British intrigues on the Isthmus — Morazan and the Confederacy — The Mosquito Dynasty — Bombardment of San Juan — Castellon calls in the foreigner — Doubleday and his free lances — Cole's contract approved by Walker.

So long as Central America remained a province of Spain, England's policy was one of peaceful words and hostile deeds. Binding herself, by treaty after treaty, to the renunciation of all claims upon the country, she steadily maintained and extended her hold upon various objective points—Ruatan, Belize, and the Bay Islands which command the Gulf of Mexico, being her favourite spoils. Some equivocal clause in a treaty, a frivolous pretence of avenging some imaginary dishonour, a buccaneer's legacy, a negro king's grant, if no better offered, was put forward as the excuse for armed occupation. Spain's ill-gotten possessions were beginning to bear the usual fruit. At length, in 1821, the colonies of the isthmus heard the cry of liberty from the North echoed by a responsive one from the South. Spanish America shook the chain fretted and worn in the friction of centuries, snapped the frail links asunder, and stood up among the nations, free. But the iron had done its work. The cramped limbs refused their offices; the eyes, wont to peer half closed in dungeon light, blinked and were dazed in the sudden noon of liberty. The body was that of a freeman, but the soul was the soul of a slave. When liberty comes to a nation prematurely, she must be born again in pain and travail ere the boon be valued by its receiver.

A disunited union of a few years' duration, a travesty of power under Iturbide's pasteboard crown, secession, reunion, discord, revolution—the annals of Central America are the Newgate Calendar of history. Yet, among the ignoble or infamous names of Central American rulers, there is one worthy of a brighter page, as its owner was of a better fate. Don Francisco Morazan, first president of the five united states, hardly deserved the title given him of the "Washington of Central America." He was an able, brave, and patriotic man, but cruel and vindictive towards his opponents. He was chosen to the presidency in 1831, and filled the office nine years; at the end of which time the natives had grown heartily tired of the civilized innovations, which were as unfitted to their inferior nature as the stiff garments of fashion to their supple limbs. Morazan had neither the grace nor the wisdom to accept philosophically the people's choice of a reactionary demagogue who catered to their tastes, and so he began to intrigue against the government of his successor, failing in which he was forced to fly to South America. Two years afterwards he landed with only three hundred followers in Costa Rica, and made himself master of the capital. But the President of that state soon rallied a force of five thousand and besieged the invader, who, after a gallant resistance of two days, was compelled to surrender. He was tried and found guilty of conspiring against the confederated states, and was put to death, together with his chief adherents, on the 15th of September, 1842. Guatemala ended the troublesome question of representative government in 1851 by electing Carrera, a half-breed, to the office of president for life.

The states of Central America, torn by internal strife, wasting their scant resources in fruitless wars and sad faction fights, were fast lapsing into a barbarism below that of Nicarao when he bowed to the Spanish yoke. Untainted by foreign blood, the independent native tribes proved themselves superior to the mongrel descendants of Cordova and D'Avila. The Indians of Darien and the Rio Frio region and the mountains of northern Costa Rica to this day preserve their freedom, whilst Nicaragua and Costa Rica have been wrangling, year after year, for the empty honour of being called their sovereign.

To this man-cursed land nature had given a noble heritage, coveted by many a powerful nation, though none dared clutch it single-handed. It is the lake, or inland sea, which covers five thousand square miles of the state, elevated one hundred and seven feet above the mean tide-level of the ocean, a natural reservoir, with an outlet ninety miles long—the San Juan river. By making this outlet navigable for large vessels, a comparatively easy work, and by cutting a canal sixteen and one-third miles in length, across the neck of land lying between the Lake and the Pacific Ocean, a highway could be opened to the commerce of the world, whose benefits it would be hard to over-estimate. It was a noble scheme, appealing to the enterprise of the civilized world and to the enlightened statesmanship of men like Bolivar and Morazan. Humboldt advocated it. Louis Napoleon beguiled his prison hours at Ham by writing a pamphlet showing its feasibility and need. As a commercial undertaking, its value was beyond question: the eye of national aggrandizement saw in it even more alluring features. The nation that should control that canal might be the dictator of America. Such nation was not, and could not be, that which, like the nerveless Ottoman, holds a point of vantage by the right of geographical position and by that alone. The power which held the key to the Mediterranean, and stood ready to seize the Isthmus of Suez, looked wistfully towards Nicaragua. Many and plausible were the dormant claims of England upon the territory of her weak enemy. For years she had exercised a nominal protectorate over the eastern coast known as the Mosquito kingdom.

The monarchs of Mosquito were ignorant negroes, ruling a scattered tribe, the savage descendants of a slave cargo wrecked upon the coast in the seventeenth century. They were appointed at various times by British man-of-war captains, being installed or dethroned at the will of their masters. Nicaragua, while never acknowledging this authority, lacked power to assert her own over the comparatively worthless tracts of her eastern coast, holding possession only of the river and town of San Juan. In 1839, the reigning king of Mosquito, His Majesty Robert Charles Frederick the First, cancelled a debt contracted for sundry liquors and other royal supplies, by making a grant of territory amounting to twenty-two and a half million acres or more. The grantees, Peter and Samuel Shepard, transferred the grant to the Central American Colonization Company, an American Association. This was the foundation of what became afterwards known as the Kinney Expedition.

The royal line of Mosquito may be classed among the unfortunate dynasties of the world. The first monarch, whose name is lost to history, was killed in a drunken brawl; his half-brother and successor was dethroned by a British captain, who placed a distant scion, George Frederick by name, on the vacant throne. The reign of the latter was short. His son, Robert Charles Frederick the First, was a merry monarch, "scandalous and poor," who sold his birthright to the Shepards for a mess of Jamaica rum and sundry pairs of cotton breeches. His son, George William Clarence, was reigning in 1850.

The superior swiftness of American ships had enabled the United States to forestall their English rivals in seizing California; whereupon the latter took the bold step, in 1848, of occupying at the same time Tigre Island, on the Pacific coast of the isthmus, and San Juan del Norte, on the Atlantic, which latter place they christened Greytown, in honour of a governor of Jamaica. England thus had the keys of the isthmus in her hands; the canal, worthless without a safe entrance and exit, might fall to the lot of him who chose the barren glory of building it. But, strange to say, the United States possessed at that time a useful diplomatic servant in their minister to Central America, the Honourable E. G. Squier, one, moreover, whose claim to honour rests upon a broader basis than the thankless triumphs of public service. He promptly seconded the protest of Honduras against the utterly indefensible robbery of her territory, Tigre Island. His government took up the question, and the island was reluctantly given up.

At the same time, the United States formally protested against the seizure of San Juan. Long and wordy negotiations ensued, ending in the so-called Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It was a practical victory for Great Britain, as it entrapped the American Government into an obligation to refrain from "ever holding any exclusive control over the said ship canal, erecting or maintaining any fortifications commanding the same, or in the vicinity thereof, occupying, fortifying, colonizing or assuming or exercising any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America." Great Britain, with apparent fairness, bound herself to equal neutrality. The difference was that the United States promised to abstain from ever taking any steps to control the only avenue then available between the Eastern and the Western States of the Union, thus being placed upon the same footing with distant European nations which could have no such vital interests in the isthmus. Great Britain agreed to refrain from acts which were not only dangerous and inexcusable, but of very doubtful feasibility. Another difference: the United States kept the pledge; Great Britain broke it within fourteen months. The treaty was signed by both parties, and proclaimed on the 5th of July, 1850. In August of the following year, Captain Jolly, of the Royal Navy, solemnly annexed the island of Ruatan to the colony of Belize, which, notwithstanding the treaty, had remained a nominal dependency of England. In July, 1852, Augustus Frederick Gore, Colonial Secretary of Belize, proclaimed that "Her Gracious Majesty, our Queen, has been pleased to constitute and make the islands of Ruatan, Bonacca, Utilla, Barbarat, Helene, and Morat to be a colony to be known and designated as the Colony of the Bay Islands." It was the buccaneer's legacy redivivus.

Now, if ever, was a favourable time for the application of a theory set forth by a President of the United States nearly thirty years before: "That the American Continents, by the free and independent position which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power." So reads the extract from President Monroe's seventh annual message, dated the 2nd December, 1823, and known as the "Monroe Doctrine." This bold assumption of a protectorate over two continents was nothing more than the expression of its author's private opinion, unsupported by official action, either at home or abroad. But it fell like a bombshell into the diplomatic circles of the world. It was criticized, derided, repudiated by every nation of Europe; but it was secretly feared and not openly disobeyed by any, even in the much-vexed discussion of the Central American question. England carefully based her claim to the coveted territory upon the alleged facts of long possession and colonization. It is needless to say that the "Monroe Doctrine," even had it been incorporated in the American constitution, could not have been entertained for a moment in the high court of nations, save after the manner that such doubtful claims are always conceded to the right of might.

The British no longer claimed for themselves or their royal puppets of Mosquito, authority over the port of San Juan. Nevertheless, the traditional British man-of-war within a day's sail of anywhere continued to haunt the Caribbean Sea. The Transit Company's steamers sailed regularly between New York and San Juan. In May, 1854, a captain of one of them shot a negro in the streets of San Juan, and fled from arrest to the United States Consulate. The American minister, Borland, refused to surrender the fugitive to the officers of justice. A mob surrounded the consulate, and during the fray which ensued the minister was hit on the cheek by a bottle thrown by some rioter. Consul Fabens, then on board the steamer Northern Light, sent a boat ashore to take off the minister and his criminal guest, Captain Smith. Before the steamer sailed with the minister on board, a guard of fifty Americans was armed and left behind to protect the Transit Company's property at Puntas Arenas, a point of land opposite the town of San Juan. The boat which carried Minister Borland to the steamer was fired upon by the natives, but, as it appears, not with fatal results. Still the indignity offered to the representative of a great nation must be atoned for. The United States sloop-of-war Cyane was sent out as soon as the matter was reported at Washington. Her commander, Captain Hollins, on arriving off the town, found the inevitable British man-of-war lying between him and the shore. He promptly notified the Nicaraguan authorities of his intention to bombard the town, which was thereupon hastily evacuated. The captain of H.B.M. ship Express refused to move out of range, until the guns of the Cyane had been trained to rake his decks, when he reluctantly dropped astern, after protesting that the American superiority of armament alone saved the dispute from being settled by the last argument of kings and captains. The disparity is to be regretted, in view of the wearisome and vain diplomacy afterwards spent upon a question which force alone, or the show of it, could finally settle.

While the guns of the Cyane were squandering powder on the frail huts of San Juan in lieu of a worthier target, Nicaragua was too deeply engrossed in her usual internecine strife to resent the outrage from abroad. Don Fruto Chamorro, who succeeded Pineda as president in 1851, found himself towards the close of his term, ambitious of another lease of power. Chamorro was the leader of the Legitimist, or Servile party, as it was called; Don Francisco Castellon was the choice of the Liberal or Democratic party. At the biennial election in 1853, both parties claimed the victory, and, as is usual in such disputes, possession was the strongest point of law. Chamorro proclaimed himself duly elected, and was installed in office at Granada, the chief city of the Servile faction. Leon, the larger and more prosperous city, favoured the cause of Castellon, whereupon Chamorro promptly arrested his rival with several of his adherents, and banished them from the country. They took refuge in Honduras, whose president, CabaÑas, received them hospitably. Chamorro, to make his position more secure, had himself, on April 30, 1854, proclaimed president for two terms or four years. A usurpation so bold was calculated to defeat its own object.

Castellon landed at Realejo within a week after its declaration, with only thirty-six followers. The Leonese rallied to his support, and drove Chamorro out of the department and into the Servile stronghold, the city of Granada. Soon after they obtained control of the lake and river and laid siege to Granada. The siege lasted nine months without material advantage on either side. Castellon was proclaimed Provisional Director by his party. Chamorro dying on the 12th of March, 1855, was succeeded by Senator Don Jose Maria Estrada, a weak substitute for his brave, popular, and ambitious predecessor. Each party had now a de facto president. General Jose Trinidad Munoz, a veteran of Santa Ana's, and like that luckless hero, fully impressed with the delusion that he was a physical and mental counterpart of the great Napoleon, commanded the army of Castellon. The Serviles were headed by Don Ponciano Corral, a clever, unscrupulous man, who relied upon the military assistance of adjacent states to strengthen the arms of his party.

Such was the state of affairs in Nicaragua in August, 1854, when an American, named Byron Cole, presented himself before Castellon with a novel offer. Cole, who had been formerly a Boston editor, was proprietor of the newspaper which we left under the editorial management of the late President of Sonora. His faith in the military genius of his editor was in nowise abated by the disastrous end of the Sonora expedition. Arriving in the camp of the Democrats when their earlier conquests were gradually slipping from their hands, and the long siege of Granada had been raised in despair, Cole's offer of aid was eagerly embraced by Castellon and his party.

They had already known and rated the value of the American rifleman as an auxiliary. At an early period of the civil war, an adventurous California pioneer, named C. W. Doubleday, found himself at the port of San Juan del Sur, the Pacific terminus of the Transit. He was homeward-bound after years of absence, but being thrown into the society of some Democratic leaders, he did not require much persuasion before deciding to abandon his cabin passage, already paid to New York, and become an apostle of Democratic principles among his fellow passengers. He worked with such good effect that thirty of them volunteered under his lead and marched to the aid of the army investing Granada. They were reckless fighters, who looked upon Central American warfare as holiday pastime. Nevertheless, although reinforced from time to time by occasional American recruits, who had drifted into the country on their way to or from California, ere the siege was raised they had been reduced by war and disease to the number of four. Doubleday then organized from the flower of the native army a corps of sharpshooters with whom he covered the retreat to Leon, losing nearly all his company, but impressing the native soldiery with a favourable opinion of the Americans as bold and reckless fighters.

Cole's plan to bring in a formidable American contingent to aid the Democratic cause, came at a time when foreign help was doubly welcome. Castellon's Honduran allies had been abruptly recalled to meet an invasion of their own country by Guatemala. The Serviles, now in possession of lake and river, were slowly but surely advancing on Leon. The strength which the Leonese might have received from the Democratic states adjoining was needed by these at home to protect themselves against their aristocratic enemies, and against the alert, wily intrigues of European agents.

Therefore, in October, 1854, Byron Cole made a contract with the government of Castellon to supply to the Democratic army three hundred American "colonists liable to military duty." The settlers should be entitled to a grant of 52,000 acres of land, and should have the privilege of becoming citizens upon a formal declaration of that intention. Cole took his contract and sailed for California to receive his chief's ratification.