Ambassador Reid to bring his behaviour to the attention of the British Foreign Office.  These representations took practically the form of requesting Carden’s removal from Cuba.  Perhaps the unusual relations that the United States bore toward Cuba warranted Mr. Knox in making such an approach; yet the British refused to see the matter in that light; not only did they fail to displace Carden, but they knighted him—­the traditional British way of defending a faithful public servant who has been attacked.  Sir Lionel Carden refused to mend his ways; he continued to indulge in what Washington regarded as anti-American propaganda; and a second time Secretary Knox intimated that his removal would he acceptable to this country, and a second time this request was refused.  With this preliminary history of Carden as a background, and with the British-American misunderstanding over Huerta at its most serious stage, the emotions of Washington may well be imagined when the news came, in July, 1913, that this same gentleman had been appointed British Minister to Mexico.  If the British Government had ransacked its diplomatic force to find the one man who would have been most objectionable to the United States, it could have made no better selection.  The President and Mr. Bryan were pretty well persuaded that the “oil concessionaires” were dictating British-Mexican policy, and this appointment translated their suspicion into a conviction.  Carden had seen much service in Mexico; he had been on the friendliest terms with Diaz; and the newspapers openly charged that the British oil capitalists had dictated his selection.  All these assertions Carden and the oil interests denied; yet Carden’s behaviour from the day of his appointment showed great hostility to the United States.  A few days after he had reached New York, on his way to his new post, the New York World published an interview with Carden in which he was reported as declaring that President Wilson knew nothing about the Mexican situation and in which he took the stand that Huerta was the man to handle Mexico at this crisis.  His appearance in the Mexican capital was accompanied by other highly undiplomatic publications.  In late October President Huerta arrested all his enemies in the Mexican Congress, threw them into jail, and proclaimed himself dictator.  Washington was much displeased that Sir Lionel Carden should have selected the day of these high-handed proceedings to present to Huerta his credentials as minister; in its sensitive condition, the State Department interpreted this act as a reaffirmation of that recognition that had already caused so much confusion in Mexican affairs.