278 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



less profitable to the perpetrator than might 

 at first be supposed. The thief can not well 

 display his plunder upon his own person; and 

 he can rarely dispose of it except to some 

 dishonest purchaser, and for a sum much be- 

 low its real value. No reputable dealer will 

 purchase so costly an article unless he is sure 

 that the seller has a good title to it ; and the 

 whereabouts of any valuable stone is easily 

 learned. 



There is little likelihood that the taste for 

 diamonds will diminish. Other precious stones 

 may come into fashion, but diamonds will never 

 go out of fashion ; for, more than any other 

 jewel, they combine the attractions which have 

 brought them into universal favor. And, 

 moreover, the number of those who are able 

 to indulge in this costly luxury increases far 

 more rapidly than do the products from any 

 probable source of future supply. This applies 

 more especially to the finer grades of stones ; 

 for inferior grades the opposite is true. 



Connterfeits. Diamonds are counterfeited so 

 skillfully that only an expert can detect them 

 with any certainty. There are imitations so 

 perfect that an expert could not detect the dif- 

 ference, by the eye alone, by gaslight, at the 

 distance of a few feet ; but, let him take one of 

 them into his hand and examine it closely, and 

 he will never be at a loss to distinguish the 

 genuine from the cleverest imitation. 



The advertisements of "Parisian diamonds," 

 or by whatever other name they may be called, 

 which are u in all respects equal to the genuine 

 ones," are fraudulent. It is said that some of 

 these consist of a "surface of pure diamond," 

 deposited upon a solid crystal base. No such 

 thing is possible ; there is no means known to 

 science by which any such result can be pro- 

 duced. " Stage diamonds " are to be looked 

 at by gaslight and at a distance, and serve all 

 the purposes in view. 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE UNIT- 

 ED STATES. The controversy between the Unit- 

 ed States Government and that of Great Britain 

 regarding the construction and validity of the 

 agreement of 1850, known as the Clayton-Bul- 

 wer Treaty, was continued at intervals during 

 the year. In a dispatch to Mr. West, British 

 Minister at Washington, dated Dec. 30, 1882, 

 Lord Granville, British Secretary of State for 

 Foreign Affairs, discussed the questions involved 

 at great length, and announced the conclusions 

 of liis Government as follow : 



The conclusions arrived at by her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment, after a careful consideration of the questions 

 raised in Mr. Frelinghuysen's dispatch, are that the 

 meaning and effect of Article VIII of the Clayton-Bul- 

 wer Treaty are not open to any doubt ; that the British 

 Government have committed no act in relation to 

 British Honduras, or otherwise, which can invalidate 

 that treaty, and justify the Government of the United 

 States in denouncing it, and that no necessity exists 

 for removing any of the provisions of that treaty. 



There might, perhaps, be advantages in defining by 

 agreement the distance from each end of the canal 

 within which no hostilities should be committed by 

 belligerents, in 'order to maintain the freedom of the 



passage through the Panama Canal, should that route 

 be completed, and when the time approached for its 

 completion her Majesty's Government would, no 

 doubt, be prepared to give its careful attention to the 

 question of concluding an arrangement with that ob- 

 ject, should such a proposal be made to them, but in 

 the present stage of the enterprise they conceive that 

 it would be premature to enter upon negotiations for 

 that purpose. 



I have not thought it necessary to allude in this 

 dispatch to the u traditional continental policy " of 

 the United States as laid down in what is commonly 

 called the " Monroe doctrine," since Mr. Frelinghuy- 

 sen, in his note of the 8th of May last, in which he 

 explained the views which were entertained by his 

 Government on that subject, admitted that her Majes- 

 ty's Government was not called upon either to admit 

 or deny the views therein expressed. 



You will state to Mr. Frehnghuysen that her Maj- 

 esty's Government are animated by the most sincere 

 desire to arrive at an amicable settlement of the ques- 

 tions which have given rise to this correspondence, 

 and that they note with great satisfaction the friendly 

 assurance with which he concludes his dispatch that 

 the diversity of opinion which now exists will not in 

 anywise impair the good understanding happily exist- 

 ing between the people and Governments or the United 

 States and Great Britain. 



The following is the response of the Secre- 

 tary of State, transmitted through Mr. James 

 Russell Lowell, the American Minister in Lon- 

 don: 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE. WASHINGTON, \ 

 May 5, 1883. f 



SIE : I inclose herewith copy of an instruction 

 from Lord Granville to her Britannic Majesty's Minis- 

 ter in Washington, dated Dec. 30, 1882, a copy of 

 which was handed to me by Mr. West, and which is 

 a reply to the agreement contained in my No. 368 to 

 you of May 8, 1882, on the subject of the Clayton- 

 Bulwer Treaty. 



You will remember that my No. 368 showed that 

 the first seven articles of the treaty related to a par- 

 ticular canal then in contemplation, to aid the con- 

 struction of which the treaty was signed ; that the 

 United States, being then without the means to build 

 the canal, for which they had secured an exclusive 

 grant from Nicaragua, naturally turned _to England 

 lor capital, to secure which they were willing to sur- 

 render some of their exclusive privileges ; and that, 

 the canal never having been built, the reason for the 

 surrender of privilege has ceased, and the treaty with 

 Great Britain is voidable, being without considera- 

 tion or any object to which it is applicable. 



Lord Granville in his instructions to Mr. West in 

 substance concedes that the first seven articles of the 

 treaty related to what was then known as the Nica- 

 ragua Canal, but intimates an uncertainty as to the 

 route. In this he is in error, for the line of the canal 

 was definitely fixed soon after the conclusion of the 

 treaty and accepted by both Governments. 



His lordship, however, practically confines himself 

 to an assertion of rights under Article VIII, by which 

 the parties, u after declaring that they not only desired 

 in entering into the convention to accomplish a par- 

 ticular object, but also to establish a general principle, 

 agreed to extend their protection by treaty stipula- 

 tions to any other practical communications, whether 

 by canal or railway, across the isthmus which con- 

 nects North and South America, and especially to the 

 interoceanic communications, should the same prove 

 to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which 

 are now proposed to be established by the way of Te- 

 huantepec or Panama," and he claims that this pro- 

 vision is in effect an agreement that all the prior pro- 

 visions with reference to the particular ship-canal 

 the Nicaragua route then in contemplation, should 

 be applied to any other canal thereafter constructed. 

 Citing treaties between the United States and some of 



