Doc. No. 71^. 



13 



and, ill consequence, the answer was given to the consul which may be 

 found in No. 4. 



Meanwhile, and without any answer whatever having been received 

 from the British consul general, Mr. Joseph Hodgson, a British subject;, 

 bearing the title of late councillor of the pretended King of the Mosquitos, 

 addressed from Bluefields, under date of the 5th ultimo, a notice to the 

 commandant of this State, at the said port of San Juan, and this supreme 

 governrnxCnt, of which a copy will be found. No. 5. This notice, brought 

 by the British ship of war Alarm, was to the effect that the establishment 

 of Nicaragua at the said port should be abandoned, with the threat that^ 

 unless this should be done before the 1st of January next, force would be 

 employed to effect it. At the same time, a flag, wliich had been manu- 

 factured for the Mosquitos, was hoisted and saluted by the discharge of 

 artillery, as shown by the same paper, No. 5. Thus, within a few dayS;, 

 a flag, utterly unknown to the barbarous Mosquitos, will float over the 

 port of San Juan del Norte, in the State of Nicaragua, which w4il be appro- 

 priated to those barbarians, under the protection of her Britannic Majesty's 

 naval forces, as intimated above. 



His Excellency the President of 3^our republic well knows the geograph- 

 ical position of the country of Nicaragua, its lakes and navigable rivers, 

 affording the greatest facilities for the opening of a great canal^ uniting 

 the two oceans, through this isthmus, as has been demonstrated by the 

 Centro- American Don Juan Jose de Ajcinena, in his memoir written in 

 the United States on the 24th September, 1836, and sent herewith in 

 paper No. 6. It may thus be easily understood that the object of the 

 British in taking this key of the continent is not to protect that small 

 tribe of the Mosquitos, but to establish their own empire over the Atlan- 

 tic extremity of the line, by which a canal connecting the two oceans is 

 most practicable, insuring to them the preponderance on the American 

 continent, as well as their direct relations with Asia, the East Indies^ and 

 other important countries in the world. 



Central America suffers most grievously from these advances of British 

 power just at the moment when the four States which have remained 

 iEaithful to their compact and national union, viz: Salvador, Honduras^ 

 Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, are occupied in determining the political sys- 

 tem under which they are to exist as a federal republic; and they have 

 from this moment agreed to maintain the integrity of their territory threat- 

 ened, as will be seen by the communications addressed by the other gov- 

 ernments to that of Nicaragua, contained in Nos. 7 and 4. 



In this perilous state of things, the supreme government of the State of 

 Nicaragua, conformably with the true interests of its allies, Salvador^ 

 Hondaras, and Costa Rica, and well imbued with those principles of 

 liberty and justice which the distinguished government of your happy 

 republic professes in favor of the independence of all and each of the 

 States of the American continent, has ordered the undersigned. Secretary 

 of Foreign Affairs, to address the present exposition to the Hon. Secre- 

 tary of State of the cabinet of Washington, in order that he may, in frater- 

 nal deference, be pleased to submit it to his Excellency the President of 

 the United States, to the effect tliat he may deign to afford to Nicaragua 

 his respectable amicable mediation with Great Britain, so that our just 

 and legitimate rights to the territory in question may be established in a 

 peaceful and amicable manner; and that he may also declare whether he 



