ever, lost office before new results
could be obtained; and Frelinghuysen recalled Trescot and abandoned the
attempt to force peace.

A second object of Blaine's policy was to prevent disputes between
Latin American and European powers from becoming dangerous by acting as
mediator between them. When he took office, France was endeavoring to
collect from Venezuela a claim which was probably just. When Venezuela
proved obdurate, France proposed to seize her custom houses and to
collect the duties until the debt was paid. Blaine protested, urged
Venezuela to pay, and suggested that the money be sent through the
American agent at Caracas. He further proposed that, should Venezuela
not pay within three months, the United States should seize the custom
houses, collect the money, and pay it to France. Again his short term
prevented him from carrying out his policy, but it is nevertheless
of interest as anticipating the plan actually followed by President
Roosevelt in the case of Santo Domingo.

Blaine was just as much opposed to the peaceful penetration of European
influence in the Western Hemisphere as to its forceful expression. The
project of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, to be built and owned
by a French company, had already aroused President Hayes on March 8,
1880, to remark: "The policy of this country is a canal under American
control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this
control to any European power or to any combination of European powers."
Blaine added that the passage of hostile troops through such a canal
when either the United States or Colombia was at war, as the terms of
guarantee of the new canal allowed, was "no more admissible than on the
railroad lines joining the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the United
States."

It is characteristic of Blaine that, when he wrote this dispatch, he was
apparently in complete ignorance of the existence of the Clayton-Bulwer
Treaty, in which the United States accepted the exactly opposite
principles--had agreed to a canal under a joint international guarantee
and open to the use of all in time of war as well as of peace.
Discovering this obstacle, he set to work to demolish it by announcing
to Great Britain that the treaty was antiquated, thirty years old, that
the development of the American Pacific slope had changed conditions,
and that, should the treaty be observed and such a canal remain
unfortified, the superiority of the British fleet w