st, accompanied by copies of his instructions from and
correspondence with the Department of State.

On the 12th day of November, 1847, Senor Buetrago, secretary of state
and of the affairs of war and foreign relations and domestic
administration of the Supreme Government of the State of Nicaragua,
addressed a letter from the Government House at Leon to Mr. Buchanan,
then Secretary of State of the United States, asking the friendly
offices of this Government to prevent an attack upon the town of San
Juan de Nicaragua, then contemplated by the British authorities as the
allies of the Mosquito King. That letter, a translation of which is
herewith sent, distinctly charges that--

The object of the British in taking this key of the continent is not
to protect the small tribe of the Mosquitos, but to establish their own
empire over the Atlantic extremity of the line, by which a canal
connecting the two oceans is most practicable, insuring to them the
preponderance on the American continent, as well as their direct
relations with Asia, the East Indies, and other important countries in
the world.

No answer appears to have been returned to this letter.

A communication was received by my predecessor from Don Jose Guerrero,
President and Supreme Director of the State of Nicaragua, dated the 15th
day of December, 1847, expressing his desire to establish relations of
amity and commerce with the United States, a translation of which
is herewith inclosed. In this the President of Nicaragua says:

My desire was carried to the utmost on seeing in your message at
the opening of the Twenty-ninth Congress of your Republic a sincere
profession of political faith in all respects conformable with the
principles professed by these States, determined, as they are, to
sustain with firmness the continental cause, the rights of Americans in
general, and the noninterference of European powers in their concerns.

This letter announces the critical situation in which Nicaragua was
placed and charges upon the Court of St. James a "well-known design to
establish colonies on the coast of Nicaragua and to render itself master
of the interoceanic canal, for which so many facilities are presented by
the isthmus in that State." No reply was made to this letter.

The British ships of war _Alarm_ and _Vixen_ arrived at San Juan de
Nicaragua on the 8th day of February, 1848, and on the 12th of that
month the British forces, consisting