The royal line of Mosquito may be classed among the unfortunate dynasties of the world. The first monarch, whose name is lost to history, was killed in a drunken brawl; his half-brother and successor was dethroned by a British captain, who placed a distant scion, George Frederick by name, on the vacant throne. The reign of the latter was short. His son, Robert Charles Frederick the First, was a merry monarch, "scandalous and poor," who sold his birthright to the Shepards for a mess of Jamaica rum and sundry pairs of cotton breeches. His son, George William Clarence, was reigning in 1850.
The superior swiftness of American ships had enabled the United States to forestall their English rivals in seizing California; whereupon the latter took the bold step, in 1848, of occupying at the same time Tigre Island, on the Pacific coast of the isthmus, and San Juan del Norte, on the Atlantic, which latter place they christened Greytown, in honour of a governor of Jamaica. England thus had the keys of the isthmus in her hands; the canal, worthless without a safe entrance and exit, might fall to the lot of him who chose the barren glory of building it. But, strange to say, the United States possessed at that time a useful diplomatic servant in their minister to Central America, the Honourable E. G. Squier, one, moreover, whose claim to honour rests upon a broader basis than the thankless triumphs of public service. He promptly seconded the protest of Honduras against the utterly indefensible robbery of her territory, Tigre Island. His government took up the question, and the island was reluctantly given up.
At the same time, the United States formally protested against the seizure of San Juan. Long and wordy negotiations ensued, ending in the so-called Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It was a practical victory for Great Britain, as it entrapped the American Government into an obligation to refrain from "ever holding any exclusive control over the said ship canal, erecting or maintaining any fortifications commanding the same, or in the vicinity thereof, occupying, fortifying, colonizing or assuming or exercising any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America." Great Britain, with apparent fairness, bound herself to equal neutrality. The difference was that the United States promised to abstain from ever taking any steps to control the only avenue then available between the Eastern and the Western States of the Union, thus being placed upon the same footing with distant European nations which could have no such vital interests in the isthmus. Great Britain agreed to refrain from acts which were not only dangerous and inexcusable, but of very doubtful feasibility. Another difference: the United States kept the pledge; Great Britain broke it within fourteen months. The treaty was signed by both parties, and proclaimed on the 5th of July, 1850. In August of the following year, Captain Jolly, of the Royal Navy, solemnly annexed the island of Ruatan to the colony of Belize, which, notwithstanding the treaty, had remained a nominal dependency of England. In July, 1852, Augustus Frederick Gore, Colonial Secretary of Belize, proclaimed that "Her Gracious Majesty, our Queen, has been pleased to constitute and make the islands of Ruatan, Bonacca, Utilla, Barbarat, Helene, and Morat to be a colony to be known and designated as the Colony of the Bay Islands." It was the buccaneer's legacy _redivivus_.