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

ENGLISH-BRITISH PROTECTORATE

BY THE

-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

tance of about two hundred miles. The attempts which have been made to apply the name to a greater extent of shore have had their origin in strictly political considerations.

This coast was discovered by Columbus in his fourth voyage, in 1502. He sailed along its entire length, stopping at various points to investigate the country, and ascertain the character of the inhabitants. He gave it the name of Cariay, and it was accurately characterized by one of his companions, Porras, as "una tierra muy baja," a very low land. His son, Fernando Columbus, described the inhabitants as "almost negroes in color, bestial, going naked; in all respects very rude, eating human flesh, and devouring their fish raw as they happened to catch them." The language of the chroniclers, however, warrants us in believing that this description applied only to the Indians of the immediate sea-coast, and that those of the interior were then, as they still remain, a different people, with a distinct language.

The great incentive to Spanish enterprise and conquest in America was the acquisition of the precious metals; and, as but little of these was to be found on the Mosquito Shore, the tide of Spanish adventure swept by that coast, heedless of the savages who found a precarious subsistence among its lagoons and forests. It is true, a grant of the entire coast, from Cape Gracias to the Gulf of Darien, was made to Diego de Nicuessa, for purposes of colonization, within ten years after its discovery, but the expedition which he fitted out to carry it into effect was wrecked at the mouth of the Cape, or Wanks River, which, in consequence, and for many years, bore the name of Rio de los Perdidos. From having lost a boat on the bar at its mouth, Columbus had previously called it Rio del Desastre.

Although the attention of Spain was too much absorbed with the other parts of her immense empire in America to enable her to devote much care to this comparatively unattractive shore, nevertheless her missionaries, with the characteristic zeal of that early period, penetrated among its people, and made various feeble attempts to found establishments at Cape Gracias á Dios, and probably at other points on the coast. But the resources of the country were too few to support the latter, and the Indians themselves too debased and savage to receive the teachings of Christianity, which to this day have failed to produce an impression on their character.

In the year 1576, this coast was conveyed by royal cedula to the "illustrious Señor Licenciado Diego Garcia de Palacios, Oidor of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala," and "Captain Diego Lopez, resident of the port of Truxillo," in Honduras, by them to be colonized and governed under certain explicit regulations. This cedula may be found in the general archives of the Indies at Seville in Spain, among the papers brought from Simancas, Roll No. 12 of those entitled "Buen Govierno de Indias." A copy also exists in the "Depósito Hidrográfico" at Madrid. It is chiefly interesting as showing the antiquity of the claim to sovereignty, founded on the acknowledged right of discovery set up by Spain over this shore, but within a few years called in question.

It does not appear that Palacio took any action under his grant, and the coast remained in its primitive condition until the era of the buccaneers, who obtained practical control of the Sea of the Antilles about the middle of the seventeenth century. The intricate bays, creeks, and rivers of this coast furnished admirable