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1. Palmerston and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

G. F. Hickson
G. F. Hickson
Affiliation:
Late Scholar of Clare College, Cambridge
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Notes and Communications
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Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , 1931 , pp. 295 - 303
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1931

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References

1 In a bundle of miscellaneous minutes for the years 1835–36 in the Public Record Office there is the following note by Palmerston: “The situation of affairs changes so frequently and so rapidly in these South American states that…. the safest course for English authorities to pursue seems to be to abstain rigidly from all interference in the internal dissensions of these republics.”

2 P[ublic] R[ecord] O[ffice], F[oreign] O[ffice], 15/22, Palmerston to Chatfield, 19 November 1839.

3 F.O. 5/483, Palmerston to Crampton, 27 April 1848.

5 F.O. 15/50, Palmerston to Chatfield, 1 November 1848.

6 Palmerston rebuked Chatfield more than once. But he also remarked that the actions of Squier (an agent of the U.S.A.) “seem to afford a curious contrast with his assertions … that a system of intrigues calculated for the attainment of interested objects of aggrandisement for individuals or for nations is the peculiar characteristic of corrupt Europe.” F.O. 5/509, Palmerston to Bulwer, 25 January 1850.

7 Brit[ish] Parl[iamentary] Pap[ers], 1856, LX, Crampton to Palmerston, 15 October 1849.

8 Hansard, Parl[iamentary] Deb[ates] Ser[ies], CXL, 462.

9 It is not a little ironical that three months after the signature of the Clayton-Buhyer Treaty Palmerston wrote in a Foreign Office Memorandum on the ancient fisheries dispute with the U.S.A.: “This is one of the many instances of the inconveniences and disputes which arise in consequence of the carelessness and want of clearness on the part of those who write treaties. The stipulation which is quoted is ambiguous and vague enough for a quarrel as long as the Trojan War.” F.O. 5/523.

10 These declarations are fully discussed elsewhere in this Journal.

11 “The title to them it is now and has been my intention, throughout the negotiation, to leave, as the Treaty leaves it, without denying, affirming, or in any way meddling with the same, just as it stood previously.”

12 Even now the British government were rather uncertain as to the legal status of British Honduras. In 1835 Wellington gave instructions that the Spanish government, which under the Treaty of 1786 retained the sovereignty of the territory, should be asked to cede it to Great Britain. No reply was received. Palmerston on his return to office at first thought it unwise to press Wellington's proposal, but later he considered approaching the Spanish government again. No action, however, was taken, and in 1843 a petition from the settlers that their status might be regularised was refused on the ground that sovereignty was still vested in Spain. In 1850 Palmerston consulted the Colonial Office and in a memorandum dated 27 September he wrote: “I think the best and most regular course would be that we should present a note to the Spanish government stating the grounds and reasons on account of which we consider the stipulations of the Treaties of 1783 and 1786 in regard to British Honduras no longer applicable and that that territory will henceforward be considered and treated as part of the Dominion of the British Crown. Lord Grey might thereupon without waiting for any answer take such steps and make such arrangements for the government of the Colony as he might think fit. The grounds, as I apprehend, which would be stated to the Spanish government would be that we reconquered the settlement by force of arms and that as Spain has now no longer any dominion on the adjoining continent of America the foundations on which the Treaty rested have ceased to exist, even if those stipulations could be considered as being still in force.” (F.O.15/68.) Apparently no such step was taken, and British Honduras was not created a Crown Colony until 1862. It is to be noted that the British government considered the possibility of discussing this legal point not with any American state, but with Spain alone.

13 Brit. Parl. Pap. 1856, LX, Bulwer to Palmerston, 38 April 1850.

14 F.O. 15/65, Chatfield to Palmerston, 20 August 1850. Chatfield's outlook seems to be coloured by his immersion in Central American politics and particularly by hostility to Nicaragua.

15 This was conveyed to Chatfield, in a dispatch of 9 November 1850 (F.O. 15/63). He was not to enter into discussion because it “can only have the effect of raising unnecessary jealousies in regard to a treaty which was intended to have the effect of extinguishing jealousies.”

16 F.O. 15/69, Palmerston to Chatfield, 11 December 1851.

17 Brit. Parl. Pap. 1856, LX, Palmerston to Bulwer, 28 May 1850.

18 F.O. 56/3, Memorandum of 11 October 1850 by H. U. Addington, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

19 Brit. Parl. Pap. 1856, LX, statement for the Earl Clarendon by Buchanan, 6 January 1854. The remark was made in 1851.

20 Subsequent events justified this fear.

21 For example those slave-holders who hoped for further expansion southwards.

22 Buchanan, Works, v, letter to McClernand, 2 April 1850.

23 That is, only the rights and boundaries granted by Spain in the Treaties of 1783 and 1786, thus excluding sovereignty.

24 Brit. Parl. Pap. 1856, LX, 2052, p. 276. To Earl of Clarendon, 6 Jan. 1854.

25 Brit. Parl. Pap. 1856, LX, 2052, pp. 280–1. To Mr Buchanan, a May 1854. This allusion to the Monroe Doctrine was in direct reply to Buchanan and not merely incidental, as stated in the Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 11, 273.

28 Buchanan, Works, ix, 319.

27 Buchanan feared lest the accumulation of military stores at the end of the Crimean War might “act as a stimulus to the reckless and arrogant propensities of Lord Palmerston, which have been so often manifested by him in his intercourse with other nations.” Works, x, 5.

28 Hansard, Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser. CXLII, 1508.

29 Hansard, Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser. CXLI, 1511; CXLIII, 1456–9.

30 It seems that Palmerston was anxious to avoid a serious quarrel in this matter: his colleague, Granville, described him as “firm but very conciliatory,” and stated that after some hours of debate by the Cabinet Palmerston himself entirely re-wrote the draft of a reply to the United States. Fitzmaurice, , Life of Granville [1905], I, 162, 177.Google Scholar

31 Williams, , Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy [1916], 220–221.Google Scholar

32 J. Bigelow, Breaches of Anglo-American Treaties, 106: “Great Britain's interest in the Mosquitos was not all imperial selfishness. … Her conduct was actuated by three motives of policy, humanity, and honour. Clayton reckoned only with the first.” It should be noted that Great Britain intervened to support the natives in their claims against Nicaragua in 1881 and 1894.

33 Guedalla in his Life of Palmerston [1926], p. 397, quotes a letter written by Palmerston in 1857: “we are far away, weak from Distance, controuled by the Indifference of the nation as to the question discussed, and by its strong commercial Interest in maintaining Peace with the United States. … I have long felt inwardly convinced that the Anglo-Saxon Race will in Process of Time become Masters of the whole American Continent North and South … but it is not for us to assist such a Consummation, but on the contrary we ought to delay it as long as possible.”