The true Democrat., 1856-01-29
Highly Important Correspondence.
OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND-THE

OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND-THE
 CENTRAL AMERICAN QUESTION.
 The correspondence between our government and that of Great Britain, in relation to the Central American question, communicated to fCongress by the President embraces letters ex- tending from July, 1853, down to October, 1855 The main points in the discussion, however, will be found in the following letters, which are .of the latest date:
 MIR. BUCHANAN TO LORD CLARENDON.
 The undersigned, Envy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, Las been instructed by the President again to call the attention of the Earl of Clarendon, Her Maiesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Central American ques- tons pending between the two governments under the convention of the 18th April 1850
 The President has directed the undersigned before retiring from his mission, to request from the British government settlement of the posi- ton which it has determined to maintain in re- gad to the Bay Islands-the territory between the Sbrun and the Sarstroon as well as the Belize settlement and the Mosquito Protecto- rate. The long delay in asking for this infor- nation has proceeded from the Presidents re- luctance to manifest any impatience on this Important subject whilst the attention of her Majesty's government was engrossed by the war with Russia. But as more than year has already elapsed since the termination of the discussion on these questions, and as the first session of the new Congress is rapidly ap- poaching, the President does not feel that he would be justified in any longer delay. Whilst its far from the purpose of the undersigned to reopen the general discussion, he has been in- structed to communicate to the Earl of Claren- don the conclu sions at which the President has arrived upon the whole case.
 After having carefully reviewed and recon- Sidered all the questions involved ,1with the light cast npon them by the Earl of Clarendon's statement of the 2d of May 1854, the President has expressed his unwillingness to believe that the positions, which he conceives to be rather indicated therein than finally adopted, will be adhered to by the British government.
 ltwas, in my opinion, the manifest intention of the convention to exclude both contracting parties from holding or occupying as well as from acquiring territorial possession in Central America; and that this intention is not clothed in ambiguous language, but is set forth in ex- plcit terms The United States have bound themselves not t0 acquire any such possessions, and Great Britain has stipulated not to Gas sume or exercise any dominion over any part of Central America" Indeed, without such feGprocal engagements, no mutuality whatey- CT would exist between the covenants of the contracting parties. Whilst the United States are excluded from occupying, colonizng or ex- efcsing dominion over any part Of Central America, it cannot be admitted that the same festriction imposed in the very same language, not equally applicable to Great Britain.
 The President therefore confidently believes that Great Britain is bound by the first article Oi the convention of 1850. to withdraw from the possession she now holds of Ruatan and the other Central American islands on the coast of the State of Honduras, as we'll as from the ter ntory of Central America between the Sibrun and the Sarstroon, which has been encroached upon by her Majesty's subjects. He is also of the opinion that the possession of the British government at the Balize should be restricted 10 the limits and objects specified in the trea- "es between Great Biitan and Spain of 1783 and l786