A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 1: Presidents Taylor and Fillmore

by Unknown

The communication from Señor Sebastian Salinas, the secretary of foreign affairs of the State of Nicaragua, to Mr. Buchanan, the Secretary of State of the United States, dated 17th March, 1848, a translation of which is herewith submitted, recites the aggressions of Great Britain and the seizure of a part of the Nicaraguan territory in the name of the Mosquito King. No answer appears to have been given to this letter.

On the 28th day of October, 1847, Joseph W. Livingston was appointed by this Government consul of the United States for the port of San Juan de Nicaragua. On the 16th day of December, 1847, after having received his exequatur from the Nicaraguan Government, he addressed a letter to Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, a copy of which is herewith submitted, representing that he had been informed that the English Government would take possession of San Juan de Nicaragua in January, 1848.

In another letter, dated the 8th of April, 1848, Mr. Livingston states that "at the request of the minister for foreign affairs of Nicaragua he transmits a package of papers containing the correspondence relative to the occupation of the port of San Juan by British forces in the name of the Mosquito nation."

On the 3d day of June, 1848, Elijah Hise, being appointed chargé d'affaires of the United States to Guatemala, received his instructions, a copy of which is herewith submitted. In these instructions the following passages occur:

The independence as well as the interests of the nations on this continent require that they should maintain the American system of policy entirely distinct from that which prevails in Europe. To suffer any interference on the part of the European Governments with the domestic concerns of the American Republics and to permit them to establish new colonies upon this continent would be to jeopard their independence and to ruin their interests. These truths ought everywhere throughout this continent to be impressed on the public mind. But what can the United States do to resist such European interference whilst the Spanish American Republics continue to weaken themselves by division and civil war and deprive themselves of the ability of doing anything for their own protection?

This last significant inquiry seems plainly to intimate that the United States could do nothing to arrest British aggression while the Spanish American Republics continue to weaken themselves by division and civil war and deprive themselves of the ability of doing anything for their protection.

These instructions, which also state the dissolution of the Central American Republic, formerly composed of the five States of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, San Salvador, and Guatemala, and their continued separation, authorize Mr. Hise to conclude treaties of commerce with the Republics of Guatemala and San Salvador, but conclude with saying that it was not deemed advisable to empower Mr. Hise to conclude a treaty with either Nicaragua, Honduras, or Costa Rica until more full and statistical information should have been communicated by him to the Department in regard to those States than that which it possesses.

The States of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras are the only Central American States whose consent or cooperation would in any event be necessary for the construction of the ship canal contemplated between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by the way of Lake Nicaragua.

In pursuance of the sixth article of the agreement of the 7th of March, 1848, between the forces of Great Britain and the authorities of Nicaragua, Señor Francisco Castillon was appointed commissioner from Nicaragua to Great Britain, and on the 5th day of November, 1848, while at Washington on his way to London, addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, a translation of which is herewith submitted, asking this Government to instruct its minister plenipotentiary residing in London to sustain the right of Nicaragua to her territory claimed by Mosquito, and especially to the port of San Juan, expressing the hope of Nicaragua "that the Government of the Union, firmly adhering to its principle of resisting all foreign intervention in America, would not hesitate to order such steps to be taken as might be effective before things reached a point in which the intervention of the United States would prove of no avail."

To this letter also no answer appears to have been returned, and no instructions were given to our minister in London in pursuance of the request contained in it.