The evident impossibility of running the gauntlet of the British and American cruisers in the Caribbean Sea determined him to seek a new pathway to his cherished goal; and that way, he decided, lay through the exposed part of the enemy's territory, the eastern coast of Honduras. It would seem that at that time the Island of Ruatan, a fertile land with a population of about 1,700 souls, was not under the usual British man-of-war captain's sovereignty, but owed a nominal allegiance to the Republic of Honduras. Upon the always ready invitation of some of its inhabitants, Walker prepared to use it as a base of operations against his former enemy, President Alvarez, and as a stepping-stone to the real point of attack. Accordingly, in the early part of August, 1860, having made arrangements for a strong body of reinforcements to follow and join him at Trujillo, he sailed in the schooner _Clifton_ from Mobile with a force of about a hundred men, including the veterans Rudler, Henry, Dolan, and Anderson, and landed at Ruatan on the 15th of the month. There he issued a proclamation to the people of Honduras, which was an explicit avowal of his objects and desires: "More than five years ago, I, with others, was invited to the Republic of Nicaragua and was promised certain rights and privileges on the condition of certain services rendered the state. We performed the services required of us, but the existing authorities of Honduras joined a combination to drive us from Central America. In the course of events the people of the Bay Islands find themselves in nearly the same position as the Americans held in Nicaragua in November, 1855. The same policy which led Guardiola to make war on us will induce him to drive the people of the Islands from Honduras. A knowledge of this fact has led certain residents of the Islands to call upon the adopted citizens of Nicaragua to aid in the maintenance of their rights of person and property; but no sooner had a few adopted citizens of Nicaragua answered this call of the residents of the Islands by repairing to Ruatan than the acting authorities of Honduras, alarmed for their safety, put obstacles in the way of carrying out the treaty of November 28, 1859. Guardiola delays to receive the Islands because of the presence of a few men whom he has injured; and thus, for party purposes, not only defeats the territorial interests of Honduras, but thwarts, for the moment, a cardinal object of Central American policy. The people of the Bay Islands can be ingrafted on your Republic only by wise concessions properly made. The existing authorities of Honduras have, by their past acts, given proof that they would not make the requisite concessions. The same policy which Guardiola pursued toward the naturalized Nicaraguans prevents him from pursuing the only course by which Honduras can expect to hold the Islands.