122 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



possessions, or permitting her to retain them), the Senate 

 accepted the above message without protest, and would 

 thereby seem not to have been surprised or disappointed 

 as if by a new and astounding revelation. 



Had Mr. Clayton been endowed with a keener sense of 

 that political foresight which was possessed to such a 

 marked degree by Washington and Jefferson, he would have 

 recognized his error in not holding out firmly against British 

 asserted rights in the " dependencies " of British Honduras, 

 and making British abandonment of the Mosquito protec- 

 torate a condition of all negotiation. There can be little 

 doubt that Palmerston eventually would have yielded, and 

 Mr. Clayton would have spared his country many unfortu- 

 nate misunderstandings with Great Britain, and years of 

 controversy between Washington and London. 



With due respect for Mr. Clayton's skilful management of 

 a difficult international situation and for the ability which 

 he may have displayed in delivering the nation from possi- 

 ble war, an unpleasant appearance of double-dealing with 

 the Senate is inseparably connected with his correspondence 

 on the subject. Just why Mr. Clayton did not choose to 

 make Congress cognizant of the exact meaning of Bulwer's 

 qualifying note can now be understood, and his motives 

 appreciated; yet the questionable course which he saw fit 

 to adopt at a critical moment was a temptation to which he 

 should not have yielded an error he should not have 

 committed. Had Mr. Clayton been less actuated by fear, he 

 might have utilized for his own benefit those very threats 

 of war which terrorized him into concluding a bad bargain. 

 That both Bulwer and Palmerston were alarmed by the pros- 

 pect of war, and that they were willing to direct their 

 course well within the lines of discretion, is made manifest 

 from certain portions of their correspondence while the treaty 

 was in course of negotiation. 



Sir Henry Bulwer's tactics in the making of the treaty 

 have been a frequent theme of censure against English 

 diplomacy in this country. That he played his hand skil- 

 fully, reserving to best advantage his largest trump until the 



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