Mr. Harvey to Mr. Seward.
Sir: The most important and the largest of the internal improvements of this kingdom, the railroad connecting Lisbon directly with Porto, was regularly opened to the public yesterday, and attracted much interest along the whole route. Like all other great works of the kind, this new route is destined to produce valuable results, the more so as the country which it traverses is comparatively rich and a part of it well populated, and because the means of communication heretofore have been quite inadequate to the wants of the community.
[Page 316]The northern portion of the kingdom, which the railroad now taps, is interesting, beautiful, and fertile, with a population of hardy, enterprising men, who regard labor as honorable, and who are the worthy descendants of that stock which gave Portugal her former greatness and glory.
Already lateral routes are projected in the northern provinces, shortly to reach the Spanish frontier in that direction, which is now touched by another road already completed beyond Badajoz and soon to connect with Madrid. In two years more, and perhaps before that time, one may be whirled from Lisbon to Paris by railroad without interruption;
Portugal has heretofore labored under many disadvantages from her isolated position, but they are fast disappearing under a strong impulse of progress, and foreign capital is beginning to seek the fields of enterprise, which, though long known to exist, have been as it were beyond the grasp of willing and energetic hands. When these resources are properly developed, and industry and commerce shall be wisely regulated, a new era of prosperity may be safely predicted, in which the present generation must largely participate. New connexions with the outer world will bring along with them the ideas, the energy, and the habits that are now in a measure wanting to keep pace with the rapid march of the age, and will ultimately insure a higher destiny for the kingdom than even the most sanguine minds have ventured to anticipate.
It is a part of the great law of universal progress which seems to have been beneficently reserved for this era of ours, that all nations and peoples shall, in a greater or less degree, share of its moral and material benefits, and though, as in our own case, the sacrifices demanded by duty appal and awe the stoutest hearts, still they are the purifying influences which Providence has ordered to work out the mighty end in view, and to solve the problem which has hitherto shackled our advance as the representative of free government.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.