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which promised to be more lucrative than the previous ones. Their plan was to delay the treaty until the franchise under which the Canal was being built, and which the French Company had sold to our Government, should expire. This once accomplished, the blackmailing operations to the detriment of progress and commerce could be initiated all over again, with a new and a magnificently rich victim.

At this juncture, when the Hay-Herran Treaty had been rejected by the Colombian Senate, a revolutionary junta, composed of the leading Panamanians, approached influential people in Washington, notably the late Senator from Ohio, Marcus Hanna, and these emissaries were assured, there can be no doubt of this, that for the purpose of carrying out our long unredeemed pledge to the world of free transit of the Isthmus and an inter-oceanic canal secured to the commerce of the world, we would not permit the Colombians, as on so many previous occasions, to convert the Isthmus into a human slaughter-house, nor would we assist them, as had been our mistaken policy in previous years, to regain control. Undoubtedly very much encouraged by the new point of view, which prevailed in Washington, the independence of Panama was duly proclaimed, and our ships were on hand to protect the young republic and the freedom of transit. Doubtless had we not intervened in this energetic way, Colombia would have, in the course of time, succeeded in conquering the Panamanians and reducing the Isthmus to a few heaps of burning ruins. But we did intervene, in the name of civilisation and of progress. That is our right and duty under the Monroe Doctrine everywhere on the American Continent, but it would also

appear that President Roosevelt acted well within special rights secured by the Treaty of New Granada.

Of course, the rabidly anti-American among LatinAmerican politicians make what capital they can out of what they call "the rape of the Isthmus," and some representatives of the people in Washington who are ignorant of the fact and unacquainted with the conditions by which the Administration was confronted, assist them in their purpose of vilifying our country by their sophomoric effusions upon the stump and in Con

gress.

I may add from personal observation that our conduct is well understood and generally, though not universally, approved in most of the South American capitals. Certainly in no place is the downfall of the brigands in Bogotá regretted. They had stretched a boom of blackmail and of intricate chicane across the most vital path of commercial progress, and in securing and in enforcing the free transit of the Isthmus under civilised conditions, President Roosevelt deserves and will, no doubt, receive the thanks of not only both the Americas, but of the civilised world.

CHAPTER XII

THE ORPHANS OF THE CONQUEST

THE first of the lesser islands, the orphans of the conquest, as I have, I think with justice, called them, which the traveller from the north is likely to see, are the outlying Virgins, and then comes Saint Thomas, and the last of the colonial possessions which remain to the Danish Vikings. Saint Thomas is often called the Gibraltar of America, and the name is not at all inapplicable. Experts consider the island naturally impregnable, irrespective of the artificial assistance of fortifications. The enclosing ridges and the projecting peninsulas, just as they came from the hands of the world's great Sculptor, only slightly modified here and there by volcanic influences, are said to constitute the last word in defensive fortifications as worked out by the great modern masters of Vauban's art, such as Todleben and Brialmont.

The strategic position of Saint Thomas and the two other Danish islands* is very strong in relation to the Panama Canal. Our naval strategists have always been in favour of their acquisition by purchase or otherwise. They might well become in the future, as in the past, a safe refuge of our enemies. During the Civil War the Danish islands were the rendezvous and

*Statistics in regard to these islands are given in Appendix F, page 446.

the headquarters of the blockade-runners, who did so much to prolong the struggle. Charlotte Amalia, the port town, and, indeed, the only place of any importance on the island, has about fourteen thousand inhabitants, and its chief industry in these otherwise slack days is purveying to the wants of political refugees from the adjacent islands, and in fitting out filibustering expeditions, at so much an expedition, to redress the chronic wrongs from which the adjacent islands would seem to suffer. It is certain that Saint Thomas has the best of harbours, deep and landlocked on three sides. The port town is surrounded by hills, from which drift down almost continually pleasant breezes. The houses are mainly of stone, with red tile roofs, and are embowered in secretive tropical gardens. Blackbeard's tower, from which so many buccaneers in former days took their bearings, still exists, and even if you do not believe in the length of the pirate's whiskers, or in the number of his wives, whom, legend has it, he kept happy and contented, there is a wonderful view from the top of the tower which well repays the climb. The old Danish fort, with its seventeenthcentury air, its cannon pointing skyward, and its wooden sentinels, also well repays a visit.

Saint Thomas has been almost deserted of recent years by the ocean liners. It has, however, latterly become the headquarters of the Hamburg-American Line, and the good Germans, it cannot be denied, make themselves very much at home here. They have their docks and their depots of coal, and generally assert proprietorship in a way which is evidently very irritating to the Danish colonial officials. However, the appeals for support which they make to Copenhagen are

never sustained. Enthusiastic admirers of Charlotte Amalia, and other annexationists, have always claimed for the port, among its other virtues, that it is practically hurricane-proof. This was probably never true, and certainly has not been true during the last ten years. However, it undoubtedly remains the most desirable existing harbour in the West Indies, with the exception of Mole Saint Nicolas, in northwest Hayti, which our fleet found so useful for coaling purposes in the Spanish War. Should the Germans ever seek land as well as commerce in the West Indies, there are many indications that they would take Saint Thomas and Curaçao. If they were permitted to do so, they would in this way secure strategic positions as strong, if not stronger, than those which the English and we ourselves possess.

Within sight from the hills of Saint Thomas lies Saint John's, another of the Danish islands, and, as seen from the sea, a very beautiful island, rich in forests and in streams. It furnishes also very striking illustration of one, and a certainly very disagreeable, phase of the West Indian situation. The island is healthy and rich in resources. Coffee and bay trees run wild, and its harbour, Coral Bay, is supposed to be hurricane-proof, and certainly has excellent anchorage in about fifteen fathoms of water. The woods are filled with wild pigeons and doves, but, with all these natural advantages, the island has been entirely deserted by its white population, and here, I am told, the black inhabitants, numbering about two thousand, almost entirely shut off from civilising influences, are fast relapsing into African barbarism. This information comes to me from several distinct and very reliable

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