Considerable delay ensued in the restoration of the islands and of the
Mosquito Coast to Honduras and Nicaragua,--a delay attended with
prolonged discussion and serious misunderstanding between the United
States and Great Britain. The latter claimed that, by the wording of
the treaty, she had debarred herself only from future acquisitions of
territory in Central America; whereas our government asserted, and
persistently instructed its agents, that its understanding had been
that an entire abandonment of all possession, present and future, was
secured by the agreement. It is difficult, in reading the first
article, not to feel that, although the practice may have been perhaps
somewhat sharp, the wording can sustain the British position quite as
well as the more ingenuous confidence of the United States negotiator;
an observation interesting chiefly as showing the eagerness on the one
side, whose contention was the weaker in all save right, and the
wariness on the other, upon whom present possession and naval power
conferred a marked advantage in making a bargain. By 1860, however,
the restorations had been made, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty since
then has remained the international agreement, defining our relations
to Great Britain on the Isthmus.

Of the subsequent wrangling over this unfortunate treaty, if so
invidious a term may be applied to the dignified utterances of
diplomacy, it is unnecessary to give a detailed account. Our own
country cannot but regret and resent any formal stipulations which
fetter its primacy of influence and control on the American continent
and in American seas; and the concessions of principle over-eagerly
made in 1850, in order to gain compensating advantages which our
weakness could not extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe now,
when we are potentially, though, it must be confessed sorrowfully, not
actually, stronger by double than we were then. The interest of Great