This they were under every moral obligation to do. Colombia was ruled by a dictator. Under apprehension that the United States might build in Nicaragua he had made every effort and representation to obtain the treaty. He had ordered his minister to grant every privilege to the French company, so that there might be no question of their right to transfer their interest, and he had begun and pushed the negotiations. The whole civilized world was awaiting a canal with impatience, and the highest reasons of state, including the military protection of the nation, demanded that a decision be reached between these two routes and the work begun. The Colombian knew this and obtained his treaty and ousted Nicaragua—with the aid of fortune and the unremitting campaign of Bunau-Varilla.
But as the treaty was signed, and all eyes turned to Panama, the ring at Bogota decided not to ratify. Their dispatches and resolutions show why, and constitute the most monumentally bare-faced and audacious blackmail
