this the subtle Frenchman concluded that a revolution would be welcome and that the chief magistrate stood by the Panama route.
It remained now for a foreigner in New York without boats or guns or treasury, without influence or authority, to execute the coup d'etat. Not the least of his difficulties was the inane, suspicious, proud, vain, and vacillating character of his revolutionists.
One thing was certain. Without the conviction that the power of the United States was behind them, these timid patriots would do nothing.
In his dilemma he recalled a scene enacted under his eyes years before, when he was at work on the Culebra Cut. A religious civil war had broken out in Colombia, and the government had sent troops, to subdue revolters on the Isthmus, and a United States cruiser in the harbour had landed marines, preventing the landing of the government troops, and all fighting. They had done this under the old
