VENEZUELA AND AFTER 329 



Such seems to have been the conclusion reached 

 by the British and American Governments, and 

 the procedure in accordance with which it was 

 put in practice effected smoothly and harmoni 

 ously the remarkable series of agreements that 

 brought the century of peace to a close in un 

 precedented good feeling. The era had come 

 of a singularly sane and gifted series of per 

 sonalities in control of American foreign affairs. 

 John Hay, after distinguished success at the 

 court of Saint James s, became in 1899 head of 

 the Department of State at Washington. Jo 

 seph H. Choate succeeded Hay as ambassador 

 at London. Elihu Root, after indispensable 

 service in other positions, took over the Depart 

 ment of State at the death of Hay in 1905. 

 To these men on the American side, with 

 Salisbury, Lansdowne, and Grey at the British 

 Foreign Office, and Pauncefote and James 

 Bryce in the British embassy at Washington, 

 is to be ascribed in a particular degree, though 

 without disparagement of others, the con 

 firmation of that deep amity with which the 

 century of peace came to a close. 



The decade following 1898 shows a far larger 

 total of diplomatic agreements between Great 

 Britain and the United States than any other 



