which governed me in directing a treaty with Nicaragua. The difficulty of communicating with him was so great that I have reason to believe he had not received it. He did not acknowledge it. treaty to be made with Nicaragua. I considered the interference of the British Government on this continent in seizing the port of San Juan, which commanded the route believed to be most eligible for the canal across the Isthmus, and occupying it at the very moment when it was known, as I believe, to Great Britain, that we were engaged in the negotiation for the purchase of California, as an unfortunate coincidence, and one calculated to lead to the inference that she entertained designs by no means in harmony with the interests of the United States. Seeing that Mr. Hise had been positively instructed to make no treaty, not even a treaty of commerce, with Nicaragua, Costa Rica, or Honduras, I had no suspicion that he would attempt to act in opposition to his instructions, and in September last I was for the first time informed that he had actually negotiated two treaties with the State of Nicaragua, the one a treaty of commerce, and the other a treaty for the construction of the proposed ship canal, which treaties he brought with him on his return home. He also negotiated a treaty of commerce with Honduras; and in each of these treaties it is recited that he had full powers for the purpose. He had no such powers, and the whole proceeding on his part with reference to those States was not only unauthorized by instructions, but in opposition to those he had received from my predecessor, and after the date of his letter of recall and the appointment of his successor. But I have no evidence that Mr. Hise, whose letter of recall (a copy of which is herewith submitted) bears date of the 22d of May, 1849, had received that letter on the 21st day of June, when he negotiated the The twelfth article of the treaty negotiated by Mr. Hise in effect guarantees the perfect independence of the State of Nicaragua and her sovereignty over her alleged limits from the Carribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, pledging the naval and military power of the United States to support it. This treaty authorizes the chartering of a corporation by this Government to cut a canal outside of the limits of the United States, and gives to us the exclusive right to fortify and command it. I have not approved it nor have I now submitted it for ratification; not merely because of the facts already mentioned, but because on the thirty-first day of December last Señor Edwardo Carcache, on being accredited to this Government as charge d' affairs from the State of Nicaragua, in a note to the Secretary of State, a translation of which is herewith sent, declared that he was only empowered to exchange ratifications of the treaty concluded with Mr. Squier, and that the special convention concluded at Guatemala by Mr. Hise, the charge d' affaires of the United States, and Señor Selva, the commissioner of Nicaragua, had been, as was publicly and universally known, disapproved by his Government.' "This treaty is not intended to secure to the United States any monopoly or exclusive advantage in the use of the canal. Its object is to guarantee protection to American citizens and others who shall construct the canal, and to defend it when completed against unjust confiscations or obstructions, and to deny the advantages of navigation through it to those nations only which shall refuse to enter into the same guaranties. A copy of the contract of the canal company is herewith transmitted, from which, as well as from the treaty, it will be perceived that the same benefits are offered to all nations in the same terms. As there is nothing narrow, selfish, illiberal, or exclusive in the views of the United States as set forth in this treaty, as it is indispensable to the successful completion of the comtemplated canal to secure protection to it from the local authorities and this Government, and, as I have no doubt that the British pretension to the port of San Juan in right of the Mosquito King is without just foundation in any public law ever before recognized in any other instance by Americans or Englishmen as applicable to Indian titles on this continent, I shall ratify this treaty in case the Senate shall advise that course." in 1835. As early as March 3, The Sentiment 1835, the Senate had passed the following resolution in executive session, and in reply thereto President Jackson had sent an agent to negotiate a treaty with Central America and New Granada: "Resolved, That the President of the United States be respectfully requested to consider the expediency of opening negotia tions with the Governments of Central America and New Granada for the purpose of effectually protecting, by suitable treaty stipulations with them, such individuals or companies as may undertake to open a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by the construction of a ship canal across the isthmus which connects North and South America, and of securing forever by such stipulations the free and equal rights of navigating such a canal to all such nations on the payment of such reasonable tolls as may be established to compensate the capitalists who may engage in such undertaking and complete the work." Within a few days Clayton-Bulwer after the President had Treaty. given the question to Congress and the American people for discussion, the diplomatic strain was suddenly relieved by a compromise known in history as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. This treaty was practically a renunciation on the part of both England and the United States of all designs by either country to control this canal. It has been said that by the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty the United States surrendered any special right to control any interoceanic waterway. This renunciation has been denied by several American administrations, the claims being that the treaty was subject to abrogation at any time by either nation; in fact, the State Department at Washington has virtually contended that the United States had ratified that treaty to accomplish that which otherwise would require a victorious war, viz: to dislodge Great Britain from Central America. The treaty provided that "neither the one nor the other (Great Britain and the United States) will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the said ship canal; agreeing, that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortification commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast or any part of Central America." It was also agreed that neither country would take advantage of any intimacy, or use any alliance, connection or influence that either may possess with any state or government through whose territory the said canal may pass, for the purpose of acquiring or holding, directly or indirectly, for the citizens or the subjects of the one, any rights or advantages in regard to commerce or navigation through the said canal which shall not be offered on the same terms to the citizens or subjects of the other." The treaty provides for the joint protection of any company constructing said canal “from unjust detention, confiscation, seizure or any violence whatsoever." The neutrality was guaranteed and it was agreed "to invite every state with which both or either have friendly intercourse, to enter into stipulations with them similar to those which they have entered into with each other, to the end that all other states may share in the honor and advantage of having contributed to a work of such general interest and importance as the canal herein contemplated," The treaty affected particularly the Nicaragua route, but the same protection was thrown around any other canal that might be constructed; the treaty specifying that: The Governments of the United States and Great Britain, having not only desired, in entering into this convention, to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree to extend their protection by treaty stipulations to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North and South America, and especially to the interoceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama. In granting, however, their joint protection to any such canals or railways as are by this article specified, it is always understood by the United States and Great Britain that the parties constructing or owning the same shall impose no other charges or conditions of traffic thereupon than the aforesaid Governments shall approve of as just and equitable; and that the same canals or railways, being open to the citizens and subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal terms, shall also be open on like terms to the citizens and subjects of every other state which is willing to grant thereto such protection as the United States and Great Britain engage to afford. Renounced. The building of the Panama The Treaty Canal some years later was the occasion of a diplomatic discussion which virtually abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty; in fact, President Hayes' administration served notice to the world that any canal connecting the two oceans across the American Isthmus must, as a purely defensive measure, be controlled by the United States Government. An old treaty (1846) with the Government of Colombia (New Granada), guaranteeing to the United States control and military occupation, was relied upon to sustain the latter Government in its contentions over the Panama Canal. Mr. Blaine's greatest work as Secretary of State was his spirited controversy with Lord Granville concerning the control of this canal. Mr. Blaine served notice to the European courts, through the State Department and its agents that the question was settled so far as the United States was concerned. To the American ministers at European capitals he made the statement that it had "fallen under the observation of the President, through the current statements of the European press and other usual channels of communication, that the great powers of Europe may possibly be considering the subject of jointly guaranteeing the neutrality of the interoceanic canal now projected across the Isthmus of Panama." Mr. Blaine disclaimed any desire or intention on the part of the United States to obtain any special privileges or discriminations in a commercial way, but that the United States would the Isthmus transit being in any event used offensively against her interests upon the land or upon the sea." He claimed that the waterway was of vital concern to the United States, as much so as the trans-continental railways. He recalled the rights of the United States guaranteed by the treaty of 1846 over any canal constructed across the Isthmus of Panama, and made the statement that "any attempt to supersede that guarantee by an agreement of European powers, which maintain vast armies and patrol the sea with immense fleets, and whose interests in the canal and its operation can never be so vital and supreme as ours, would partake of the nature of an alliance against the United States, and would be regarded by this Government as an indication of unfriendly feeling. It would be but an inadequate response to the good will we bear them, and our cheerful and constant recognition of their own rights of domestic policy, as well as those resulting from proximity or springing from neighborly interests." This correspondence created some excitement in England, and the press of that country roundly denounced Mr. Blaine for his "Jingoism." Mr. Blaine addressed a note to Mr. Lowell, instructing him to propose to the British Government a revision of the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, his arguments being far more conciliatory than his former communications. Mr. Blaine wrote: discretion of Her Majesty's Government. The military power of the United States, as shown by the recent civil war, is without limit, and, in any conflict on the American Continent, altogether irresistible. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty commands this Government not to use a single regiment of troops to protect its interests in connection with the interoceanic canal, but to surrender the transit to the guardianship and control of the British navy. If no American soldier is to be quartered on the Isthmus to protect the rights of his country in the interoceanic canal, surely - by the fair logic of neutrality—no war vessel of Great Britain should be permitted to appear in the waters that control either entrance to the canal. * Great Britain appreciates the advantage, and perhaps the necessity, of maintaining, at the cost of large military and naval establishments, the interior and nearest route to India, while any nation with hostile intent is compelled to take the longer route and travel many thousand additional miles through dangerous seas. It is hardly conceivable that the same great power, which considers herself justified in taking these precautions for the safety of a remote colony on another continent, should object to the United States adopting similar, but far less demonstrative, measures for the protection of the distant shores of her own domain, for the drawing together of the extremes of the Union in still closer bonds of interest and sympathy, and for holding, in the quiet determination of an honorable self-defense, the absolute control of the great waterway which shall unite the two oceans, and which the United States will always insist upon treating as part of her coast-line. If a hostile movement should at any time be made against the Pacific coast, threatening danger to its people and destruction to its property, the Government of the United States would feel that it had been unfaithful to its duty and neglectful toward its own citizens, if it permitted itself to be bound by a treaty which gave the same right through the canal to a warship, bent on an errand of destruction, that is reserved to its own navy, sailing for the defense of our coast and the protection of the lives of our people. And as England insists, by the might of her power, that her enemies in war shall strike her Indian possessions only by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, so the Government of the United States will equally insist that the interior, more speedy and safer route of the canal shall be reserved for ourselves, while our enemies, if we shall ever be so unfortunate as to have any, shall be remanded to the voyage around Cape Horn. "A consideration of controlling influence in this question is the well-settled conviction on the part of this Government that only by the United States exercising supervision, can the Isthmus canal be definitely, and at all times, secured against the interference and obstruction incident to war. A mere agreement of neutrality, on paper, between the great powers of Europe might prove ineffectual to preserve the canal in time of hostilities. The first sound of a cannon in a general European war would, in all probability, annul the treaty of neutrality, and the strategic position of the canal, commanding both oceans, might be held by the first naval power that could seize it. If this should be done, the United States would suffer such grave inconvenience and loss in her domestic commerce as would enforce the duty of a defensive and protective war on her part, for the mere purpose of gaining that control which, in advance, she insists is due to her position and demanded by her necessities. I am not arguing or assuming that a general war, or any war at all, is imminent in Europe, but it must not be forgotten that within the past twenty-five years all of the great powers of Europe have been engaged in war most of them more than once. In only a single instance in the past hundred years has the United States exchanged a hostile shot with any European power. It is in the highest degree improbable that for a hundred years to come even that experience will be repeated. It consequently becomes evident that the one conclusive mode of preserving any Isthmus canal from the possible distraction and destruction of war, is to place it under the control of that government least likely to be engaged in war, and able, in any and every event, to enforce the guardianship which she will assume. For self-protection to her own interests, therefore, the United States, in the first instance, asserts her right to control the Isthmus transit; and, secondly, she offers by such control that absolute neutralization of the canal, as respects European powers, which can in no other way be certainly attained and lastingly assured." Mr. Blaine asked that "every part of the treaty which forbids the United States fortifying the canal and holding the political control of it" be cancelled; that "every part of the treaty in which Great Britain and the United States agree to make no acquisition of territory in Central America to remain in full force;" that the United States will not object to maintaining the clause looking to the establishment of a free port at each end of whatever canal may be constructed, if England desires it to be retained; " that the provisions for a |