I 



Doc. No. 75. ^ 97 



far; a«d if 1 can get fairly off from Isabel without a relapse, I hope to 

 reach Guatemala from that point in seven or ten days. I informed the 

 department, in my letter from Havana, that Carrera's government in Gua- 

 temala was overthrown, and he banished the country. It seems that Don 

 Juan Antonio Martinez has been appointed provisional president. The 

 port of Truxiilo is not good: it is nothing more than an indentation of 

 the coast, begnming at Cape Honduras, and reaching some twelve or fif- 

 teen miles west, protected only on the southeast and southwest otherwise 



exposed. The town, including the blacks and Caribs, and ail colors, has 

 a population of 15,000 souls, or thereabouts; its trade is inconsiderable 

 and mostly in the hands of the English; it consists of exports of mahog- 

 any, Santa Maria wood, and dye-v^roods; imports liquors and British dry 

 goods. The port of Oraoa is small and shallow, but safe for such ves- 

 sels as may or can enter it.; from two to five fathoms is its depth: its trade 

 Similar to that of Truxiilo, and in Enghsh hands; its population is about 

 i,U(i(f, all told. Our consul, Mr. Soilin, resides here. There is a good 

 harbor about ten or fifteen miles east of Omoa, called the port of Caraiho 

 but there is no town or village at it. ' 



^ We passed in full view, in sailing from Truxiilo to Omoa, a group of 

 islands, of which Raatan is the most considerable, all of which, I learn 

 W been claimed and occupied by Great Britain within the last few years' 

 ihebtateof Honduras, including the region bounded by the Mosquito 

 coast, and the coast extending from Cape Gracias a Dios to the Rio Dolce 

 is a most magnificent country, unsurpassed in scenes of grandeur and' 

 subhniity of aspect, and unrivalled in respect to its agricullural and mine- 

 ral resources. Gold, silver, and copper are, or rather might be, its mine- 

 ral productions: sugar, coffee, rice, Indian corn, cotton, cochineal and 

 mdigo, dye-woods of various kinds, valuable timber of several kinds and 

 all kinds of tropical fruits, arc, or might become, its productions from the 

 soil, and form part of i(s exports. The soil of this country, as I am in- 

 lormed, IS of great and exhaustless fertility; yet the very best portion of 

 this valuable country has been appropriated bv Great Britain to herself 

 includmg the islands above named, in violation of the plain territorial 

 nghts of the States of Honduras and Nicaragua. The island of Raatan 

 IS one ot the most beautiful and valuable in the v/orld of .the same extent 

 I have seen a map of Truxiilo, prepared by direction of the British rov- 

 ei-nment, on whicli is laid down the boundary of the country which the 

 English government occnpy in part, aiid intend to occupy altogether, and 

 dairn the right to occupy as the allies and protectors of the Mosquito In- 

 dians—a besotted, brutal, ignorant race of Indians who had never had 

 such a thing as a government since the days of the dominion of old Spain 

 cornmenced, and wlio, since the termination of that dominion, have been 

 embraced within the boundaries and remained under the dominion of the 

 fetatesof Central America, Yet tlie British government pretend to be- 

 lieve in the existence of an independent Mosquito kingdom, for which 

 they have selected, as I am informed, a half negro and half Indian as the 

 King, crowned him at the Belize, lionized him at Kingston, Jamaica, and, 

 as his friend and ally, they occupy his pretended kingdom, to which they 

 have assigned a boundary at their own discretion : beginning at the mouth 



Zut,^''' '''' 'T^^^ ^^'^ t^^ence 



with the river, embracing the same for some one or two hundred miles- 

 and running^thence an arbitrary line through the States of Nicaragua and 



