mmitted a grave error and established
an unsafe precedent.

On the strength of this Walker demanded of the United States Government
indemnity for his losses, and that it should furnish him and his
followers transportation even to the very camp from which its
representatives had torn him. This demand, as Walker foresaw, was not
considered seriously, and with a force of about one hundred men, among
whom were many of his veterans, he again set sail from New Orleans.
Owing to the fact that, to prevent his return, there now were on each
side of the Isthmus both American and British men-of-war, Walker, with
the idea of reaching Nicaragua by land, stopped off at Honduras. In his
war with the allies the Honduranians had been as savage in their attacks
upon his men as even the Costa Ricans, and finding his old enemies
now engaged in a local revolution, on landing, Walker declared for the
weaker side and captured the important seaport of Trujillo. He no sooner
had taken it than the British warship _Icarus_ anchored in the harbor,
and her commanding officer, Captain Salmon, notified Walker that the
British Government held a mortgage on the revenues of the port, and that
to protect the interests of his Government he intended to take the town.
Walker answered that he had made Trujillo a free port, and that Great
Britain's claims no longer existed.

The British officer replied that if Walker surrendered himself and his
men he would carry them as prisoners to the United States, and that if
he did not, he would bombard the town. At this moment General Alvarez,
with seven hundred Honduranians, from the land side surrounded Trujillo,
and prepared to attack. Against such odds by sea and land Walker was
helpless, and he determined to fly. That night, with seventy men,
he left the town and proceeded down the coast toward Nicaragua. The
_Icarus_, having taken on board Alvarez, started in pursuit. The
President of Nicaragua was found in a little Indian fishing village, and
Salmon sent in his shore-boats and demanded his surrender. On leaving
Trujillo, Walker had been forced to abandon all his ammunition save
thirty rounds a man, and all of his food supplies excepting two barrels
of bread. On the coast of this continent there is no spot more unhealthy
than Honduras, and when the Englishmen entered the fishing village they
found Walker's seventy men lying in the palm huts helpless with fever,
and with no stomach to fight British blue-jackets w