THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 73 



A series of diplomatic difficulties and entanglements then 

 arose between the United States and Great Britain touching 

 their respective rights in Nicaragua. These difficulties, to- 

 gether with political conflicts in the United States, operated 

 to decrease public interest in the great undertaking, and so 

 delayed and crippled the American promoters, that the 

 Nicaraguan Congress lost entire confidence in their ability to 

 carry out the company's purpose. It finally (May, 1858) 

 declared a forfeiture of the franchises of the American com- 

 pany and transferred similar rights to one Felix Belly of Paris. 

 The Belly company, however, was unable to secure the funds 

 necessary, even to begin the work, and its concession accord- 

 ingly lapsed. Out of this apparently hopeless confusion, the 

 American Company succeeded in effecting a reorganization 

 under the name of the " Central American Transit Company," 

 and as such continued to claim and exercise the rights and* 

 franchises of the former company until 1869, when it sold and 

 transferred the same to an Italian company. After 1860 public-, 

 interest in the project seems to have wholly subsided in the; 

 United States until the year 1872, when President Grant re- 

 vived the subject by urging that the canal be built by the gov- 

 ernment as a national undertaking. In pursuance of his sug- 

 gestions, he appointed an " Interoceanic Canal Commission," 

 consisting of the chief engineer of the army, A. A. Humphreys, 

 the superintendent of the coast survey, C. P. Patterson, and 

 the chief of the bureau of navigation, Admiral Ammen, under 

 whose direction a series of exhaustive surveys of the Tehuan- 

 tepec, Nicaragua, Panama, San Bias, and Atrato routes was 

 made. The report of the commission favored the Nicaragua 

 route as formerly surveyed by Colonel Childs, and steps were 

 taken to organize a company for the management of the work. 



From the more modest operations of the American promoters 

 in Nicaragua one must turn for a moment to Panama, where, 

 by this time, the De Lesseps scheme was at the height of its 

 activity. Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French engineer, had won 

 the confidence and admiration of the world by his splendid 

 success in constructing the Suez Canal. He had revived the 

 old scheme of a tide-water canal from Colon to Panama, and 



