American cause on the isthmus. President Ospina thought Pierce was supporting the Liberals in Panama, and refused to accept his terms. Mosquera, the Liberal leader, then precipitated the revolution, and the war of the "hundred fights" raged along the lower isthmus until July, 1861. The Liberals were left in control, but Mosquera, a true disciple of Bolivar, was not content with this, and would have himself proclaimed military dictator of the land. The provisional government then called upon the United States in 1862, to protect their lately established Confederation of Granadina from the designs of the revolutionist, and asked for the interposition of our naval and land forces. Our only route of transit to the Pacific was indeed in imminent danger of destruction, but Lincoln could not very well spare any land forces to serve on the isthmus, when the very integrity of the Union was threatened at home. Our naval commander in these waters was, it is true, instructed to "guarantee at all hazards and at whatever cost" the safety of the railway transit; but this only introduced fresh complications. Both the English and the French were covertly hostile to the Union cause, and the two powers had agreed in their convention of 1861 to co-operate in their designs upon Spanish-America. Seward, therefore, felt he could go no further without a more adequate force at his disposal to substantiate our claim; so he departed from our longestablished policy, and went so far as to suggest to the English and French governments a joint occupa tion of the isthmus of Panama. Luckily for us, the two powers saw no necessity of such further interference, and preferred to confine their attention to Mexico; so the matter was dropped and the New Granadans left to work out their own salvation or destruction. Mosquera soon discovered that the time was not yet ripe for his coup d'état, and in 1863 he made peace with his Liberal friends and proclaimed a new constitution for the country. New Granada then reassumed the name of the older and larger confederation of the revolutionary era, and became known as the United States of Colombia. The forty-four provinces of the republic were now fitted. into eight practically independent states, each under a president of its own. Panama formed one of these, and thus this truly democratic little state came to rule over the destinies of the transit route for many years to come. The Panama railway managed to hold its own splendidly through all the confusion, and, in theory at least, our Monroe doctrine policy, as embodied in the treaty of 1848 with New Granada, suffered no diminution. Revolution among the Spanish-Americans, and civil strife within our own borders, left us with but shadowy rights on this lower isthmus, in fact, however; and a deal of patching and mending was necessary before we could really make good our claim to these parts.1 1 Rodrigues, loc. cit., pp. 32, 184-185. Payne, loc. cit., "History of European Colonies," Ch. XVI. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Supplement, Jan., 1893. French CHAPTER XIV. THE FRENCH IN NICARAGUA. S one of the Holy Allies, France was only too eager to place one of her lately restored Bourbon princes over the then doubtful destinies of Spanish-America; but the declaration of our Monroe doctrine, together with England's § 105. The more diplomatic but equally emphatic disapproval, effectually crushed out whatever life there still remained in the scheme. signs upon During the republican period which fol America. lowed, the French were again too much engrossed with their own affairs to busy themselves much about America; and so, despite Guizot's warn ing, Louis Philippe's interest in the transit question had, after all, been but passing. Renew their De But the political out-cast, Louis Napoleon, had for some time been concerning himself minutely with this technical problem of joining the two seas; and even before he came into power at last, dominion in the New World with control of the interoceanic canal route formed part of his imperial ambitions. Events at home then began to foretell the rise of the third Napoleon, and in America, too, the cast of the political heavens also came to favor his ascendancy. With the insalubrious lower isthmus Napoleon would have nothing to do, though the field was open and his countrymen were already leading the way. His imperial mind was still fixed on the route through Nicaragua, which he himself had evolved in the days of his misfortune. The United States had staked her Monroe doctrine on this isthmus with Great Britain, and lost the game. The contestants, moreover, had just retired from the scene; the victor in a position to bide her time before claiming the fruits of her triumphs; and the vanquished, now torn by civil strife, was evidently unable to make good the national ground she had lost. Thus the Central American isthmus as well, lay temptingly before the Emperor, and almost courted his advance. Ground was broken for Napoleon's designs in Nicaragua by another Frenchman, M. Félix Belly, Knight of San Maurice and Lazarus. This enthusiast was working for a company of Belly's his own, however, and only indirectly, and after he himself had been forced to step aside, did he really make way for the imperial train which followed. § 106. M. Canal Project. Belly was interested in Dr. Oersted's route,' and thus advanced his first claims to recognition through Costa Rica, within whose territory the Pacific terminus of this canal route lay. It was he, indeed, who induced Costa Rica and Nicaragua to come to terms over their troublesome boundary dispute in the above-mentioned Canas-Jerez treaty of 1858. Costa 1 Cf., ante, § 83. Rica was, of course, only too willing to listen to any proposals from Europe which would assure her a share in the transit monopoly; and Nicaragua also, in her righteous indignation against the United States, proved open to persuasion. Belly made the best of this favorable opportunity to advance the cause of the French in Central America; and, in a public manifesto to the people, he declared that "hitherto all the official agents of the United States in Nicaragua have been accom plices and auxiliaries of filibusters." To preclude further machinations on the part of Americans, the silver-tongued Frenchman then proposed that the canal route henceforth be "placed under the guaranty of the three powers which had guaranteed the Ottoman Empire, England, France, and Sardinia." It was just at this critical juncture that the irrepressible Walker landed his second force on the eastern shores, and was even then making prepara tions to ascend the San Juan. Belly had, accordingly, only to point to this last filibustering expedi tion already in their midst to prove to the Central Americans the truth of the charges he was making against the United States. Fortunately for Belly and his designs, Walker was deported from the coast before he could interfere, and all was plain sailing for the French after this. Even Nicaragua was persuaded, and, in the end, an all-comprehensive canal contract was drawn up between the three parties concerned, and ratified in May, 1858. This contract was to run for 99 |