98 



Doc. No. 75. 



Honduras, embracing som<3 of their important towns, to a point in the 

 State of Honduras indicated o:^_ the map aforesaid j thence another arbi- 

 trary line running north until it strikes the Roonan river; thence with this 

 river to tlie sea just east of Truxillo; thence with the coast to the begin- 

 ning, embracing some three or five degrees of latitude and three degrees 

 of longitude, and the whole extent of coast from the month of the San 

 Juan to the Cape Gracias a Dios; and thence west to Truxillo. Shall 

 this be permitted ? The States of Central Anierica cannot prevent it. 

 They have protested against it, formally, in strong terms; but this is all 

 they can do. There can and will be no effectual means of preventing 



the spread of British dominion over the whole of Central America, un- 

 less the government of the United Stales interferes, firmly interferes, and 

 shall carry out that celebrated declaration made by President Monroe offi- 

 cially — once favored by the Congress and nation at large, and 7iow ap- 

 proved at least by the present administration and its Iriends"— to wit: 

 [You can refer to it.] 1 have not been charged with this subject, " nor 

 instructed particularly to take any action upon it." Indeed, 1 could do 

 nothing more " than to say to the States of Central America, Be firm^ 

 do not yield, protest," 6cc, They cannot fight England! I will not 

 close this letter until I reach Isabel. 



Would it not be better to vary the arrangements with the contractors 

 f®r the mail steamers, so as to require them to deliver the mail at the port of 

 San Juan de JNicaragua instead of Chagres? inasmuch as time and ex- 

 pense may be saved, there being from thence water communication by 

 the said Rio San Juan, the lakes Nicaragua and Leon, to a point within an 

 easy day's journey of the port of Reaiejo, an excellent port of the Pacific^ 

 and a good road leading to it: thus the travel across that infernal Isthmus 

 of Panama, over the worst road upon earth, would be avoided, as well 

 as the sea voyage from Panama to the said port of Reaiejo; and should 

 not the said contractors be required to touch at some of the ports of Cen- 

 tral America and Mexico, either on the Atlantic or Pacific side? The 

 British steamers that touch at Chagres also take the port of San Juan in 

 their route through these seas, and have seized that port and established 

 tariff regulations, have a custom-house and collector, and demand tribute 

 from all nations for the privilege of entering a port of Central America, to 

 enter which, with their vessels, they have as much right as Great Britain. 

 The English claim the right to occupy this country, above described, by 

 virtue of a pretended treaty with a trumped up pretended king of the 

 preiended kingdom of the Mosquito tribe of Indians, a besotted, igno- 

 rant tribe of savages, who were under the dominion of old Spain while 

 that dominion lasted in this hemisphere, and subsequently under the 

 dominion of the States of Central America. Now, will the United States 

 sufler Great Britain to enact on the stage of North America the same 

 bloody tradegy which she has already performed in Hindostan and else- 

 where; and stand by and endure that slie shall have a commercial 

 monopoly in all these ferlile regions, on this very continent of North 

 America, where in our days of weakness we shooii her dominion^, and 

 wherein our strength, our commerce, dominion ^ and influence should 

 predominate? Should I conclude a treaty with the republics of Guate- 

 mala and San Salvador^ or with either of them, how is the same to be 

 transmitted to Washington for ratification? My instructions are silent on 

 this subject. The last treaty with Central America proved a failure, be- 



