104 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



development of public sentiment which indicates a purpose 

 to claim, and possibly to demand, full and absolute political, 

 if not commercial, control of any Central American canal 

 wherever and whenever it may be built. 



A review of the diplomatic aspects of this canal problem 

 must be taken, and to make its history the more intelligible, 

 it must be treated in connection with early events in Central 

 America, out of which these international questions arose. 



II 



The earliest Spanish discoverers and explorers in the 

 Western Hemisphere were followed almost immediately by 

 numbers of their countrymen who came to win fortune in 

 the New World. Considering the many perils of unknown 

 seas and the many risks ashore, these Spanish pioneers 

 founded flourishing colonies in Central and South America 

 in a surprisingly short time. The Anglo-Saxon navigators, 

 for the greater part, limited their field of exploration to the 

 mainland of North America, and the colonists from the colder 

 climates of Northern Europe sought regions where the win- 

 ters brought snow and ice. 



For quite a hundred years the Spanish enjoyed an unlim- 

 ited monopoly of the trade connected with the Gulf of Mexico 

 and the CaribbeanSea. In the sixteenth century Spain, at the 

 zenith of her power and strength, grew opulent upon the rich 

 returns from her transatlantic possessions. But her fleets of 

 galleons, which took home the treasures of America, offered 

 great temptations to piracy by certain adventurous spirits in 

 Europe and America. In the early part of the seventeenth 

 century, the famous " Buccaneers of the Spanish Main " ap- 

 peared like so many harpies to prey upon these richly laden 

 vessels of Spain. They came in steadily increasing numbers, 

 sometimes founding settlements of their own in the West 

 Indian Islands, whence they made excursions for robbery and 

 plunder. Among these companies of roving freebooters a band 

 of Englishmen found for themselves a safe and convenient ren- 

 dezvous in the lagoons of the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. 



