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Doc. No. 75. 



in the history of Amerkdi been an independent rtilef of ^ se^afsfe feflf-' 

 tory, and he has invariably been acknowledged and upheld as stjch hf 

 the government of Great Britain. It is quite trUe that by the convention 

 of 1786 between Great Britain and Spain ^ Great Britain agreed to with- 

 draw British subjects from the Mosquito country^ but Great Britain did 

 not, by that treaty^ either acknowledge that the Mosquitos we?e not an 

 independent nation , or renounce her protectorship of that nation. On 

 the contrary, the stipulations of the treaty of 1786 clearly mention the- 

 Mosquitos as a nation distinct from the people living within the Spanish 

 dominions; and that treaty contains a stipulation which was aJi act of 

 protectorship exercised by Great Britain in favor of Ihe Mosquito nation. 



In order to understand fully the treaty of IT86, it is necessary to revert 

 to the treaty of 1783. It appears from the 6th article", of the treaty 

 of 1783 that several English settlements having been formed and ex- 

 tended upon the Spanish continent on the pretence of cutting logwood or 

 dyeing- wood; and Great Britain and Spain being desirous of pi^eventing: 

 as much as possible the causes of complaint and misunderstanding to 

 which this intermixture of British and Spanish wood cutters gave rise, it 

 was thought expedient that the Spanish government should assign to 

 British subjects for the purpose of wood-cutting a separate and sufficiently 

 extensive and convenient district on the coast of America^ and that, in 

 consideration of such an assignment, British subjects should be restricted 

 from forming settlements in any other part of the Spanish territories in 

 America, whether continentai or insular, and that all British subjects dis- 

 persed in those Spanish possessions should, within eighteen months after 

 the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, retire within the district 

 specially assigned for their occupation and use. 



It seems^ however, that the treaty of 1783 did not sufficiently accom- 

 plish the purpose of preventing complaints and misunderstandings. It 

 was found by Great Britain, on the one hand, that the district on the 

 eoast of Honduras assigned to British subjects, by the 6th article of the 

 treaty of 1783, was too limited in extent, and the enjoyment ol it was toa 

 much narrowed by the restrictions contained in that article. It was found 

 by Spain, on the other hand, that British &ubjects still hngered in parts of 

 the Spanish Aiiierican territories; and the Spanish government founds 

 moreover, that there were many British subjects settled in the Mosquita 

 territory, a territory to which the treaty of 1783 did not apply as that treaty 

 mentioned only the Spanish possessions in America, and said nothing, 

 about MosquitO;( and did not require that British subjects should retire 

 from Mosquito J and it seems that the revenues of Spain suffered from 

 smuggling transactions carried on by British subjects so settled in the 

 Spanish territory and in Mosquito. 



To put an end to these mutual inconveniences, it was agreed, by the 

 convention of 1786, that a larger extent of territory should be assigned to 

 British subjects on the coast of Honduras, according to new boundaries 

 described in that convention; and it was also agreed that the enlarged ter- 

 ritory so granted should be occupied by British subjects, with a greater lati- 

 tude of enjoyement than was allowed by the restrictions of the treaty of 

 1783; and, in return, in order to relieve the Spanish government from loss 

 by smuggling, the British government again bound itself to recall British 

 subjects from the Spanish possessions in America, and also took the new 

 engagement of withdrawing British subjects from the Mosquito territory 



