154 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



" It is well known that the parties to the Clayton-Bulwer 

 treaty anticipated that a canal by the Nicaragua route was 

 to be at once commenced. Under the assumption of a pro- 

 tectorate of Mosquito, British authority was at that time 

 in actual and visible occupation of one end of the Nicaragua 

 route, . . . and it was intended by this treaty to dispossess 

 Great Britain of this occupation. This object was accom- 

 plished in 1859 and 1860 by treaties between Great Britain, 

 Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. ... It was to this 

 adjustment, which was one of the prime objects of the treaty, 

 and not to the colonization of British Honduras, that Mr. 

 Buchanan alludes. ..." 



An ample review of the negotiations between Sir Henry 

 Bulwer and Mr. Clayton, which led up to the treaty, was 

 then given, in order to show that the primary object of the 

 parties was to insure, at the earliest possible moment, the 

 completion of the particular ship canal for which a concession 

 had already been made by Nicaragua to citizens of the United 

 States (August 29, 1849). It is to this particular canal, 

 (Nicaragua Canal) Mr. Frelinghuysen urged, that all the pro- 

 visions of the first seven articles of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty 

 apply. 



Coming then to the seventh and eighth articles of that instru- 

 ment, which provide for the course of action to be followed by 

 the two governments toward any other Central American 

 scheme for connecting the oceans, Mr. Frelinghuysen insisted 

 that reference was only made therein to such projects as were 

 then in contemplation, i.e. at the time the treaty was signed. 

 All that part of the treaty (Articles 1 to 7) relating to one 

 particular canal (the Nicaragua Canal) had lapsed by failure 

 to construct the canal to which it especially referred. The 

 canal "now (1882) in question" was the Panama Canal, 

 and the position of the United States in reference to that is de- 

 termined by a convention between the United States and New 

 Granada (United States of Colombia), concluded in 1846, 

 and still in force. In this treaty, the United States is placed 

 in the position of sole guarantor of the neutrality of any 

 route across the Isthmus of Panama. The United States 



