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Doc. No. 75. 



that Senor Castro, the governor of Costa Rica, (as he had been credibly 

 informed,) had offered to place that State under the protection of the 

 British government." No instructions were given to Mr. Bancroft to 

 remonstrate officially against this new protectorate, but he was informed 

 that in case the information given by Mr. Osma was well founded, 

 then he should be vigilant in preventing unofficially, and by private con- 

 versation in the proper quarter, the acceptance by Great Britain of the 

 proffered protectorate. ' ' 



In pursuance of the sixth article of the agreement of the 7th of March^ 

 1848, between the forces of Great Britain and the authorities of Nicaragua, 

 Senor Francisco Castellon was appointed commissioner from the State of 

 Nicaragua to Great Britain, and, on the 5th of November, 1848, while at 

 Washington, on his way to London, he addressed a letter to Mr. 

 Buchanan, then Secretary of State— a translation of which is herewith 

 presented — asking this government to instruct its minister in Lojidon to 

 sustain the rights of Nicaragua to her territory, and especially to the port 

 of San Juan, claimed by Mosquito, expressing the hope that ^^the gov- 

 ernment of the Union, firmly adhering to its principle of resisting all for- 

 eign intervention in America, would not hesitate to order such steps to 

 be taken as might be effective, before things reached a point in which 

 the intervention of the United States would prove of no avail." To this 

 letter no answer appears to have been made, nor were any instructions 

 given to our minister in London in pursuance of the request which it 

 contained. 



But on the 12th day of January, 1849, Mr. Bancroft, referring to the 

 aiTival of Mr. Castellon in l.^ondon, and to the subject of his mission, 

 which was to settle the affair ol San Juan de Nicaragua with the British 

 government, says: I think it proper to state to you my opinion that Lord 

 Palmerston will not recede. 1 have of course taken no part." And in 

 another letter to the present Secretary of State, dated 9th March, 1849^ 

 he says: Now, as we are gaining greatness in the Pacific, Great Britain, 

 under pretence of protecting the Mosquito tribe of Indians, has seized 

 the key to the passage to the Pacific by the lake of Nicaragua, and has 

 changed the name of the town of San Juan de Nicaragua to Greytown. 

 This subject is important, because the route to the Pacific which that 

 town commands is here esteemed the best of all. The representative of 

 Nicaragua, who is here, is in great perplexity, and may well be m doubt 

 what to do. * * *' He would very gladly seek advice from 



the United States. I have always made answer to him that I am not 

 authorized by my government to give him advice; that I can only com- 

 municate to the American government whatever facts he may desire to 

 make known to it. My instructions warrant not much more. ' ' The same 

 letter was accompanied by a copy of a despatch from Lord Palmerston to 

 Mr. Castellon, of the ITth February, 1849, announcing that ^4ier Majesty's 

 government cannot do anything which can be interpreted as admitting 

 any doubt that Greytown belongs exclusively to the Mosquito territory.'' 



The maps accompanying the correspondence exhibit the extent to 

 which the limits of the xMosquito kingdom have been carried in Central 

 America. One of these maps has been supplied by our present charge 

 d'aftaires at Guatemala; the other is a British map recently published by 

 authority of the British government, and transmitted to the Department 

 of State by our present minister in London. From these and other 



