THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 135 



the President a third scheme for the settlement of the diffi- 

 culty. He explained that the British Government was about 

 to despatch an agent to Central America for the purpose of 

 concluding a series of treaties with those states. In these 

 prospective compacts he declared his government intended to 

 make a disposition of Mosquitia and of the Bay Islands, in 

 accordance with the wishes of the United States, as expressed 

 in the amended form of the Dallas-Clarendon convention. 

 Now, if this could really be accomplished, the President would 

 have 110 cause to feel otherwise than satisfied. " To him it 

 was indifferent," the President said, " whether the concession 

 contemplated by Her Majesty's Government was consigned to 

 a direct engagement between England and the United States, 

 or to treaties between the former and the Central American 

 republics." After a period of argumentative sparring, into 

 which he entered with abundant caution, in order to make it 

 clear to Lord Napier that only a settlement of those vexed 

 Central American matters upon a basis of the American inter- 

 pretation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, would be acceptable 

 to the United States, the President consented to await the 

 results of British negotiations in Central America before 

 making any further move toward its abrogation. 



Sir William Ouseley, the British agent in question, after 

 a preliminary sojourn in Washington, proceeded to Central 

 America upon his diplomatic mission. He was for a time de- 

 layed by a series of misadventures, brought about by the tur- 

 bulent condition of affairs existing in Nicaragua ; and it was 

 not until 1860 that Lord Napier was finally enabled to sub- 

 mit to Mr. Buchanan the three treaties which Great Britain 

 had concluded with Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua re- 

 spectively. 



The first of these treaties was designed to adjust the 

 boundary lines of British Honduras, which were liberally en- 

 larged in favor of England, so as to include nearly all she had 

 ever claimed in that region. As the original settlement of Be- 

 lize had never figured as a cause of serious contention between 

 the United States and England, the President was inclined to 

 accord his approval to this agreement. 



