Page 112 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

The Isthmus and Sea Power. 93 ;

right, and the wariness on the other, upon
whom present possession and naval power con-
ferred a marked advantage in making a bar-
gain. By i860, however, the restorations had
been made, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
since then has remained the international
agreement, defining our relations to Great
Britain on the Isthmus.
Of the subsequent wrangling over this un-
fortunate treaty, if so invidious a term may
be applied to the dignified utterances of
diplomacy, it is unnecessary to give a detailed
account. Our own country cannot but regret
and resent any formal stipulations which fetter
its primacy of influence and control on the
American continent and in American seas
and the concessions of principle over-eagerly
made in 1850, in order to gain compensating
advantages which our weakness could not
extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe
now, when we are potentially, though, it must
be confessed sorrowfully, not actually, stronger
by double than we were then. The interest
of Great Britain still lies, as it then lay, in the
maintenance of the treaty. So long as the
United States jealously resents all foreign