refused to acquiesce in the so-called protectorate, which rested, in
her opinion, upon no sufficient legal ground as against the prior
right of Spain, that was held to have passed to Nicaragua when the
latter achieved its independence. The Mosquito Coast was too close to
the expected canal for its tenure to be considered a matter of
indifference. Similar ground was taken with regard to the Bay Islands,
Ruatan and others, stretching along the south side of the Bay of
Honduras, near the coast of the republic of that name, and so uniting,
under the control of the great naval power, the Belize to the Mosquito
Coast. The United States maintained that these islands, then occupied
by Great Britain, belonged in full right to Honduras.

Under these _de facto_ conditions of British occupation, the United
States negotiator, in his eagerness to obtain the recession of the
disputed points to the Spanish-American republics, seems to have paid
too little regard to future bearings of the subject. Men's minds also
were dominated then, as they are now notwithstanding the intervening
experience of nearly half a century, by the maxims delivered as a
tradition by the founders of the republic who deprecated annexations
of territory abroad. The upshot was that, in consideration of Great
Britain's withdrawal from Mosquitia and the Bay Islands, to which, by
our contention, she had no right, and therefore really yielded nothing
but a dispute, we bound ourselves, as did she, without term, to
acquire no territory in Central America, and to guarantee the
neutrality not only of the contemplated canal, but of any other that
might be constructed. A special article, the eighth, was incorporated
in the treaty to this effect, stating expressly that the wish of the
two governments was "not only to accomplish a particular object, but
to establish a general principle."