Doc. No. 75. 



41 



being disturbed in the tranquil and lawful possession in which they have 

 continued for so long a period. 



^' It is, my lord, well known in Europe that the Central American (por- 

 tion of the) continent belonged for more than three hundred years to the 

 King of Spain, and that his rights in this territory were respected on the 

 Atlantic as well as on the Pacific coasts. The celebrated treaty of June 

 14, 1T86, between that monarch and his Britannic Majesty, proves that 

 this dominion was recognised on the part of Great Britain, as her sover- 

 eign, by the 11th article, engaged to give the most positive orders to his 

 subjects and other colonists, who had until that time enjoyed the posses- 

 sion of the territory, to evacuate the Mosquito countries as well as the 

 contiuent in general, and the adjacent islands, without exception, within 

 the term of six months, (see article 12;) he, in return, obtaining the per- 

 mission to cut dye and other woods in the Belize territory, agreeably to 

 the limitations expressed in the second article. 



It is likewise well known that this treaty was scrupulously observed 

 by the British government, so long as Central America remained under 

 the dominion of Spain; as also that in the constitution of the Spanish 

 monarchy promulgated in 1812, it is declared by the 12th article, that 

 * Guatemala, with the internal provinces of the east and of the west and 

 the adjacent islands in both seas, form parts of the Spanish dominions;' 

 nor was this ever questioned in any way by any European power, al- 

 though King Ferdinand VII communicated to all of them, and particu- 

 larly to Great Britain, his resolution to accept that constitution; and the 

 answer to this communication was addressed at Carolton House on the 

 2lst of April, 1820, and was published in the Monitew of that year, 

 No. 143. 



It is, moreover, well known that the people of Central America, hav- 

 ing recovered their sovereignty with the dominion and empire of their 

 whole territory, has never ceded nor alienated in any way any portion of 

 its coast; and so far from this, they declare in the fifth article of the first 

 constitution, published to the world in 1824, that the territory of the re- 

 public is the same which formerly composed the old kingdom of Gua- 

 tem^la, (witli the exception of the province of Chiapas,) bounded, agree- 

 ably to the 6th chapter, title 15, of the 2d book of the Kecopilacion de 

 Leges de Indias, (code of laws of the Indies,) on the east by the Audi- 

 encia of Tierra Firma or the Fiscudo de Veragua, on the west by Mexico 

 or New Spain, by the Adantic on the north, and by the Pacific on the 

 south. 



On these principles have been written the books of geography pub- 

 lished even in London, as well as the prospectus to the History of Gua- 

 temala, by the enlightened American, Don Jose de la Valle, presenting 

 the boundaries of Central America. 



Finally, it is as well known that on these same principles Seiior 

 Marcial Tebohia, minister plenipotentiary of Central America near your 

 cabinet in 1826, introduced into the preliminaries of a negotiation, 

 which was unfortunately frustrated by the delay of the arrival of 

 the new powers confided to him for that purpose, an article reserving 

 to British subjects the concessions made to them in the treaty of 1783, 

 and the convention of 1786, already meutioned, upon the representations 

 of yoar goverrmient that this was necessary for its interests in that 

 country, and that nothing more would be m any way required of it. 



