Spaniards, whose attempts to expel them were generally successfully resisted. The most formidable of these was made hy the Spaniards in April 1754, when, in consequence of the difficulty of approaching the position from the sea, an expedition, consisting of 1500 men, was organized inland at the town of Peten. As it neared the coast, ic was met by 250 English, and completely routed. The logwood- cutters were not again disturbed for a number of years, and their position had become so well established that, in the treaty of 1763, between England and Spain, the former power, while agreeing to demolish "all fortifications which English subjects had erected in the Bay of Honduras," nevertheless insisted on a clause in favour of the cutters of logwood, that "they or their workmen were not to be disturbed or molested, under any pretext whatever, in their said places of cutting and loading logwood ; and for this purpose they may build without hindrance and occupy without interruption the houses and magazines necessary for their families and effects. " They had also assured to them the full enjoyment of these advantages and powers in the Spanish coasts and territories. To insure the observance of this treaty, the British Government sent out Sir- William Burnaby, who not only settled the limits within which the English were to confine their wood-cutting, but also drew up for their government a code of regulations or laws known as the " Burnaby Code." Successful in their contests with the Spaniards, and now strengthened by the recognition of the crown, the British settlers assumed a corresponding high tone, and, it is alleged, made fresh encroachments on the Spanish territory. The Spaniards, alarmed and indignant, and asserting that the settlers not only abused the privileges conceded to them by the treaty, but were engaged in smuggling and other illicit practices, organized a large force, and on September 15, 1779, suddenly attacked and destroyed the establishment, taking the inhabitants prisoners to Merida, and afterwards to Havana, where most of them died. The survivors were liberated in 1782, and allowed to go to Jamaica. For two or three years the establishment seems to have been abandoned, but in 1783 a part of the original settlers, with a considerable body of new adventurers, revisited the place, and were soon actively engaged in cutting woods. On September 3d of that year anew treaty was signed between Great Britain and Spain, in which it was expressly agreed that his Britannic Majesty s subjects should have "the right of cutting, loading, and carrying away logwood in the district lying between the river "Wallis or Belize and Eio Hondo, taking the course of these two rivers for unalterable boundaries." These con cessions " were not to be considered as derogating from the rights of sovereignty of the king of Spain" over the district in question, and all the English dispersed in the Spanish territories were to concentrate themselves within the district thus defined within eighteen months. Ati airs, notwithstanding the explicit stipulations of the treaty, do not seem to have proceeded favourably ; for, three years after, a new treaty was made, in which the king of Spain makes an additional grant of territory, embracing the area between the rivers Sibun or Jabon and Belize, so that collectively the grants embraced the entire coast between the river Sibun in lat. 17 20 on the south and the Rio Hondo in lat. 1 8 30 on the north, a coast-line of about 90 miles, with the adjacent islands and bays. But these extended limits were coupled with still more rigid restrictions. It is not to be sup posed that a population composed of so w r ayward and lawless a set of men at a distance from England was remarkably exact in its observance of the letter or spirit of the treaty of 1786. They seem to have given great annoyance to their Spanish neighbours, who eagerly availed themselves of the breaking out of war between the two countries in 1796 to concert a formidable attack on Belize, with a view to the complete annihilation of the establishment. They con centrated a force of 2000 men at Campeachy, which, under the com mand of General O Neill, set sail in thirteen vessels for Belize, and arrived off that place July 10, 1798. The settlers, in anticipation of their approach, and aided by the English sloop of war Merlin, " had strongly fortified a small island in the harbour, called St George s Cay, whence they maintained a determined and effectual resistance against the Spanish forces, which, after a contest of two days dura tion, were obliged to abandon their object and retire to Campeachy. This was the last attempt to dislodge the English. The defeat of the Spanish attempt of 1798 lias been adduced as an act of con quest, thereby permanently establishing British sovereignty. But those who take this view overlook the important fact that, in 1814, by a new treaty with Spain, the provisions of that of 1786 were revived. They forget also that until possibly within a few years the British Government never laid claim to any rights acquired in virtue of the successful defence ; for so late as 1817-19 the Acts of Parliament relating to Belize always refer to it as "a settlement, lor certain purposes, under the protection of his Majesty." After the independence of the Spanish American provinces, Great Britain sought to secure her rights by incorporating the provisions of the treaty of 1786 in all her treaties with the new states. It was, in fact, incorporated in her treaty with Mexico in 1826, in the project of a treaty which she submitted to Senor Zebadua, the representative of the republic of Central America in London in 1831, and also in the project of a treaty with New Grenada in 1825. Great Britain was, therefore, without any rights in Belize beyond those conveyed by the treaties already quoted, which define with the greatest pre cision the area within which these rights might be exercised. But it appears from a despatch of Sir George Grey, colonial secretary, dated in 1836, that claims had then been set up to an additional wide extent of territory, including the entire coast as far south as the river Sarstoon, and as far inland as the meridian of Garbutt s Falls on the river Belize. This anomalous state of things has no doubt had a prejudicial influence on the prosperity of Belize; but while Great Britain s right of sovereignty might be questioned, it cannot be doubted that the enterprise of her subjects has rescued a desolate coast from the savage dominion of nature, and carried in dustry and civilization where none existed before, and where, if left to the control of the Spanish race, none would have existed to this day. It was perhaps this consideration that induced Mr Clayton, the American secretary of state, to consent to the exclusion of Belize from the operation of the convention of 1850 between Great Britain and the United States, whereby both powers bound themselves not to occupy, fortify, or colonize any part of Central America.
See Balize or British Honduras, by Chief-Justice Temple, read before the Society of Arts, London, January 14, 18-17 ; Notes on Central America, by E. G. Squier, New York, 1855 ; A Narrative of a Journey across the Unexplored Portion of British Honduras, by Henry Fowler, Colonial Secretary, Belize, 1879.
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