confronted by a force of patriots in the field. For a short time there
were busy times in Nicaragua, several battles being fought by the
contending forces, the war ending with the burning of Granada by the
president. Finding that the whole country was rising against him and that
his case had grown desperate, Walker soon gave up the hopeless contest and
surrendered, on May 1, 1857, to Commodore C. H. Davis of the United States
sloop-of-war "St. Mary," who took him to Panama, where he made his way
back to the United States.

Thus closed the conquering career of this minor Cortez of the nineteenth
century. But while Walker the president was no more, Walker the filibuster
was not squelched. The passion for adventure was as strong in his mind as
ever, and his brief period of power had roused in him an unquenchable
thirst for rule. In consequence he made effort after effort to get back to
the scene of his exploits, and rise to power again, his persistent thirst
for invasion giving the United States authorities no small trouble and
ending only with his death.

In fact, he was barely at home before he was hatching new schemes and
devising fresh exploits. To check a new expedition which he was organizing
in New Orleans, the authorities of that city had him arrested and put
under bonds to keep the peace. Soon after that we find him escaping their
jurisdiction in a vessel ostensibly bound for Mobile, yet making port
first in Central America, where he landed on November 25, 1857.

This effort at invasion proved a mere flash in the pan. No support awaited
him and his deluded followers, and in two weeks' time he found it
judicious to surrender once more to the naval authorities of the United
States; this time to Commodore Paulding, who took him to New York with his
followers, one hundred and thirty-two in number.

His fiasco stirred up something of a breeze in the United States.
President Buchanan had strongly condemned the invasion of friendly
territory in his annual message, but he now sent a special message to
Congress in which he equally condemned Commodore Paulding for landing an
American force on foreign soil. He decided that under the circumstances,
the government must decline to hold Walker as a prisoner, unless he was
properly arrested under judicial authority. At the same time Buchanan
strongly deprecated all filibustering expeditions.

The result of this was that Walker was again set free, and it was not long
before h