and yet much more in ships on the sea.  If Spain should become involved in war with Great Britain, as she so often before has been, the advantage she would have in Cuba as against Jamaica would be that her communications with the United States, especially with the Gulf ports, would be well under cover.  By this is not meant that vessels bound to Cuba by such routes would be in unassailable security; no communications, maritime or terrestrial, can be so against raiding.  What is meant is that they can be protected with much less effort than they can be attacked; that the raiders—­the offence—­must be much more numerous and active than the defence, because much farther from their base; and that the question of such raiding would depend consequently upon the force Great Britain could spare from other scenes of war, for it is not likely that Spain would fight her single-handed.  It is quite possible that under such conditions advantage of position would more than counterbalance a small disadvantage in local force.  “War,” said Napoleon, “is a business of positions;” by which that master of lightning-like rapidity of movement assuredly did not mean that it was a business of getting into a position and sticking there.  It is in the utilization of position by mobile force that war is determined, just as the effect of a chessman depends upon both its individual value and its relative position.  While, therefore, in the combination of the two factors, force and position, force is intrinsically the more valuable, it is always possible that great advantage of position may outweigh small advantage of force, as 1 + 5 is greater than 2 + 3.  The positional value of Cuba is extremely great.

Regarded solely as a naval position, without reference to the force thereon based, Jamaica is greatly inferior to Cuba in a question of general war, notwithstanding the fact that in Kingston it possesses an excellent harbor and naval station.  It is only with direct reference to the Isthmus, and therefore to the local question of the Caribbean as the main scene of hostilities, that it possesses a certain superiority which will be touched on later.  It is advisable first to complete the list, and so far as necessary to account for the selection, of the other points indicated by the squares.

Of these, three are so nearly together at the Isthmus that, according to the rule before adopted, they might be reduced very properly to a single representative position.  Being, however, so close to the great centre of interest in the Caribbean, and having different specific reasons constituting their importance, it is essential to a full statement of strategic conditions in that sea to mention briefly each and all.  They are, the harbor and town of Colon, sometimes called Aspinwall; the harbor and city of Cartagena, 300 miles to the eastward of Colon; and the Chiriqui Lagoon, 150 miles west of Colon, a vast enclosed bay with many islands, giving excellent and diversified anchorage,