160 THROUGH THREEFOLD TENSION 



cupation which had hitherto seemed tentative. 

 Eventually it came to public knowledge, what 

 the foreign offices had known only too well, 

 that the British interpretation of the Clayton- 

 Bulwer Treaty involved no obligation whatever 

 to withdraw from Central America. The two 

 governments were, in fact, seriously at logger 

 heads as to the meaning of the vaunted agree 

 ment. 



The British position was this. Just prior 

 to ratifying the treaty Sir Henry Bulwer, the 

 negotiator, made the formal declaration that 

 the British Government did not understand 

 that the provisions applied to her Majesty s 

 settlement at Honduras or to its dependencies. 

 Clayton declared in reply that he also under 

 stood that Article I did not apply to &quot;the Brit 

 ish settlement in Honduras (commonly called 

 British Honduras, as distinct from the State of 

 Honduras), nor the small islands in the neigh 

 borhood of that settlement which may be known 

 as its dependencies.&quot; The guarded expression 

 of Clayton indicates the gist of the controversy 

 that developed. Great Britain claimed a bound 

 ary for British Honduras, or Belize, as it was 

 commonly called, that was denied by the Cen 

 tral American states; she claimed further that 



