land's first term, and, although it had not been given him to score any signal successes in that office, he had stuck obstinately to a policy of conciliation in the fisheries dispute with Great Britain and had done something for the form and tone of our diplomatic relations. His life's achievements had thus been conciliations, protests against intolerance and violence, words rather than actions. For two years now he had cultivated English friendship diligently, especially by going about to banquets in the city and to other public functions throughout England. Tall, handsome, portly, very much a gentleman and very fluent as a speaker in an old-fashioned vein, he had proclaimed his own and his country's good-will toward Great Britain with unction and simplicity of heart. Now there came to him what was practically an ultimatum, written by a man whom he probably regarded as a sophomore in diplomacy, and loaded with what Olney himself called "bumptious" phrases. Into its peremptory spirit he was incapable of entering. Every fiber of his polite being must have rebelled at the business of presenting it to Lord Salisbury.

The Salisbury Government to which Bayard delivered Olney's Venezuela dispatch had just come into office after a general election. The Prime Minister had taken the portfolio of the Foreign Office for himself. No Foreign Secretary of modern times had brought to that office such personal prestige both at home and abroad as Salisbury enjoyed at the moment. Since Bismarck's retirement he had been the recognized veteran of European diplomacy. He commanded a greater Conservative and Unionist majority than any majority that had supported a Govern

ment in the House of Commons since 1833. His very appearance, his massive old head, his big gray beard, his ponderous body, seemed to announce the authority and solidity of position. Salisbury had called Joseph Chamberlain to the Colonial Office, and that ambitious genius had begun to make the better organization of the Empire an important part of the Conservative programme. Although no one had proposed to extend the Empire in South America, it was predictable that any adjustment touching a possession or dominion overseas would be approached in such a spirit of solicitude for colonial susceptibilities everywhere as had never complicated the movements of the Foreign Office before.

When Lord Salisbury received Olney's dispatch from Bayard, he remarked that it raised questions upon which he must consult the law officers of the Crown before answering, and Bayard "commented upon the importance of keeping such questions in the atmosphere of serene and elevated effort." Disregarding the intimation with which the dispatch closed, Salisbury let the autumn pass without giving any indication of his answer. In Washington, as December drew near and Cleveland began to prepare his annual message, Olney sent word to Bayard to remind the Foreign Office that a reply was being awaited. Meanwhile rumors had got abroad, much to Cleveland's and Olney's annoyance, that an unusual exchange of views with Great Britain was in hand. On December 2d, Cleveland included a paragraph in his annual message in which he indicated the tenor of the note sent in July, stated that it had called upon Great Britain for "a definite answer,"

and said that he would "probably" make a further communication to Congress when the answer came.

If, as seems to have been the case, Cleveland was laboring under the impression that England's Venezuelan policy was one of procrastination, this delay must have tended to confirm his peremptory mood.

When Salisbury's reply reached the British Embassy in Washington a few days later, Cleveland was away duckshooting. He was subsequently accused of having run off at a critical moment, and was, with equal untruth, said to have carried the reply away to think it over in solitude. As a matter of fact he had written to Olney on December 3d:

You cannot receive anything from Bayard or Sir Julian before the early part of next week. Why can you not put the thing in your pocket, so that no one will know you have heard it read or at least that you have it in possession, until I return? In the mean time if its transmission should be accompanied by any particular message you can if you have time be blocking it out.

If I were here I would not be hurried in the matter even if the Congress should begin grinding again the resolution-of-inquiry mill.

On December 6th, Olney asked Sir Julian Pauncefote to bring the reply to him at his house the next morning, instead of to the State Department.

The reply fell into two parts: one dealing with the Monroe Doctrine, the other with the Venezuelan boundary. Salisbury's manner in both was as final as Olney's had been. He agreed that England had acceded in 1823 to President Monroe's contentions that "America was no longer to be