During the Garfield administration Secretary of State Blaine held out for a strong American policy and informed Colombia, which was charged with making arrangements whereby certain European powers might assume joint guarantee over the canal, that “any movement in the sense of supplementing the guarantee contained (in the treaty of 1846) would necessarily be regarded by this government as an uncalled for intrusion into a field where the local and general interest of the United States of America should be considered before those of any other power save those of Colombia alone.”[58] England claimed to be a new world power equally interested with the United States in maintaining the neutrality of the canal. Blaine proposed amending the Clayton-Bulwer treaty so that the United States could fortify the canal, also to annul that part extending it to any other practical routes so that the United States might be free to build a canal at Panama or elsewhere as it chose. Garfield’s death and Blaine’s retirement from the cabinet ended for the time being policies regarding South and Central Americas that would either have brought the United States in trouble with England or secured to her complete control of the canal and also, perhaps, much of South American trade. A treaty with Nicaragua allowing the construction of a canal wholly under American control, the United States guaranteeing the integrity of the territory of Nicaragua, which was undoubtedly a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and prepared by Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State under Arthur, for the purpose of testing that treaty, was withdrawn by President Cleveland who was inaugurated before its confirmation. There was a growing feeling that the De Lesseps company would never finish the canal. The company had spent $10,000,000 more than the estimate of 600,000,000 francs ($120,000,000), and had not paid the $17,000,000 promised for the Panama railway. In fact it was bankrupt. While a large amount of excavation had been done, it was small compared with what was necessary. A magnificent plant with much costly machinery was going to decay. The Spanish-American war brought forcibly to the attention of the public the need of an interoceanic canal. In 1900 a treaty negotiated by John Hay and Sir Julian Pauncefote embodying some modifications of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had been so amended in the Senate that Great Britain would not accept it. A new treaty made in view of the Senate amendments and the British objections was submitted a few months after Roosevelt became President. It abrogated parts of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and gave to the United States full ownership and control of the proposed canal. Colonel Roosevelt had strongly advocated this while governor of New York before his accession to the presidency.[59]