, the very best
condition for a commerce-destroying war; and its protection by us
under present circumstances will exact a much greater effort than with
the supposed channel, or than if the Florida Peninsula did not exist.
The effect of the peninsula is to thrust our route from the Atlantic
to the Gulf 300 miles to the southward, and to make imperative a base
for control of the strait; while the case is made worse by an almost
total lack of useful harbors. On the Atlantic, the most exposed side,
there is none; and on the Gulf none nearer to Key West than 175
miles,[2] where we find Tampa Bay. There is, indeed, nothing that can
be said about the interests of the United States in an Isthmian canal
that does not apply now with equal force to the Strait of Florida. The
one links the Atlantic to the Gulf, as the other would the Atlantic to
the Pacific. It may be added here that the phenomenon of the long,
narrow peninsula of Florida, with its strait, is reproduced
successively in Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, with the passages
dividing them. The whole together forms one long barrier, the
strategic significance of which cannot be overlooked in its effect
upon the Caribbean; while the Gulf of Mexico is assigned to absolute
seclusion by it, if the passages are in hostile control.

[2] There is Charlotte Harbor, at 120 miles, but it can be used
only by medium-sized vessels.

The relations of the island of Jamaica to the great barrier formed by
Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico are such as to constitute it the natural
stepping-stone by which to pass from the consideration of entrance
into the Caribbean, which has been engaging our attention, to that of
the transit across, from entrance to the Isthmus, which we must next
undertake.

In the matters of entrance to the Caribbean, and of general interior
control of that sea, Jamaica has a singularly central position. It is
equidistant (500 miles) from Colon, from the Yucatan Channel, and from
the Mona Passage; it is even closer (450 miles) to the nearest
mainland of South America at Point Gallina