Roosevelt was minded to build the canal anyway, using an earlier treaty with Colombia that gave the U.S. transit rights in regard to the Panama Railroad. Hay predicted "an insurrection on the Isthmus [of Panama] against that regime of folly and graft ... at Bogotá". Bunau-Varilla gained meetings with both men, and assured them that a revolution, and a Panamanian government more friendly to a canal, was coming. In October, Roosevelt ordered Navy ships to be stationed near Panama. The Panamanians duly revolted in early November 1903, with Colombian interference deterred by the presence of U.S. forces. By prearrangement, Bunau-Varilla was appointed representative of the nascent nation in Washington, and quickly negotiated the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, giving the United States the right to build the canal in a zone wide, over which the U.S. would exercise full jurisdiction. This was less than satisfactory to the Panamanian diplomats who arrived in Washington shortly after the signing, but they did not dare renounce it. The treaty was approved by the two nations, and work on the Panama Canal began in 1904. Hay wrote to Secretary of War Elihu Root, praising "the perfectly regular course which the President did follow" as much preferable to armed occupation of the isthmus.