Most fortunately, we found the Government of Great Britain in an assenting mood. Indeed, the contrast between the rasping quality of Lord Salisbury’s notes declining arbitration of the Venezuela boundary dispute and the candid, placable tone of Lord Lansdowne’s correspondence in the negotiations that led to the superseding of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty silenced, if it did not shame, those half-hearted Americans who had denounced Mr. Cleveland’s memorable message of December 17 as “the crime of the century” and a menace to the friendly relations between ourselves and our kinsmen of England. Following President McKinley’s message of December, 1898, in which he pointed out that the prospective expansion of American commerce and influence in the Pacific called more imperatively than ever for the control of the projected canal by the United States, Lord Pauncefote was instructed to acquaint himself with our attitude. He was informed that we desired at once to enter upon the necessary pourparlers, with a view to such modifications of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty as would remove all obstacles to our construction of the canal, which it was evident would not be undertaken by private capital. To this her Majesty’s Government assented, and a draft of the proposed convention was handed to Lord Pauncefote by Secretary Hay on January 11, 1899. This convention her Majesty’s Government, after due consideration, “accepted unconditionally as a signal proof,” said Lord Lansdowne, “of their friendly disposition and of their desire not to impede the execution of a project declared to be of National importance to the people of the United States.” This was the first form of the Hay-Pauncefote convention, signed at Washington in February, 1900. Consideration by the Senate followed, but it was not ratified until December 20 of that year, and then with three amendments which proved to be unacceptable to Great Britain. As to the first of these amendments, declaring the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to be “hereby superseded,” Lord Lansdowne, in his memorandum of August 3, 1901, objected that no attempt had been made to ascertain the views of his Government upon the entire abrogation of the former treaty, which dealt with several matters for which no provision had been made in the new instrument; and with rather startling frankness he pointed out that if the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty were wholly abrogated, “both Powers would, except in the vicinity of the canal, recover entire freedom of action in Central America, a change which might be of substantial importance.” That was enough to make the Senate open its eyes, for it was not exactly the purpose of our Government to confer upon Great Britain entire freedom of action in Central America.