The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-15 00:00:00

AMERICA.

THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

[A. summary of the Message of the American President
appeared in our impression of yesterday.]

LIVERPOOL, MONDAY.

The royal mail steam-ship Asia, Captain Lott,
arrived this morning from the United States with
the President's Message. The Asia sent in her
mails by tug-boat. Weather very foggy. She
brings 118 passengenrs, but no specie. Her dates
are—New York, Jan. 1 ; Boston, Jan. 2 ; and
Halifax, Jan. 4.
The President's Message was delivered on the
31st of December. There was no balloting for the
Speaker. The day was consumed in debating
whether the Message should be received or not.
By sending the Message to the Congress before the
popular branch of that body was prepared to re-
ceive it, the country was taken by surprise. The
President assigns as his motive for this extraordi-
nary step, that his conviction of duty would not
permit him to postpone the obligation enjoined on
him by the Constitution, to give information of
the state of the Union. The pacific tone of the
Message gave great satisfaction.
Gold has been found in Chili. $lO,OOO worth
was found in 14 days at Naciamento by an Ame-
rican. The steam-ship Law arrived at New York
on Dec. 28th, from Aspinwall the 19th • on board
one million and a half of treasure. The Indian
war was raging. The fall of Sebastopol was cele-
brated in grand style at San Francisco on Nov. 26.
The Peruvian Legislature is about to sell all guano
in Chincha Islands, value $350,000,000. The
steam-ship Star of the West arrived at New York
on Dec. 29th, from San Juan 23d, with half a mil-
lion in treasure. Walker's Government was more
popular. The Northern Light had been searched,
and found to contain saddles, ploughshares, and
types ; she sailed on the 26th for Nicaragua.
The Central American imbroglios, between the
United States and England, upon the Clayton and
Bulwer Treaty, is the paramount topic of im-
portance.
The Asia brought Capt. Griffin and crew of the
schooner Sarah, of Halifax ; also an account by the
master of the sinking of the vessel on the 7th Jan.
On the 11th exchanged signals with the Africa ;
and on the 13th passed the Baltic.
West India dates, received up to Dec. 10, state
that her Majesty's steamer Medea left for Antigua •,
H.M.S. Cornwallis, Capt. G. G. Wellesley, arrived
from Portsmouth. Her Majesty's steam-sloop
Rosamond, Commander Crofton, sailed for Halifax.
His Excellency Francis Hincks, Esq., the newly
appointed Governor-General of the Windward
Islands, was a passenger by the Curlew from Hali-
fax on his way to Barbadoes from Bermuda. On
St. Andrew'it-day the usul church meeting was
held.
From Mexico we have dates to the 18th ; they
state that Alvarez having resigned the Presidency,
and retired to the south, General Comonfort has
assumed supreme authority, and organised a new
ministry. _ _ _

THE MESSAGE.
Fellow Citiz3ns of the Senate and House of
Representativws,

The constitution of the United States provides that
Congress shall assemble annually on the first Monday of
December, and it has been usual for the President to make
no communication of a public character to the Senate and
House of Representatives until advised of their readiness
to receive it. I have deferred to this usage until the close
of the first month of the session, but my convictions of
duty will not permit me longer to postpone the discharge
of the obligation enjoined by the constitution upon the
President, 'to givo to the Congress information of the
state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration
such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.'
It is a matter of congratulation that the republic is
tranquilly advancing in a career of prosperity and peace.
FOREIGN RELATIONS.—CENTRAL AMERICA.

Whilst relations of amity continue to exist between
the United States and all foreign powers, with some of
them grave questions are depending, which may require
Vie consideration of Congress.
Of such questions, the most important is that which
has arisen out of the negotiations with Great Britain in
reference to Central America.

_
By the convention concluded between the two govern-
ments on the 19th of April, 1850, both parties covenanted
that neither will ever' occupy, or fortify, or colonise, or
assume or exorcise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, the Mosquitgeoftst, or any part of Central America.'
It was the undoubted understanding of the United
States, in making this treaty, that all the present states of
the former republic of Central America, and the entire
territory of each, would henceforth enjoy complete inde-
pendence, and that both contracting parties engaged
equally, and to the same extent, for the present and for
the future, that if either then had any claim of right in
Central America, such claim, and all occupation or autho-
rity under it, were unreservedly relinquished by the stipu-
lations of the convention ; and that no dominion was
thereafter to be exercised or assumed iu any part of Cen-
tral America by Great Britain or the United States,
This government consented to restrictions in regard to
a region of country wherein we had specific and peculiar
interests, only upon the conviction that the like restric-
tions were in the same sense obligatory on Great Britain.
But for this understanding of the force and effect of the
convention, it would never have been concluded by us.
So clear was this understanding on the part of the
United States, that, in correspondence contemporaneous
with the ratification of the convention, it was distinctly
expressed that the mutual covenants of non-occupation
were not intended to apply to the British establishment at
the Belize. This qualification is to be ascribed to the fact
that, in virtue of successive treaties with previous Sove-
reigns of the country, Great Britain had obtained a con-
cession of the right to cut mahogany or dye woods at the
Belize, but with positive exclusion of all domain or save- 1
reiguty ; and thus it confirms the natural construction
and understood import of the treaty as to all the rest of the
region to which the stipulations applied.
It, however, became apparent, at au early day after
entering upon the discharge of my present functions, that
Great Britain still continued iu the exercise or assertion
of large authority in all that part of Central America com-
monly called the Mosquito coast, and covering the entire
length of the state of Nicaragua, and a part of Cosca
Itica; that she regarded the Belize as her absolute do-
main, and was gradually extending its limits at the ex-
pense of the state of Honduras ; and that she had formally
colonised a considerable insular group known as the Bay
Islands, and belonging, of right, to that state.
All these acts of pretensions of Great Britain being
contrary to the rights of the states of Central America, and
to the manifest tenor of her stipulations with tho United
States as understood by this government, have been made
the subject of negotiation through the American Minister
at London. I transmit herewith the instructions to him
on the subject and the correspondence bet-veen him and the
British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, by which you will
perceive that the two Governments differ widely and irre-
concilably as to the construction of the convention, and its
effect on their respective relations to Central America.
Great Britain so construes the convention as to main-
tain unchanged all her previous pretensions over the Mos-
quito coast, and in different parts of Central America.
These pretensions, as to the Mosquito coast, are founded
on the assumption of political relations between Great
Britain and the remnant of a tribe of Indians on that coast,
entered into at a time when the whole country was a co-
lonial possession of Spain. It cannot be successfully con-
troverted that, by the public law of Europe and America,
no possible act of such Indians or their predecessors could
confer on Great Britain any political rights.
Great Britain does not allege the assent of Spain as the
origin of her claims on the Mosquito coast. She has, on
the contrary, by repeated and successive treaties, renounced
and relinquished all pretensions of her own, and recog-
nised the full sovereign rights of Spain in the most un-
equivocal terms. Yet these pretensions, so without solid
foundation in the beginning, and thus repeatedly abjured,
were at a recent period rtvived by Great Britain against
the Central American states, the legitimate successors to
all the ancient jurisdiction of Spain in that region. They
were first applied only to a defined part of the coast of
Nicaragua, afterwards to the whole of its Atlantic coast,
and lastly to a part of the coast of Costa Rica; and they
are now re-asserted to this extent, note ithstanding engage-
ments to the United States. _ _

the eastern coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the
interference of Great Britain, though exerted at one time
in the form of military occupation of the port of San Juan
del Norte, then in the peaceful possession of the appro-
priate authorities of the Central American States,is now
presented by her as the rightful exercise of a protectorship
over the Mosquito tribe of Indians.
But the establishment at the Belize, now reaching far
beyond its treaty-limits into the state of Honduras, and
that of the Bay Islands, appertaining of right to the same
state, are as distinctly colonial governments as those of
Jamaica or Canada, and therefore contrary to the very
letter as well as the spirit of the convention pith the
-United States, as it was at the time of ratification, and
now is, understood by this government.
The interpretation which the British governnsent, thus
in assertion and act, persists in ascribing to the convention,
entirely changes its character. While it holdalls to all our
obligations, it in a great measure releases Great Britain
from those which constituted the consideration of this
government for entering into the convention. It is impos-
end°, in my judgment, for the United States to acquiesce
iu such a construction of the respective relations of the two
governments to Central America.
To a renewed call by this government upon Great Bri-
tain to abide by, and carry into effect, the stipulations of
the convention according to its obvious import, by with-
from the possession or colonisation of portions of
the ‘; )31;ral American states of Honduras, Nicaragua, and
Costa Rica, the British Government has at length replied
—affi ing that the operation of the treaty is prospective
only, and did not require Great Britain to abandon or
contract any possessi 438 held by her in Central America at
the date of its conclusion.
This reply substitutes a partial issue, in the place of
the general one presented by the United. States. The Bri-
tish Government asses over
the questionre,stion of the rights of
Great Britain, real p
or surPo' 8( I in Central Ameriee, and
•
a'4"rnea that she hail elide Igh t -
af, the date of the treaty.
and that those lights comprehended the pi oteetorebip of
-
the Mosquito lonians, the extenders j urie fiction ano htnita
of the Belize, and the colony of the Bay Islands, and there-
upon proceeds by implication to infer that, if the stipula•
tions of the treaty be merely future in effect, Great Bri-
tain liltby still continue to hold the contested portions of
Central America. The United States cannot admit either
the inference or the premises. We steadily deny that, et
the date of the treaty, Urea t Britain had any possessions
there, other than the limited and peculiar establishment
at the Belize, and maintain that, if she had any, they were
surrendered by the convention.
This Government, recognising; the obligations of the
treaty, has of course desired to see it executed in good faith
by both parties, and in the discussion, therefore, has not
looked to rights, which we might assert, independent of
the treaty, in consideration of our geographical' position
and of other circumstances, which create for us relations
te the Central American states different from those of any
G iverntaent of Europe. .

The British Government iwits last --toltitatutiCiti:6r,