readers the whole of that masterly despatch, in which Mr. Crampton, at the solicitation of Lord Clarendon, makes a formal statement of his case. This document should be in the hands of everybody who wishes to understand this affair thoroughly; and should especially be read in connection with the final note of Mr. Marcy, explanatory of Mr. Crampton's dismissal. It is a pity that Lord Clarendon had not the boldness to transmit it to the American minister as it stood. It might have had a wholesome effect at the time. Arriving, as it did, in the "Blue Book" the other day, it was simply calculated to increase those elements of repulsiveness which scem by that time to have rendered any intercourse between our Minister and the present government of America impossible.

On what grounds, then, is this extreme act of dismissal sought to be justified? Let the answer be supplied from the despatch we have just referred to. They are shortly these: that he undertook to do what was contrary to the municipal laws of the country, as well as derogatory of its sovereign rights, in "hiring or retaining" recruits for a nation at war with a friendly power. That he continued to authorize this infringement of the law after instructions had reached him from his government to desist--both these allegations being sustained solely by that evidence which Mr. Crampton was not allowed to question, and which he has given such good reasons for discrediting unless indeed the verbal contradiction of Mr. Marcy, supported by some unsatisfactory allegations which he calls "cumulative evidence," is to be admitted as impugning the solemn, clear, and deliberate statement of Mr. Crampton himself. That, notwithstanding the satisfactory arrangement of the dispute between the governments of the two countries, consisting of an apology on our part, and the acceptance of it on that of America, the Minister who it is insisted is guilty, but who has had no means allowed him of proving his innocence and who besides must be understood to have already apologized in the apology of his government, can on personal grounds no longer be endured or communicated with as Her Majesty's representative. That even were the President disposed to wait

until the "cumulative proofs" should have been submitted, so as to give an opportunity of reply, the "exceptional character" of Mr. Crampton's despatches, recently come to his notice in the "Blue Book," would have precluded any such thought of delay.

Here it is that the shoe pinches, as regards Mr. Crampton. At least, this, and his participation in the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, are enough. He must be got rid of. He was a party to the policy of 1850. Moreover, he has seen through, and spoken out about, the policy of 1855.

He had said, on the 16th of July in the latter year :-

I believe Mr. Rowcroft to be entirely innocent; and it would appear, even from the newspaper reports, that the means employed to get up the charge, reflect anything but credit on the law officers of the United States at Cincinnati.

What, however, renders the want of information under which Mr. Marcy evidently laboured when he made the statement in

question, more extraordinary, is the fact that on the day he wrote his despatch, viz., the 13th of October, I had addressed to him an official note on the subject, calling his attention not only to the reports of the proceedings in question, published in the American newspapers, but to the communications I have received from Her Majesty's Consuls at Boston, Cincinnati, and New York, on the subject, and to the handbill circulated secretly among the Irish societies, of which I inclosed to Mr. Marcy a printed copy.

In the following passage of Mr. Crampton's "statement," he remarks upon this refusal to permit Her Majesty's ministers to be heard in their own defence::

I think, my lord, that we have some reason to complain of this treatment, as very little in harmony with what might be ex

pected at the hands of a friendly power; as showing needless distrust of Her Majesty's representative and Consuls; and, if I may be permitted to say so, as unmerited by the personal character and reputation of those gentlemen or myself.

Mr. Marcy, as well as the President, I had flattered myself would have felt convinced that, however erroneous they might suppose my views of the Neutrality Laws to be, I should have disdained to shield myself from their consequences by concealment or subterfuge; and that, upon inquiry of me, every act and proceeding of mine would have been frankly communicated to them. It would then have been unnecessary for the law officers of the United States to resort to the aid of spies and informers, in order to obtain evidence against us. By so doing they have been (as might have been expeeted) grossly misled; and it will now be my duty to refute, as far as I am able, the misrepresentations and calumnies which have resulted from the l-conceived method of obtaining information resorted to by the Government of the United States.

The insinuations contained in the following passage from the same document are not very flattering to Mr. Marcy:

Conceiving that the object of the American Government, in making through M. Buchanan the remonstrance against recruitment in the United States contained in that Minister's note of the 16th of July, had now been fully attained, I addressed to Mr. Marcy (on the 8th of August) a private letter, suggesting to him, on my own personal responsibility and without instructions from my Government, the expediency, with a view to avoiding the appearance of any want of harmony between the two Governments, of dropping the legal proceedings which had been instituted against Her Majesty's Consul at Cincinnati, and against other parties at New York, for a violation of the Neutrality Laws.

To this friendly overture I received no reply from Mr. Marcy, although he had returned to Washington and I had several conversations with him on other subjects, but at which he never alluded to the subject of the recruitment.

On the 24th of August I ventured to enquire of Mr. Marcy whether my letter had ever reached him; he replied that it had, that the subject of it was under advisement, and that he would shortly communicate with me in regard to it.

This was all that passed, nor did Mr. Marcy make the slightest allusion either to the correspondence which had taken place between Mr. Buchanan and yourself, to the new point of view in which the Government of the United States now regarded the question, or to the pretended "disclosures" upon which charges

have since been brought forward against Her Majesty's Diplomatic and Consular Agents, and against the British provincial authorities.

Had Mr. Marcy inforined me of these matters, I should at all events have been able to demonstrate to him the falsehood of those charges. And even supposing that I might not have succeeded in changing his view of the subject, and he still should have conceived that he had grounds for complaint against Her Majesty's Government and their Agents, he would at least have been obliged to weigh my statements as to facts against those of the witnesses who have been brought forward as "State's evidence" to depose in a Court of Justice to the grossest falsehoods, and he would have been able to ground his complaints, if he still had thought it necessary to make then, upon my statements and not upon evidence of a character which reflects little credit upon the parties who have had recourse to it.

Finally, the observations embodied in the despatch of March 14th, 1856, are too significant to be easily borne, The topic is still the recruitment of men in the States :-

It was only by Mr. Marcy's note of the 5th of September, that I was at once informed both of the view taken of the matter by the United States' government, and of their belief that I myself was implicated in the affair of which they complained.

From June 6, therefore, to September 5, during the whole of which time, with the exception of six days (from June 20 to June 26), I was at Washington, and during the whole of which time Mr. Marcy, as it has since appeared, believed that recruitments were successfully going on, which recruitments it was natural to suppose I might have had some influence in stopping or preventing, no remonstrance or communication of any sort was made to me on the subject, and during the greater part of that time, while evidence was being industriously collected by the United States' District Attor neys, through the means of paid spies and informers, against myself and other officers of her Majesty's service, it was not thought expedient by the United States' government to give either myself or them any notice of what was going forward, or to break silence on the subject to us at all, until a case against us had been matured and completed, by which it was hoped and expressly and avowedly intended to convict us publicly of the offence of a violation of the law.

It is not for me to speculate as to the motives by which the United States' government were actuated in this course of proceeding, but it certainly would seem that it was dictated rather by a desire to ensure the public conviction of certain parties of an offence, by silently watching their proceedings until they had involved themselves in some illegal act,

than by a desire to put a stop as early as possible, by timely warning, to any further steps in the execution of a plan which was in their opinion likely to disturb the friendly

relations of the two countries.

In a word, Mr. Marcy is charged, in numerous passages of these despatches, with something approaching to a deli berate intention, by unscrupulous means and through unworthy misrepresentations, of embroiling the British government at home, or at least the British minister in America, with his own country, and exciting a hostile feeling against one or both. A grave charge one which the American minister must feel bound for his credit not to endure. In short, the publication of the Blue Book was the signal for Mr. Crampton's recall, or removal

-one or the other. He and that book could not be in America together, and co-operate with a Pierce ministry. We purposely abstain from entering upon the parallel case of the consuls, both because it is comprised in that of the minister, and because it may be assumed that those gentlemen were included in this extreme measure rather for the sake of consistency than for any other cause. Mr. Crampton had boldly impugned the fair dealing of the American government, in despatches to his own. Parliament required that these despatches should be made public. They were so—too soon, we think but that is of little consequence. They were published; and America was delighted at the excuse they afforded for the step IT

HAD OTHER REASONS FOR WISHING TO TAKE.

The recruiting question is all a sham. Russia probably fomented the dispute for its own immediate purposes; but it made a mistake. It ought to have avoided weakening England on that side, for obvious reasons. The true question as between the respective nations is the Central American one. In the earlier part of this paper we have given a brief history of that question. But we have yet to speculate as to the motives which may have actuated the parties to the dispute, and which may exercise their influence on its progress or termination. Protected by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, a ship-canal of vast dimensions was to be constructed across Central America by means of British capital, by which America

was to gain great advantages. This protectorate was not to be obtained without some sacrifice, and accordingly America, seeing she could do no less, agreed to sacrifice-what? Not dominion--not territory-not money. No-but her aggressive course-her normal condition of advance-her annexing, monopolizing, dominating spirit, in one direction. Central America was precluded, for all time, from being the scene of her characteristic policy. This was the price she was to pay for her canal-for that it would be hers in the main, she confidently, and perhaps rightly, expected.

But unforeseen difficulties arose. Capitalists were cautious, slow, suspicious. A year-two years-a third year, nearly, passed over, and nothing was done. At last, the scheme broke down. The project of a ship-canal was abandoned. Observe the dates. On the 27th of October, 1852, M. Marcoleta, the Minister of Nicaragua in New York, writes to Mr. Crampton to the following effect :

M. le Ministre,

The Legation of Nicaragua has just learned that the American Canal Company of New York, finding it impossible to execute the important line of inter-oceanic communication on account of the want of co-operation of the capitalists of Great Britain, has resolved to propose to the government of Nicaragua a modification of the original contract for constructing a canal of smaller dimensions than those stipulated in the second Article of the above-named contract.

By this announcement America, as well as England, found herself shut out from all those advantages she had done so much, as she thought, to secure. For ships of large burden alone did either nation want a canal. The benefits to be derived by America from the Treaty were wholly lost to her.

M. Marcoleta's letter was dated October 27th, 1852. On the 28th of December following, the subjoined resolution was offered to the Senate of the United States by Mr. Cass :--

:

Resolved, That the president be requested to communicate to the senate, as far as may be compatible with the public interest, any information in the department of state respecting the establishment of a new British colony in Central America; together with the copy of a proclamation, if received at the

said department, issued by the British authorities at the Belize, July 17, 1852, announcing that "Her Most Gracious Majesty our Queen has been pleased to constitute and make the Islands of Ruatan, Bonacca, Utilla, Barbarat, Helma, and Morat to be a colony, to be known and designated as the Colony of the Bay Islands," and signed "By command of Her Majesty's Superintendent, Augustus Fred. Gore, Colonial Secretary." And also what measures, if any, have been taken by the Executive to prevent the violation of that Article of the Treaty of Washington of July 4, 1850, between the United States and Great Britain, which provides that neither party shall"occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America.'

Thus it appears that as soon as ever the benefit to be derived from a Treaty to which America was a party, and which had never been questioned or commented upon, was at an end, the American Senate began to read it over again, and with what object? Why, to get rid of it. THIS is the idea which, taken up by the government of President Pierce, lies at the bottom of the whole dispute, and has extended itself even into the apparently distinct precincts of the recruitment quarrel. As the treaty was framed, and was intended to be understood by its framers, it was for the "great design" of the convention, to tie the hands of both parties from encroachment in the neighbourhood of the canal. We were a little too close to it at one end, and an adjustment was to be made there-that was to be arranged. America was not near either end-there was nothing to be settled as regarded her. But now there was to be no canal-there was no "great design," for which to make a sacrifice. What, America says, have we done, then? Simply renounced for ever the right to attack, overrun, overwhelm, or "annex," or, in the words of the treaty, оссиpy, fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion" over any part of Central America.

We English were quite ready to renounce. The little we had there was enough for us. If we possessed nothing there, it would have been the same thing. It was no object with us to make new acquisitions in that quarter. At least, no object sufficiently paramount to

quarrel or manoeuvre for. Not so in the case of America. She found her "destiny" interfered with in this region. There was a Clayton-Bulwer Cordillera in her path. Aggression here was out of the question, the Treaty still in existence. Well let us look at it-let us spell it-let us turn it upside down-let us read it backwards, as witches jabber their prayers-perhaps we may find that it means one thing in English-another in American. "Central America"that in English is a political designation, and in such a sense is bounded by the limits of those republics in which the designation was first used. But geographers, geologists, botanists, antiquaries, stretch the term till it reaches the sea at both sides, and don't acknowledge little settlements and dependencies outside it. Well-that

shall be the American meaning of the words. Nay, it shall be, in spite of their own declarations, Messrs. Clayton and Bulwer's meaning, and they shall not be permitted to say to the contrary. "Occupy"-that, it is true, in English, as its very first primitive meaning, is to take adverse possession of, to seize. Such it is by its derivation. Such is invariably its meaning, when used as an active verb in military or political parlance. But that wont do for us. We must make it retrospective, and use it as a sort of stern-chaser, to drive out the British from possessions which they have hitherto been snugly enjoying, by giving it an American meaning of our own, similar to that it bears when applied to furnished apartments, and the like. "Not to occupy" a post may indeed be held to mean, not to take it by force and retain it: but "not to occupy" Central America is a notice to quit; and the tenant must be ejected from those spacious premises if he does not go quietly.

Such was the argument of Mr. Cass in 1852-such, stripped of its diplomatic trappings, is the language of Mr. Marcy at this moment. The words of the Treaty are studiously dis torted, not, we are firmly convinced, for the purpose of disturbing us in our occupancy, such as it is, of the British Honduras and its dependencies, so much as to give the colour of an excuse for a contemplated repudiation of the Treaty itself. Nay, we doubt whether it would not be a disappoint

ment if we were to surrender our possessions in Central America tomorrow, and adopt the American reading of the Treaty. What Mr. Marcy wants is to get out of it. The repudiation will leave America free to pursue her own course -to work out her own "destiny." And in this light it will be easier to see why that oracular and not very defensible dictum called "The Monroe Doctrine" was promulgated so clamorously at the period in question. Should the treaty be annulled, ordinary people might think that American aggression on the Central American states might still be met-or neutralised-by British aggression in the same quarter. But, no! the shade of Monroe interposes, and enunciates the following apophthegm :

The American Continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered subjects for future colonization by any European Powers.

What, then, should the policy of England be in the face of these things? She cannot expect, if our view of American ulterior designs be correct, that the powers with which Mr. Dallas is said to be invested, and the proposals for arbitration, limited and useless as they are, which he is entrusted to offer, are intended to bring the questions at issue to a termination. She must act upon the assumption that they are illusive. The dismissal of Mr. Crampton being only one step in a course to which the American Government (we will not include the American nation) is pledged, she must not suffer herself to be diverted from the path to which honour and policy alike point, unless she is prepared to see those objects already faintly indicated carried out to their full extent, and Anglo-Saxon America absorb the whole of the geographical continent of that name. There are indeed men Englishmen, they call themselves who not only fancy they see this "destiny" before the race, but actually call upon England to approve and co-operate in achieving it for them! The poor Indian was scarcely violating his duty when he fought for his hunting-fields against the white man-and yet the white man's "destiny" was to supplant him. Besides, in this case, the "destiny' of the race may point to the Anglo

Saxon Englishmen as well as to the An-. glo-Saxon American. The "Monroe. doctrine" takes no notice of the Anglo-Saxon. It is the American who alone is to colonize America. This doctrine we have a right to resist, sofar as it may be construed as justifying American aggression. As dor trine, it is senseless. There is no proposition involved in it. It is a simple political manifesto--and as a manifesto, it is, of course, morally binding upon nobody, and only obligatory in practice where resistance is impossible.

England will therefore be called upon to decide, sooner or later, whether she will submit to the development of the doctrine in question to its legitimate extent, or take timely measures to check it. If the decision must be arrived at in the end, it seems to us that it would be the better part of policy to make up our minds at once. We shall have the fairer chance of resisting successfully what has been met manfully. It is very far from our wish to urge upon the country measures which might possibly lead to a disturbance of our relations with a nation to which we are bound as we are to America. That disaster is to be deprecated on every account. But assuming that a dangerous and aggressive policy lurks under the successive acts of the American government, we put it to ministers whether it might not be wiser and safer to shew that we are not deceived-that we distrust appearances that we care little for professions-that, in short, we are. determined to pursue the course dietated by honour, at the hazard of offending men who see in such a course obstacles thrown in the way of deeplylaid and long-cherished schemes of ambition.

We need scarcely enunciate more plainly what follows by necessary implication from our premises-that, even had the charges of indiscretion and incompetence been brought home to Mr. Crampton, his dismissal should not have been submitted to as it was; and that since they were not, it was derogatory to the dignity of the empire, and prejudicial to its real interests, to retain the American Ambassador under the illusive supposition that through him differences would be settled, which it is the interests of his country to leave unadjusted.