“Gone are all the barons bold;
Gone are all the knights and squires;
Gone the abbot, stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars.”
ENGLISH vs. AMERICAN VIEW OF CENTRAL AMERICAN AFFAIRS.
It is but fair to say the Hon. E. G. Squier shows very clearly the forced nature of the English claims, and that Ruatan rightly belongs to Honduras. But then I should think Mr. Squier, or any other American, would blush to talk about British proclivities to piracy.
The following are the views of Mr. Trollope (English) on the most important of Central American affairs,[H] who probably also intends by them to give Mr. S. a rap on the knuckles.
“As I have before stated, there was, some few years since, a considerable passenger traffic through Central America by the route of the lake of Nicaragua. This of course was in the hands of the Americans, and the passengers were chiefly those going and coming between the Eastern States and California. They came down to Greytown at the mouth of the San Juan river, in steamers from New York, and, I believe, from various American ports, went up the San Juan river in other steamers, with flat bottoms, prepared for those waters, across the lake in the same way, and then by a good road over the intervening neck of land between the lake and the Pacific.
“Of course the Panama Railway has done much to interfere with this. In the first place, a rival route has thus been opened; though I doubt whether it would be a quicker route from New York to California if the way by the lake were well organized. And then, the company possessing the line of steamers running to Aspinwall from New York has been able to buy off the line which would otherwise run to Greytown.
“But this rivalship has not been the main cause of the total stoppage of the Nicaraguan route. The filibusters came into that land and destroyed every thing. They dropped down from California, or Realego, Leon, Manaqua, and all the western coast of Nicaragua. Then others came from the South-eastern States, from Mobile, and New Orleans, and swarmed up the river San Juan, devouring every thing before them.
“There can be no doubt that Walker’s idea, in his attempt to possess himself of this country, was, that he should become master of the passage across the Isthmus. He saw, as so many others have seen, the importance of the locality in this point of view; and he probably felt that if he could make himself lord of the soil, by his own exertions and on his own bottom, his mother country, the United States, would not be slow to recognize him. ‘I,’ he would have said, ‘have procured for you the ownership of the road which is so desirable for you. Pay me by making me your lieutenant here, and protecting me in that position.’
“The idea was not badly planned, but it was of course radically unjust. It was a contemplated filching of the road. And Walker found, as all men do find, that he could not get good tools to do bad work. He tried the job with a very rough lot of tools; and now, though he has done much harm to others, he has done very little good to himself. I do not think we shall hear much more of him.
“And among the worst injuries which he has done is this disturbance of the lake traffic. This route has been altogether abandoned. There, in the San Juan river, is to be seen one old steamer, with its bottom upwards, a relic of the filibusters and their destruction.