The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-21 00:00:00

meat 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 Si-
bun ; that it had always resisted the right of Great Bri-
tain to establish a protectorate over the Mosquitos; and
that it had learned with great surprise and regret that
the British forces had in 1843 expelled the Nicaraguan
authorities which held the port and town of San Juan
(le Nicaragua in virtue of the old Spanish rights, and
had then heisted 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 continents were not hence-
forth to be considered subject to colonisation by Euro-
pean Powers.
" 5. That no claim on the part of Great Britain to act
in the name or under the authority of the Mosquito In-
dians could be well founded, inasmuch as that race, even
if never conquered by Spain, were savages who, accord-
ing to the practice and principles of all European na-
tions 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 colonise, 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 Mos-
quitos, and, moreover, to deliver up Ruatan, which was
an island belonging to Honduras, a central American
State, but which, nevertheless, had recently been colo-
nised and occupied by Great Britain."
With these positions the Earl of Clarendon deals in a
despatch which fills four columns of the Daily Union.
The noble Earl says " that Great Britain has never held
any possessions whatsoever in the Mosquito country,
although she undoubtedly exercised a great and exten-
sive influence over it as the protecting ally of the Mos-
quito king; and that the United States' Government
will, it is apprehended, scarcely expect that Great Bri-
tain should enter into any explanation or defence of ber
conduct with respect to acts committed by her nearly
40 years ago, in a matter in which no right or possession
of the United States was involved." With respect to any
right or any interference on the part of the Government
of Old Spain respecting the Mosquito protectorate, Lord
Clarendon observes that since the peace of 1815 that Go-
vernment has never raised any question on the subject,
and that no remonstrance was made by any of the
neighbouring republics which have successively risen in
America on the ruins of the Spanish empire for many
years after the protectorate of Great Britain over Mos-
quito had been a frost well known to them ; and, more.
over, that those remonstrances having been made, with
similar pretensions, by several of these republics, ii the
Mosquito Indians were withdrawn altogether from the
portion of America which they now inhabit, it would still
be a question on which of the claimants the territory thus
left unoccupied would of right devolve. Lord Clarendon
states that 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, for :that although the United States
were informed of the position of Greatßritain with respect
to Mosquito in 1342, there was no trace of their having
alluded to the question in their communications with her
Majesty's Government up to the end of 1849, and that
even with respect to the capture of San Juan de Nicara-
gua (now called Greytown) the United States' Minister
in London was not authorised to take any step, nor
even to afford to the commissioner from Nicaragua the
benefit of his counsels and good offices thereupon. Tae
despatch says :
" With regard to the grounds on which her Majesty's
Government made the capture of San Juan de Ni-
caragua, in 1848, the desire of her Majesty's Govern-
ment to avoid all subjects of controversy in which is 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 super-
fluous now to recapitulate their contents.
" With regard to the doctrine laid down by Mr.
President Monroe in 1823, concerning the future colo-
nisation of the American continents by European
States, as an international axiom which ought to regu-
late 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 can-
not 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 Dowers
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 con-
science."

The noble earl points to Liberia as the example of a
flourishing' independent State, composed chiefly of ne4roes
from the United States, and observes that Great Britain
in her own dealings with Indiana has recognised their
rulers as independent chiefs,lwhile in her treaties with fo-
reign Powers she has spoken of their tribes as nations,
and stipu'ated for the restoration of their possessions.
On these topics, therefore, her i Majesty's Government,
without seeking to impose any opinions on the United
States' Government, claims a right to hold its own opi-
nion..

" Tile one remaining subject to be discussed, " Lord

Clarendon continues "relates to a question in which
Great Britain and the 'United Stites are both directly
concerned, and in regard to which it is a matter both of
honour and interest that they should avoid all misun-
derstanding or disagreement. This subject is tke right-
fill 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 con-

tinues 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 Sritain never
claimed, and does not now claim or hold any sovereignty
in or over Mosquito ; but with respect to the protecto-
rate which Great Britain has long exercised over Mos-
quito, her Majesty's Government asserts that the treaty
of 1350 did not, and was not meant to annihilate such
protectorate, but simply to confine its powers and limit
its influence.
The noble earl, after reminding the representative of
the United States that the spirit of the treaty tnuet al-
ways be inferred from the circumstances under which it
takes place, and that the true construction of a treaty
must be deduced from the literal meaning of the words
employed in its framing, proceeds to describe the cir-
cumstance under which the treaty of 1850 was concluded.
He observes that, after expelling the Nicaraguans from
Greytown, Great Britain could clearly engage herself to
the llfnited States to do all that was required respecting
the construction and protection of any canal communi-
cation across the isthmus, to be enjoyed on equal terms
by'all nations, and she should also limit the powers of
her protectorate over Mosquito, so as to remove all sus-
picion or possibility of her using it in any manner that
would place such canal communication under her exclu-
sive authority and dominion. nue, when the dra sin g
up of a treaty afterwards took place, the object of the
British negotiator, and it must be presumed that
of both negotiators, necessarily was to draw up
such a convention as, without conceding any specific
point en which one party could not in honour yield,
would make such concessions on all other points as the
other party desired ; and if the convention in question
be referred to, it will be seen that it is drawn up care-
fully, in such a manner as to make it a matter of indif-
ference, so far as the canal is concerned, as to whether
the port and town of San Juan are under the modified
protectorate of Great Britain, or under the government
of Nicaragua. Moreover, in drawing up this treaty, both
Mr. Clayton and Sir H. L. Bulwer referred to the notes
which had passed between. Lord Palmerston mad Mr.
Lawrence, and even made use of the precise terms which
had been then employed ; from which it must of neces-
sity be inferred that they meant to transfer to their con-
vention, with the words which they borrowed, the mean-
ing which bad previously been attached to those words
in the documents from which they extracted them ; and
a reference to such documents will at once show that
_ _

Mr. Lawrence, while he asked her Majesty's Govern-
ment whether it meant to occupy, fortify, colonise, or as-
sume or exercise dominion over Mosquito, did not allude
to the protectorate of Great Britain over that country,
and that Lord Palmerston, in declaring that her Ma-
jesty's Government did not intend to do any of these
things, expressly left the question concerning the poli-
tical relations between Great Britain and the Mosquitos
untouched." _ .

......_ __
With regard to the literal meaning of the treaty, Lord
Clarendon observes that it is evident it clearly acknow-
ledges the possibility of Great Britain or the United
States affording protection to Mosquito or any Central
American State, and that the intention of the parties was
not to prohibit or abolish, but to limit and restrict, such
protectorate. The noble earl further says that it was
never in the contemplation of her Majesty's Govern-
ment, or in that of the Government of the United States,
that the treaty of 1850 should interfere in any way with
1 her Majesty's settlement at Belize or its dependencies ;
and he shows in some detail that the pretensions of
; I Great Britain to consider Ruatan and &mac:ea de- '
pendencles of Belize were of long standing, and
existed certainly at the period of the treaty of 1850.
The followir, are the concluding paragraphs of the
noble earl's despatch :
" Her Majesty's Government can hardly anticipate
any difficulty at this time with the United States re-
specting the continental establishment of Honduras, the
limits of which, in 1850, were so well known and can be
en easily ascertained, and which will not he extended ;
but bacini,- shown that its pretensions to the islands of
IRuatan and Bonacea are of no recent date, and that
they were unquestioned by the United States' Clovern-
ment iu 1850. Her Majesty's Government cannot ad-
mit that an alteration j, the internal form of govern-
ment of these islands is a violation of the treaty, or
affords a just cause of remonstrance to the United
States.
" There are, at all times, two modes of dealing with
matters of business between nations—the one calculated
to excite mutual irritation the other to mitigate it—the
;
' one tending to prolong and increase differences, the other
to diminish and remove them.
I " The latter is the mode which her Majesty's Govern-
ment earnestly desires in the present instance to adopt
and to sae adopted, for it can hardly be LecesEary to say
that there is no Government with which the people and