political circle and took up their cause in 1885. During the course of the revolution which followed, Colon was burned and the transit route threatened. The French officials were powerless to interfere, so when the railway line appeared to be in imminent danger American marines were landed and order preserved. The Clericals were ultimately successful, and Nuñez reaped his reward by becoming practical Dictator of the country. The local autonomy of the several states was then done away with, and Colombia came under the rule of a strong military government.

The American naval officers who took part in the intervention, and those who were stationed off Panama and Colon during the progress of the work,' were instructed by the authorities at Washington to make reports on the progress of de Lesseps's enterprise. The information thus furnished was for the most part unfavorable to the project, and this, taken together with the newspaper reports which now be gan to appear, went far to encourage the Arthur administration in its plans for the Nicaragua canal.

But the ratification of the Frelinghuysen-Zavala treaty was of course the condition precedent to the continuation of the government's project. As far as Nicaragua was concerned, all doubt in this regard was soon removed by the Legislature of that state approving the Convention as it stood. But in the Senate of the United States other considerations had

1 Lieutenants R. M. G. Brown, R. P. Rodgers, Francis Winslow, and R. H. McLean.

to be taken into account beyond the mere desire for the immediate construction of the canal. Under the circumstances, ratification of the treaty meant sure trouble with Great Britain, but in spite of this fact there were many Senators who would have been willing to make the matter a test case under the Monroe doctrine. In this way we might, indeed, have asserted our natural rights at the expense of our treaty obligations, and simply taken our chances. A strong minority was, however, opposed to any such radical course, and insisted upon delaying the question, at least until some better understanding could be arrived at with England.

The matter remained in doubt, therefore, for something over a month, as the Senate could come to no conclusion. Finally, toward the end of January, 1885, the treaty was acted upon in executive session, but failed of ratification under the two-thirds rule, -the vote standing 32 Ayes to 23 Nays. A motion to reconsider was at once entered, and the treaty still remained for a short time before the Senate.

But the Republicans had met with defeat in the last election, and the Democrats now came into con trol. President Cleveland's ideas on the canal question differed radically from those of his Republican predecessor, however, and in his annual message of 1885 he took pains to outline quite a different policy in the matter, as follows:

Maintaining as I do the tenets of a line of precedents from Washington's day, which proscribe entangling alliances with foreign states, I do not favor a policy of acquisition of new

and distant territory, or the incorporation of remote interests with our own. Therefore, I am unable to recommend propositions involving paramount privileges of ownership or right outside of our own territory, when coupled with absolute and unlimited engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the states where such interests lie. While the general project to connect the two oceans by means of a canal is to be encouraged, I am of the opinion that any scheme to that end, to be considered with favor, should be free from the features alluded to."

Shortly after the treaty failed of ratification, therefore, the President had it withdrawn from the Senate for further executive consideration, and it was not again presented to Congress.

Many years had now elapsed since the Panama Congress, but the United States government still felt indisposed to assert its position of protector among the Spanish-American states. Arthur's plan, like Adams's of long ago, was still premature, and matters in consequence were left to drift along pretty much as before. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty was thus allowed to stand, and our diplomatic relations with Nicaragua continued to be regulated by the unsatisfactory Dickinson-Ayon convention.'

1 New York Herald, Nov. 2, 1884; February 8, 1885. American Engineer, Oct., 1884.

New York Tribune, Feb. 3, 1886.

New York Times, May 1, 1885.

U. S. Sen. Ex. Doc., 123; Ex. Doc., 99, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. "The Interoceanic Canal of Nicaragua," loc. cit., p. 13.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MARITIME CANAL COMPANY OF NICARAGUA.

T

HUS within the space of a few years the

pendulum of the American canal problem swung backward and forward between the limits of individual initiative and the further extreme of governmental control. There was nothing to hold it at either end of the arc, so, as a § 159. The matter of course, without further momen- Nicaragua tum, it now began to oscillate around its

own centre.

Canal Asso

ciation and its Conces

sion.

Private capitalists had indeed demonstrated their economic inability to undertake the construction of the canal, but since then the government likewise had been obliged to withdraw from the enterprise for political reasons. An opportunity was thus afforded for a partnership between the two, leaving neither party to assume the entire political and economic responsibility of the work. Such was evidently Cleveland's idea, and the immediate effect of his message was, therefore, to encour age private promoters to again take the initiative in the undertaking, in the hopes that the government would lend them its support.

In order to arouse public opinion in the matter

and bring the subject up once more for general discussion, Commander H. C. Taylor was then invited to deliver an address on the canal question before the American Geographical Society. His paper was indeed deserving of the attention it received. Interest in the enterprise was thus reawakened, and shortly after, on October 20, 1886, a number of prominent gentlemen came together by appointment, to devise ways and means of again setting the project on its feet. As a result, on the 3d of December, another Provisional Canal Association' was informally organized, and in the following March Mr. Menocal was once more sent off to Nicaragua to negotiate for a concession. Being author ized by the promoters to make an advance payment to Nicaragua of $100,000, in order to convince that government of the company's serious intentions, Menocal had no difficulty on this occasion, and, on April 24, 1887, a very favorable concession was agreed to and ratified by the proper authorities.

A so-called Nicaragua Canal Construction Company was then incorporated by the Provisional Association, to institute the final surveys and provide for the necessary technical preliminaries of the

1 The following gentlemen were associated in this organization: Hon. Charles P. Daly, Commander H. C. Taylor, Horace L. Hotchkiss, A. S. Crowninshield, Francis A. Stout, Frederick Billings, Hiram Hitchcock, A. B. Darling, J. W. Miller, James Roosevelt, R. A. Lancaster, Henry R. Hoyt, F. F. Thompson, G. H. Robinson, A. C. Cheney, H. Fairbanks, C. H. Stebbins, C. Ridgley Goodwin, A. B. Cornell, J. F. O'Shaughnessy, A. G. Menocal, Admiral D. Ammen, Robert Garrett, T. Harrison Garrett, G. E. Kissell, Henry A. Parr, Charles D. Fisher, John L. Williams, Jules Aldigé, and many others.