I Feel Bound To Say As Much As This, And Now I Have Said It,
Once For All.
Few cities, or localities for cities, have fairer natural
advantages than Portland and I am bound to say that the people of
Portland have done much in turning them to account.
This town is
not the capital of the State in a political point of view.
Augusta, which is farther to the north, on the Kennebec River, is
the seat of the State government for Maine. It is very generally
the case that the States do not hold their legislatures and carry
on their government at their chief towns. Augusta and not Portland
is the capital of Maine. Of the State of New York, Albany is the
capital, and not the city which bears the State's name. And of
Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and not Philadelphia is the capital. I
think the idea has been that old-fashioned notions were bad in that
they were old fashioned; and that a new people, bound by no
prejudices, might certainly make improvement by choosing for
themselves new ways. If so, the American politicians have not been
the first in the world who have thought that any change must be a
change for the better. The assigned reason is the centrical
position of the selected political capitals; but I have generally
found the real commercial capital to be easier of access than the
smaller town in which the two legislative houses are obliged to
collect themselves.
What must be the natural excellence of the harbor of Portland, will
be understood when it is borne in mind that the Great Eastern can
enter it at all times, and that it can lay along the wharves at any
hour of the tide. The wharves which have been prepared for her -
and of which I will say a word further by-and-by - are joined to,
and in fact, are a portion of, the station of the Grand Trunk
Railway, which runs from Portland up to Canada. So that passengers
landing at Portland out of a vessel so large even as the Great
Eastern can walk at once on shore, and goods can be passed on to
the railway without any of the cost of removal. I will not say
that there is no other harbor in the world that would allow of
this, but I do not know any other that would do so.
From Portland a line of railway, called as a whole by the name of
the Canada Grand Trunk Line, runs across the State of Maine,
through the northern parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, to
Montreal, a branch striking from Richmond, a little within the
limits of Canada, to Quebec, and down the St. Lawrence to Riviere
du Loup. The main line is continued from Montreal, through Upper
Canada to Toronto, and from thence to Detroit in the State of
Michigan. The total distance thus traversed is, in a direct line,
about 900 miles. From Detroit there is railway communications
through the immense Northwestern States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Illinois, than which perhaps the surface of the globe affords no
finer districts for purposes of agriculture. The produce of the
two Canadas must be poured forth to the Eastern world, and the men
of the Eastern world must throng into these lands by means of this
railroad, and, as at present arranged, through the harbor of
Portland. At present the line has been opened, and they who have
opened are sorely suffering in pocket for what they have done. The
question of the railway is rather one applying to Canada than to
the State of Maine, and I will therefore leave it for the present.
But the Great Eastern has never been to Portland, and as far as I
know has no intention of going there. She was, I believe, built
with that object. At any rate, it was proclaimed during her
building that such was her destiny, and the Portlanders believed it
with a perfect faith. They went to work and built wharves
expressly for her; two wharves prepared to fit her two gangways, or
ways of exit and entrance. They built a huge hotel to receive her
passengers. They prepared for her advent with a full conviction
that a millennium of trade was about to be wafted to their happy
port. "Sir, the town has expended two hundred thousand dollars in
expectation of that ship, and that ship has deceived us." So was
the matter spoken of to me by an intelligent Portlander. I
explained to that intelligent gentleman that two hundred thousand
dollars would go a very little way toward making up the loss which
the ill-fortuned vessel had occasioned on the other side of the
water. He did not in words express gratification at this
information, but he looked it. The matter was as it were a
partnership without deed of contract between the Portlanders and
the shareholders of the vessel, and the Portlanders, though they
also have suffered their losses, have not had the worst of it.
But there are still good days in store for the town. Though the
Great Eastern has not gone there, other ships from Europe, more
profitable if less in size, must eventually find their way thither.
At present the Canada line of packets runs to Portland only during
those months in which it is shut out from the St. Lawrence and
Quebec by ice. But the St. Lawrence and Quebec cannot offer the
advantages which Portland enjoys, and that big hotel and those new
wharves will not have been built in vain.
I have said that a good time is coming, but I would by no means
wish to signify that the present times in Portland are bad. So far
from it that I doubt whether I ever saw a town with more evident
signs of prosperity. It has about it every mark of ample means,
and no mark of poverty. It contains about 27,000 people, and for
that population covers a very large space of ground.
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