THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 163 



Nicaragua's prospects in the ra^ for wealth. Jealousies 

 soon arose, and Nicaragua appealed to the United States > 

 to protect her in her efforts to regain control of the Indian 

 reservation. Acts were committed by Nicaraguan officials 

 in contempt of Mosquito and English authority at Bluefields 

 and elsewhere within the limits of the reservation. A crisis 

 was reached in 1888, which renewed the old controversy, in 

 which the UniteoStates again reprimanded Great Britain 

 for violation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. Mr. Bayard, the 

 Secretary of State, opened the new diplomatic skirmish by 

 a sharp remonstrance. His letter of November 23, 1888, to 

 Mr. Phelps, American Minister at London, took the position 

 that a continuance of the protectorate of Great Britain over 

 the Mosquito territory would be regarded by the United States 

 as conflicting with the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. 

 He maintained that Great Britain was using her Managua 

 treaty as a mere cloak to shield her in the continued exercise 

 of sovereignty along the Central American coast ; that the 

 United States, being no party to the Austrian arbitration pro- 

 ceedings, was not bound nor committed to an admission of 

 British right of interference between Nicaragua and the 

 Indians within her borders; he therefore insisted that the 

 United States was free to oppose a British protectorate in 

 Central America, as being wholly inconsistent with her general 

 views and political policy. 



Mr. Bayard's appeal was to the Monroe Doctrine quite as 

 much as to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty; but his somewhat 

 elaborate argument had the fatal weakness of many American 

 state papers the presentation of a political theory or policy 

 against generally accepted tenets of international law. What- 

 ever objections the United States might interpose to British 

 actions, they were rendered nugatory by the simple fact that 

 Great Britain was acting consistently within the limits of a 

 treaty which the United States herself had sanctioned; and 

 finally, she was clearly justified under the award of a tribunal 

 assented to by Nicaragua. 



Lord Salisbury replied to Mr. Bayard some months later 

 (March 7, 1889). He denied any English claim of sovereignty 



