108 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



future wealth convinced him of the utmost importance to the 

 United States of maintaining the route free from foreign in- 

 fluence. The canal was destined no doubt to be the main 

 high way connecting the two distant sections of the country. 

 In those early days the all but impassable deserts and unex- 

 plored mountain ranges of the West precluded the idea of 

 a direct overland communication by rail to the Pacific coast, 

 and consequently the importance attached to the Central 

 American route was then much greater in the public mind 

 than in later years. 



Cognizant of these conditions and fully confident that the 

 government at Washington, when once it had been led to 

 appreciate the extent and motives of British aggressions in 

 Central America, would ratify them, he proceeded, though 

 unauthorized to do so, to conclude the articles of a new con- 

 vention with the very willing Nicaraguan Congress. The 

 treaty which he signed in June, 1849, gave to the United 

 .States, besides the usual privileges of such an agreement, the 

 right to erect fortifications along the course of a proposed canal, 

 and to hold and fortify the ports at either end of the route. 

 In return for these privileges, the United States undertook 

 to guarantee Nicaragua's sovereignty from sea to sea over all 

 the territory she claimed. Such a compact, of course, not 

 only completely ignored British claims at Greytown, threat- 

 ening at once to draw England and the United States into a 

 dispute, but it also involved an extravagant application of the 

 Monroe Doctrine which was far too radical to meet with the 

 views of President Taylor. A reaction from the aggressive 

 foreign policy of the Polk administration had set in; Mr. Hise 

 was recalled, and in his place Mr. E. G. Squier was despatched 

 with all haste to Nicaragua to grapple with the situation. 



Mr. Squier's instructions were extremely conservative. 

 He was cautioned against all rash measures calculated to 

 infringe upon the rights of others or needlessly to provoke 

 hostility. He was assured that while the government was 

 at all times ready and willing to maintain the " Monroe Doc- 

 trine," that doctrine was not inconsistent with the idea and 

 purpose that an interoceanic canal should "concede equal 



