perhaps not be considered the most dangerous. It was clear, from another part of the message, that Buchanan had a very definite cause to believe that the first step would become a necessity in the near future; and those who were so situated as to get a look behind the curtains knew that the further possibility, so far as it depended on the will of the president, was on the way to become a probability.

William Walker had suddenly re-appeared on the stage, after it had been supposed for a moment that a revolution of the wheel of fortune had relegated him forever to the ranks of retired adventurers. By the united efforts of the elements opposed to him in Nicaragua and the other Central American states, his power had been broken just as quickly as he had built it up. After sev eral unsuccessful battles the continuance of the struggle had become impossible, and he must fear that the enemy, if he fell into their hands, would visit the same punishment on him that he had inflicted on Corral. This danger he escaped by delivering himself up on May 1, 1857, with sixteen companions, to the American commander of the American war sloop the "St. Mary's," who brought him to Panama, whence he proceeded to New Orleans. He began to agitate the equipment of another expedition without delay, and immediately found so much support that Cass sent a circular, at the end of September, to the proper officials with an order to prevent the execution of the illegal undertaking; and the secretary of the navy,

ן

1 In the opinion of Walker's friends his defeat was owing partly to the hostile attitude of Captain Davis. See, for instance, Zollicoffer's remarks, Congr. Globe, 1st Sess. 35th Congr., p. 285. His opponents and the administration, on the other hand, claimed that Davis, or, in other words, the administration, had saved him from certain ruin. See the statements of Toucey in his annual report and Doolittle's comments on the same. Ibid., p. 356.

WALKER'S EXPEDITION.

159

Toucey, took measures, at the beginning of October, to capture the filibusters on the sea, in case Cass's order was not carried out. Walker was imprisoned in New Orleans, but set free again on bail in only $2,000; and on the 11th of November he sailed in the "Fashion," as was given out, for Mobile, but really for Punta Arenas.

Of the further fate of the expedition the message could give no information. Indeed little was learned from it about the actual steps taken, although the message devoted a whole page to the matter. Walker's name did not appear in it, nor was it mentioned when and where he had begun his new march of conquest. These, however, were only editorial singularities, as a knowledge of these things had to be supposed.

On the other hand, a matter of essential importance was the dearth of proof that the government had done. its full duty. Whether intended or not, it was none the less a fact that it could not be discovered from the message whether the president considered the existing laws insufficient. He indeed recommended "the whole subject to the serious attention of congress," since duty, interest and national honor demanded effective measures against the filibustering system; but he not only made no definite proposal himself, but did not even directly say that new and more stringent laws were needed. Emphatic, therefore, as was his condemnation of the wrong because contrary to international law, because disastrous and dishonorable, it still bore the character of vagueness. If Buchanan were fully in earnest in his condemnation, he should have avoided this; since he well knew that its honesty would be very much doubted by a great many. He did not need to ask himself now whether it was not an obvious consequence of the history hitherto of the 1 Sen. Doc., 35th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. I, No. 13, p. 7.

filibuster question: the fact was stated in the concisest terms in the official reports of the officers to the members of his cabinet. Yet the fact was the essential thing, even if he had to suffer innocently for the sins of omission of his predecessors. But with what right could the co-author of the Ostend Manifesto, and the person elected by the Cincinnati convention, claim that he should be considered above suspicion in this respect? The Cincinnati platform had declared it to be self-evident that the American people sympathized with ef forts at regeneration in Central America- that is, with the successes of the filibuster, Walker; and had given utterance to the expectations of the democratic party that the next administration would insure the ascendency of the Union over the Gulf of Mexico; and Buchanan had declared that he heartily approved the platform in which his individuality would be entirely swallowed up and disappear. The secretary of state had gone even

1 Lieutenant Almy writes to Toucey on the 29th of October, 1857: "He (A. J. Requier, district attorney of the United States in Mobile) said that he could not but help expressing the opinion that public sentiment in Mobile was in favor of these expeditions to Central America; that it was a frequent theme of conversation on 'change, in the streets, and at the hotels; and further that there seemed an idea to be prevailing in this part of the country that the cabinet at Washington rather winked at the fitting out and departure of these expeditions than to be seriously disposed to prevent them." Ibid., p. 13. 2 According to the New York Tribune of January 8, 1858, he had, on the 21st of May, 1857, telegraphed to a meeting held in New York to sympathize with Walker:

"I am free to confess that the heroic effort of our countrymen at Nicaragua excites my admiration while it engages all my solicitude. I am not to be deterred from the expression of these feelings by sneers, or reproaches, or hard words. He who does not sympathize with such an enterprise has little in common with me.

"The difficulties which General Walker has encountered and overcome will place his name high on the roll of the distinguished men

ESCAPE OF THE "FASHION."

161

further. He had taken occasion to give public and emphatic expressions to his admiration for the person and doings of the adventurer. It was only natural, therefore, and was no evidence of unusual boldness, that Walker should have sent to Cass a formal protest against the request of the representatives of Costa Rica and Guatemala to take positive measures against him, although it was ridiculous for him to protest as the "rightful and lawful president" of Nicaragua. By this protest the government was informed, in the most authentic manner, of his intention to return to Nicaragua; and of the three possible explanations why it did not prevent his doing so the complete insufficiency of the laws, the great unskil fulness and negligence or the secret connivance of the government and its organs—the last was necessarily, judging from the facts cited, considered universally the most obvious and most probable.

Public opinion, however, was in error. The whole matter was very disagreeable to the administration, not because it wanted subsequently, on moral or other grounds, to sever itself on this point from the Cincinnati platform, but because the filibuster had, in an awkward way, thwarted its plans to carry it out.

The escape of the "Fashion" had prompted Buchanan to have Cass conclude a treaty in hot haste with Yrizarri, before the latter had so much as handed him his credentials as representative of Nicaragua.2 Walker had put to sea on the 11th of November, the contract was of his age. He has conciliated the people he went to aid, the government of which he makes a part is performing its functions without opposition, and internal tranquillity marks the wisdom of its policy." The final sentences make the correctness of the date seem doubtful. 1 Sept. 29, 1857. Exec. Doc., 35th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. VII, No. 24, p. 6.

2 See, on the Cass-Yrizarri treaty, Schleiden, pp. 610 ff.

signed on the 15th, and then the New York Steamship Company determined to have its outgoing steamer, contrary to the usual custom, run into San Juan del Norte, in order to get the treaty to Nicaragua soon enough to have its ratification in Washington by the end of November.

The message did not contain the least intimation about the treatycertainly not because it was not of sufficient importance, but, on the contrary, because it was too important to allow anything, at this moment, concerning it to be divulged. Here we need only briefly mention two provisions of articles 15 and 16. The United States obtained the right, without a previous demand of the state government, to send troops over the transit route of Nicaragua, and after notice - not after a demand, as Yrizarri had desired to defend it by force of arms and keep it open in case that duty was not fulfilled by Nicaragua. The gentlemen of the cabinet spoke to the foreign diplomates with wonderful frankness about the broad prospective which these provisions were destined to open. In a conversation with the Hanseatic minister resident, Dr. Schleiden, Cass called the Clayton-Bulwer treaty a "nuisance," which must be canceled; and the secretary of the treasury, Cobb, even told him that the government was bent on a territorial acquisition, and that, on that account, the filibustering march was very inopportune, because it made it seem as if the government wished to use illegitimate means to accomplish its ends.1

In the light of these facts, the correctness of the judg ment expressed above on Buchanan's request to be allowed to use the land and naval forces of the United States in the protection of the transit routes, if he thought it was

1 See, on the Cass-Yrizarri treaty, Schleiden, p. 612.