 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
Click on Image To Enlarge
autographs 
autographs |
Document 5232 JAMES BUCHANAN Buchanan's efforts to build what became the Panama Canal. ALS: "James Buchanan", 1p, 8x10. Lancaster, 1849 April 11. To W. Hunter Jr. Esquire. In full: "I have this moment received your note & know perfectly well without examination that I have not the paper to which you refer. I have a distinct recollection of it. It was a parliamentary document containing an exposition of the right or rather claim of the British Government to interfere as they have done in behalf of the King of the Mosquitoes. No doubt Mr. Crampton would furnish another copy. I was very careful never to mingle the official with my private papers: but even if this had not been the case, I have not yet moved to the Country & about fifteen boxes of papers &c have not been opened. It would be like 'hunting a needle in a hay stack'. It is possible the document may be with General Dix who took a great interest in the subject though I have no recollection that I ever loaned it to him: and is it not possible that you may have given it to Mr. Hese? It is assuredly not in my possession. From your friend, very respectfully." Integral leaf addressed by Buchanan to: "W. Hunter Jr. Esquire/State Department/Washington City", postmarked "LANCASTER PA. APR 11". Buchanan had just left Washington a month earlier after serving as President Polk's Secretary of State for four years. When Buchanan was President Polk's Secretary of State, the British were undertaking certain actions to gain power in the highly coveted Central American region. At heart was the prospect of building a transisthmian canal route through Nicaragua. The Mosquito Indians inhabited the present east coast of Nicaragua, strategically located for a canal. In 1844, the British government converted its tradition of protection over the tribe into a formal protectorate. On January 1, 1848, British authorities acting for the Mosquito King, seized the mouth of the San Juan River, the logical eastern terminus for any future canal in the region. Strained relations between England and the U.S. developed. Buchanan sent an envoy to Central America to gain the support of the independent states. His envoy was "detained" on route to Guatemala while the British were seizing their San Juan position. When President Taylor inherited the problem, his resolution was the Clayton-Bulwar Treaty of 1850, a compromise between the U.S. and Great Britain that was so confusing in its interpretation that in 1853, Taylor called upon Buchanan to go to London as a special Minister to iron out the confusion. A canal by this treaty was never built. The treaty was superceded by the 1901 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which allowed for the construction of the American-controlled Panama Canal. CRAMPTON may very well have been Thomas Russell Crampton (1816-1888), an English engineer who at the time of this letter was responsible for the first successful cross-channel cable between Dover and Calais (1851). WILLIAM HUNTER, JR. (1805-1886) was a clerk in the Department of State from 1829 until 1866, when he was appointed second Assistant Secretary of State by Act of Congress, an office he held until his death. As Chief Clerk, he served, at times, as Secretary of State ad interim when there was a vacancy in the office. GENERAL JOHN ADAMS DIX (1798-1879) was U.S. Senator from New York from 1845-1849 and later served as President Buchanan's Secretary of the Treasury from January 15, 1861 to March 3, 1861. The letter is lightly creased and shows some tears at the margins (expertly repaired on verso). Folds, vertical fold touches the "s" in James. 4 stains affect 2 words. Address leaf is uniformly shaded at addressed panel. Creased. Blank panels show repaired tears and paper loss. SEE IF DOCUMENT 5232 IS FOR SALE RIGHT NOW!!
|
||
|
|
|
Autograph Archive Index
Copyright © 2005 Gallery of History, Inc. All rights reserved.