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for consolation and inspiration. In the Scriptures they found the following verse which they concluded had a direct reference to a canal: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." The quotation was the basis for an unfavorable report by the Friars and was accepted by King Philip as sufficient reason to abandon further consideration of the subject.

Another canal survey was ordered in 1616, and in 1701 a report was published, pointing out the great advantages of a canal to commerce.

Late in the 18th Century, England made a series of examinations with a view to constructing a canal. Lord Nelson and Baron Von Humboldt served as England's representatives in this study. Their report considered routes in North and South America but recommended that the four most favorable routes were those of Tehuantepec in Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Darien via the Napipa and Atrato Rivers. Of side interest on this report is a remarkable prophecy made by Goethe at the time:

"I therefore repeat that it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean; and I am certain that they will do it. *** I should like to see another thing-a junction of the Danube and the Rhine; but this undertaking is so gigantic that I have grave doubts of its completion *** and, thirdly and lastly, I should wish to see England in possession of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. Would I could live to see these three great works. It would be well worth the trouble to last some fifty years more for this very purpose."

Again in 1814, in an attempt to bolster its waning influence in its Central American colonies, Spain passed a formal decree in favor of the construction of a canal through the Isthmus but nothing came of this action.

Altogether, thirty American Isthmian canal routes have been studied at one time or another in an attempt to determine the one most practical. The American Isthmus is defined as the area limited on the north by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, and on the south by the Arato River in Colombia. The routes considered are in these general locations: Tehuantepec (Mexico), Nicaragua, Chiriqui (Panama), immediate vicinity of the existing Panama Canal, San Blas (Panama), Caledonia Bay (Panama), Tuyra River (Panama and Colombia), and Atrato River (Colombia).

The American Isthmus has a length of about 1,800 miles. The Continental Divide which extends along the full length of the Isthmus consists of a fairly continuous mountain range that rises to a maximum elevation of about 14,000 feet above sea level. Possible canal routes occur where the crest of the ridge is low and the Isthmus is narrow or intersected by large rivers and lakes.

The Nicaragua route has received a great deal of study and consideration for centuries. In 1825 an envoy extraordinary from the new Federation of Central America (of which Nicaragua was a part) called the canal project to the special attention of the United States Government and requested its co-operation in preference to any other nation. The envoy also proposed a treaty to secure the advantages of a canal to the two nations. The United States appointed a chargé d'affaires who was instructed to assure the Government of Central America of his government's interest in the canal project and to investigate the facilities offered by the route.

In 1826 a contract was made between the Government of Central America and an agent of a New York company which created the "Central American and United States Atlantic and Pacific Canal Company." Many distinguished men of the day, including De Witt Clinton, were connected with the project, but the plan fell through.

As a result of a Senate resolution of March 1835 the President of the United States sent a special agent to investigate the canal routes of Panama and Nicaragua. Difficulty in procuring a conveyance to the River San Juan in Nicaragua forced the agent to visit Panama first. Other adverse circumstances prevented his reaching Nicaragua before his return to Washington. Shortly after his return he died, but his report indicated that he did not consider a ship canal practicable across the Isthmus of Panama.

MOSQUITOES AND THE BRITISH

The British made strong efforts to gain control of an interest in a canal through Nicaragua. These efforts consisted in securing control over nearly the entire east coast of Nicaragua by maintaining a loose form of protectorate over an Indian Kingdom in that area called the "Mosquito Kingdom."

The British claims in the Mosquito Territory and in Belize (British Honduras) began around 1630 when small settlements of buccaneers and logwood cutters were established on the coast. Originally, the Mosquito Kingdom covered an area about 225 miles long and 40 miles wide, but it was unofficially expanded by British extremists to include the entire Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. The Mosquito Indians numbered around 1,500 and were a Carib people mixed with Negro and some white stock. The British Government considered that these Indians and their territory did not belong to any of the Republics from the old Spanish Empire as they had never been conquered by the Spanish. The view was created by the British to further their interests in rivalry which was developing between Britain and the United States for commercial supremacy in the Western Hemisphere. The British did not object to the building of a canal through Nicaragua but were determined to prevent the United States from obtaining exclusive rights in or control of such a canal.

The active period of the British intervention in the Mosquito area started in 1841. The British landed at San Juan del Norte in August, whereupon the Mosquito King raised the Mosquito flag in place of the Nicaraguan flag, reaffirmed the British protectorate, claimed the port in the name of the Mosquito Kingdom and forcefully deported the Nicaraguan commandant of the town. This action secured control for the British of a major portion of the proposed canal route from the Atlantic side. The route was to begin at San Juan del Norte and continue up the San Juan River approximately 100 miles to Lake Nicaragua. The British claimed for the Mosquito Kingdom (in addition to the Caribbean coastline) the area from San Juan del Norte up the San Juan River to the Machua Rapids, which was more than half the length of the San Juan River. Many disturbances between the British and the United States and Nicaragua took place as a result of the British action until around 1860.

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty in 1850 between the United States and Great Britain was an attempt on the part of the United States to straighten out this affair. The treaty stipulated, in general, that neither the United States nor Britain would obtain or maintain exclusive control over a canal route or would ever take possession of or fortify any part of Central America. The British made one important reservation that actually weakened the value of the treaty. This was a note sent to the Secretary of State (which was not made known to Congress at the time) by the British in which they stated that they did not "understand the engagements of the convention to apply to Her Majesty's settlement at Honduras or its dependencies." The dependencies in this case undoubtedly included the Mosquito Territory. This treaty caused trouble until It was superseded by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty more than 50 years later.

A major portion of the misunderstanding over the Mosquito Territory was resolved by the treaty of Managua between Great Britain and Nicaragua in 1860. This treaty provided for: Great Britain to abandon all claims to a protectorate over the Mosquito Kingdom, San Juan del Norte to remain a free port under Nicaraguan sovereignty, Nicaragua to consent to pay the Mosquito Indians $5,000 a year for ten years as compensation for the loss of their independence and to establish a reservation for the Indians in which they would enjoy autonomy.

WILLIAM WALKER INCIDENT

From 1850 to 1852 the first accurate survey of the Nicaraguan route was made by O. M. Childs at the instance of the existing Transit Company. This Transit Company had established transisthmian communication with California by steamer from Greytown, Nicaragua, via the San Juan River to Virgin Bay on the west shore of Lake Nicaragua, and thence by stage to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, a small natural harbor on the Pacific coast about 8 miles southeast of Brito. The navigation of the San Juan River proved to be troublesome and uncertain at low water and the Transit Company sought means to improve these conditions and to continue the water route across the narrow neck of land that separated Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. It, therefore, desired to secure a continuous depth of 17 feet. The Transit Company was active in hauling passengers bound for the gold rush in California at the time. The Company's development and operations began in 1849, when Cornelius Vanderbilt contracted with the Government of Nicaragua to construct a passage using the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua, and a 13-mile canal for the purpose. With this contract he received the right to transport passengers across the Isthmus, and for this privilege he was to pay to Nicaragua $10,000 annually and 10 per cent of his profits. His account

ants saw to it that there were no profits. His line became known as the Accessory Transit Company and it did a rich business. The last stage of the transit-over the 13-mile strip was on the only macadamized road in Nicaragua.

At this point William Walker, an American who played an important role in the manipulation of the Transit Company (and who became President of Nicaragua in 1856), enters the story.

Walker, after an unsuccessful revolutionary expedition into Mexico in 1853, returned to the United States and entered the newspaper business. However, at the urging of an opportunist friend, Walker sailed from San Francisco in 1855, with a group of 58 men, for Nicaragua. In order to establish himself, Walker had obtained permission from a political party opposed to the government then in power in Nicaragua, to enlist 300 colonists to become citizens of Nicaragua and a guarantee of the privilege of his men to bear arms. Walker became a power in Nicaragua and, in 1856, deposed the president and had himself elected to the presidency, a position he held until 1857.

While president of Nicaragua, Walker used the Transit Company to transport additional volunteers for his army from the United States to Nicaragua. However, a few months before becoming president he arranged a deal whereby Commodore Vanderbilt's original partners gained control of the company during the absence of the Commodore in Europe.

Walker was deposed as president of Nicaragua in 1857 by a combination of Nicaragua forces, an allied army from Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala, and action of the United States Navy. He was executed by an Honduranian firing squad in 1860, during an attempt to return to Nicaragua.

SURVEYS AND PRELIMINARY WORKS

The final route selected by Childs started at Greytown on the Caribbean Sea, thence ran mainly via the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua to a point a few miles below San Jorge on the west shore of the lake, and thence via the Lajas and Rio Grande Rivers to Brito on the Pacific. This route has more or less been ac cepted as the best route in Nicaragua. It involves a 172-mile lock type canal to raise ships from each ocean to the summit level of 110 feet of Lake Nicaragua. At current prices, and with modifications required by present-day specifications, it is estimated that this lock type canal would take ten years to build and would cost $3.5 billion. Altogether seven possible Nicaraguan routes have been considered at one time or another. Three of these are along the same general route from Greytown via the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua, thence to Lake Managua, and from Lake Managua via various routes to the Pacific. These three routes are com pletely impractical today because of their excessive lengths and high cost of construction. Three of the remaining four routes follow Childs' plan except for the exit point on the Pacific, and the fourth route would necessitate skirting the level canal in order to avoid draining Lake Nicaragua.

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Routes investigated shown in inset are from Greytown: 2. to Fonseca Bay: 3. to Realejo; 4. to Tamarindo; 5. to Brito; 6. to San Juan del Sur; 7. to Salinas Bay: 8. to Salinas Bay (alternate).

After the 1852 survey by Childs the United States had surveys made of the Nicaraguan route by Navy Comdrs. Chester Hatfield and E. P. Lull in 1872 and 1873 (which confirmed (Childs' findings); by A. G. Menocal, a civil engineer of the Navy, in 1885; and by the Nicaragua Canal Commission in 1897-1899.

The Maritime Canal Company started construction work on a Nicaraguan canal on October 8, 1889. The Nicaragua Canal Construction Company which had a contract with the Maritime Canal Company to do the actual work suspended operations in 1893, at which time all work ceased. During this 3-year period a telegraph line was constructed from Greytown to El Castillo on the San Juan River. A single track railroad 11 miles in length from Greytown to a point between the sites of the first two locks was built and thirty-nine buildings were erected. A jetty or pier 42 feet by 937 feet long was constructed to protect an entrance into Greytown Lagoon from the sea. A section of the canal was dredged a distance of a little over 4,000 feet. The canal company claimed to have removed rock from the San Juan River at the Machuca Rapids, and to have cleared timber from the canal line for a distance of 20 miles from the Atlantic coast, and for 8 miles along the west side of Lake Nicaragua on the canal line. Most of the property (including six dredges) of the canal company went to ruin and eventually the Nicaraguan Government took possession of all that remained.

In 1889-1901 the Isthmian Canal Commission headed by Rear Adm. John G. Walker, United States Navy, Retired, was directed by the United States to make an investigation of the Panama and Nicaragua routes to determine which was the more practical and feasible route. The Commission was also asked to estimate the probable cost and to find out what treaties would be required. This Commission played the deciding role in the eventual selection of an Isthmian canal route.

POSTAGE STAMP INCIDENT

The story behind the final selection of Panama over Nicaragua as the canal route starts in 1879 with the selection of Panama as a sea level route to be built by the French. At an international canal conference in Paris in that year, with the vote for the Panama route and the designation of the builder of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, as the director of the enterprise, the Panama Canal project was officially undertaken. De Lesseps, described as neither an engineer nor a financier but rater a promoter, estimated the cost for the sea level canal in Panama at $141,720,000. This sum included buying out the rights of another organization which had a concession to build the canal. The cause of the failure of this effort in 1888 has been ascribed to mismanagement, extravagance, corruption, and a high death rate from disease. A new French company took over the canal project in 1894, and planned a lock type canal. This new company had difficulty in raising sufficient capital and in 1898 it offered to sell the property to the United States. It was at this time that interest in a canal moved from Paris to Washington.

During this period, and for many years prior to it, the principal interest of the United States for a canal site was in Nicaragua rather than Panama. Two men are credited with changing this interest: Philippe Bunau-Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell. The latter was an American-a director and counsel of the Panama Railroad Company of which he was also a stockholder. The directors of the French Canal project in Panama became alarmed by the continued popularity in the United States of the Nicaraguan route and in 1896 appointed the law firm in which Cromwell was a partner as its general counsel in the United States. Cromwell organized a staff of writers and printed three large volumes covering all phases of the Panama project in a very favorable light.

Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman who was born in 1859 and graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in 1880, went to Panama in 1884 as chief engineer of the Pacific division of the canal. During a 4-month period from late 1885 to 1886, he served as a temporary general director for the entire canal project. In September 1886 he resigned and went to work in a private engineering firm of which his brother was a partner. From the time of the failure of the first French construction in Panama in 1888 until 1894 Bunau-Varilla worked hard in France for the completion of the canal project. When the Compagnie Nouvelle was incorporated and started construction on the canal again in 1894 he purchased stock in the company and took an active interest in the project. Bunau-Varilla's arguments in favor of the Panama Canal were always extremely biased and persuasive.

The United States was not interested in buying the Panama Canal from the French in 1898. At that time the United States still favored the Nicaraguan route and there had been much opposition to the idea of public ownership. This opposi

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