to act, so menaced the canal route through Nicaragua, that the President determined on a mission of reconnaisance, as it were. Elijah Hise was named as chargé to Guatemala, with instructions to "cultivate more friendly relations" throughout Central America, whose break-up from one nation into many fragments was believed responsible for the aggressions of Great Britain. But the mission of Hise is significant less for its accomplishments than as an indication that the country had at last awakened to the seriousness of the problem. Its solution was deferred till the next administration.

For Polk himself the sands of power and life as well were running low. He could look back upon an administration of singular success. Not a brilliant or a dashing figure personally, he was wise enough to call into his cabinet an able Secretary of State and a still more gifted Treasurer, and capable enough to dominate them both. Oregon, California, the vast Mexican cession, a new phase of the Monroe Doctrine, and the first approaches to a Panama Canal are the monuments of Polk's foreign policy.

T

CHAPTER XIV

WIDENING CONTACTS

HE Whig triumph in 1848 was a natural reaction from a Democratic war not popular in itself, and brought to a successful outcome chiefly by Whig generals. It placed in the Presidency a hero whose political knowledge was slight, and who chose for his department of foreign affairs a man whose name then little known was soon to be identified with a treaty which, of all the United States has ever entered, was to prove the least acceptable.

CANAL BEGINNINGS

The outstanding foreign problem inherited from Polk was in fact the Nicaraguan. Here the new administration straightway superseded Hise with an agent of its own, E. George Squier, who was appointed chargé d'affaires to the whole of Central America. Squier was instructed to obtain from Nicaragua a right of way as favorable to Americans as to any other power, but as it was recognized that British capital had vested interests in this territory, an American monopoly was not demanded.

On reaching Nicaragua in July, 1849, Squier learned that Hise, exceeding his instructions, was returning to the United States with treaties ready made, not only with Guatemala, to which he was originally accredited, but with Honduras and Nicaragua as well. By the last named, in contrast with the instructions given Squier, the United States was granted a monopoly in the Nicaraguan route, in return for which the United States should guarantee the sovereignty of Nicaragua.

The work of Hise, unauthorized as it was, could not bind his successor, who proceeded as though no treaty had

been made. At every point he noted British interference. operating silently to convert debts due British subjects into cessions of strategic points. Tigre Island, belonging to Honduras, opposite the Pacific terminus of a Nicaraguan route, was especially threatened. Squier labored with Honduras to prevent this cession, and with Nicaragua to promote the objects of an American canal company intent on starting operations. But the labors of both Squier and Hise seemed doomed to equal ineffectiveness when in October, 1849, Great Britain seized the Tigre Island, and by an act of force removed the issue from petty intrigues among third-rate states, to the theater of world events.1

The main thread of negotiation now fell to George Bancroft, our minister at St. James', eminent among the literary men who have filled that post. Bancroft's original instructions related to the absence of foundation for British pretensions to the Mosquito Coast. They conveyed the sympathy of his countrymen for Nicaragua in the loss of Greytown or San Juan. Failing satisfaction from Lord Palmerston, the minister was instructed to offer an emphatic protest. He was preparing this when announcement came of his recall and, almost simultaneously, of the negotiations of Hise and Squier.2

The situation was complex. America was rebuking England for unwarranted aggressions at the moment when American agents stood revealed as negotiating for monopolies which their own government disclaimed, and which could never be allowed by England. Indeed, if public clamor should compel a ratification of the Hise treaties, war with Britain could hardly be avoided.

At this juncture, Clayton, the Secretary of State, took up the issue personally with the British minister at Washington. He pointed out that Hise's treaties were unauthorized, and embarrassing to the government. He declared himself in favor of rejecting them. He proposed that in their place Great Britain and ourselves should negotiate

1 Williams, Mary Wilhelmine, Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy 1815-1915 (Washington, 1916), pp. 60-66.

2 Ibid. 67-79.

a treaty granting equal privileges to each. Failing this, America no doubt would accept the Hise arrangement which, authorized or not, was popular. Also when the Squier treaty was received, Clayton was willing to delay considering it, pending an agreement with Great Britain.3

To Mr. Abbott Lawrence, successor to Bancroft, was committed the task of inquiring directly of Lord Palmerston concerning the precise intentions of Great Britain respecting possession of disputed points in Central America. He must further inquire as to British willingness to join with the United States in the guarantee of a railroad or canal to be open on even terms to all the world. He might say for the United States that it felt no desire for territory and would willingly obligate itself to a peaceful policy in Central America.

To both these inquiries Lord Palmerston made favorable replies. But the Squier Treaty he attacked as "an unprovoked aggression toward Great Britain." His dissatisfaction when news reached England that Tigre Island was ceded to the United States, equaled the dissatisfaction in the United States when news reached Washington that British troops had seized the island.

On news of this belligerent act, Lawrence was instructed to demand a disavowal from Lord Palmerston, failing which Great Britain must understand that the treaty would be submitted to the Senate. Lord Palmerston replied adroitly. The British force, he admitted, had acted improperly and without authorization, in apparent contradiction of Great Britain's pledges. But how, he ventured to inquire, could the cession of the island be reconciled with America's own protestations?

THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY

Again the scene of negotiation shifted. Lawrence was too ill to continue it at London, and Clayton dealt at Washington with Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, who arrived as min

3 Ibid. 67-109, is a summary of the entire negotiation.

4 Ibid. 86.

ister in December, 1850. Reviewing the complicated status of recent treaty making, Bulwer suggested, much as Webster had done on the Maine boundary dispute years before, that Clayton and he should take up the whole issue afresh, with the canal question as its core. The minister and the secretary united in a belief that once Congress should debate the treaties—and it was already calling for the papers-all hope of calm deliberation would end. Bulwer accordingly, without waiting for authority, drew up with Clayton the convention of a treaty. Before authority could reach him to make this action valid, new complications had arisen.5

When Palmerston told Lawrence that he disavowed the Tigre Island seizure, he coupled this concession with a belligerent declaration that Great Britain still proposed by every means consistent with the law of nations to make good her claims against Honduras. Whereupon Clayton sent the Squier Treaty to the Senate. He followed this, however, by submitting in April, 1850, the project he had just drawn up with Bulwer. Some opposition developed, but the Senate on the whole approved, and advised the President's acceptance. In May, the approval of Great Britain was received by Bulwer, subject to an amendment that "Her Majesty's Government do not understand the engagements of that convention as applying to Her Majesty's settlement at Honduras, or its dependencies." " Clayton, far from pleased at this, drew up a counter declaration, defining British Honduras as a country quite distinct from the State of Honduras as such. And this with some demur Bulwer accepted.

Here, then, was the background of a most important treaty which, contrary to its purposes, delayed for half a century the canal it sought to further. An insurmountable obstruction was the proviso that control of the canal must never be exclusive. Neither Power might fortify the canal "nor occupy, nor fortify, nor colonize, nor assume nor exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito

Williams, Mary Wilhelmine, Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy 1815-1915, Washington, 1916, 91 ff.

6 Ibid. 103.