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quito shore, and declining, therefore, to entertain complaints against officers of the crown for acts done there.

The treaty of Paris assumes to define the respective rights of the parties in Central America. By Article XVII it is provided that "His Britannic Majesty shall cause to be demolished all fortifications which his subjects shall have erected in the Bay of Honduras, and other places of the territory of Spain in that part of the world, &c., and then the right is given to the English to cut logwood on the "Spanish coasts and territories." In accordance with this provision, all the British fortifications in Mosquito were demolished and the troops removed. But the settlers remained both there and in Honduras for the purpose of cutting and carrying away logwood, and marked their residence by repeated aggressions, similar to those already described, which I can give you in detail if you desire it. In 1783, at the close of the contests which accompanied the American Revolution, it was found necessary to define more particularly the rights of the English cutters, which is accordingly done by the sixth article of the treaty of Versailles, where it is provided that, "the 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 settlements having been formed and extended under that pretense upon the Spanish continent, it is expressly agreed that His Britannic Majesty's subjects shall have the right of cutting," &c. (defining the limits about the Belize within which the right might be exercised), "and His Catholic Majesty assures to them the enjoyment of all that is expressed within the present article, provided that these stipulations shall not be considered as derogating in any wise from his rights of sovereignty." And then it was provided that within eighteen months from the ratification the English should wholly retire from the Spanish continent and islands to the space allotted to them. This the English were understood at the time to have received as a compensation for abandoning Mosquito.

It is now claimed by Great Britain that before the conclusion of this treaty Mosquito had become an independent nation, and therefore was not embraced within its provisions. The argument upon which this is founded involves the consideration of the English title.

Starting from the position that the Indians had never been conquered, and therefore were not within Spanish jurisdiction (the fallacy of which I have already shown), all English writers rely on three, and only three, circumstances to establish the Mosquito protectorate, all of which are stated by Lord Palmerston in his note to Mr. Castellon of July 16, 1849; 1st. A submission by the Mosquito King to the governor of Jamaica on behalf of the King of England in 1687, founded on an alleged prior submission between 1645 and 1660. 2d. A convention between the governor of Jamaica and the King of the Mosquitos, concluded June 25, 1720. 3d. Certain reports and resolutions made in 1774 in the house of assembly of Jamaica.

To all this I might reply that the Mosquitos could not of themselves change their political connection; that, not being an independent nation, all acts done by them as such are void; that the demolition of fortifications shows England's construction of the treaty of Paris; and that the treaty of Versailles uses the broad language of the " Spanish continent,” and affirms Spanish sovereignty. Without dwelling on these apparent considerations, I turn to the authorities relied upon for these positions. And as to the first, I find that all writers reter for proof to an account of the matter given by Sir Hans Sloane, who was in Jamaica at the time

of the alleged submission to the Duke of Albemarle, the governor, and was his family physician, and of course in a position to know all about it. The authority most often cited is a memoir by Bryan Edwards, entitled "Some account of the British Settlements on the Mosquito Shore, drawn up for the use of Government in 1773." The history of this memoir is a little curious. It purports to have been drawn up for the use of government in 1773. It was printed anonymously, and was in 1776 "laid before Parliament" with the case of the Morning Star, to which I shall soon allude. The treaties of 1783 and 1786 having been concluded, the subject dropped. Twenty years afterwards, Mr. Edwards published his "History of the West Indies," in one of the foot-notes to which he states that the settlement in Mosquito having been surrendered to Spain by the treaty of 1786, it did not come within the plan of his work to treat of them, but referred all curious on this subject to this memorial. In 1819, in the fifth edition of his history (the first published after his death), this memorial was for the first time printed with the history, and under his name. It is now reproduced by the Foreign Office in the "correspondence," &c., on this subject, submitted to Parliament in 1848. That you may see how history has been perverted, I give you in parallel columns what Sir Hans Sloane really did say (copied from his printed history) and what Mr. Edwards represents him as saying:

SIR HANS SLOANE.

One King Jeremy came from the Mosquitos (an Indian People near the Provinces of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Kica). He pretended to be a king there, and came from the others of his country, to beg of the Duke of Albemarle, governor of Jamaica, his Protection, and that he would send a Governor thither with a power to war on the Spaniards and Pirats. This he alleged to be due to his country from the Crown of England, who had in the reign of King Charles I submitted itself to him. The Duke of Albemarle did nothing in this matter, being afraid it might be a trick of some people to set up a Government for Bucaniers or Pirats. This King Jeremy, in coming to Town, asking many questions about the Island, and not receiving as he thought, a satisfactory account, he pulled off his European cloaths his friends had put on, and climb'd to the top of a tree to take a view of the country.

The memorial and substance of what he, and the people with him, represented to the Duke of Albemarle, was, That in the reign of King Charles I of ever Blessed memory, the Earl of Warwick (by virtue of letters of reprisal granted by his said majesty for damages received from the Subjects of his Catholic majesty) did possess himself of several islands in the West Indies, particulary that of Providence (since called by the Spaniards St. Catalina) which is situate in 13 deg. 10 m. N. Lat., lying East from Cape Gratios de Dios (vulgarly known by the name of the Muskitos) between Thirty and Forty leagues: which put the said Earl upon trying all ways and means of future correspondence with the natives of the said Cape, and neigh

MR. EDWARDS.

The memorial and substance [says Sir Hans] of what he (the Mosquito King) and the people with him represented to the Duke of Albemarle was that in the reign of Charles I. the Earl of Warwick, by virtue of letters of reprisal, possessed himself of several islands in the West Indies, particularly that of Providence (since called by the Spaniards St. Catalina), which is situated 13 10 m. N. lat., lying east from Cape Gracios a Dios (vulgarly known by the name of the Mosquitos) between thirty and forty leagues, which put the said Earl upon all ways and means of future correspondence with the natives of the said cape and neighboring country: and in some little time he was so successful as to gain that point,

boring country, and in some little time was so successful as to gain that Point, and further prevailed with them so far, as to persuade them to send home the King's son, leaving one of his People as Hostage for him, which was Col. Morris, now living at New York. The Indian Prince going home with the said Earl, staid in England three years, in which time the Indian King died, and the said natives having in that time had intercourse of Friendship and Commerce with those of Providence were soon made sensible of the grandeur of his Majesty of Great Britain and how necessary his Protection was to them. Upon the return of the said Indian Prince, they persuaded him to resign up his authority and power over them, and (with them) unanimously declare themselves the subjects of his said Majesty of Great Britain, in which opinion they have ever since persisted, and do own no other Supreme command over them.

and prevailed with them so far as to persuade them to send home the King's son, leaving one of his people as a hostage for him, which was Col. Morris, now living in New York. The Indian prince, going home with the said Earl, staid in Englund three years, in which time the Indian king died, and the natives, having in that time intercourse and commerce with those of Providence, were soon made sensible of the grandeur of his Majesty of Great Britain, and how necessary his protection was to them. Upon the retara of the said Indian Prince, they persuaded him to resign up his authority and power over them, and with them unanimously declare themselves the subjects of his said Majesty of Great Britain: in which opinion [continues Sir Hans] they have ever since persisted, and do own no other supreme command over them.

I am sure you will agree with me that a worse perversion of history than this can scarcely be found elsewhere. The original authority, when produced, states expressly that the Duke of Albemarle did nothing in the matter. Mr. Edwards suppresses the fact that Lord Warwick's expedition was hostile to Spain; and the opinion attributed to Sir Hans at the close of the extract is found to be not his, but the language of the memorial.

But I am able to go a step further in the history of this curious title, and show the equivalent which the Indian Esau received for his birthright. In a pamphlet first published in 1699 (eight years before the publication of Sir Hans Sloane), and afterwards republished in the sixth volume of Churchill's Voyages, containing an account of the Mosquito shore from a very intelligent person, evidently well acquainted from observation, is the following passage:

He [the King] says that his father, Oldman, King of the Mosquito men, was carried over to England soon after the conquest of Jamaica, and there received from his brother King a crown and commission, which the present Old Jeremy still keeps safely by him, which is but a cocked hat, and a ridiculous piece of writing that he should kindly use and reliere such struggling Englishmen as should choose to come that way with plantains, fish, and turtle, &c., &c.

The words that I have italicised in the latter part of this extract need no comment.

As to the second fact now alleged, I have only to say that the ** convention" is published in the Mosquito correspondence submitted to Parliament in 1818; and so far from proving any sovereignty in the In dians, shows the contrary. It is neither treaty nor convention. It is a contract between King Jeremy on the one side, signed with hig mark," and Governor Lawes on the other, sealed with the PRIVATE sculs of both parties, by which the King contracts to furnish fifty men to hunt negroes, and the governor to pay for them and give them "rum" enough for the voyage home; very similar to the contract made subsequently with the Spanish hunters of Cuba for the employment of bloodhounds for the same purpose. This is not the mode in which high contracting parties usually deal with each other. Any argument deduced from it is founded in an ignorance of the distinction between a sovereignty in the soil and a dominion over the persons of the savages composing the tribe.

As to the third fact, without stopping to dwell on its ex-parte character, I have reason to think that the move was made in Jamaica at the instance, among others, of this Mr. Edwards, who drew up, to further it, the memorial above alluded to. To show how little the government at home entered into it, in 1776 a vessel called the Morning Star, with certain Indians on board, who had been to England to aid in putting down the practice of selling the Indians into slavery, was seized by the Spanish Guarda Costas on its return to Mosquito. The owners brought the subject before Parliament, presenting with their petition Mr. Edwards' memorial. After a long debate, in which it was asse, ted that the seizure was justifiable, as the treaty had been violated, Parliament refused to entertain the subject.

I have now examined the only evidence adduced in support of the English claim to a protectorate, and, unless I deceive myself, it dwindles into insignificance. I now resume the historical thread.

The English settlers were lax in conforming to the provisions of the treaty of 1783, the territory allotted to them being found to be too small, and the eighteen months passed away without their removal. Spain began to complain of this infraction, and the result was the treaty of 1786, which, besides, enlarging the territory to be occupied by the English, and making various regulations about it, contains the following provisions:

I. His Britannic Majesty's subjects, and the other colonists who have hitherto enjoyed the protection of England, shall evacuate the country of the Mosquitos, &c. XI. * In this view His Britannic Majesty engages to give the most positive orders for the evacuation of the country above mentioned by all his subjects, of whatever denomination; but if, contrary to such declaration, there should still remain any persons 80 daring as to presume, by retiring into the interior of the country, to endeavor to obstruct the entire evacuation already agreed upon, His Britannic Majesty, so far from affording them the least succor, or even protection, will disavow them in the most solemn manner, as he will equally do those who may hereafter attempt to settle upon the territory belonging to the Spanish dominion.

XIV. His Catholic Majesty, prompted solely by motives of humanity, promises to the King of England that he will not exercise any act of severity against the Mosquitos inhabiting in part the countries which are to be evacuated by virtue of the present convention on account of the connections which may have subsisted between the said Indians and the English.

This was looked upon as an abandonment by England. It was so avowed in Parliament in a debate on a motion to impeach the ministry. Bryan Edwards admits it in the foot note cited above. The Mosquito settlers themselves considered it so, and put in a claim to Parliament for damages, which was allowed. Extracts from their statement of the grounds of their claim have found their way into the appendix to the Mosquito correspondence of 1848, under the title of "Extracts from McGregor's Commercial Tariffs, Part XVII."

Still later, in the Quarterly Review for October, 1822, article VIII, in a review of a work on Mosquito Shore by one Captain Strangeway, is the following strong language. After saying that

The whole of the Mosquito Shore and Honduras and the town of Poyais have for many centuries belonged to Spain, and have been considered as constituent portions of the kingdom of Mexico, not one foot of which was ever held by the English, except occasionally during a war, by the buccaneers, or more recently by the logwood cutters; and reviewing the treaties of 1783 and 1786, the writer says:

Nothing can more clearly establish the sole right of Spain to these territories than the treaty and convention above mentioned. We never had any business there. The simple fact is that the Mosquito Indians have always borne au inveterate dislike to the Spaniards. The Duke of Albemarle, when governor of Jamaica, fostered that dislike, and invested one of the Indians with a commission as chief of the Mosquitos, under the protection of England; a foolish ceremony, which was exercised long after

by his successor, just as we now make King Toms and King Jacks among the negroes of Western Africa; but, if treaties are to be considered as at all binding, it is quite clear that we have not the right, nor even the permission of residence on the Mosquito Shore, and that we cut logwood and mahogany on the shores of Honduras Bay only by sufferance.

It is worthy of remark that in a reply to the Review, published in 1823, is the admission that "this territory belongs to Spain."

I have, &c.,

ABBOTT LAWRENCE.

24.-Clayton-Bulwer treaty of April 19, 1850.

The United States of America and Her Britannic Majesty, being desirous of consolidating the relations of amity which so happily subsist between them, by setting forth and fixing in a convention their views and intentions with reference to any means of communication by shipcanal which may be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by the way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua and either or both of the Lakes of Nicaragua or Managua, to any port or place on the Pacific Ocean, the President of the United States has conferred full powers on John M. Clayton, Secretary of State of the United States, and Her Britannic Majesty on the Right Honorable Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, a member of Her Majesty's most honorable privy council, knight commander of the most honorable Order of the Bath, and envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Her Britannic Majesty to the United States, for the aforesaid purpose; and the said plenipotentiaries having exchanged their full powers, which were found to be in proper form, have agreed to the following articles:

ARTICLE I.

The Governments of the United States and Great Britain hereby declare that neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the said ship canal; agreeing that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume, or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or any part of Central America; nor will either make use of any protection which either affords or may afford, or any alliance which either has or may have to or with any state or people, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any such fortifications, or of occupying, fortifying, or colonizing Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercis ing dominion over the same; nor will the United States or Great Britain take advantage of any intimacy, or use any alliance, connection, or influ ence that either may possess with any state or government through whose territory the said canal may pass, for the purpose of acquiring or holding, directly or indirectly, for the citizens or subjects of the one, any rights or advantages in regard to commerce or navigation through the said canal which shall not be offered on the same terms to the citizens or subjects of the other.

ARTICLE II.

Vessels of the United States or Great Britain traversing the said canal shall, in case of war between the contracting parties, be exempted from

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