Colonel Wodehouse, of Ceylon celebrity, had meanwhile been appointed Superintendent of Belize. One of his earliest acts was to visit Roatan in person. He proceeded there in her majesty's brig of war "Persian," and calling together a "general meeting," on the 10th day of August, 1852 (more than two years after the ratification of the convention of Washington of July 5th, 1850), formally occupied Roatan and the adjacent islands on behalf of the British crown, and declared them annexed to the Superintendency of Belize, under the style of the "Colony of the Bay Islands."

The royal warrant for the erection of these islands as a colony under the above title bears date March 20, 1852, and sets forth that, "Whereas it hath been represented unto us that the said islands are inhabited by divers subjects of our crown, who are rapidly increasing in numbers, we have therefore deemed it expedient to make provision for the government of the settlement or settlements already formed or to be formed in these

intimidation, obtained fourteen signatures out of a population of about 1800; and afterward affixed, or caused to be affixed thereto, the names of the children attending the Methodist and Baptist schools, and forwarded the same to Colonel Fancourt, the British Superintendent at Belize, declaring it to contain the writes of ALL the inhabitants, except a few malcontents.

3d. Because the said occupation is made in open violation of the solemn treaties entered into with Spain, and subsequently confirmed to the confederated States of Central America, and after repeated abandonments of the said islands by the British government, who disavowed the acts of its agents on the occasion of former occupation.

4th. Because, by a solemn treaty entered into between the United States and Great Britain in the month of April of the present year, 1850, and confirmed and ratified by both governments on the 5th day of July last past, neither power could establish colonies or settlements, or erect fortifications in any part of Central America; and as, on the dates in question, the British government had not a solitary representative in these islands, the government being vested in officers elected by the people, the occupation is now made in open violation of said treaty. Given under my hand and seal, at Roatan, this 15th day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty.

WM. FITZGIBBON, Chief Justice and Acting Chief Magistrate.

Ꭱ Ꭱ

islands, and they are therefore, with their dependencies, hereby erected into a colony," etc. The Governor of Jamaica is made equally the governor of the new colony, which is to have a General Assembly of twelve persons, "who shall be able to read and write," three to be elected annually, whose duty, in concurrence with the governor, is defined to be, "to make, constitute, and ordain laws, statutes, and ordinances for the public peace, welfare, and good government of our said colony," etc., etc. The governor is invested with a negative on the enactments of the assembly, and furthermore authorized to prorogue or dissolve it at his discretion. He has also the power to appoint a lieutenant governor of the colony, which post has uniformly been devolved upon the Superintendent of Belize.

The proclamation of these islands as a British colony attracted immediate attention in the United States, where it was universally regarded as a direct violation of the convention of July 5, 1850, between the United States and Great Britain, in relation to Central America, which provides that "the governments of the United States and Great Britain, neither the one nor the other, shall ever occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over Costa Rica, Nicaragua, the Mosquito Shore, or any part of Central America." The matter was brought under the attention of Congress, and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, after a full consideration of the subject, reported "that the islands of Roatan, Bonacca, Utila, etc., in and near the Bay of Honduras, constitute part of the territory of the republic of Honduras, and therefore form a part of Central America;' and, in consequence, that any occupation of these islands by Great Britain is a violation of the treaty of July 5, 1850."

Expostulations to this effect were at once addressed by the American government through Mr. Buchanan, its minister in London, to that of Great Britain, resulting in an elaborate correspondence, which has been published equally by both governments. On behalf of

Great Britain, some faint pretensions were put forward to rights acquired by the proceedings of Macdonald and his predecessors; but the principal points insisted on by Lord Clarendon were, first, rights acquired in virtue of the "spontaneous settlement by British subjects of unoccupied territories," and, second, that the islands were and had always been "dependencies of Belize." These points were ably contested by Mr. Buchanan, who insisted that there never had been such a lapse in the exercise of Spanish, and, after Spanish, of Central American authority over the islands as to justify their being regarded as unoccupied territory, open to spontaneous settlement; and that they were remote from Belize, while adjacent to Honduras, and could not, therefore, be regarded, in a geographical or political sense, as dependencies of that establishment, the dependencies of which were, moreover, fixed by the treaty with Spain of 1786, which treaty reserved the sovereignty of Belize itself to the Spanish crown. Subsequently to Mr. Buchanan's departure, the second claim advanced on the English side was effectually overthrown by the production, under call of the House of Commons, of an official letter from Sir George Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated November 23, 1836, and addressed to S. Coxe, Esq., defining the boundaries and enumerating the dependencies of Belize.* The bound

Copy of a letter addressed by the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, in November, 1836, to S. Coxe, Esq., defining the boundaries of the British settlement of Belize:

aries therein laid down, in their widest extension, did not approach within sixty miles of any of the Bay Islands, none of which were enumerated among the dependencies of the establishment. (See Appendix.)

"Downing Street, 23d November, 1836.

"SIR,—I am directed by the Secretary of State to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th instant, inquiring, on behalf of the Eastern Coast of Central America Company, "what are the boundaries claimed by his majesty's government for British Honduras, or Belize," and I am to acquaint you, in answer, that the territory claimed by the British crown, as belonging to the British settlements in the Bay of Honduras, extends from the River Hondo on the north to the River Sarstoon on the south, and as far west as Garbutt's Falls on the River Belize, and a line parallel to strike on the River Hondo on the north, and the River Sarstoon on the south. The British crown claims also the waters, islands, and cays lying between the coast defined and the meridian of the easternmost point of Light-house Reef.

"I am, at the same time, to warn you that the greater part of the territory in question has never been the subject of actual survey, and that parties who should assume the topography of the remoter tracts, and especially the course of the rivers, upon the authority of maps, would in all probability be led into error.

MOSQUITO SHORE.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

EXTENT-HISTORY-CONTESTS BETWEEN SPAIN AND GREAT

BRITAIN PRETENDED CESSION

- EVACUATION

BY THE ENGLISH-BRITISH PROTECTORATE-DISPUTE WITH THE UNITED STATES-SAN JUAN-POPULATION-CLIMATE, ETC.

MOSQUITO SHORE, Mosquito Coast, and Mos

quitia, are terms used to distinguish a portion of the eastern coast of Central America fronting on the Sea of the Antilles, or Caribbean Sea. As geographical, and still more as political designations, they have been very vaguely applied to an extent of coast varying from two hundred to five hundred miles in length, and of indefinite breadth. It has at times been pretended that the Mosquito Shore embraced the entire littoral of Central America between Cape Honduras, near the port of Truxillo, in lat. 16° N., long. 86° W., and Boca del Toro, in Chiriqui Lagoon, in lat. 9° N., and long. 82° W., a coast-line of about seven hundred statute miles. Such were the pretensions made by Lord Palmerston in his instructions to the British representatives in New Granada and Guatemala in 1848. Up to that period, however, and among geographers generally, the Mosquito Shore was understood only as comprehending the coast lying between Cape Gracias á Dios and Bluefields Lagoon, including the latter; that is to say, between the twelfth and fifteenth degrees of north latitude, a dis