was conspicuously the opposite; we had done an unwarrantable and
high-handed thing; our claim that Behring Sea was an "inclosed" sea was
abandoned; the arbitration went against us, and we paid damages for the
Canadian vessels.

In 1895, in the course of a century's dispute over the boundary between
Venezuela and British Guiana, Venezuela took prisoner some British
subjects, and asked us to protect her from the consequences. Richard
Olney, Grover Cleveland's Secretary of State, informed Lord Salisbury,
Prime Minister of England, that "in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine,
the United States must insist on arbitration"--that is, of the disputed
boundary. It was an abrupt extension of the Monroe Doctrine. It was
dictating to England the manner in which she should settle a difference
with another country. Salisbury declined. On December 17th Cleveland
announced to England that the Monroe Doctrine applied to every stage of
our national Life, and that as Great Britain had for many years refused
to submit the dispute to impartial arbitration, nothing remained to us
but to accept the situation. Moreover, if the disputed territory was
found to belong to Venezuela, it would be the duty of the United States
to resist, by every means in its power, the aggressions of Great Britain.
This was, in effect, an ultimatum. The stock market went to pieces. In
general American opinion, war was coming. The situation was indeed grave.
First, we owed the Monroe Doctrine's very existence to English backing.
Second, the Doctrine itself had been a declaration against autocracy in
the shape of the Holy Alliance, and England was not autocracy. Lastly,
as a nation, Venezuela seldom conducted herself or her government on the
steady plan of democracy. England was exasperated. And yet England
yielded. It took a little time, but arbitration settled it in the end--
at about the same time that we flatly declined to arbitrate our quarrel
with Spain. History will not acquit us of groundless meddling and