Mr. Marcy had now no choice but to acknowledge the credentials of the new representative, when the discovery of a grave blunder of Walker's saved him the humiliation. No official objection could be urged against the minister, but unfortunately for him, there were pronounced personal objections strong enough to warrant the district attorney of New York in ordering his arrest on a criminal process. The individual, Parker H. French, was the same one-armed hero whose fiasco before Fort San Carlos had brought the Falange into disrepute and provoked the Virgin Bay massacre. Walker discovered when too late the unworthy antecedents of his envoy, whose conduct in Nicaragua should have been enough to disqualify him; but regarding his arrest as a violation of diplomatic privilege, he had him recalled, dismissed the American minister to Nicaragua, and suspended diplomatic intercourse with the United States. Some months later, and after the United States had declined to receive a second minister, Don Firmin Ferrer, Walker sent a third representative, in the person of the good Padre Vijil, who proved acceptable at Washington, as much on account of his high character as for the news which he brought with him, that Walker had routed his Costa Rica enemies, and frightened back the Serviles of the North. Franklin Pierce was not the man to turn his back upon a friend in prosperity, though his good will was not shared by Mr. Marcy. The Nicaraguan minister was received in form, but met with such studied discourtesy from the Secretary of State and his underlings that the cultured and amiable gentleman was glad to return, after a brief sojourn, to the better-mannered society of Nicaragua. But the fickle conduct of President Pierce and his cabinet had exposed the weak joint in Walker's armour to his quick-eyed enemies in Central America and in Europe. The filibuster, so far from having the support of his native country, was apparently without a friend there. English consuls and men-of-war captains saw that they might crush out with impunity this adventurer and restore the supremacy of European influence on the isthmus. All the Servile partisans in the neighbouring states and the disaffected Legitimists of Nicaragua united to expel the foreign element. The Costa Rican consul-general in London wrote to his President, Don Juan Rafael Mora, in a letter which fell into Walker's hands, that the British Government would sell to Costa Rica two thousand army muskets, at a nominal price, for the purpose of "kicking Walker and his associates out of Nicaragua." British friendship was not purely disinterested nor did it proceed solely from hatred of Americans. Seventeen million dollars invested by English capitalists in Costa Rican bonds were the substantial basis of that interest. It is painful to reflect upon the fact that those bonds were afterwards defaulted to the last dollar.