Among the adventurers were many idle and desperate characters attracted by visions of beauty and booty, with the broad license of a freebooter's camp. To such the reality proved a terrible revelation; they found, instead of a free lance's easy discipline, a system of military government emulating in its stringent laws that of the great Frederick. Walker's abstemiousness was supplemented by the virtue, much rarer in men of his class, of absolute personal chastity in thought, word, and deed. Drunkenness, debauchery, and profanity were vices which he abhorred. The man who was detected selling liquor to a soldier was punished by a fine of 250 dollars; the drunkard was sent to the guard-house for ten days. With whisky of a vile quality selling at two dollars and a half a bottle, and the terrors of punishment before the eyes of both buyer and seller, drunkenness was rare in Granada. On the outposts discipline was more lax, officers and men availing themselves of secrecy to evade their general's stern commands. The well-behaved, on the other hand, were treated with the greatest favour, receiving their regular pay of a hundred dollars a month, according to some—a quarter of that sum, according to others—and a contingent title to five hundred acres of land.
The assurance of peace alone was needed to make Nicaragua, the veritable "Mahomet's Paradise" which its discoverers had named it. But there was no such assurance or prospect in view. Even had Walker been willing to rest content with his present wonderful success, he would not have been permitted so to curb his ambition. His enemies were too many and too powerful and implacable. Great Britain, which had been trespassing, secretly or openly, for half a century, on the rights of the weak Spanish-American republics, could not allow so rich a prize to pass into the hands of the hated "Yankee." Money, men, and arms were furnished to the neighbouring states, and every pretext was made use of to stir up a crusade against the Americans.
Enemies as bitter, though less powerful to injure openly, influenced the administration at Washington. The Secretary of State, William L. Marcy, was a politician who is best remembered by his enunciation of the notorious political maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils." Marcy had no personal ill-will towards Walker or his political friends; he was not the man to indulge a wanton grudge, but he carried into the great office which he filled the aims, sympathies, prejudices, and alliances of a thorough politician. To him the traditions of his country, the dignity of his high position, the honour of the republic were secondary ideas. What his party would say, how his acts would be criticized at Albany or on Wall Street, these were the thoughts which swayed his mind and governed his conduct. Like master, like man, Franklin Pierce was mentally as small as his secretary. So when a minister plenipotentiary from Nicaragua presented his credentials at Washington, and the other resident ministers protested against his being received, a terrible consternation fell upon the minds of President and Secretary. Mr. Marcolletta, the former minister, though recalled by the Government of Nicaragua, stoutly refused to resign. The other foreign ministers espoused his cause, and the secretary had the amazing stupidity to argue the case gravely with those officious gentlemen. Colonel Wheeler, the minister to Nicaragua, being appealed to, confirmed the de facto and de jure claims of the Rivas Government, adding, as a proof of the country's tranquillity, the striking fact, that "not a single prisoner, for any offence, is now confined in the Republic—a circumstance unknown before in the country."
Mr. Marcy had now no choice but to acknowledge the credentials of the new representative, when the discovery of a grave blunder of Walker's saved him the humiliation. No official objection could be urged against the minister, but unfortunately for him, there were pronounced personal objections strong enough to warrant the district attorney of New York in ordering his arrest on a criminal process. The individual, Parker H. French, was the same one-armed hero whose fiasco before Fort San Carlos had brought the Falange into disrepute and provoked the Virgin Bay massacre. Walker discovered when too late the unworthy antecedents of his envoy, whose conduct in Nicaragua should have been enough to disqualify him; but regarding his arrest as a violation of diplomatic privilege, he had him recalled, dismissed the American minister to Nicaragua, and suspended diplomatic intercourse with the United States. Some months later, and after the United States had declined to receive a second minister, Don Firmin Ferrer, Walker sent a third representative, in the person of the good Padre Vijil, who proved acceptable at Washington, as much on account of his high character as for the news which he brought with him, that Walker had routed his Costa Rica enemies, and frightened back the Serviles of the North. Franklin Pierce was not the man to turn his back upon a friend in prosperity, though his good will was not shared by Mr. Marcy. The Nicaraguan minister was received in form, but met with such studied discourtesy from the Secretary of State and his underlings that the cultured and amiable gentleman was glad to return, after a brief sojourn, to the better-mannered society of Nicaragua.
But the fickle conduct of President Pierce and his cabinet had exposed the weak joint in Walker's armour to his quick-eyed enemies in Central America and in Europe. The filibuster, so far from having the support of his native country, was apparently without a friend there. English consuls and men-of-war captains saw that they might crush out with impunity this adventurer and restore the supremacy of European influence on the isthmus. All the Servile partisans in the neighbouring states and the disaffected Legitimists of Nicaragua united to expel the foreign element. The Costa Rican consul-general in London wrote to his President, Don Juan Rafael Mora, in a letter which fell into Walker's hands, that the British Government would sell to Costa Rica two thousand army muskets, at a nominal price, for the purpose of "kicking Walker and his associates out of Nicaragua." British friendship was not purely disinterested nor did it proceed solely from hatred of Americans. Seventeen million dollars invested by English capitalists in Costa Rican bonds were the substantial basis of that interest. It is painful to reflect upon the fact that those bonds were afterwards defaulted to the last dollar.
A deputation sent from Nicaragua to negotiate a treaty of peace with Costa Rica was ignominiously expelled the latter country. Guatemala, San Salvador, and Honduras also declined to recognize the new administration.
On the 26th of February, 1856, Costa Rica declared war against Nicaragua, for the expressed purpose of driving the foreign invaders from the soil of Central America. Distant Peru sympathized with the crusaders by advancing a loan of $150,000 to aid the righteous campaign. President Mora at once collected a force of nine thousand men, and prepared to march on Guanacaste. A counter declaration of war was immediately issued by President Rivas. Walker, as general-in-chief, summoned his men to meet him on the plaza of Granada, and, having had the proclamation of hostilities read to them, made a stirring address, concluding with a peroration well suited to his hearers: "We have sent them the olive branch; they have sent us back the knife. Be it so. We shall give them war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt."
Unfortunately the officer chosen to lead the advance on Costa Rica proved to be a knife more dangerous to the hand which held than to the breast before it. Colonel Louis Schlessinger was given the command, partly by way of compensation for the ill-treatment which he had received from the Costa Ricans when he went thither as one of the peace commissioners. Another of the commissioners named Arguello had deserted to the enemy. The third, Captain W. A. Sutter, son of the famous discoverer of gold in California, alone showed himself possessed of ability and honesty. Walker was not happy in his choice of civil officers, but it must be remembered that the supply of such material was limited. Heaven-inspired statesmen do not flock to the support of a cause so dangerous and unpromising as his.
If Schlessinger was a poor diplomat, he was a worse soldier. Starting with a force of two hundred men, he crossed the border of Guanacaste on the 19th of March. Five companies, of forty men each, had been divided, according to their nationalities or origin, into a French company, under Captain Legaye, a German under Prange, a New Orleans under Thorpe, a New York under Creighton, and a Californian under Rudler. The American companies comprised men of every English-speaking nation, "blown from the four parts of the earth." This division, which a skilful commander might have turned to account by exciting a generous rivalry, was but a source of weakness in the hands of the incapable Schlessinger, himself a foreigner and little popular with his men.
Their first and only engagement occurred at the Hacienda of Santa Rosa, twelve miles within the boundary of Guanacaste. Schlessinger allowed himself to be surprised, the enemy under a skilful officer, the Prussian Baron von Bulow, attacking him with a force of five hundred regulars, and winning an easy victory. Schlessinger did not even make a show of resistance, but ran away at the first shot, followed by the German and French companies. Captain Rudler and Major O'Neill made a brave stand with the New York and California companies, until some fifty of their command were killed, when the survivors made the best of their way off the field and across the border. Only a poor drummer-boy remained beating his drum with childish glee until shot down at his post. The wounded and the prisoners were all put to death by order of President Mora, who had proclaimed no quarter to every filibuster taken in arms. So ended the battle of Santa Rosa, on the 20th of March.