3. That it appears to the United States government that Spain, in virtue of the treaty of 1786, had a right to object to Great Britain establishing herself on the Mosquito coast, or assuming the protectorate of Mosquito, and that Great Britain had by her treaty with Mexico recognised that the former colonies of Spain stood in the same position with respect to other states as old Spain herself, and inherited the advantages of the ancient treaties of the mother country; that the United States government had always contested the claim of Great Britain to all the possessions held by her in Central America, with the exception of that portion of the settlement of Belize which is situated between the Rio Hondo and the Sibun; that it had always resisted the right of Great Britain to establish a protectorate over the Mosquitos; and that it had learned, with great surprise and regret, that the British forces had, in 1848, expelled the Nicaraguan authorities which held the port and town of San Juan de Nicaragua, in virtue of the old Spanish rights, and had then hoisted thereupon the flag of the Mosquitos.

4. That Mr. Monroe, when President of the United States, had, in 1823, announced in a public message to Congress that the American continerts were not henceforth to be considered subject to colonization by European powers.

5. That no claim on the part of Great Britain to act in the name or under the authority of the Mosquito Indians, could be well founded, inasmuch as that race, even if never conquered by Spain, were savages, who, according to the practice and principles of all European nations which had ever acquired territory on the continent of America, had no title to rank as independent states in the territory they occupied, but had a claim to mere occupancy thereon, such territory being the dominion of the discoverer of it, or even of the discoverer of territory on the same continent, though far distant from it, by whom alone this claim to mere occupancy on the part of the Indians was to be extinguished by purchase, as the advance of the white settlements rendered it necessary.

And, finally, that Great Britain, having declared by treaty in 1850 that she would neither colonize, fortify, occupy, nor assume dominion over, Mosquito or Central America, was thereby, at all events, bound to withdraw her protection from the people and territory of the Mosquitos, and, moreover, to deliver up Ruatan, which was an island belonging to Honduras, a Central American State, but which, nevertheless, had recently been colonized and occupied by Great Britain.

Such are the main points brought forward by Mr. Buchanan, in the statement which he has delivered to her Majesty's government.

If, in speaking of the possessions held by Great Britain previous to 1850 on the coast of Central America (the settlement of Belize excepted), Mr. Buchanan means that his expressions should apply to that district which is called the Mosquito country, it is proper that her Majesty's government

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should at once state that her Majesty has never held any possessions whatsoever in the Mosquito country. But although Great Britain held no possessions in the Mosquito country, she undoubtedly exercised a great and extensive influence over it as the protecting ally of the Mosquito king, that king, or chief, having occasionally been even crowned at Jamaica under the auspices of the British authorities.

The United States government will, it is apprehended, scarcely expect that Great Britain should enter into any explanation or defence of her conduct with respect to acts committed by her nearly forty years ago, in a matter in which no right or possession of the United States was involved.

The government of the United States would, it is conceived, be much and justly surprised if the government of Great Britain were now to question the propriety of any of its own long-past acts, by which no territorial right of Great Britain had been affected; nor would the American people consider any justification or explanation of such acts to foreign states consistent with the dignity and independent position of the United States. The government of the United States, therefore, will not be surprised if the government of Great Britain abstains on this occasion from entering into anything which might appear an explanation or defence of its conduct with regard to its long-established protectorate of the Mosquitos.

With respect to any right or any interference on the part of the government of old Spain on the subject of the Mosquito protectorate, it must be observed that, since the peace of 1815, that government has never raised any question with respect to this protectorate; and as for Great Britain having by her treaty with Mexico rocognised, as a principle, that the engagement between herself and Spain was necessarily transferred to every fraction of the Spanish monarchy which now exists, or may exist, on a distinct and independent basis, her Majesty's government must entirely deny this assumption; Great Britain, in her treaty with Mexico, simply stipulates that British subjects should not be worse off under Mexico independent than under Mexico when a Spanish province. It was natural, in recognising the independence of Mexico, that Great Britain should make such a stipulation; but the fact of her doing so rather proves that she thought a special stipulation necessary, and that she did not conceive that she would have enjoyed, under any general principle, the privilege she bargained for; and this stipulation, as indeed the treaty itself is a proof that Mexico was not considered as inheriting the obligations or rights of Spain.

But admitting that it may in some cases be expedient, although not obligatory, to recognise the rights and obligations of old Spain as vested in the new Spanish-American States, and allowing that, in conformity with that policy, Great Britain might have thought proper to receive, concerning Mosquito, the remonstrances of those neighbouring republics which have

successively risen in America on the ruins of the Spanish empire, even then, it may be observed that no remonstrance was made by any of such republics for many years after the protectorate of Great Britain over Mosquito had been a fact well known to them; and, moreover, that when such remonstrances were made, they were made with similar pretensions, not by one only, but by several of those governments, insomuch that if the Mosquito Indians were at this moment withdrawn altogether from the portion of America which they now inhabit, and if it were permitted to the states of Spanish origin to inherit each, respectively, the claims of their parent state, it would still be a question on which of the claimants the territory thus left unoccupied would of right devolve. Whilst it is certain that such withdrawal, without previous arrangements, would lead to contests alike disadvantageous to the real interests of the several states, and to the general prosperity of Central America herself.

Thus much with reference to the conduct and position of Spain and the Central American States with regard to the British protectorate in Mosquito; but, with respect to the conduct and position of the United States relative thereto, Mr. Buchanan is mistaken in thinking that the United States government has always contested and resisted the position assumed by Great Britain on the Mosquito coast.

It may be true that the United States government were not informed of the position of Great Britain in respect to Mosquito until 1842, but they were then informed of it; and yet there is no trace of their having alluded to this question in their communications with her Majesty's government up to the end of 1849. Nay, in 1850, when the President of the United States presented to Congress various papers relative to the affairs of Central America, it will be seen that, on introducing these affairs to the attention of Congress, the President's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs expressly says, that the government of Nicaragua in November, 1847, solicited the aid of the United States government to prevent an anticipated attack on San Juan by the British forces acting on bahalf of the Mosquito king, but received no answer; that the President of Nicaragua addressed the President of the United States at the same time, and received no answer; that, in April, 1848, the United States consul at Nicaragua, at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of that republic, stated the occupation of San Juan by a British force, but was not answered; that, on the 5th of November, 1848, Mr. Castillon, proceeding to London from Nicaragua, and then to Washington, addressed a letter to the United States Secretary of State soliciting his intervention with regard to the claims of Great Britain in right of the Mosquito king, and received no answer; that, on the 12th of January, 1849, Mr. Bancroft, then representative of the United States to the Court of St. James's, referring to Mr. Castillon's arrival in London, and the subject of his mission to settle the affairs of San Juan de Nicaragua with

the British government, said :—“ I think it proper to state to you my opinion that Lord Palmerston will not recede; I have, of course, taken no part." And that again, in March, Mr. Bancroft wrote that Mr. Castillon would be anxious to seek advice from the United States, but that he had always made answer to him, "that he was not authorised to offer advice."

It would thus seem, on the authority of the United States government itself, that up to the end of 1849 the United States government had made no remark or remonstrance to Great Britain on the subject of her protectorate of Mosquito, and that even with respect to the capture of San Juan de Nicaragua (now called Greytown) the United States minister in London was not authorised to take any steps concerning it, nor even to afford to the commissioner from Nicaragua the benefit of his counsels and good offices thereupon; and it is but right to observe that the United States government pursued, by this course towards her Majesty's government, that friendly and considerate policy which her Majesty's government always wishes to pursue, and has pursued towards the United States government, when that government has had differences with other powers. With regard to the grounds on which her Majesty's government made the capture of San Juan de Nicaragua, in 1848, the desire of her Majesty's government to avoid all subjects of controversy, on which it is not absolutely necessary to enter, restrains it from here adverting to the documents which stated the reasons on which her Majesty's government came to the resolution it at that time adopted; and, indeed, as those documents were laid before Parliament, and communicated officially to the United States government, it would be superfluous now to recapitulate their contents.

With regard to the doctrine laid down by Mr. President Monroe in 1823, concerning the future colonization of the American continents by European states, as an international axiom which ought to regulate the conduct of European states, it can only be viewed as the dictum of the distinguished personage who delivered it; but her Majesty's government cannot admit that doctrine as an international axiom which ought to regulate the conduct of European states. The doctrine with regard to the incapacity of the Indians to exercise the rights of sovereign powers must also remain a doctrine on which each state which has to deal with such Indians must be free to exercise its own policy, and to follow the dictates of its own conscience. It is certainly true that Great Britain, Spain, and the United States, were all, at one time, in the habit of treating the Indian races in the manner which Mr. Buchanan describes; but this past practice, though general, cannot be taken as an invariable guide for any future policy. The period has not yet passed beyond the memory of man at which Great Britain and the United States, now so nobly distinguished in suppressing the slave trade, practised and encouraged that trade, and deemed it legitimate.

The project of a free republic, composed chiefly of negroes from the

United States, and originally established under the enlightened and humane patronage of the United States, would have been deemed, fifty years ago, an absurd and impossible chimera; yet Liberia exists, and now flourishes as an independent state.

Already Great Britain, in her own dealings with Indians, has recognised their rulers as independent chiefs, whilst in her treaties with foreign powers she has spoken of their tribes as nations, and stipulated for the restoration of their possessions. Thus, on all the above-mentioned topics, her Majesty's government, without seeking to impose any opinions on the United States government, claims a right to hold its own opinions; nor, indeed, does it appear necessary, although, doubtless, it would be desirable, that her Majesty's government and the United States government should be perfectly agreed with respect to them. The one remaining subject to be discussed is, however, of a very different character. It relates to a question in which Great Britain and the United States are both directly concerned, and in regard to which it is a matter both of honour and interest that they should avoid all misunderstandings or disagreements. This subject is the rightful interpretation of a treaty engagement to which Great Britain and the United States are parties.

Mr. Buchanan lays it down as a fact, that Great Britain held the sovereignty of the Mosquito coast prior to 1850, and he then states that Great Britain still continues to hold this sovereignty, although the treaty of 1850 prohibits her from so doing. But Mr. Buchanan confounds the two conditions of a sovereignty and of a protectorate, and under this error treats the agreement "not to colonise, nor occupy, nor fortify, nor assume nor exercise dominion over," as including an agreement not to protect.

With respect to sovereignty, Great Britain never claimed, and does not now claim or hold, any sovereignty in or over Mosquito ; but with respect to the protectorate which Great Britian has long exercised over Mosquito, her Majesty's government asserts that the treaty of 1850 did not, and was not meant to, annihilate such protectorate, but simply to confine its powers and limit its influence.

Now, the spirit of a treaty must always be inferred from the circumstances under which it takes place, and the true construction of a treaty must be deduced from the literal meaning of the words employed in its framing. The circumstances under which the treaty of 1850 took place were the following:

Up to March, 1849,-i.e., one whole year after the capture of San Juan de Nicaragua by the British forces-the United States government made no observation, as it has already been stated, to the British government, having any allusion to this act. But in November, 1849, Mr. Lawrence, then just