No. 19.]

46.-Lord Napier to Lord Clarendon.

[Extract.]

WASHINGTON, June 22, 1857. (Received July 7.) It is probable that if the pending discussions regarding Central America be not closed during the present summer, an attempt will be made in the next session of Congress to set aside the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. My impression to this effect is constantly deepened by reflection and by the information which reaches me from several quarters. There can be no doubt of the views of the President and Cabinet in this matter.

The EARL OF CLARENDON.

NAPIER.

47.-Lord Napier to Lord Clarendon.

[Extract.]

WASHINGTON, October 12, 1857. (Received October 30.)

MY LORD: I am now assured that the American Cabinet will shortly receive Mr. Yrissari in the quality of minister from Nicaragua, and that a treaty will be negotiated with him for the protection of the interoceanic passage by the River San Juan, similar to that contracted between Great Britain and Honduras for the guarantee of the railway projected across the territory of the latter state.

At the same time the Government of Nicaragua have recognized the existence of the old "American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company," which appeared to have lapsed during the operations of the "Accessory Transit Company," of filibustering notoriety. The original charter of the former association has been modified under the deliberations of the Nicaraguan minister and Mr. Joseph White, the legal adviser of that body. The company is under the nominal presidency of Mr. Stevens, of New York, and is said to comprise some persons of credit and substantial resources, but Mr. White is the active agent in the enterprise. If not officially recognized, his project is viewed with favor by the American Cabinet, and I think it may very probably be carried into operation.

*

NAPIER.

48.-General Cass to Lord Napier.

WASHINGTON, October 20, 1857. MY LORD: I have had the honor to receive your lordship's communication of the 9th instant, in reference to the existing relations between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and have submitted it to the consideration of the President.

These relations have attracted the earnest attention of the President, not only from the importance of the San Juan transit to the commerce of the world, but from the interest which is naturally felt by the United States in the neighboring republics of this continent. The President

has witnessed, therefore, the restoration of peace to Nicaragua and Costa Rica with the highest gratification; and he sincerely hopes that it may not again be interrupted either by the calamity of civil war or the invasion of their territory from other countries. Their security and welfare would undoubtedly be promoted by a just and friendly settlement between them of their mutual boundaries and jurisdiction; and I need hardly add that such an adjustment would be viewed with satisfaction by the United States. This government, however, has never admitted the pretensions of Costa Rica to an equal control with Nicaragua of the San Juan River, but has regarded the sovereignty of the river, and consequently of the interoceanic transit by that route, as rightfully belonging to the Republic of Nicaragua.

A similar view of the question appears to have been recognized by Great Britain, and, whatever may be the rights of Costa Rica with respect to the free passage of her own products by the river to the ocean, it is better, probably, that what has been thus acquiesced in, and has led moreover to important contracts and responsibilities, should not now be disturbed. But under any circumstances the commercial nations of the world can never permit the interoceanic passages of the isthmus to be rendered useless for all the great purposes which belong to them in consequence of the neglect or incapacity of the states through whose territories they happen to run. The United States, as I have before had occasion to assure your lordship, demand no exclusive privileges in these passages, but will always exert their influence to secure their free and unrestricted benefits, both in peace and war, to the commerce of the world. The rumored invasion of Central America, which your lordship apprehends may delay the re-establishment of the transit service through Nicaragua, has not escaped the attention of the President, and his views on the subject are clearly indicated in the circular from this Department of the 18th ultimo, which has been printed in the public journals, and has not escaped your lordship's notice.

No nation on earth, it is believed, appreciates its national rights and duties more highly than the United States, and no one is more ready to concede to other nations, whether strong or weak, that measure of justice which it claims for itself. Any such expedition as that which has been mentioned is forbidden, under severe penalties, by the laws of this country, and these laws the President will take care, on all proper occasions, to enforce.

I have thus endeavored to meet the frank suggestions of your lordship by restating, with corresponding frankness, the general policy of the United States with respect to the governments and the interoceanic transits of Central America; but since your lordship has referred to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 as contemplating a "harmonious course of action and counsel between the contracting parties in the settlement of the Central American interests," you will pardon me for reminding your lordship that the differences which this treaty was intended to adjust between the United States and Great Britain still remain unsettled, while the treaty itself has became the subject of new and embarrassing complications.

Until these disagreements can be removed, and the states of Central America can be left to that independent control of their own affairs, with which the continued claims of Great Britain in that quarter seem to this government quite inconsistent, it is easy to see that the harmony of action and counsel between this government and that of Her Britannic Majesty, to which your lordship refers, must be always attended with difficulty, if not found impossible.

S. Ex. 194- -8

It was hoped that these differences would be removed by the approval, on the part of Great Britain, of the amended treaty of October 17, 1856, which had been sanctioned by the President in a spirit of amity towards that kingdom, although its provisions were not wholly in accordance with his views. But the British Government found it necessary to withhold their approval, and the treaty was returned from London unratified.

It was impossible for this government to consent to the treaty in its original form, for reasons which your lordship well understands, and no further discussion has been had on the subject between the two governments.

The President still entertains an earnest hope that all subjects of disagreement which now exist between the United States and Great Britain may be harmoniously adjusted at an early day, but he cannot be insensible to the long delay which has attended their negotiations on the subject of Central America, or to the serious difficulties which the continuance of this delay is calculated to produce.

I avail, &c.,

49.-Lord Napier to Lord Clarendon.

[Extract.]

LEWIS CASS.

No. 26.]

WASHINGTON, October 22, 1857. (Received November 9.) On receiving an intimation from your lordship that Her Majesty's Government had determined to send out a special minister to Central America, with a view of adjusting the questions under discussion in that quarter, I sought an interview with the President for the purpose of communicating this intelligence to his Excellency.

The President received me on the afternoon of the 19th instant, and I was enabled to report to your lordship by the mail of the same day, in a private form, the substance of a conversation which I have now the honor to submit to your lordship with more accuracy and extension.

I stated to the President that, since the failure of the late overtures consequent on the non-ratification of the treaty of 1856, Her Majesty's Government had considered the several alternatives of action which were open to their selection, and on a review of the whole case, had resolved to dispatch a representative of authority and experience to Central America, charged to make a definitive settlement of all the matters with regard to which the United States and England were still at vari

ance.

This conclusion had been embraced for some time past, and the delay which had occurred was referable partly to the difficulty of selecting a competent person for a duty which involved much personal inconvenience, and demanded peculiar qualifications, and partly to the nature of the intelligence from India, which had of late absorbed the attention of the English cabinet.

Her Majesty's Government had, however, now appointed Sir William Gore Ouseley for the service alluded to, and felt the greater satisfaction in doing so because he was intimately known to the President and enjoyed his good opinion.

I could not state exactly the character of the instructions with which

Sir William Ouseley would be charged, but I might infer from all that had reached me that they would virtually be to the following effect:

The efforts of the new plenipotentiary would be directed to those objects which had been dealt with in the treaty of 1856, now laid aside, viz, the cession of the Bay Islands to Honduras, the substitution of the sovereignty of Nicaragua for the protectorate of England in Mosquito, and the regulation of the frontiers of Belize.

In short, I believed it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to carry the Clayton-Bulwer treaty into execution according to the general tenor of the interpretation put upon it by the United States, but to do so by separate negotiation with the Central American Republics, in lieu of a direct engagement with the Federal Government.

The President commenced his observations by referring to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty as a fruitful source of misunderstanding between the contracting parties. Without that treaty the United States and Great Britain might long since have co-operated for the welfare of Central America. That treaty had never been acceptable to the people of the United States, and would not have obtained a vote in the Senate, had the least suspicion existed of the sense in which it was to be construed by Great Britain; yet if it were now the intention of Her Majesty's Government to execute it according to the American interpretation, that was as much as he could insist upon.

In any arrangement entered into with this purpose, he must, however, remark that the Government of the United States could not recognize as satisfactory the cession of the Bay Islands to Honduras, with stipulations similar to those contained in the treaty lately negotiated between England and that republic, which left the Bay Islands as much under the protection of Great Britain as Mosquito. He did not know what had become of that treaty.

I replied that I felt convinced it had been the intention of Her Majesty's Government to deliver the islands to Honduras in full sovereignty, and that the franchises awarded to them by the treaty were designed for the freedom of trade, the protection of the vested interests of British subjects, and the welfare of the inhabitants.

I added that his excellency was well aware of the convictions conscientiously held in England respecting slavery, and of the respect which Her Majesty's Government owed to public feeling on that subject. I might plainly affirm that a principal motive in framing securities for the after government of the Bay Islands had been the apprehension that, when relinquished by the English authorities, those islands would be settled by planters from the United States, who would bring their negroes with them, and thus establish slavery on soil which had, justly or unjustly, been declared to be a colonial dependency of Great Britain.

Her Majesty's Government, moreover, regarded the Bay Islands as forming, in a manner, one of the termini of the Honduras transit route, and therefore desired to see them endowed with the privileges of a free port, the Island of Tigre, in the Gulf of Fonsega, at the other extremity, having long possessed those immunities.

The President contended that the stipulations were uncalled for and that Her Majesty's Government might have surrendered the islands freely, and subsequently enforced on the Government of Honduras a due respect to the claims of British settlers.

In reply to his excellency, I allowed that the articles establishing the administrative independence of the islands might have been larger than was necessary. I had observed the same impression in the corre

spondence of Mr. Wyke, Her Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Guatemala, who seemed to admit that a greater participation in the internal gov ernment might be granted to the authorities of Honduras; that I made no doubt Her Majesty's Government would entertain any reasonable sug gestions which might be afforded to them in that sense. As far as I knew the discussion was not closed, and Sir William Ouseley would, probably, have power to enter upon it in a liberal spirit.

I then went on to animadvert upon the danger of some movement in the approaching Congress which would interfere with the contemporary negotiation of Sir William Ouseley, remarking that should the Presi dent in his message allude to the position of the two countries in reference to Central America, and if, in consequence of his excellency's reflections a resolution should be proposed for the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, such a step would not only frustrate the purposes of Sir William Ouseley's mission, but would have a calamitous influence on the future relations of England and America. It would, therefore, be highly gratifying to me to be enabled to assure your lordship that, pending the negotiation intrusted to Sir William Ouseley, no proposal to annul the treaty would be sanctioned or encouraged by his excellency or by the members of his government.

The President stated, in reply, that it was certainly his intention to give an account in his message of all that has passed between the two governments respecting the Dallas Clarendon treaty. He appeared to intimate that the effect of such a narrative would be to place the conduct of Great Britain in an unfavorable light, and he added that the passage in which he commented upon these transactions was already prepared; but his excellency went on to affirm, with emphasis, that if the resolutions of Her Majesty's Government were such as I had related, if they really meant to execute the Clayton-Bulwer treaty according to the American interpretation, and would, before the meeting of Congress, make some communication to him in that sense, such as he could use, he would cancel what he had written and insert another passage referring to the mission of Sir William Ouseley, and that "nothing would give him greater pleasure than to add the expression of his sincere and ardent wish for the maintenance of friendly relations between the two countries."

His excellency also distinctly declared that, under the circumstances here described, no attempt against the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in Congress would have any countenance from him whatever. To him it was indifferent whether the concessions contemplated by Her Majesty's Government were consigned to a direct engagement between England and the United States, or to treaties between the former and the Central Ameri can republics. The latter method might, in some respects, be even more agreeable to him, and he thought it would be more convenient to Her Majesty's Government, who might, with greater facility, accede to the claims of the weaker party.

I thanked the President for his assurances, and expressed my hope that your lordship would be enabled to make a full communication of Sir William Ouseley's instructions to the American Cabinet, and even to direct that minister to visit Washington, on his way to Central America, if his excellency thought such a step would be advisable. The President replied that a written communication would be sufficient, even if it reached him a few days before the meeting of Congress.

In the course of this interview the President touched incidentally upon the Honduras Railway, which he trusted might prove a successful enterprise, although the impressions which reached him were un