concern for words themselves as things valuable and delightful, the delight of the craftsman in his tools,' which Mr Mitchell, in the absence of this new evidence, considers that he lacked (p. 215). The same work shows that the easy and pleasant reading of his compositions meant, as usual, hard writing.' In 1854, when Huxley had been partially supporting himself by writing for some years, he said, in a letter to his sister (i, 118), 'My pen is not a very facile one, and what I write costs me a good deal of trouble.' In 1882 he wrote to Romanes :

'My own way is to write and re-write things, until by some sort of instinctive process they acquire the condensation and symmetry which satisfies me. And I really could not say how my original drafts are improved until they somehow improve themselves' (ii, 39).

Within four years of the end of his life he wrote to H. de Varigny

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The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get them into the proper shape; and I believe I become more fastidious as I grow older' (ii, 291).

There can be no question that this labour of love and duty produced an admirable result. Huxley's essays and addresses contain many pages which for purity, terseness, vigour, and comprehension of the English language, are hardly to be surpassed by any writer of the Victorian age.

We may conclude this brief account of some aspects of a great man with the words of Professor E. Ray Lankester: I feel that the world has shrunk and become a poor thing, now that his splendid spirit and delightful presence are gone from it' (ii, 423). At the same time his memory is with us to encourage us in the warfare on behalf of science, which he carried on so unflinchingly, the struggle which is as necessary now, at the opening of a new century, as in the past, to bring about the most favourable conditions for the pursuit of truth, and to make the people heed the truth when it has been found.

Art. XII.-THE NICARAGUAN CANAL.

THE rough handling, which the treaty negotiated by Lord Pauncefote and Mr Hay early in last year has experienced at the hands of the United States Senate, has caused a natural feeling of resentment in this country. It was generally believed that the attitude which the British Government took up at the time of the Spanish-American War merited and would receive some return, in a more sympathetic appreciation of a policy which has never been intentionally hostile to America, and in a willingness to meet us halfway where the interests of the two countries are opposed. But neither in Alaska nor yet in Central America do the people of the United States appear disposed to abate a tittle of what they regard as their strict rights on the score of friendship; and in the latter case bitterness is added to the pill by the manner of its administration. The discourtesy of an attempt to supersede an international agreement by one of the parties, without consultation with the other, must have been patent to a large number of those who voted in the majority which carried the amendments to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. Yet for some reason they preferred to risk the ill-will which their conduct might be expected to engender rather than give effect to the carefully considered work of two able and experienced diplomatists.

The motives which decided the fate of the treaty were. probably extremely diverse. With some members of the Senate the belief that American interests demanded the Americanising of the canal was, we do not doubt, the main influence. The vote of many more was secured, it may be surmised, by railway interests acting upon party organisation, in the hope that the transformed treaty would not be acceptable to Great Britain, and that the construction of the canal would be delayed in consequence. With the representatives of the Western States of the Union it is possible that mere dislike of this country was the predominant feeling, and that they regarded the present opportunity of giving us another fall' too good to be lost. The Western States, which contain a large percentage of inhabitants of other than Anglo-Saxon origin, have always shown more hostility towards us than the States

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of the Eastern half of the Union. It was the former which drove President Madison into war in 1812; and it was their press which, during the negotiations preceding the settlement of the Oregon boundary in the forties, raised the cry Fifty-four forty, or fight,' and which was equally bellicose when the Alaska settlement was pending. Some day we may live down that feeling, but for the present it renders negotiations with the United States difficult to carry through, and, if the results are to be destroyed at the will of one side only, perhaps hardly worth the anxiety and trouble which they cost.

The uneasy course which Anglo-American diplomacy has run, in consequence of the atmosphere of distrust in which it has had to work, is typically illustrated by the negotiations which have centred upon the construction of a water-way across the waist of the American continent. A mutual suspicion of one another's intentions adversely affects the relations of nations far more than those of individuals. There cannot, from the nature of the case, be the same free intercourse between nations as between persons; and men are generally quicker to see evil in the aims of those whom they have not met than in those of their own acquaintances. This check upon international cordiality has been constantly apparent in the intercourse of Great Britain and the United States, from the date of the Treaty of Versailles in 1783 down to the failure of the Commission over which the late Lord Herschell presided. A brief outline of the principal points in the history of the Clayton-Bulwer Convention of 1850 will serve to show what small causes are sufficient to arouse the latent fear of being outwitted by a more subtle-minded bargainer.

The project of forming a cross-country connexion by water between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts had stirred men's minds for centuries before it came so far within the sphere of practical matters as to be made the subject of international agreement. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, however, the United States had entered upon the career of commercial development and territorial expansion which to-day has placed it among the great powers of the world. The Union had spread westward to the Pacific Ocean; it was creeping slowly southward. The admission of Texas to the Union in 1845, and the annexations which followed the war with Mexico, caused

American politicians to view with jealousy claims on the part of other countries in Central America which might conflict with the interests of the United States. At that time the only fruits which remained of repeated efforts on the part of William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, and other British merchants, to found colonies on and about the isthmus, consisted of the settlement of British Honduras on the Guatemalan coast, including a claim to the Bay Islands, which was disputed by the States, and a protectorate over the eastern sea-board of Nicaragua, which was inhabited by the Mosquito Indians.

In 1846 Lord Palmerston, becoming Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on the fall of Sir Robert Peel's ministry, commenced a vigorous assertion of British claims in Central America, his policy being directed to securing the predominance of Great Britain in the neighbourhood of the San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua. The vigour with which he pushed his efforts led to a conflict with Nicaragua, and subsequently to a treaty by which that State surrendered to the Mosquitos its claims to the town of San Juan, now known as Greytown. The immediate consequence was an outburst of hostile feeling in the United States, whose Government at once despatched an agent, Elijah Hise by name, to enter into negotiations with Nicaragua. Hise, contrary to his instructions, concluded an agreement without consulting the authorities at Washington. By the terms of this treaty-the Selva-Hise Convention of 1849-Nicaragua undertook to allow to the United States, or to a company to which a charter should be granted by the United States Government, the exclusive right to construct a canal from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and to cede so much land as might be required for the purpose. The United States and Nicaraguan warships were to pass through the canal free of charge, but for all other vessels such tolls were to be exacted as the body constructing the canal should deem necessary. The United States Government was to be permitted to build fortifications for the protection of the works, and in return was to guarantee Nicaragua from foreign aggression. This treaty was not ratified, owing to the convention made between Great Britain and the United States in the following year.

In consequence of this effort to circumvent British.

influence in Nicaragua, and of several other acts of an irritating character committed by one side or the other, there ensued a severe tension of Anglo-American relations. While matters were in this condition, Mr Clayton, the American Secretary of State, with the view of soothing the bitter feelings aroused in both countries, opened negotiations with Great Britain. Upon instructions from him, Mr Abbott Laurence, United States Envoy in London, in a despatch of the 14th December, 1849, urged that the Government of Great Britain should join the United States in the enterprise contemplated by the treaty with Nicaragua.

'A ship-canal,' he said, 'connecting the two oceans, will do more to perpetuate peace between Great Britain and the United States, and in fact the whole world, than any work yet achieved . . . It is our mission to extend commerce-the pioneer of civilisation and child of peace-to all parts of the world; to cultivate friendly relations with all; to bring the distant near; and to illustrate by our example the elevating effects of Christianity.'

These were the days of the Great Exhibition, when commerce was generally supposed to mean peace and goodwill to all mankind-a belief which later experience has unfortunately dispelled. Whether Lord Palmerston shared this belief or not does not appear; but he replied to the invitation by sending Sir Henry Bulwer to Washington; and the treaty to which the negotiators have given their names was executed on the 19th of April, 1850.

By that treaty the contracting parties engaged that, in the event of the construction of a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by way of the River San Juan de Nicaragua and either or both of the Lakes Nicaragua and Managua, the following conditions, among others, should be observed by the parties:

Art. I. Neither Government will obtain or maintain an exclusive control over, or erect fortifications commanding, the canal, or exercise dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or any part of Central America; nor will either attempt to obtain, directly or indirectly, advantages in relation to commerce or navigation exclusively for its own subjects.

Art. II. British and American vessels traversing the canal shall,