all-sufficient feeder for such a canal.

In 1524 a squadron of discovery sent out by Cortez on the coast of the
South Sea, announced the existence of a fresh water sea at only
three leagues from the coast; a sea which, they said, rose and fell
alternately, communicating, it was believed, with the Sea of the North.
Various reconnoissances were therefore made, under the idea that here
the easy transit would be established between Spain and the spice lands
beyond.

It was even laid down on some of the old maps, that this open
communication by water existed from sea to sea; while later maps
represented a river, under the name of Rio Partido, as giving one of
its branches to the Pacific Ocean and the other to Lake Nicaragua. An
exploration by the engineer, Bautista Antonelli, under the orders of
Philip II., corrected the false idea of an open strait.

In the eighteenth century a new cause arose for jealousy of her
neighbors and for keeping her northern part of the isthmus from their
view. In the years 1779 and 1780 the serious purposes of the English
government for the occupancy of Nicaragua, awakened the solicitudes of
the Spanish government for this section. The English colonels, Hodgson
and Lee, had secretly surveyed the lake and portions of the country,
forwarding their plans to London, as the basis of an armed incursion,
to renew such as had already been made by the superintendent of the
Mosquito coast, forty years before, when, crossing the isthmus, he took
possession of Realejo, on the Pacific, seeking to change its name to
Port Edward. In 1780, Captain, afterward Lord Nelson, under orders from
Admiral Sir Peter Parker, convoyed a force of two thousand men to San
Juan de Nicaragua, for the conquest of the country.