Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/277

JAMES BUCHANAN 221 the Mosquito protectorate, and to restore to Hon duras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica their respective territories, the treaty declared that neither of the parties should "make use of any protection which either affords or may afford, or any alliance which either has or may have, to or with any state or peo ple, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any fortifications, or of occupying, fortifying, or col onizing any part of Central America, or of assum ing or exercising any dominion over the same." It soon became the British construction of this clause that it recognized the existence of the Mosquito protectorate for all purposes other than those ex pressly prohibited ; and down to the time when Mr. Buchanan was sent by President Pierce as minister to England this claim was still maintained. On the accession of the whig party to power under Taylor, in March, 1849, Mr. Buchanan re tired for a time from official life. His home, from the age of eighteen, had been the city of Lancaster, where he owned a house. In the autumn of 1848 he purchased a small estate of twenty-two acres, known as Wheatland, about a mile from the town. The house was a substantial brick mansion, and, on Mr. Buchanan s retirement from the cabinet, this became his permanent abode when he was not occupying an official residence in London or in Washington. Mr. Buchanan never married. The death of the lady whom he had intended to marry