Doc. No. 75. 



125 



Mosquito country where it had ever been hoisted as an emblem of sover- 

 eignty. Logwood and mahogany, however, were still cut and carried 

 thence by British subjects, under the protection of the treaty of Paris of 

 lT63j and some of the settlers may have made attempts to cultivate lands 

 alleged to have been purchased of the Indians. Neither that cultiva- 

 tion, nor these purchases, however, were in the least degree Avarranted 

 by right, or sanctioned by the treaties between Great Britain and Spain. 



Passing over the intermediate period between 1763 and 1777, it appears 

 from Macgregor, that in the latter year the British on the coast, who had 

 enjoyed the mere right of cutting dyewoods and mahogany, having be- 

 come alarmed by rumors of an intention on the part of the Spaniards to 

 expel them, requested of the British government another fort, arms, can- 

 non, munitions, and soldiers for their defence. In return to this applica- 

 tion. Lord George Germaine transmitted a despatch to the governor of 

 Jamaica on the 4th of June, 1777, severely rebuking the superintendent 

 for having made the request, '■'as being in direct contradiction to the 11 th 

 article of the treaty of Paris.''^ 



The perseverance of the British in their encroachments on the coast, 

 was one of the grievances set forth by Spain as a motive for her war 

 against England, commenced in 1780. During this year an attack upon 

 the Spanish settlements on Lake Nicaragua was ordered by the governor 

 of Jamaica. The expedition did not reach further than the castle of San 

 Juan, on the river of that name, thirty-two miles below the lake. Mac- 

 gregor himself acknowledges that it was abortive. Lord Nelson, then a 

 very young man, accompanied it, and displayed that gallantry for which 

 he was afterwards so much renowned. His biographer says: '^The pro- 

 ject was to take Fort San Juan, on the river of that name, which flows 

 from Lake Nicaragua into the Atlantic, make himself master of the lake 

 itself, and of the cities of Grenada and Leon, and thus cut off the com- 

 munication of the Spaniards between their northern and southern posses- 

 sions in America. Here it is that a canal between the two seas may most 

 easily be formed; a work more important in its consequences than any 

 which has yet been effected by human power. ' ' 



By the sixth article of the definitive treaty of peace between Great 

 Britain and Spain of 1783, it is declared, that ^Hhe intention of the two 

 high contracting parties being to prevent, as much as possible, all the 

 causes of complaint and misunderstanding heretofore occasioned by the 

 cutting of wood for dyeing, or logwood, and several English setdements 

 having been formed and extended, under that pretence, upon the Spanish 

 continent, it is expressly agreed that his Britannic Majesty's subjects 

 shall have the right of cutting, loading, and carrying logwood in the dis- 

 trict. [Here the lines are mentioned. They include no part of the Mos- 

 quito coa^t.] And his CathoUc Majesty assures to them [the English] 

 the enjoyment of all that is expressed in the present article, provided that 

 these stipulations shall not be considered as derogatory in anywise from 

 his right of sovereignty. Therefore all the English who may be dispersed 

 in any other parts, whether on the Spanish continent or in any islands 

 whatsoever dependant on the aforesaid Spanish continent, and for what- 

 ever reason it might be, without exception, shall retire within the district 

 which has been above described." 



Notwithstanding this stipulation, Mr. Macgregor proceeds to say, that 

 it was determined by the British government, after the most deliberate 



