134 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



States, mutually desirous, as they are, and I trust ever may 

 be, of maintaining the most friendly relations with each 

 other, have unfortunately concluded a treaty which they un- 

 derstand in senses directly opposite, the wisest course is to 

 abrogate such a treaty by mutual consent and to commence 

 anew. Had this been done promptly," he continued, "all 

 difficulties in Central America would most probably ere this 

 have been adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties. The 

 time spent in discussing the meaning of the Clayton-Bulwer 

 treaty would have been devoted to this praiseworthy pur- 

 pose, and the task would have been the more easily accom- 

 plished because the interest of the two countries in Central 

 America is identical, being confined to securing safe transits 

 over all the routes across the isthmus." 



LordNapier, the British Minister in Washington, scenting 

 danger in the hostile attitude of the Buchanan administra- 

 tion, approached the President with a new plan of settlement 

 which he said his government was desirous of suggesting. 

 An arbitrary abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, he be- 

 lieved, would surely lead to acts in Central America which 

 would disrupt the diplomatic relations of the two countries; 

 this he was anxious to prevent. His proposition included 

 two alternatives: a mutual abandonment of the treaty with 

 a return to the status quo ante, in which case both powers 

 would be left free to act in Central America just as if no 

 treaty had ever been made ; the other alternative was to 

 lay the treaty, with its ambiguous phraseology and mis- 

 understood provisions, before some European court of arbi- 

 tration. 



The President could accept neither of these propositions. 

 That portion of the treaty which especially called for revision 

 involved principles relating to the Monroe Doctrine, and the 

 President suspected that those principles would not stand the 

 test of a European tribunal. And, on the other hand, a 

 formal recognition by the United States of the complete 

 validity of English rights, as previously claimed in Central 

 America, would be wholly impracticable. 



With these avenues closed, Lord Napier then presented to 



