32D CONG....3D SESS.

Messrs. Weller, Cooper, Houston, and Jones of Tennessee.

To Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses of the Senate.-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, chairman; Messrs. Foot and Bright.

On Public Buildings.-Mr. James, chairman; Messrs. Badger and Hunter.

On the Library.-Mr. Pearce, chairman; Messrs. Bayard and Atherton.

The committees were agreed to.

HON. DAVID L. YULEE.

Mr. MORTON. I desire to ask the Senate to take up for consideration the resolution which I submitted yesterday, in relation to the per diem and mileage of my late colleague, [Mr. YULEE.] I am anxious that it should receive the action of the Senate, one way or the other.

Mr. CLAYTON. I hope the Senator will not press his request now.

Mr. MORTON. If there are any other matters before the Senate, I will not press it this morning. Mr. CLAYTON. I hope the Senator will permit the resolutions I submitted yesterday, to be taken up.

Mr. MORTON. I withdraw my request.

CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.

The Senate proceeded to the consideration of the resolutions submitted yesterday by Mr. CLAYTON, as follows:

Resolved, That the President be respectfully requested, if compatible, in his opinion, with the public interest, to communicate to the Senate the propositions mentioned in the letter of the Secretary of State accompanying the Executive message to the Senate of the 18th February last, as having been agreed upon by the Department of State, the British Minister, and the State of Costa Rica, on the 30th of April, 1852, having for their object the settlement of the territorial controversies between the States and Governments bordering on the river San Juan.

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be directed to communicate to the Senate such information as it may be in the power of his Department to furnish, in regard to the conflicting claims of Great Britain and the State of Honduras to the islands of Roatan, Bonacca, Utilla, Barbarat, Helene, and Morat, in or near the Bay of Honduras.

Mr. CLAYTON addressed the Senate for more than two hours upon the resolutions, and without concluding, gave way to a motion to postpone the further consideration of the resolutions until tomorrow; which was agreed to.

in my hand, taken from a political newspaper printed in the town of Wilmington, North Carolina, which I ask may be read as the basis of the observations which I have to submit to the Senate. The Secretary read it as follows:

"THIS WEEK.-The close of business on Thursday night virtually concludes the present Administration of national affairs. At twelve o'clock on Friday, Franklin Pierce will take the oath of office as President of the United States.

"The present Congress will also end at the same time, and there is great reason to fear that it will go out without having done anything for our river or bars. The only chance now is with the Senate, and both the Senators from this State turn their backs upon the affair and upon us. Whig or Democrat, Federalist or Republican, we must have a Cape Fear Senator, if we hope to have anything done for the interests of this portion of the State. Messrs. Badger and Mangum care for us about the value of a chew of tobacco. Perhaps, however, Mr. Ashe may yet be able to effect something through others; but it is an up-hill business, when even the urgent resolutions of the Legislature of their own State cannot induce our North Carolina Senators to cooperate with him. That they have refused to do so, we know."

Mr. BADGER. The second session which I served in this body, I was called upon by the inhabitants of Wilmington, and others who were immediately interested in the navigation of Cape Fear river at and below that town, to endeavor to secure some appropriation furnishing lights and buoys for that river. I set myself to work, as of course I was bound to do, and endeavored to have that measure of just relief extended to the people of that portion of the State; and I was successful in procuring the first and, so far as I know, the only effectual measure for giving security to the navigation of that stream. On that and on every occasion, it has been my custom rather to endeavor to do what the interests of my constituents required, than to make a public exhibition of myself on this floor as their friend, always preferring to have measures adopted for their relief rather than to make speeches by which I might hold myself forth as their special champion. This winter my attention was early called to the necessity for an appropriation in respect to the entrance of Cape Fear river, the case made being this: The Government of the United States had established certain jetties to protect the site of Fort Caswell, the effect of which had been to make that side of the entrance firm, but to turn the current to Bald Head, on the opposite point; and by washing loose sands to precipitate them into the channels, and so to promote a rapid filling up, the consequence of which was that the channel was shallowed from twenty to twelve feet, and was losing its present depth at the rate of nine inches a year. The Legislature of the State adopted a resolution on the subject, which I had the honor to present here, and had referred to the Committee on Commerce. I felt the absolute necessity for something being done, and done promptly; that it was a condition of things not only that required relief, but which did not admit of delay in affording that relief.

I learned afterwards, from my friend who is at the head of the Committee of Commerce, [Mr. HAMLIN,] that the committee had declined to report any separate measure, and would allow these things to be considered only upon a general bill. I thought that was unjust to the particular locality of which I have spoken, and having provided my self with a communication from Professor Bache, showing not only the necessity of the work, but that it was indispensable that it should be immediately commenced, I procured the unanimous consent of the Committee on Naval Affairs to report an amendment proposing an appropriation of $50,000 for the object. At the same time the committee unanimously concurred in reporting a similar amendment for removing wrecks from the Savannah river, in the State of Georgia; and as I was called upon by you, sir, to relieve you in part from the oppressive labors brought upon the Chair by the close of the session, it was agreed between me and the late Senator from Georgia (Mr. CHARLTON) that the amendment should be offered by him. I signified to several of my friends on this floor, particularly my friends on the Democratic side of the Chamber-among whom it gives me great satisfaction to say that

have many warm ones-that this was a measure not only right and proper in itself; not only requiring immediate provisions by law, but that I felt a personal interest and anxious personal desire that the amendment should be adopted. The

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two amendments were proposed by the late Senator from Georgia. They were adopted. They were sent to the House of Representatives, which refused its concurrence. The honorable chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, [Mr. GWIN,] who was upon the two Committees of Conference between the two Houses upon the Navy appropriation bill, knows, that at my earnest instance, he made it a point to insist upon those amendments; and my friend from Georgia, also, [Mr. DAWSON,] a member of the committee, who is not now present, joined him in insisting upon it; and feeling the present necessity, as well as yielding to my personal wishes and solicitation on the subject, offered in committee that he would surrender the appropriation for the river in his own State, if the House committee would agree to permit this appropriation for Cape Fear to pass.

In all these proceedings I had the cheerful, hearty, and anxious concurrence of Mr. MANGUM, my late colleague, who in each and every respect acted as became an American Senator and as a North Carolinian, feeling it his special duty to provide for what was necessary for any and every portion of the State which jointly with me he represented on this floor.

In these proceedings, Mr. President, I discharged nothing more than I felt to be my duty. I desired no thanks. I expected no commendation. At least I knew I should receive none from the quarter from which the extract which has been read comes. But I did think, and do think, that it is a little hard, when a gentleman has thus endeavored to procure what is desired for a particular locality in his State, that he should be falsly denounced as having utterly refused to coöporate with the gentleman who represents that district in the other House, in endeavoring to procure this relief, and turned his back as in scorn and contempt to the application.

Mr. President, I feel desirous, now and ever, to vindicate myself from the suspicion that under any circumstances I could permit personal or political considerations, public or private griefs, to induce me to neglect any duty which belongs to me as an American Senator, and especially any duty which belongs to me as a Senator from the State of North Carolina. This communication remarks, that it is absolutely necessary, in order to have these things done, that the Cape Fear portion of the State shall have a Senator upon this floor. I have no doubt that there are many gentlemen there who could represent the State on this floor with far greater ability than myself, and possibly with greater ability than my late colleague; but this I venture to assert, that no man from that or any other section of the State, can ever repre sent it with truer devotion, and more earnest and unfaltering attention to the promotion of every interest of North Carolina of which the General Government has charge; and I will add another thing, that, if any gentleman shall be sent here from the Cape Fear region, and he expects to procure the aid or assistance of the Senate in promoting measures of internal improvements, whether of harbors or rivers, which he may deem essential in his own State, he will have to adopt a different system of tactics, and avow a different system of principles from those which have generally been avowed by the representatives of that portion of the State. It is not the most persuasive method of getting gentlemen who represent other portions of the country to do anything for North Carolina, to announce that he who asks the assistance or favor is utterly opposed to doing anything for any other portions of the country.

Mr. President, I am sorry to have trespassed upon the Senate, and especially that I have been obliged to make this statement, containing necessarily so much of egotism; but I felt that it was due to myself. I did not choose that my constituents in North Carolina, my Democratic constituents, who are just and honorable men, should, by anything in the party press, suppose me to be the unworthy person which I am represented in that publication to be. I take this method, in jus

tice to my late colleague and myself, of putting this matter right, because the leading Democratic journal here, being one of the official reporters of the Senate, this explanation will appear in its columns, and be read by hundreds in North Carolina who never otherwise would see it. I believe I

32D CONG.....3D SESS.

might appeal, if necessary, for confirmation of what I have said to the honorable Senator from California, [Mr. GWIN,] the chairman of the Committee on Commerce, [Mr. HAMLIN,] and to other Senators, but I have done.

Mr. GWIN. I consider it an act of duty to the honorable Senator from North Carolina, to corroborate every word he has stated with regard to this matter. He brought_that subject to the notice of the Committee on Naval Affairs before the naval appropriation bill had come from the House of Representatives, and he always pressed it upon me as an important measure, and manifested an earnest desire to have the subject considered when we met at the proper time. When the naval appropriation bill came from the House of Representatives, it was at so late a period in the session, that without being fully considered,|| I am sure without being considered at all in the Committee on Finance, it was reported without amendment, and the responsibility was thrown upon the Naval Committee, of proposing amendments to it. And I will say that when the Naval Committee met for the purpose of proposing amendments which they had prepared to the bill, the first one that came up was the amendment for the appropriation for the improvement of Cape Fear river, and in order that it should have that consideration to which the committee thought it entitled, when the bill came up for consideration in the Senate, I gave way, as chairman of the Naval Committee, to allow the Senator from Georgia, [Mr. CHARLTON]-the honorable Senator from North Carolina [Mr. BADGER] being in the chair-to make a motion to consider this amendment first, so that if there was any contest with regard to it, there might be a full and fair opportunity of discussing it, in order to show the necessity of the appropriation.

Further than that: the amendment passed this body, as is known, without any serious opposition; and when the Committee of Conference was raised, the Senator from North Carolina came to me, and I believe to the Senator from Georgia [Mr. DawSON] also, who was a member of the Committee of Conference, and urged, with all the earnestness and power he possessed, the necessity of this appropriation, and he brought reasons to bear on my mind which were imperative, for insisting upon it. It is well known that I voted against the river and harbor bill on account of its partial operation. I looked upon this as an improvement that was necessary, because the obstruction was created by the Government itself. Not only did I advocate it in the Committee of Conference, as I stated to the Senator that I would, but the committee broke up on this especial item, and the one connected with the naval depôt at New Orleans. And when a second Committee of Conference was called, of which I was a member, that committee on three different occasions were prepared to separate, because the Senators from Georgia and Louisiana refused peremptorily to give up this appropriation at the earnest suggestion of the Senator from North Carolina. There never was a greater injustice done to any man than that of saying that he has not exerted himself, from the beginning to the end, in order to get the appropriation. He may not have spoken in the Senate on this subject, it is true, but he did speak to that portion of this body to whom the power of bringing the measure forward was intrusted the Committee on

Naval Affairs.

Mr. BADGER. I was in the chair.

Mr. GWIN. I will say further, that when the first committee broke up, and we came back and reported that we could not agree, it is well known that the Senator from North Carolina moved that we should adhere to our amendments; and he withdrew that motion at my solicitation, in order that we might agree with the House on all the amendments which we were willing to give up. And then he intended to move to adhere, and make it imperative upon the House of Representatives to reject the bill, or agree to this amendment. But, at the earnest solicitation of the chairman of the Committee on Finance, and other members of the Senate, I retained the floor, and made the motion to insist, and agree to another committee of conference. The Senator from North Carolina voted against that motion, because he wanted to adhere, and make it imperative upon the House of Repre

Special Session-Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

sentatives to lose the bill, or else give this appropriation among others which they had refused. I have always said, and always will say, that although the Senator from North Carolina does not make much noise about his State here in the Senate, yet, whenever the interests of his State are before a committee, he attends to them with as much zeal and fidelity as any member of the body attends to the interests of his constituents. I have never known him to be wanting on any proper

occasion.

Mr. HAMLIN. I think it but just that I should bear testimony to what has fallen from the Senator from North Carolina, so far as the action of the Committee on Commerce is concerned, and so far as his application in relation to the subject before the committee is concerned. An actual report was made to the Senate, embracing esti- || mates for all appropriations for harbors, rivers, and lakes; and in that communication were estimates for the two places he has named: Cape Fear river and the Savannah river. So earnest was the Senator from North Carolina to have these subjects separate and distinct from all others, that he came personally before the Committee on Commerce and solicited its separate action. In the judgment of the committee, there was no difference between these cases and others contained in the general estimates, except in degree; and if there was a more urgent necessity for these cases, there was still an urgent necessity for other cases; and while I, as chairman of the committee, was in favor of separate reports in the case, the committee overruled me, and were unwilling to separate it from a general bill. I think the Senator from North Carolina has erred in one particular, and I think the Senate has a right to complain, but not his constituents; and that was, taking the matter from the appropriate committee to which it belonged and carrying it to a committee which had not the subject before them, and getting an appropriation here somewhat by indirection. I do not find fault with him. I did not know that the recommendation of the Committee on Naval Affairs had been made until it was adopted. The Senator from North Carolina knows very well that I opposed a similar appropriation when of fered by the Senator from New York; and he also knows very well that I would have opposed his proposition if I had been in my place when it was offered. But inasmuch as it was adopted by the Senate at the earnest solicitation of the Senator from North Carolina, I withdrew the motion to reconsider it.

Mr. BORLAND. I hope I will be permitted to say one word in connection with this subject. As is well known, I have as little political sympathy with the Senator from North Carolina as any other member of this body. I am proud to say, however, that personally our relations are, and always have been, of the most pleasant character. In regard to this particular matter, it so happens that I can speak to one point of some importance. When the appropriation came before the Senate, or rather when I knew it was coming before the Senate, I expressed an opposition to it; not that I objected to the removal of the obstructions, but I objected to it as a separate measure, and insisted that it should take its stand among the appropriations for removing obstructions in other rivers and harbors. The Senator from North Carolina came to me, and made an appeal in behalf of this particular work, and put its character and its necessity in such a light before me, that I yielded to his request; and I must be permitted to say, however it may reflect on me generally as a legislator, that I was as much influenced by my personal relations and kindness for him as any conviction of the importance of the work.

CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolutions submitted on Monday last by Mr. CLAYTON.

Mr. CLAYTON Concluded the remarks which he commenced yesterday. His speech is as follows:

Mr. CLAYTON. In rising for the first time,|| after a long absence, to address the Senate, I labor under some embarrassment, from observing that the gentlemen around me are generally strangers to me, and that not a single individual of all my

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I,

"Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honor clear!"

I confess, also, a feeling of embarrassment from another source. I am called upon to vindicate myself against charges of the grossest character preferred against me here during my absence. It is the first time in the course of a long life that I have found it necessary to defend myself against degrading imputations before any public tribunal. The calumnies which have been uttered here, were all made in connection with the treaty of the 19th of April, 1850; and I intend, if health and strength permit, to vindicate the course which I adopted while acting as Secretary of State under the administration of the lamented Taylor, in regard to the negotiation of that treaty. It is a duty incumbent on me to speak; not, however, merely for my own vindication, but to enable others now in the administration of the Government to understand a subject upon which truth has been more perverted, and falsehood more industriously propagated, than on any other topic of the day. In discharging this duty, I shall endeavor to speak of others with all possible respect, consistently with what I owe to truth, to the country, and to myself. All who recollect my course of conduct while I occupied a seat in this Chamber, will bear me witness that I never assailed any man personally in debate-never was engaged in any controversy, personal in its character, with any one unless it was previously provoked by him. Odi accipitrem. But now let it be well understood by all here, that for every word I utter in debate, I hold myself personally responsible everywhere, as a gentleman and a man of honor. I have very great contempt for that class of puppies whose courage is evinced by their silence when they are hung up by the ear. When attacked, I will defend myself without the slightest regard to consequences; and in doing that, as I am liable to the infirmities of other men, I will carry the war into Africa whenever I think the assailant worthy of my notice. On this occasion much of what I intended to say must be omitted, in consequence of the absence of the distinguished Senator from Michigan, [Mr. CASS,] who introduced the discussion in this Chamber of Thursday, the 6th of January last. I regret his absence, and the cause of it. I cannot say those things which I had intended to say to him if he were here, for I do not much approve of the modern plan of attacking absent men, who can have no opportunity of defending themselves on the spot. However, in speaking of the subjects referred to in that debate, in which that Senator was my principal accuser during my absence, I must necessarily speak of him, because my own defense, for which I have demanded liberty of speech at the first moment after the Senate could possibly hear me, would otherwise be unintelligible. And I will say further, that I am willing to remain here till harvest if necessary, in order that all others who may choose to reply to anything I shall say, may have full and ample opportunity of doing so.

At the time to which I have referred, the 6th of January last, the Senator from Michigan rose in

32D CONG.....3D SESS.

who thought me so silly for admitting that these settlements were not within the treaty, but even to this Committee on Foreign Relations, and invite them to defend this part of their report if they

can.

Special Session-Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

And first, as to the authorities relied upon by the committee. The report states that the Rio Hondo, the northern limit of the Balize settlement, is claimed by Guatemala to be wholly within its territory. Even if this were true, it would prove nothing; for no impartial judge ever admits a party on his own mere assertion to be the owner of any property out of his possession, and in the possession of another who claims it, as is the case here. But it is not true that Guatemala claims or ever has claimed the territory marked out for the Balize by the treaty of 1786. To sustain their assertion, the committee first quote Captain Bonnycastle's description of the boundaries of Vera Paz, which literally proves nothing at all; then they refer to the map which accompanies the work, and say that "on that, which (they admit) is upon too 'small a scale distinctly to mark the boundaries, 'the river Wallys' or Balize would appear marked in the province of Vera Paz." For the boundaries extracted from Captain Bonnycastle's " Spanish America," we are referred by the committee to vol. 1, page 165. Any man who will look at them will see that they are perfectly consistent with what that author had said before, which completely oversets the committee, and which I now proceed to quote. First:

"Yucatan is the most easterly province of the kingdom of New Spain, and is in the form of a peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico from the main land of the isthmus ; it is surrounded on the northwest by the waters of the Mexican Gulf; by the Bay or Gulf or Honduras on the southeast; the province of Vera Cruz bounds it on the southwest, and Vera Paz, in Guatemala, on the south. it is connected with the continent of North America by an isthmus of about one hundred and twenty miles in breadth. THE ENGLISH HAVE SETTLEMENTS EXTENDING A SHORT DISTANCE ALONG THE EAST COAST OF YUCATAN, OPPOSITE AMBURGUS KEY."-P. 122.

Then again:

HERE

"The eastern coast of Yucatan is not inhabited by Spanish colonists, the English alone appearing there, except in the small fort of Bacalar, which has been built to prevent the British from going into the interior."-P. 123.

So we see that the first authority cited by the committee entirely fails them, and proves that the British settlements are in Yucatan.

The next authority relied on by the committee is "an atlas of Guatemala, in eight maps, prepared and engraved in Guatemala, by order of the Chief of the State, C. D. Mariano Galves," in 1832, on which the committee say "the northern and west'ern boundary of Guatemala, although called Lindero Indefinido,' (line undefined,) is thrown 'north of the Rio Hondo; which river, both on the map of the Republic of Guatemala and on 'that of the department of Vera Paz, contained in the atlas, is altogether within the limits of Vera 'Paz." Now, the first observation which I have to make in regard to this authority is, that a map engraved by order of the President of the United States, including the Canadas within our own limits, would not be regarded by any sensible man in a foreign nation as much proof to show that we were entitled to the Canadas; and the next remark I have to make is, that no northern and western boundary of Guatemala is laid down on these maps. The undefined line proves nothing, and the pretension that the Rio Hondo was in the department of Vera Paz is too absurb in the eyes of any man acquainted even with the pretensions of Guatemala to be credited for a moment. The map itself shows that Balize is not in Guatemala. In the State Department was a map to which this committee ought to have had access, but of which they knew nothing, which proves that the British had obtained the survey of Guatemala, found in her own archives in 1826, that is, six years before the maps relied on were made. It is entitled "Map of Guatemala, reduced from the survey in the archives of that country." It was published January 13, 1826, by Arrowsmith, the royal hydrographer. Great Britain was about to make a treaty with Mexico, and to obtain from Mexico a

confirmation of her title to the settlements at Balize, derived from the Spanish treaty of 1786. It was important for Great Britain to ascertain how far Guatemala might have any claim to the Balize territory. Both Guatemala and Mexico had revolted from Spain, and Great Britain had equally recogto her whether the Balize was situated in Mexico or Guatemala, as either of them would unhesitatingly have recognized the grant made by Spain of the "useful domain" in British Honduras, granted by the treaty with Spain of 1786. She sought to know only which had the right to grant it, and she ascertained beyond all possible doubt from the archives, not only of Mexico, but of Guatemala herself, that the British settlements at the Balize were in Yucatan. Arrowsmith's map, reduced from the survey, in the archives of Guatemala, to which I have referred, shows that Vera Paz is about one hundred and thirty miles south of the Rio Hondo and the Balize river, and that "Peten,' and not Vera Paz, is the northern province of Guatemala. Vera Paz is far south of the "Wallys," or Balize, so called from the old English buccaneer Wallace, who first harbored in British Honduras. On that map, furnished from the survey of Guatemala herself, the Balize settlement extends at least fifty miles south of the river "Wallys," and no part of Guatemala is nearer than eighty miles south of the mouth of the Rio Hondo. Like every other map made by Guatemala or under her surveys, it has but little pretension to scientific arrangement; but it is sented as conveying a just idea of the then existing state of geography in Guatemala, and of her own claims as exhibited by her own original survey. I will send the map to the chairman of the committee, if he requests it; and as it is said to have been one of the very maps made by order of the British Government to ascertain from what country they should obtain a confirmation of the Spanish title of occupancy granted to the British settlers by the treaty of 1786, it is the very best evidence that Guatemala had no claims whatever to the Balize; for Great Britain could, I repeat, as easily have obtained the grant of the useful domain in the Balize from Guatemala as from Mexico. Having thus ascertained that Guatemala had no claims, she proceeded to negotiate with Mexico; and on the 26th of December afterwards, she made a treaty with Mexico, of which the following is the 14th article:

repre

"ARTICLE XIV. The subjects of his Britannic Majesty shall, on no account or pretext whatsoever, be disturbed or molested in the peaceable possession and exercise of whatever rights, privileges, and immunities they have at any time enjoyed within the limits described and laid down in a convention, signed between his said Majesty and the King of Spain, on the 14th of July, 1786, whether such rights, privileges, and immunities shall be derived from the stipulations of the said convention, or from any other concession which may at any time have been made by the King of Spain, or his predecessors, to British subjects and settlers residing and following their lawful occupations within the limits aforesaid; the two contracting parties reserving, however, for some more fitting opportunity, the further arrangements of this article."

No such treaty was made with Guatemala that we ever heard of. We see by this treaty that Great Britain admitted that the eminent domain which Spain had lost by the revolution had descended upon Mexico. She did not seek to rob Mexico of the sovereignty over the country; she gained nothing by the treaty which Spain had not before granted to her; and as she sought only the grant of the useful domain, or merely the rights of an old settler, there was not a civilized nation on earth that would have refused to concede as much as Mexico did. If she had thought Guatemala had any right to the territory she would have applied to her to make the same grant, and that State could as well have refused to confirm the grant of lands held under her limits for any other private or special purposes as she could have refused to make the same concession which Mexico made. The rights of Great Britain, under the treaty of 1786, to occupy the land and to cut dye-wood and mahogany, to erect mills to saw it, to fish upon the coast, to refit their ships at the adjoining islands and territories embraced in the triangle described in that treaty, and to occupy those islands when the vomito would not permit them to remain on the main land, were rights which could not be divested by that very revolution which

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Great Britain had encouraged without manifest dishonor to the local Government. If Great Britain had sought to seize upon the territory, she could much more easily have forced the concession of it from the little State of Guatemala than from Mexico, a greatly superior Power.

The next authority relied upon by the committee is hearsay evidence, and we are not allowed to know the name of the witness. The report says: "And the committee are informed that on the official map of Yucatan, subscribed by Señor Negra, as commissioner of that province, published in 1848, the southern boundary of that State is established on the parallel of eighteen degrees north latitude."

If this be true, it only proves that the British settlements at the Balize had encroached further upon Yucatan and Mexico than we had supposed. If, however, this fact is adduced to prove that Guatemala extends to the eighteenth degree of north latitude, it proves too much, and it cannot possibly be true, for then Guatemala would include the celebrated Bacalar, and the fort there established as the northern limit of the British settlers. It is not

pretended that on this map, which the committee never saw, Yucatan is bounded by Guatemala; and if the man who gave this information will produce the map, I will stake the whole issue between the committee and myself on the fact that the southern boundary of Yucatan will appear by it to be on British Honduras, or Balize.

The next and last authorities relied upon by this committee to prove that British Honduras lies in the State of Guatemala are still more remarkable. This part of the report is so extraordinary in its character that I dare not attempt to state the mere substance of it lest I should do the committee injustice. I will "speak by the book lest equivocation should undo me." ." It is, literally, as follows:

"In 1834 the State of Guatemala, made a large grant of land to a company, on condition of actual settlement, in the neighborhood of the Bay of Honduras,' when the British authorities at Balize interposed and forbid the settlement, claiming that the grant was within their boundaries. This collision led the Government of Central America to make it the occasion of a special commission to England to settle and adjust the respective rights of the Republic of Guatemala and of Great Britain, in reference to the British settlements in this quarter. This fact was communicated to the Government of the United States by M. Alvarez, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Central American Confederation, in a dispatch to the Secretary of State, dated December 30, 1834, and the good offices of this Government with the British Court were solicited in the proposed negotiation. In that dispatch the Secretary of State, reminded of the avowed policy of this Government concerning European colonization on the American continents, is referred to the aggressions and encroachments at Balize upon the territory of Central America. The mission, it appears, was fruit

less.

"The British Government, claiming that Don Juan Galindo, the Minister, was a British subject by birth, refused to accredit him as the Minister of Central America. In one of the letters of this Minister, Don Galindo, whilst in Washington, to the Secretary of State, dated June 3, 1835, he communicates a paper, prepared and published in Guatemala, by Señor Annitia, a member of the Federal Congress of Central America for the State of Guatemala, in which, reciting that the English settlements between the Rio Hondo and the Balize are in our territory,' an able and forcible exposition is made of the injury resulting to Central America by the smuggling openly carried on at the Balize, in defiance of the revenue laws of the Confederation; and a strong remonstrance against the pretensions of the authorities there claiming a right to occupy as they held in 1821, (the date of the revolution,) and regardless of the treaty limits with Spain. In the letter of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, before referred to, this encroachment is stated at more than forty-five leagues."

The only thing in all this statement of the committee which can be relied upon as the claim of Guatemala herself, in regard to the extent of her own territories, is the letter of Alvarez, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Central America. The letters of John Galindo, an Irishman, who came here merely as a bearer of dispatches, and so states in his letter of the 22d of May, 1835, and whom the British Government refused to receive as a commissioner to remonstrate against the alleged British encroachments on Guatemala, and the paper of Señor Annitia, which is a magniloquent address or speech by a member of Congress of Central America to the people there, (never intended for us,) from which he doubtless expected to derive much petty local popularity, do not bind the Government of Guatemala, are not uttered by her authority, and are worth about as much as the letters of one of our own bearer of dispatches abroad setting forth the claims of our Government, or the speeches of one of our modern advocates of the Monroe doctrine,