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I.

MEMORIAL

ON

THE CANAL DE HARO

AS

THE BOUNDARY LINE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

1 D

PRESENTED IN THE NAME OF

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

ΤΟ

HIS MAJESTY WILLIAM I,

GERMAN EMPEROR AND KING OF PRUSSIA,

AS ARBITRATOR,

BY THE AMERICAN PLENIPOTENTIARY,

GEORGE BANCROFT.

MEMORIAL.

The treaty of which the interpretation is referred to Your Majesty's arbitrament was ratified more than a quarter of a century ago. Of the sixteen members of the British cabinet which framed and presented it for the acceptance of the United States, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and all the rest but one, are no more. The British minister at Washington who signed it is dead. Of American statesmen concerned in it, the minister at London, the President and Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and every one of the President's constitutional advisers, except one, have passed away. I alone remain, and after finishing the three-score years and ten that are the days of our years, am selected by my country to uphold its rights.

Six times the United States had received the offer of arbitration on their Northwestern boundary, and six times had refused to refer a point where the importance was so great and the right so clear. But when consent was obtained to bring the question before Your Majesty, my

country resolved to change its policy, and in the heart of Europe, [4] before a tribunal from which no judgment but a just one can *em

anate, to explain the solid foundation of our demand, and the principles of moderation and justice by which we have been governed. The case involves questions of geography, of history, and of international law; and we are glad that the discussion should be held in the midst of a nation whose sons have been trained in those sciences by a Carl Ritter, a Ranke, and a Heffter.

The long-continued controversy has tended to estrange from each other two of the greatest powers in the world, and even menaced, though remotely, a conflict in arms. A want of confidence in the disposition of the British government has been sinking into the mind of the States of the Union now rising on the Pacific, and might grow into a popular conviction, not easy to be eradicated. After having secured union and tranquillity to the people of Germany, and attained a happiness never before allotted by Providence to German warrior or statesman, will it not be to Your Majesty a crowning glory now, in the fullness of years and in the quiet which follows the mighty struggles of a most eventful life, to reconcile the two younger branches of the great Germanic family?

THE POINT FOR ARBITRATION.

The point submitted for arbitration is limited with exactness. By Article I of the Treaty concluded at Washington on the 15th of June, 1846, between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty, it was stipulated that the line of boundary between the territories of the United States and those of Her Britannic Majesty, from the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude up to which it had already been ascertained, should be continued westward along the said parallel of north latitude "to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and

Appendix No. 1, p. 3.

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