[107]

*No. 68.

Mr. Crampton to Mr. Buchanan.

[Extract.]

WASHINGTON, January 13, 1848.

But in regard to this portion of the boundary line a preliminary question arises, which turns upon the interpretation of the The British gov treaty, rather than upon the result of local observation and

survey.

ernment wishes the American to agree on the channel used by Vancouver as the

The convention of the 15th June, 1846, declares that the boundary. line shall be drawn through the middle of the "channel" which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island. And upon this it may be asked what the word "channel" was intended to mean.

Generally speaking, the word "channel," when employed in treaties, means a deep and navigable channel. In the present case it is believed that only one channel-that, namely, which was laid down by Vancouver in his chart-has in this part of the gulf been hitherto surveyed and used; and it seems natural to suppose that the negotiators of the Oregon convention, in employing the word "channel," had that particular channel in view.

If this construction be mutually adopted, no preliminary difficulty will exist, and the commissioners will only have to ascertain the course of the line along the middle of that channel, and along the middle of the Straits of Fuca down to the sea.

It is, indeed, on all accounts, to be wished that this arrangement should be agreed upon by the two governments, because otherwise much time might be wasted in surveying the various intricate channels formed by the numerous islets which lie between Vancouver's Island and the main-land, and some difficulty might arise in deciding which of those channels ought to be adopted for the dividing boundary.

The main channel marked in Vancouver's chart is, indeed, somewhat nearer to the continent than to Vancouver's Island, and its adoption would leave on the British side of the line rather more of those small islets with which that part of the gulf is studded, than would remain on the American side. But these islets are of little or no value. JOHN F. CRAMPTON.

1856.

not adopt

ROY

The British ernment in 1866 does not clum the so•

Extract from Additional Instructions to Captain Prevost. FOREIGN OFFICE, December 20, If, however, the commissioner of the United States will the line along Rosario Strait, and if, on a detailed and accurate survey, and on weighing the evidence on both sides of the question, you should be of opinion that the claims of called Rosario as the Her Majesty's government to consider Rosario Strait as the channel indicated by the words of the treaty cannot be substantiated, you would be at liberty to adopt any other intermediate channel which you may discover, on which the United States commissioner and yourself may agree as substantially in accordance with the description of the treaty.

Captain PREVOST.

boundary.

Admiral Prevost

treaty.

No. 70.

Captain Prevost to Mr. Campbell.

[Extracts.]

HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SHIP SATELLITE,

Simiahmoo Bay, Gulf of Georgia, October 28, 1857.

4. By a careful consideration of the wording of the treaty, it would seem distinctly to provide that the channel mentioned on the channel of the should possess three characteristics: 1st. 1t should separate the continent from Vancouver's Island. 2d. It should admit of the boundary line being carried through the middle of it in a southerly direction. 3d. It should be a navigable channel. To these three peculiar conditions the channel known as the Rosario Strait most entirely answers.

5. It is readily admitted that the Canal de Arro is also a navigable channel, and therefore answers to one characteristic of the channel of the treaty.

NOVEMBER 9, 1857.

The Canal de Haro, or Arro, is undoubtedly the navigable channel which, at its position, separates Vancouver's Island from the continent, and therefore, while other channels exist more adjacent to the continent, cannot be the channel which "separates the continent from Vancouver's Island."

[109]

*NOVEMBER 24, 1857.

7. With reference to your remarks upon the map drawn by "Charles Preuss," I beg you to understand me that I do not bring this map forward as any authority for the line of boundary. I will at once frankly state how far I am willing to concede, but beyond what I now offer I can no further go. In contemplating your view that all the channels between the continent and Vancouver's Island, from the termination of the Gulf of Georgia to the eastern termination of the Straits of Fuca, are but a continuation of the channel of the Gulf of Georgia, I see a way by which I can in part meet your views without any gross violation of the terms of the treaty. I am willing to regard the space above described as one channel, having so many different passages through it, and I will agree to a boundary line being run through the "middle" of it, in so far as islands will permit.

No. 71.

Mr. Edward Everett to Mr. Campbell.

[Extract.]

BOSTON, May 29, 1858.

As the radical principle of the boundary is the forty-ninth degree of Mr. Everett on the latitude, and the only reason for departing from it was to channel of the treaty. give the whole of Vancouver's Island to the party acquiring the largest part of it, the deflection from the forty-ninth degree southward should be limited to that object, and the nearest channel adopted which fulfills the above conditions.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Esq.

EDWARD EVERETT.

No. 72.

Mr. Campbell to Mr. Cass.

[Extracts.]

channel of the treaty.

WASHINGTON CITY, February 10, 1858. Captain Prevost finally proposed such a compromise as would throw within the territory of the United States all the islands Lucid statement of [110] but *San Juan, the largest and most valuable of Mr. Campbell on the the group. Being fully satisfied, from my own observation, that the Canal de Haro is the main channel, and consequently "the channel" intended by the treaty, and being supported in this opinion by indisputable contemporaneous evidence of the highest official character, I declined to accede to any compromise.

U. S. NORTHWEST BOUNDARY COMMISSION CAMP,

Simiahmoo, Forty-ninth Parallel, September 25, 1858. Practically it can make no difference whether the main channel be adopted as "the channel" intended by the treaty upon the "generally admitted principle" recognized by Mr. Crampton, and assented to by Her Majesty's government in 1848, or whether the Canal de Haro be adopted on the proof of contemporaneous evidence that it was proposed by the British government, and in good faith accepted by the United States as the boundary channel. In either case the Canal de Haro would be the boundary channel. In advocating it with Captain Prevost, I did not confine myself singly to either of these sufficient grounds, but maintained both, with others equally forcible and tenable.

Under the mere letter of the treaty, without any knowledge of, or reference to, the motives which induced the adoption of the water boundary, "the channel which separates the continent from Vancou ver's Island" may fairly be construed as follows:

1. As "the channel," that is, the main channel, if there be more than one. And this is the view taken by nautical men generally, including officers of our navy whom I have consulted in reference to the language of the treaty.

2. The channel nearest to Vancouver's Island, without regard to its size, so that it is navigable; the proviso to the first article requiring that the navigation of said chaunel shall be free and open to both parties. If it had been intended to mean any other channel than that nearest Vancouver's Island, that island need not to have been mentioned at all, or, if referred to, "the channel which separates the continent from the archipelago east of Vancouver's Island," or "the channel nearest the continent," would have been the proper description of the channel now claimed by the British commissioner under "the peculiarly precise and clear" language of the treaty.

3. Upon the international ground that islands are natural appendages to the continent, and that, unless otherwise agreed, all *the islands between the continent and Vancouver's Island east of the nearest navigable channel to Vancouver's Island pertain to the continent.

[111]

The Canal de Haro would be the channel under either of the above legitimate readings of the treaty.

But leaving the mere letter of the treaty, and referring to the history of the negotiation to ascertain the cause which prevented the United States and the British government from agreeing upon the prolongation.

of the forty-ninth parallel to the ocean, it will be found that the southern end of Vancouver's Island was alone the stumbling-block. The British government refused to concede it to the United States, four-fifths of the island being north of the forty-ninth parallel; and the southern end, with its harbors, being the most valuable portion. The United States, considering the disadvantages of a divided jurisdiction of the island, and the probabilities of difficulties arising therefrom, reluctantly yielded it. This was the sole object in deviating from the forty-ninth parallel, and reduces the water boundary to a very simple question. It was a second compromise line. Divested of all quibbles, the meaning of the treaty is that the forty-ninth parallel shall be the dividing line between the territories of the United States and the British possessions until it reaches "the middle" of the nearest natural boundary to Vancouver's Island; and thence the line shall be run to the ocean by the nearest natural boundary, in such a direction as will give the whole of Vancouver's Island to that power upon whose side the greatest portion would fall by the prolongation of the parallel to the ocean.

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Commissioner Northwestern Boundary Survey.

Hon. LEWIS CASS,

Secretary of State.

The British gov erninent announces its intention of ob

No. 73.

Lord John Russell to Lord Lyons.

[Extracts.]

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 24, 1859.

The Earl of Aberdeen, to whom I have referred, informs me that he distinctly remembers the general tenor of his conversation with [112] Mr. MacLane on the subject of the Oregon boundary, and it is certain that it was the intention of the treaty to adopt the mid-channel of the straits as the line of demarkation, without taining the island o any reference to islands, the position, and, indeed, the very existence, of which had hardly, at that time, been accurately ascertained; and he has no recollection of any mention hav ing been made during the discussion of the Canal de Haro, or, indeed, any other channel than those described in the treaty itself.

San Juan.

I also inclose a memorandum drawn up by Sir Richard Pakenham, the negotiator of the treaty of 1846.

*

The adoption of the central channel would give to Great Britain the island of San Juan, which is believed to be of little or no value to the United States, while much importance is attached by British colonial authorities, and by Her Majesty's government, to its retention as a dependency of the colony of Vancouver's Island.

Her Majesty's government must, therefore, under any circumstances, maintain the right of the British Crown to the island of San Juan. The interests at stake in connection with the retention of that island are too important to admit of compromise, and your lordship will consequently bear in mind that whatever arrangement as to the boundary line is finally arrived at, no settlement of the question will be accepted by Her Majesty's government which does not provide for the island of San Juan being reserved to the British Crown.

LORD LYONS, &c., &c., &c.

J. RUSSELL.

Sir Richard Pakenham on the Water Boundary under the Oregon treaty of 1846.

Sir R. Pakenham

Rosario to be the

I have examined the papers put into my hands, by Mr. Hammond, relating to the line of boundary to be established between the British and the United States possessions on the north- in 1859 denies the west coast of America, and I have endeavored to call to mind channel of the treaty. any circumstance which might have occurred at the time when the Oregon treaty was concluded (15th June, 1846) of a nature either to strengthen or invalidate the pretension now put forward by the United States Commissioner, to the effect that the boundary contemplated by

the treaty would be a line passing down the middle of the channel [113] called Canal de Haro, and not, as suggested on the part * of

Great Britain, along the middle of the channel called Vancouver's or Rosario Strait, neither of which two lines could, as I conceive, exactly fulfill the conditions of the treaty, which, according to their literal tenor, would require the line to be traced along the middle of the channel (meaning, I presume, the whole intervening space) which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island. And I think I can safely assert that the treaty of 15th June, 1846, was signed and ratified without any intimation to us whatever, on the part of the United States Government, as to the particular direction to be given to the line of boundary contemplated by article I of that treaty.

All that we knew about it was that it was to run "through the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean."

It is true that in a dispatch from Mr. MacLane, then United States minister in London, to the Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, dated 18th May, 1846, which dispatch, however, was not made public until after the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, Mr. MacLane informs his government that the line of boundary about to be proposed by Her Majesty's government would "probably be substantially to divide the territory by the extension of the line in the parallel of 49° to the sea, that is to say, to the arm of the sea called Birch's Bay, thence by the Canal de Haro and straits of Fuca to the ocean.”

It is also true that Mr. Senator Benton, one of the ablest and most zealous advocates for the ratification of the treaty, (relying, no doubt, on the statement furnished by Mr. MacLane,) did, in his speech on the subject, describe the intended line of boundary to be one passing along the middle of the Haro channel.

Sir R. Pakenham

misstates Lord Ab

But, on the other hand, the Earl of Aberdeen, in his final instructions, dated 18th May, 1846, says nothing whatever about the Canal de Haro, but, on the contrary, desires that the line might be drawn "in a southerly direction through the center of King George's Sound and the Straits of Fuca to the Pacific Ocean."

erdeen's instruction by suppressing his description of the

channel of the tresty.

It is my belief that neither Lord Aberdeen, nor Mr. MacLane, nor Mr. Buchanan possessed at that time a sufficiently accurate knowledge of the geography or hydrography of the region in question to enable them

to define more accurately what was the intended line of boundary [114] than is expressed in the words of the *treaty, and it is certain

that Mr. Buchanan signed the treaty with Mr. MacLane's dispatch before him, and yet that he made no mention whatever of the "Canal de Haro" as that "through which the line of boundary would run, as understood by the United States government."