powers to collect pecuniary claims against Venezuela which took place during the same year. Great Britain, Germany, and Italy sent a joint expedition to Venezuelan waters early in 1902, and established a blockade of the ports. Barring the shelling of a few forts, the blockade was essentially a 66 peaceful" one, yet it had the effect, however, of bringing President Castro to terms. As the allies disclaimed any purpose of presenting claims for territory, the Monroe Doctrine was not involved, and accordingly no official objection to the movement was made at Washington. President Roosevelt was invited to act as arbitrator, but declined, using his influence, however, in hastening a settlement of the affair, which was accomplished February 28, 1903.

The most important and far-reaching event of the first administration of President Roosevelt was the successful inauguration of a movement for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. By the ratification of the Hay-Herran Treaty, March 17, 1903, the Senate of the United States virtually pledged that the nation would undertake the construction of the canal, thereby insuring the realization of a dream that had been present in the mind of man since Balboa struggled across the narrow strip of land, and caught the first glimpse of the Pacific. Thus in the Twentieth century the quest of Columbus for a short route to the

Indies bids fair to become an assured fact.

The first hope was for a natural strait, but a score of years of fruitless search proved its non-existence and therefore in 1529 Alvaro de Saavedra Ceron, a follower of Balboa and cousin of Cortez, prepared a scheme for cutting a canal at the narrow isthmus of Panama. Four routes were proposed and it is interesting to note that they were identical with the four destined to be considered and examined by the modern engineers. The real beginning of the canal enterprise, however, was in 1534, when King Charles V. ordered surveys to determine the most feasible route. From then on the project alternately woke and slumbered, and though a king of Spain promised the headsman's axe to any one energetic enough to suggest even a revival of the scheme, the traffic needs of the South Sea country tended to keep the idea alive.

The era of Spain's commercial supremacy slipped by without advantage being taken of opportunity and until the beginning of the Nineteenth century a canal at Panama received scarcely a serious consideration. Alexander von Humboldt then put new life into the plan and in 1814 the Spanish crown, seeking to strengthen its weakening grasp upon its American colonies, determined upon the construction of an isthmian canal. A cedula was issued, but before practical steps could be taken the revolu

tions of Miranda and Bolivar wrested Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia from Spain. Panama declared its independence in 1822, and allied itself with Colombia under the title of New Grenada. The turmoil of the political rearrangement that followed in Central America had hardly subsided before the first Central American envoy, Señor Antonio Jose Canaz, approached Secretary of State Henry Clay with the suggestion of a canal through Nicaragua, and though lacking official authority to enter into such a scheme, Clay's appreciation of the project was such that he ordered a survey of the route.

The Central American congress the same year granted a concession which was afterward transferred to an American company known as the Central American & United States Atlantic and Pacific Canal Company, among the members of which were De Witt Clinton, Monroe Robinson and A. H. Palmer.* This company's conception of the magnitude of the task may be gathered from the

fact that it was capitalized at $5,000,

000. A concession to a Dutch company in 1829 proved an equal failure. A franchise for a canal at Panama was granted by Simon Bolivar, president of New Grenada, who, on the failure of the grantee undertook the work himself, but progressed no further than to obtain a faulty survey. For some years thereafter nothing

* See House Report No. 145, 20th Congress, 2d session.

but futile projects based upon more or less honest intentions are to be noted and, until the gold excitement of 1849 in California, the United States had shown little more than an attitude of approval toward the canal question. In 1846, however, before any whisper of the presence of the yellow metal had been heard, the United States negotiated a treaty with the republic of New Grenada, consisting then of the two independent states of Panama and Colombia, obtaining for Americans entry-port privileges and transit rights, equal in every respect to those enjoyed by the Grenadian citizens, their vessels and merchandise. Under this treaty,* the Panama Railroad Company, composed of William Henry Aspinwall, John Lloyd Stephens and others, obtained a concession from New Grenada, and work on a line from Aspinwall (now Colon) to Panama was begun in 1849 and the first train was run over the entire line in January, 1855. The construction difficulties in this then stupendous work can scarcely be imagined. The country

produced nothing, and was a desolate wilderness and every scrap of food and clothing had to come from New York.t

Great Britain's seizure of the Mosquito Coast and San Juan River roused President Polk to send a special envoy, Elijah Hise, to that coun

* New Grenada Treaty ratified June 10, 1848. An account of this first real struggle with the problem will be found in Wolfred Nelson's Five Years in Panama.

try in 1849 to examine into the situation with a view to discovering how far British actions were controverting the Monroe Doctrine. As a checkmate to Great Britain's designs, Hise negotiated a treaty with Nicaragua granting to the United States or its citizens exclusive right to construct a road, railroad or canal across the country from coast to coast, to fortify and protect the same and in return to guarantee to Nicaragua the maintenance of her territorial sovereignty. This treaty was rejected by the Senate and the diplomatic machinery at Washington set in motion by Secretary of State John M. Clayton. Negotiations on the subject were opened with the British Minister and E. G. Squier was sent to replace the embarrassingly active Mr. Hise. The meat of the nut lay in the possibility of interference by Great Britain with the canal project of the New York capitalists and her defiance of the Monroe Doctrine by her Mosquito Coast occupancy. Confronted by a Democratic majority in the Senate it was Secretary Clayton's pleasing task to obtain seemingly impossible concessions from Great Britain or, failing that, to present the possible in such form as would pass muster before the opponents of the administration. Clayton's offer was in the nature of a compromise; British right to control the Mosquito Coast would be diplomatically conceded provided such control would not interfere with the

construction and maintenance of a canal. This was acceded to, but the American minister at London, Abbott Lawrence, injected a strong dash of pepper into the fraternal pudding by declaring that Great Britain's claim to the Mosquito Coast was without right or reason, with no foundation in law or justice, and that it should be abandoned. Lawrence was ignored by Washington, a question of Nicaragua's right to the Mosquito Coast was raised as a foil, and Sir Henry Bulwer was sent to America to carry on the negotiations. The New York company had already established a line of transportation across the country by stages, and steamers on the Nicaragua lake with steamship connections between New York and San Francisco under a franchise which Squier secured, and his substitute treaty with Nicaragua varies but little from the Hise agreement as to neutrality and guaranteed sovereignty.

While Bulwer and Clayton were struggling with the preliminary draft of a treaty, Great Britain was pressing Honduras for payment of an old claim, and her designs embraced the seizure of Tigre Island and the Bay of Fonseca in default of payment. Squier endeavored to check this aggression, as Hise had done, by a treaty with Honduras which practically ceded both island and bay to the United States. A British fleet next appeared off the coast and forcibly seized the territory in ques

tion and Squier's protests being ignored, he ordered the British to evacuate the position, giving them but one week in which to comply. When the news of this awkward situation reached Washington the Democratic majority in the Senate took up at once the Squier treaties and demanded all relating papers and documents from the President. The chance of embarrassing the negotiations then pending was so great that Secretary Clayton urged on Bulwer the signing of the treaty at once. This was done with an extraneous agreement of disavowal by the United States of Squier's Honduras treaty, while in return Great Britain withdrew from Tigre Island. The treaty thus concluded was duly ratified by the Senate July 4, 1850, and is known as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It provided for the complete neutrality and mutual protection and aid by both the United States and Great Britain to any and every satisfactory attempt to construct a canal anywhere in Central America and served as a fruitful source of bickering and clash between the two nations for the next half-century.

In 1852 the American, Atlantic & Pacific Canal Company, dissatisfied with all previous surveys employed Colonel Orville Childs to make a complete and accurate survey of the Nicaraguan route. Colonel Childs' report, which was most exhaustive, embraced a plan of operation and design declared both practicable and feasible by the United States and

British engineers to whom it was submitted for criticism, but the turmoil and confusion caused by William Walker's filibustering activities put a stop to all practical work and also to the operation of the stage and lake steamer transportation; hence, in 1856 Nicaragua revoked the company's concession. The Panama railroad, meanwhile, instead of obviating the necessity of a canal, served to augment it, and various routes through the Darien region were examined with the idea of possibly finding an easier path than that already known.*

In 1858 Nicaragua and Costa Rica jointly granted a concession to a French company covering all rights previously granted to the New York company and in addition a permit to station two French warships on Lake Nicaragua. The prompt and vigorous protest of the United States to this had an unfavorable influence on the project and helped cause its failure before results were obtained. Louis Napoleon's schemes, which it is unnecessary more than to mention, were a source of small worry to the United States for some years until the Franco-Prussian war put an end to his capacity for mischief. The Tehuantepec, the Caledonian Bay and the Atrato-Truanto routes, and one adjoining the Costa Rica boundary came in for a share of attention but nothing beyond abortive exploring

*Senate Ex. Doc. No. 1, 33d Congress, 2d session and House Ex. Doc. No. 107, 47th Congress, 2d session.

companies was accomplished.

During the Civil War, of course, all ideas of a canal on the part of the United States remained in abeyance, but in 1866 the Senate called on the Secretary of the Navy for a report on the entire status of the Panama and Darien routes. Secretary Welles responded in 1867 with a report from Rear-Admiral Charles H. Davis* which discussed in voluminous fashion nineteen canal routes and seven railway projects in the isthmian country and recommended further investigation of the region. In 1869 a treaty was negotiated with the United States of Colombia, which had been formed in 1861, against the emphatic though fruitless protest of Panama, as the independence enjoyed by the latter from the time of the revolt against Spain was considerably curtailed by the centralization of power at Bogota. From 1861 on, Panama, protesting and feebly struggling, was gradually reduced to the position of a minor dependency, ruled by a governor appointed from Bogota who was seldom other than corrupt and frequently tyrannical. The treaty of 1869 secured to the United States the right to construct a canal at Panama but the Senate refused the necessary ratification. President Grant in 1870 submitted a similar treaty which was also rejected, but his recommendation to provide for a survey of route was followed by the establishment of an

Senate Ex. Doc. No. 62, 39th Congress, 1st session.

posed of the United States army chief of engineers, the superintendent of the coast and geodetic survey and the chief of the bureau of navigation of the navy department. The result from this commission was a minute and critical report* in 1876 recommending as the most feasible for a canal a line from Limon Bay via the Chagres and Obispo river valleys and across the divide to Panama Bay, and it further made a comprehensive report on the old the old Childs' route through Nicaragua with a detailed plan and estimated cost of a canal from Greytown to Brito via San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua and through the Rio del Medio and Rio Grande valleys. As between these two routes the commission was unanimously in favor of the Nicaragua one as possessing greater advantage of maintenance and less constructive difficulties from engineering, commercial and economic points of view.

The year before this report was made the Congrès des Sciences Géographiques at Paris had discussed the question of a canal at Panama and had recommended preliminary surveys. Acting on the idea, a company of French capitalists and speculators was formed to obtain concessions from Colombia. The enterprise was purely a stockholding concern and as a beginning a French naval lieutenant was sent to the isthmus to select a route and negotiate a * Senate Ex. Doc. No. 15, 46th Congress, 1st session.