Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1856-01-03
GBe 1aiIpy Sp9g,
THURSDAY. JANUARY 3. 1856.
MES AGE
TIL e p r e SID EN- T 4,
4RIRTY-FoURTH CONGRESS.

on the first Monday of December, and 1t has
been usual for the President to make no COM
munication of public character TO the Sem
ate and House of Representatives until adj
vised of their readiness to receive it. 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 70 postpone
the discharge Of the obligation enjoined by
the Constitution upon the President, to give
to Congress information on the State Of the
Union, and recommend to their consideration
such measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient.
1t is a matter of congratulaton that the Re-
public is TRANQUILITY advancing in a career of
prosperity and peace.
FOREIGN RELATIONS CENTRAL AMERICA.
Whilst relations Of amty continue to exist
between the United States and all foreign
powers, with some of them grave questions
are pending, which may require the consider
alton of Congress. OF such questions, the
most important is that which has arisen out
of the negotiations with Great Britain in re-
ference to Genital America.
By the convention concluded between the
two governments on the 18th of April, 1850,
both parties covenanted that neither will ever
occupy, fortiiy, colonize, assume or exercise,
any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rca, The
Mosquito coast, or any part of Central Amer
lea. 1t was the pndoubted understanding Of
the United ST s1s, in making this treaty, that
all the present States Of the former republic
of Central America, and the entire territory
of each, would thenceforth enjoy complete
independence, and that both parties contract
ed equally, and to the same extent, for the
future, that if either then had any claim or
right in Central America, such claim, and all
occupation or authority under it, were unre-
servedly relinquished by the stipulations of
the convention; and that no dominion was
thereafter to be exercised, or assumed, in any
part of Central America, by Great Britain or
the United States. This government consent-
ed to restrictions in regard to a region Of coun-
try wherein we had specific and peculiar in
terests, only upon the conviction that the like
restrictions were III the same sense obligatory
on Great Britain. But for this understanding
of the force and effect Of the Convention, IL
would never have been concluded by us. So
clear was this understanding on the part Of
the United States, that in a 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 establish
ment at the Belize. This qualification is to
be ascrbed to the fact that, in virtue of sue
country, Great Britain had obtained conces-
sion of the right to cut mahogany or dye
woods at the Balize, but with positive exelu-
sion of all domain or sovereignty, and thus il
confirms the natural construction and UNDER
stood import OF the treaty, as to all the rest of
the region to which the stipulations applied.
1t, however, became apparent, at an early day
after entering upon TIE discharge of my pro.
sent functions, that Great Britain still contin-
ued in the exercise or assertion of large au-
thority III all parts of Central America, COM
monty called the Mosquito Coast and cover
ing the entire length of the State of Nicara-
qua and a part of Costa Rica; that she re-
garded the Balize as her absolute domain. and
was gradually extending its limits at the ex-
pense of the State of Honduras, and that she
had formally colonized considerable insular
group, known as the Bay lslands, and belong
ing by right to that State. All these acts or
pretensions of Great Britain being contrary to
the rights of the States of Central America,
and to the manifest tenor of her stipulations
with the United States, as understood by this
government, have been made the subject Of
negotiation through the American Minister in
London.
transmit herewith the instructions to him
on the subject, and the correspondence be-
tween him and the British Secretaries for
foreign affairs, by which you will perceive that
the two governments differ widely, and ire
concilably, as to the construction of the Con-
vention and its effect on their respective rela.
tons to Central America. Great Britain so
CONSTITUTES the Convention as to maintain all
her previous professions over the Mosquito
Coast, and in different parts Of Central Amer
lea. These pretensions over the Mosquito
Coast are founded on the assumption of polit-
4 IL.
remnant of tribe of Indians on the coast en-
tered into at time when the whole country
was colonial possession of Spain. 1t cannot
be successfully controverted, that by The pub
lie 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 as
sent of Spain, as the origin Of her claims on
the Mosquito Coast. She has, on the contrary,
by repeated and successive treaties renowned
and relinquished all Ipretensions Of her own,
and recognized the full and sovereign rights of
Spain in the most equivocal terms.
Yet these pretensions, SO without solid
foundation in the beginning and thus repeat
edly abjured, were at recent period revived
by great Britain, against the Central Ameri-
can States, the legitimate successors of 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
part of the coast of Costa Rlca, and they are
now reasserted to this extent, notwithstand-
ing engagements to the United States. On
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.
pirate authorities of the Central American
States, is now presented by her, as the right
full exercise of dominion over the Mosquito
tribe of indians. But the establishment at the
Belize, now reaching far beyond its limits into
the State OF Honduras, and that Of the Bay
Islands, appertaining Of right TO the same
State, are az distinctly colonial governments
as those OF Jamaica or Canada, and therefore
contrary to the very letter as well as the spirit
OF the Convention with the United States, as
it was at the time of the ratification, and now
is, Understood by this government.
The Interpretation which the British gov
eminent thus in assertion and act, persists in
ascrbing to the Convention, entirely changes
its character. While il holds us to all our
obligations, it in great measure relieves ct.
Britain from those which constituted this con-
sideration Of this government for entering in-
to the covenant. ltis impossible, i'll my judy
ment, for the United States to acquiesce in
such construction of the respective relations
Of the two governments to Central America.
10 a renewed call by this government to
abide by and carry into effect the shpula-
| tons Of the Convention, according to its OBJ
yious import, by Withdrawing from tho pos
| session or colonization of portiong of the Gem