The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1849-10-20
T H E R E P u B Ii G.
WASHI N GT0N:
SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 30. ls4s.

Since the foreign Occupation ol the MOS
quito coast has become a question OF the
gravest interest to the American people,
sufficient light has been thrown upon the
history of the events which ended in the
ACKNOWLEDGMENT of Nicaragua, to show that
| the late administration looked compla
Gently upon the progress of usurPation
without gainsaying the pretensions Of Great
Britain, or in form resisting the establish
ment of her jurisdiction on the banks OF
the San Juan. Nay, more it is in proof
that the government of Nicaragua repeat
| edly made advances to the late admins
tration to procure the Intervention and
assistance of this Government, to enable
her to repel the aggression OF Great Britain,
and was repulsed, "Before we despatched
a minister to Guatemala, and even before
treaty relative to canal was entered
into with Doctor Brown" said the SUI
preme Director of Nicaragua to Mr.
Squirrels presentation address, advances
were made to the United States Govern
ment without effect 1t is, moreover,
known, that subsequent to the capture Of
Serapaqui in February, 1S4S, by British
force fitted out at the Island Of Jamaica,
an agent of Nicaragua was in this city of
| Washington asking American Intervention
with as little success. Thus we see that
both before and after the usurpation of the
| Mosquito coast-both before and after this
usurpation was consummated by public
force, organized and commanded by British
officers under British authority-the last
administration was importuned by official
solicitation to come to the rescue of Nj
caragua, and utterly refused to do so; to
use the precise language of the Union, the
Polk cabinet " neglected and compromised
the rights, interests, and honor of the
country"
! We have had, latterly, column after col
umn from the "sole organ' of the Polk
dynasty upon the "Monroe doctrine with
any amount of clustering about what Lo-
cofocracy is ready to do and would do if
General Cass had been elected President;
nevertheless, when the Administration of
| General taylor assumed the conduct of
public affairs, the Mosquito controversy
was in the condition indicated. The Bril-
| fish were in the forcible and hostile occu-
patton of the mouth of the San Juan-a
possession perfected with the knowledge
of, and without opposition from, the late
administration and Nicaragua, repulsed
and bafied in her attempt to enlist the sym
pathies and support of the United States
Government, had commissioners in Eu-
rope to seek elsewhere what she was de-
MED here. We would be but using the
language of the Union should we denounce
the conduct Of the last administration upon
this question as base trucking to Lord
| Palmerston, as an imbecile surrender to
English arrogance, as ''neglect and COM
promise" of the rights, interests, and honor
of the country.
To break the overwhelming force of its
own denunciations, blindly made, of the
policy pursued by the last administration
upon this question, the Union invokes the
Hlse treaty to its aid The "sole organ"
has had much to say about that treaty. Ii
pretends to know something of its provis-
ions and history. 1t knows too much not
to know that that treaty was made with
out, if not in defiance of, instructions.
We have the words Of the Supreme Direc-
tor of Nicaragua for it, that the arrival of
Mr.. Squires was the dawn of new era to
that State; and simultaneously with the
announcement in this country that Mr..
Hlse had brought home with him treaty,
it was currently known that that gentle
man had made it on his "own hook"-
that he bad no authority for il from the last
administration. And no one, we imagine,
was sooner or better advised of the fact
than the Union.
In what deplorable condition did the
Polk dynasty bequeath this question to
General TAYLOR and his Cabinet! Nicar.
aqua, rcpulsed and despised, seeking else
where the sympathy which she could not
find here; the British government in the
occupancy of the Mosquito coast under the
title Of a savage caught and crowned to
give plausible seeming to palpable usur-
patton; the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of Nicaragua
begun and consummated with the acauies-
b cence Of the last Cabinetl The Union can
with truth say "this Nicaragua business
was among the very first matters to which
the attention of Mr.. Clayton was called;''
and it might have added, that it was well
for the "rights, and interests, and honor
Of the country" that he gave it his atten-
; ton as soon as he did. And when the
Union next has occasion TO say that ''the
/; late administration very properly declined