second, that Great Britain has persistently violated her agreement not to colonize the Central American coast." _F. Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the United States, chapter 6, section 150 f. (volume 2)._ ALSO IN: _Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Powers (edition of 1889), page 440._ NICARAGUA: A. D. 1855-1860. The invasion of Walker and his Filibusters. "Its geographical situation gave … importance to Nicaragua. It contains a great lake, which is approached from the Atlantic by the river San Juan; and from the west end of the lake there are only 20 miles to the coast of the Pacific. Ever since the time of Cortes there have been projects for connecting the two oceans through the lake of Nicaragua. … Hence Nicaragua has always been thought of great importance to the United States. The political struggles of the state, ever since the failure of the confederation, had sunk into a petty rivalry between the two towns of Leon and Granada. Leon enjoys the distinction of being the first important town in Central America to raise the cry of independence in 1815, and it had always maintained the liberal character which this disclosed. Castellon, the leader of the Radical party, of which Leon was the seat, called in to help him an American named William Walker. Walker, who was born in 1824, was a young roving American who had gone during the gold rush of 1850 to California, and become editor of a newspaper in San Francisco. In those days it was supposed in the United States that the time for engulfing the whole of Spanish America had come. Lopez had already made his descent on Cuba; and Walker, in July, 1853, had organized a band of filibusters for the conquest of Sonora, and the peninsula of California, which had been left to Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This wild expedition … was a total failure; but when Walker came back to his newspapers after an absence of seven months, he found himself a hero. His fame, as we see, had reached Central America; and he at once accepted Castellon's offer. In 1855, having collected a band of 70 adventurers in California, he landed in the country, captured the town of Granada, and, aided by the intrigues of the American consul, procured his own appointment as General-in-Chief of the Nicaraguan army. Walker was now master of the place: and his own provisional President, Rivas, having turned against him, he displaced him, and in 1856 became President himself. He remained master of Nicaragua for nearly two years, levying arbitrary customs on the traffic of the lake, and forming plans for a great military state to be erected on the ruins of Spanish America. One of Walker's first objects was to seize the famous gold-mines of Chontales, and the sudden discovery that the