TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE AMERICAN PROPOSAL
TILE effect of Mr. Marcy's despatches, coupled with the reception of them by our Government, is, that the Military Recruiting question is closed, and the Central American question has a new starting-point. • But although the Recruiting question is closed, it is desirable to form a distinct conception of the position in which our repre- sentative at Washington has been finally placed, in order that we may more clearly understand the actual relation between the two Governments. We intimated last week a doubt whether Mr. Crampton had been equal to the exigencies of his post, and the evidence transmitted by the American Government goes far to confirm that doubt. It would appear from the papers which have been published, that Itr:.Crampton : had obtained a certain quali- fied sanction from Mr. Marcy-ftr,the attempt at obtaining recruits within the territory of the United States ; but Mr. Marcy affirms that our representative never reported to him those details upon which the legality or illegality of the enterprise positively de- pended. There is great reason to doubt also, from the statements of those papers, from Mr. Crampton's previous letters, and from the language of our Ministers in Parliament, whether our representative at Washington had reported to his own principals at home the measures that he had really taken. They were of course speaking on his information when they af- firmed that he had not broken the laws of the United States, and that he had not personally taken any part in the enlistment of recruits. But in these papers we find many- accumulated and mutually corroborating proofs that the Consular officers in New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, were the officers of enlist- ment; that the Consular agents were in communication with Mr. Crampton ' • and that the more immediate officers of the Anglo- American Legion were in direct communication with the British Minister at Washington. The question of the enlistment now closed, the American Government expressing itself quite satisfied with the explanation of our Ministers, the only importance of the new evidence presented consists in its bearings on Mr. Crampton's general conduct. It certainly exhibits a state of facts incom- patible with the solemn assurances of our Ministers in Parlia- ment; and as we are to presume that our Ministers were speak- ing according to the information transmitted to them by Mr. Crampton, we must suppose that his reports were so incomplete, were so much modified by reserves, as to mislead his principals.
The consideration has rather an important beating upon the past stages of the Central American negotiations, and therefore upon the new point of departure. Mr. Crampton had reported that Mr. Clayton had in private expressed an opinion contrary te that of the American Government on the interpretation of the Bulwer-Clayton treaty. It did appear improbable that Mr. Clay- ton should have expressed an opinion entirely contradictory of that which he had stated in the American Legislature; but the point is not left to probability or to the denial of Mr. Clayton alone. His denial is confirmed by Mr. Crittenden, a man of the most unquestioned character for probity, discretion, and correct- ness ; it is also confirmed by Mr. Fish, an hereditary landed pro- prietor, who belongs to the highest aristocracy of the United States, and is considered to be of strong English sympathies. It is difficult, therefore, to reject the belief that Mr. Crampton has by some mistake been betrayed into a statement the reverse of the fact. Everybody, no doubt, will be inclined to let bygones be bygones so far as Mr. Crampton is personally concerned; but it is important to notice the effect which this information is likely to have had upon our Government, who must of course have modi- fied their views respecting the probability of concessions on the other side when they learned that Mr. Clayton himself abandoned the American interpretation of the treaty. The gossip which may be collected and transmitted in private letters is of very questionable importance, but it is important that the representa- tive whom a Government maintains resident in a foreign country should not supply his chiefs with information positively calculated to mislead. By the removal of Mr. Crampton, one source of ob- scurity, and therefore of misunderstanding, respecting the ques- tion of Central America, has been removed.
Mr. Marcy proposes that the matter of Central America shall be settled by direct negotiation between the English and American Governments ; but he suggests that the disputed points which con- stitute the material difficulties in the case shall be referred to par- ties competent to decide them. The proposal differs in many re- spects from any previous plan of arbitration; and in order to un- derstand on what footing the subject is now placed by this new proposal, the reader should remember how the question arose. Professedly, the United States claim no occupation or jurisdiction in any part of the territory in question ; Great Britain also maker no pretension to interfering with the limits of the independent States of Central America, but claims the right of protecting the' Mosquito Indians in the enjoyment of their own land and inde- pendence, also the right of occupying the tract on the coast of Central America called the Belise settlement. Both these claims are based upon ancient usage and past treaty-stipulations with Spain, obligatory upon the successors to the Spanish territory. Great Bri- tain also chums the island of Ruatan, on the ground of a de facto occupation and colonization by British subjects, by whom it was treated in the first instance as a depe,ndancy of the settlement of Belise. As between the United States and Great Britain there is
no question excepting each questions as arise under the Clayt°1- Bulwer treaty, by which these powers were reciprocally bound not to exercise on their own part any territorial jurisdiction and not to fortify or occupy any rands within the tract to which the treaty referred. The United States Government accuses Great Britain of transgressing the limits assigned to it by that conven- tion, first, in actually colonizing the island of Ruatan, which, say the Inited States belongs to the republic of Honduras and not to the settlement of States, belongs and secondly, in making the protectorate
of the Mosquito Indians the cover for exercising territorial juris- diction and for interfering with the independent and neighbour- ing state of Nicaragua. Mr. Marcy proposes that the Govern- ments of Great Britain and the United States 8611 settle the in- terpretation of the treaty and their reciprocal obligations between themselves; but he proposes to refer certain questions of fact to competent authorities. The rightful limits between the establish- ment of Belise and the state of Honduras, the extent of territory accurately designated by the term of "Mosquito coast," are points which Mr. Marcy would refer. The text of his despatch might also be taken to imply that the referees might consider the extent of territorial or oceupatory rights existing in the Mosquito Indians ; and he distinctly propounds the question whether the Bay Islands do or do not belong to the colony' of Honduras. These are questions of political geography. He does not think it expedient for either party in the dispute to invite a judgment upon the whole question from any Powers of Europe, though that judgment would doubtless be impartial. He thinbs it better that one or more men of science should be invited to decide the ques- tions of fact in political geography—to clear up, in short, the doubts which exist as to these questions of fact. Although, therefore the American Government does not propose a reference of the entire question, the plan would appear calculated to remove the material difficulties of a settlement. In other words, they propose to submit the questions of fact to the intellect and science of Europe and questions of disputed authority to the spirit of fairness between the two Governments. Although partial, it ap- pears that such a reference might be quite sufficient. If, for example, the referees should decide whether or not the island of Ruatan belongs to the dependent state of Honduras—whether their reply was in the negative and against the American view of the subject, or in the affirmative and against the English view of the subject, the difficulty of settling the interpretation of the word " occupy " in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty would disappear. the English maintain a right to back the Mosquito Indians even at St. Juan de Nicaragua—the Americans insisting that the
Mosquito Indians have no right to be at St. Juan de Ni a at all : if the referees were to decide that, on grounds :notified geography, the Mosquito Indians have a right to come down South so far as St. Juan, or on the other hand that they have no right to be in that town at all, the dispute between the two Governments which turns upon that point would surcease—" oadit qutestio."
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