214 ANDREW FISH
taken if you did not learn the proceedings of General Harney with as much regret as Lord Malmesbury did those of Sir W. Ouseley [in the Nicaragua business]. Lord M. disowned his Plenipotentiary, and you seem to have taken the best course open to you under the circum- stances by sending General Scott to supersede General Harney at least I hope I am not wrong in so inter- preting the object of the mission with which he is charged."
His Lordship is quite sure that the claim of Great Britain is sound, but thinks that above all things a collision should be prevented so that a calm judgment might be rendered.
"John Bull's usual habit," he says, "is to take things quietly, but his dander has been roused by the high- handed proceedings of General Harney more than I ever remember upon occasions of the kind, and this miserable business might be productive of the most disastrous con- sequences. May God of His infinite mercy avert from us all the responsibility and guilt of such disasters." The President's answering letter did not discuss Harney, but urged that his (the President's) action in sending Gen- eral Scott must have satisfied even Lord John Russell.
Lord John, the British Foreign Minister at the time, had sent a disquieting despatch to Lord Lyons at Washington ; it was this that was disturbing President Buchanan. We must come back to this dispatch shortly, when we shall understand the President's perturbation. Should Lord John act upon the principle he had enunciated and take possession by force, "I say with you," declared the President, "May God of his in- finite mercy avert from us all the responsibility and guilt of such disasters !" He was sadly disappointed at the turn events had taken for, as he said, he "had earnestly hoped to settle all the dangerous questions between the two countries during [his] presidential term." "This was," he said, "one of the prime objects of my ambition but I now find it impossible." He fears that the influence of the leaders of the Hudson's Bay Company "has been and will be exerted, not in favor of peace but of war." "It worries me to think that after a two years' sue-
