In his dispatches, Nelson said: "In order to give facility to the great
object of government, I intend to possess the lake of Nicaragua, which,
for the present, may be looked upon as the inland Gibraltar of Spanish
America. As it commands the only water pass between the oceans, its
situation must ever render it a principal post to insure passage to the
Southern Ocean, and by our possession of it Spanish America is severed
into two."

The passage of San Juan was found to be exceedingly difficult; for the
seamen, although assisted by the Indians from Bluetown, scarcely forced
their boats up the shoals. Nelson bitterly regretted that the expedition
had not arrived in January, in place of the close of the dry season. It
was a disastrous failure, costing the English the lives of one thousand
five hundred men, and nearly losing to them their Nelson.

At this period, Charles III., of Spain, sent a commission to explore the
country. These commissioners reported unfavorably as regarded the route;
but fearing further intrusion from England, forbade all access to the
coast; even falsifying and suppressing its charts and permanently
injuring the navigation of the San Juan and the Colorado by obstructions
in their beds.

It is, however, a relief here to learn that when Humboldt visited the
New World, he could say: "The time is passed when Spain, through a
jealous policy, refused to other nations a thoroughfare across the
possessions of which they kept the whole world so long in ignorance.
Accurate maps of the coasts, and even minute plans of military
positions, are published." It is also true that the Spanish Cortes,
in 1814, decreed the opening of a canal, a decree deferred and never