106 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



pelled to disavow all colonial claims in Mosquitoland, and by 

 the same instrument the English settlement of Belize was re- 

 duced to the status of a mere tenancy at will. The claims 

 of her subjects amounted to a bare lumbering privilege 

 granted to a company of Englishmen by the Spanish Govern- 

 ment. 



In the future course of events, however, England found 

 further occasion to reestablish her lost prestige in Central 

 America. A few years after the ratification of the Madrid 

 treaty, and just after Spain had lost her sovereignty over the 

 Central American states, the English again appeared on the 

 Mosquito shore. With much pomp and ceremony they 

 crowned the chief of the Mosquito Indians, " King of Mos- 

 quitia," and established an English protectorate over the 

 newly created kingdom. Under the sheltering wing of the 

 great British power, the southern boundary lines of Mos- 

 quitia suddenly expanded so as to include the mouth of the 

 San Juan River, that vital spot of Nicaragua's territory. In 

 quite the same manner, and as suddenly, Belize ripened into 

 an English "possession," with a governor and other officers 

 of state, under the title of " British Honduras," which now 

 as a colony continues to flourish, time having cured the weak- 

 ness of its tenure upon the land, and cleared away the doubts 

 formerly cast upon its rights of existence. 



The purpose of England's tenacious hold upon the main- 

 land of Central America became clearer when, in 1847, the 

 King of Mosquitia announced to the Nicaraguan Government 

 that, on and after January 1, 1848, he would " reassume his 

 l&wf ul control " over the San Juan River. In pursuance of 

 this notice, he duly appeared at the river's mouth with a 

 force of English marines, and raised the colors of Mosquitia. 

 Some skirmishes with the Nicaraguan soldiers resulted, but 

 in the course of a few months, when the excitement had 

 subsided, the English were thoroughly established in the 

 old town of San Juan del Norte at the mouth of the 

 San Juan River, which they changed to the name of 

 " Greytown," and they were moreover strengthened in their 

 enlarged possessions by a new treaty with Nicaragua, which 



