Papal States, and used some forbidden word, such as 'patria' or 'libertà.' He was arrested by the police and ordered to pay a fine, or go to prison. He accepted the latter alternative, and was shut up for three weeks. In the 'Puritani' the word 'loyalty is invariably substituted for 'liberty,' though it makes nonsense of the passages. The enumeration of some of the ordinary abuses of the system in operation gives a faint idea of the extent of the evil and the irritation it produces. The acts which are quoted as examples appear comparatively petty in their isolation; it is the repetition of them which constitutes their chief aggravation, and no one who has not been a subject of the Pope can adequately realise the suffering and degradation which they produce. Do not. reproach us for our many faults,' exclaims an eloquent Italian, 'but rather wonder that, having lived so many years under such a dominion, we do not walk on all-fours.' Nor can we perceive that there is any immediate hope of a remedy. If, on the withdrawal of the armies of occupation, the Pope were truly to be left to his own resources, he could not long remain indifferent to the remonstrances of his people; but the moment that danger threatens, the Austrian troops will re-appear at Bologna, and the yoke will be rendered more intolerable than before. Those who wish best to Italy will counsel patience and submission. Any attempt at a revolution would instantly be quenched in blood, and be more likely to retard than accelerate a change. The true policy of her leaders is to continue to enlighten Europe on the condition of the country; and when the active sympathies of the constitutional powers have been won, the first favourable conjunction of circumstances will secure their intercession, and Italy may become under happier auspices the child of that civilisation of which she was formerly the parent. ART. VII.-1. Correspondence with the United States respecting Central America. Printed by order of Parliament. London, 1856. 2. Papers relative to the Recruiting in the United States. Printed by order of Parliament. London, 1856. N diplomatic disputes with the United States, their Govern says the first to the public. It prepares its case, arranges its papers, promulgates its views for months before either America or England is made acquainted with a counter-statement. Notions become thus rooted in the public mind of both countries, but more espe cially the former; party passions strengthen and inflame them; politicians commit themselves to a pre-judgment, and when the English side of the case tardily creeps forth it is often too late to correct the fallacies which with large numbers of men have already become convictions. Nor is this all. Statements produced bit by bit have the vivacity of a serial publication, and give to each instalment the freshness of news: their contents, brought into brief compass, are largely and eagerly read, hit the moment, and dwell long in the recollection. On the contrary, when the English case appears, it is in the shape of a cumbrous blue-book, extending often over a correspondence of years, swollen by matter tedious and obsolete, yet necessary to the complete understanding of points urged by the antagonist. Few will read all, fewer still will remember half. In future, should we unhappily again be involved in discussion with our quick and impressionable kinsmen, we earnestly adjure our Ministers, whomsoever they may be, to withhold from the American Government the monopoly of advantages so conspicuous. Let them depart from the orthodox custom of inert procrastination. Let argument be met by argument, fact by fact, before the public is left to make up its mind on partial evidences. Let them remember that partial evidences engender obdurate prejudices; that where prejudices are obdurate, reasonings become feeble; and popular passion gathers and concentres until there is too frequently no option between concession to its strength or resistance to its menace. The grave consequences that might have resulted-nay, that may result yet-from the misunderstanding upon the territorial questions affecting Central America prove the extreme danger of suffering one-sided evidence to be placed at the disposal of a democratic government, whenever it serves its purpose to mislead the judgment and arouse the passions of a democracy. The statements which Mr. Buchanan compiled from the instructions of his Government, published in a cheap form, read universally in America and circulated freely in England-statements not only contesting the views of our Government, but formally impeaching the honour and good faith of our nation for a long series of years-could never have deceived the sober sense of the United States or gained credence with any section of honest Englishmen had our Ministers not permitted them so long to remain without reply; and when at last emerges from the shades of the Foreign Office the uninviting form of the customary Blue Book, we see with regret that the true reply is often not to be found in the mild counter-statements of Lord Clarendon, but is to be hunted out through a mass of dry correspondence or historical detail, and arranged by a patience and and acumen which are not to be expected from an ordinary reader. Never was the case of a nation so strong as ours in this dispute, never, owing to unscrupulous assertions on the one side, to the courteous desire to wave irritating argument on the other, was the case of a nation less decidedly set forth. Now that negotiations are again to be huddled out of sight, and are to pass in the tenebrose concealment of our Foreign Office, until we may learn their result, either in angry rupture on a verbal technicality, or unconditional surrender, not only of empire but of honour, we will at least seek to place before our countrymen a correct view of their own case, and before the people of the United States an ample vindication, less of the arguments of our Government than of the sincerity and good faith of our nation. Errors of judgment in a Government find denouncers and defenders heard to-day and forgotten to-morrow. But if a nation be guilty of violated engagements and perfidious usurpations the stigma survives the charge. It does not pass away with the fleeting administration which may plead against the indictment on behalf of posterity-it rests upon the character which history assigns to the successive races linked into the deathless unity of a people. Such is the accusation against England, deliberately made by the American Cabinet. We undertake her defence and are assured of her acquittal. Our readers are aware that the disputes concerning Central America have grown ostensibly out of the interpretation to be given to a Treaty, made April 19th, 1850, for the purpose of facilitating the construction of a canal and other inter-oceanic communications across Central America; and yet the disputes relate to points with which, as we shall see later, that Treaty was only incidentally connected, viz.-1st. The protection Great Britain affords to the Indian tribe of the Mosquitos. 2nd. The extent and nature of the British settlement at Belize. 3rd. The British claim or title to Ruatan and the Bay Islands. By far the most immediately important and perilous of these disputes is the first. Our claim to the Mosquito protectorate is involved in the revolutionary state of affairs in Nicaragua. The territory occupied by these Indians is formally claimed by General Walker in the name of the Nicaraguan Republic; that claim is openly backed by the American Government. American citizens flock in hundreds to the support of General Walker; American vessels convey them. A chance shot may rend asunder the parchment in which negotiators are discussing clause. If blood be once shed, what statesman can arrest its flow? It is therefore absolutely essential that we should unequivocally cally decide the question raised by the United Sates Government. Have we, or have we not, the right to protect the Mosquitos? and out of this question grows another far more important -granting that we have the right, is our honour, as a nation, peremptorily bound to assert it-until we can obtain an adequate guarantee for the security of those whom, otherwise, it would be a disgrace and a treason to abandon ? Mr. Buchanan is deputed by Mr. Marcy to maintain,-1st. That we never, at any period in history, were connected with the Mosquitos as an ally whom we were bound to protect. 2nd. If ever we were, that the right and the obligation to protect them were permanently abolished by a convention with Spain in 1786, by which we agreed to evacuate the Mosquito territory. 3rd. That if, despite the Convention of 1786, we did find iniquitous pretexts to resume the Protectorate, we relinquished it for ever by the commercial treaty of 1850. To all these assertions we address ourselves, and we shall do what our Government has not done: all these assertions, one after the other, we shall overthrow. Our connexion with the Mosquito tribe followed close upon our conquest of Jamaica, under Cromwell, in 1656. Within four years from that event we established a settlement on the eastern coast of Yucatan, principally for the purpose of cutting logwood; and Belize (which name is a corruption from that of Wallis, a Scotchman, who first established himself there by the assent of the natives) became our head-quarters. At that time there prevailed along the coast of the isthmus now called Central America a powerful and independent Indian tribe, the Moscos, an appellation elongated, without much gain of dignified euphony, into that of Mosquitos. This tribe, surrounded by others which acknowledged an authority in its chief, had never been conquered by old Spain, had never ceded to old Spain an inch of territory, or a pretext of dominion. On this fact concur all traditions of the country-all early writers by whom the country is described. Even Juarros, the Spanish chronicler, speaks of the territory held by the Mosquitos as occupied by Indians unconverted—that is, by Indians unconquered and untamed; in the language of Spanish chroniclers conversion and conquest are but synomyms. It was indeed the intense abhorrence which these warlike remnants of the reign of Montezuma felt for the oppressors of their race that united them at once with us in hostility against Spain. Early in the reign of Charles II. a Mosquito chief came to Jamaica, and placed himself and his people under the protection of the King of England. The governor of Jamaica accepted the offer. From that day to this these Indians never have violated a com pact pact made with England. The question now raised is, whether humanity and honour permit us so to violate the compact which, it will be presently shown, we have made with them, and never yet rescinded, as to consign them to the inevitable fate of extermination by those whom we encouraged them to resist, In the earlier stages of our connexion with the Mosquitos we assisted in the administration of affairs in their territory through the agency of justices of the peace sent thither from Jamaica; in 1740 we installed an officer as superintendent, erected a fort at our station at Black River, mounted cannon there, and hoisted the English flag. A brief summary of the facts here stated will be found in Macgregor's Commercial Tariffs,' Part 17, compiled from official documents in our Board of Trade and Plantations, and published before any disputes with the United States had occurred. But the American Government, having taken up the strange position that the Mosquito protectorate has been from first to last a fiction and a sham,' denies even the genuine antiquity of this connexion, of which we have just traced the origin and confirmation. In a despatch to Mr. Buchanan from Mr. Marcy, dated July 2, 1853, and comprising the preliminary instructions that were to guide the diplomatic Minister then just sent to St. James's, the American Secretary of State tells Mr. Buchanan to insist upon a debate in the House of Lords, March 27, 1787, as a conclusive proof that, even at the early period we have referred to, the Mosquitos were not allies to whom we had contracted any binding obligations. Nay,' says Mr. Marcy, with solemn emphasis, 'nothing can be more fatal than this debate to the pretensions now set up by Great Britain for herself and the Mosquito Indians.' The Parliamentary discussion that thus summarily disposes of the honour of England and the existence of her ally is upon a motion made by Lord Rawdon condemnatory of our convention with Spain for the cession of the Mosquito territory in the previous year; and Mr. Buchanan, obeying the instructions of his Government, accordingly declares, in his statement to Lord Clarendon, that in that debate Lord Thurloe abundantly justified the Ministry, and proved that the Mosquitos were not our allies, were not a people we were bound to protect.' The instant Lord Thurloe was cited as a Parliamentary authority in a question of evidence and proof, we felt supremely safe. An American statesman is certainly not bound to know the moral characteristics of our departed lawyers. But any instructed Englishman might have warned Mr. Buchanan that the authority of Lord Thurloe was the last that, upon all questions in which Party was the client and Parliament the court, a prudent arguer would be advised to adduce. In the general |