possession of Jamaica, thus justifying Cromwell's forecast. Of them,
the Belize, a strip of coast two hundred miles long, on the Bay of
Honduras, immediately south of Yucatan, was so far from the Isthmus
proper, and so little likely to affect the canal question, that the
American negotiator was satisfied to allow its tenure to pass
unquestioned, neither admitting nor denying anything as to the rights
of Great Britain thereto. Its first occupation had been by British
freebooters, who "squatted" there a very few years after Jamaica fell.
They went to cut logwood, succeeded in holding their ground against
the efforts of Spain to dislodge them, and their right to occupancy
and to fell timber was allowed afterwards by treaty. Since the
signature of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, this "settlement," as it was
styled in that instrument, has become a British "possession," by a
convention with Guatemala contracted in 1859. Later, in 1862, the
quondam "settlement" and recent "possession" was erected, by royal
commission, into a full colony, subordinate to the government of
Jamaica. Guatemala being a Central American state, this constituted a
distinct advance of British dominion in Central America, contrary to
the terms of our treaty.

A more important claim of Great Britain was to the protectorate of the
Mosquito Coast,--a strip understood by her to extend from Cape Gracias
á Dios south to the San Juan River. In its origin, this asserted right
differed little from similar transactions between civilized man and
savages, in all times and all places. In 1687, thirty years after the
island was acquired, a chief of the aborigines there settled was
carried to Jamaica, received some paltry presents, and accepted
British protection. While Spanish control lasted, a certain amount of
squabbling and fighting went on between the two nations; but when the
questions arose between England and the United States, the latter