will be seriously preferred on the part of Her Britannic Majesty's Government to any island lying to the eastward of the Canal of Arro, as marked in Captain Wilkes's Map of the Oregon Territory. This, I have no doubt, is the channel which Lord Aberdeen had in view when, in a conversation with Mr. MacLane about the middle of May last, on the subject of the resumption of the negotiation for an amicable settlement of the Oregon question, his Lordship explained the character of the proposition he intended to submit through Mr. Pakenham. As understood by Mr. MacLane, and by him communicated to this Department in his dispatch of the 18th of the same month, it was: "First, to divide the territory by the extension of the line on 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," &c. I am, &c., GEORGE BANCROFT, Esq., de., de., de. JAMES BUCHANAN. [Inclosure: Chart of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, &c. By the United States Ex. Ex., 1841.] No. 3. LETTERS OF MR. CRAMPTON SHOWING MR. BUCHANAN'S OPINIONS. No. 2.] Mr. Crampton to Viscount Palmerston. WASHINGTON, January 13, 1848. MY LORD: On the receipt of your Lordship's dispatch No. 21, of the 17th ultimo, by which I am instructed to communicate with the United States Government with a view to the adoption of early measures for laying down such parts of the line of boundary between the British and United States territory in North America, described in the Convention of the 15th June, 1846, as the two Governments may, upon mutual consultation, deem it advisable to determine, I waited upon Mr. Buchanan for the purpose of putting him in possession of the views of Her Majesty's Government upon the subject. After having read to him your Lordship's dispatch, together with the draught of instructions to the two Commissioners to be appointed in case the views of Her Majesty's Government were coincided in by the Government of the United States, I proceeded to inquire of Mr. Buchanan whether the manner suggested by your Lordship of bringing the matter under the consideration of the President of the United States, by reading to him your Lordship's dispatch and presenting to him a copy of the proposed draught of instructions, would be admissible. [XXXV] *To this course Mr. Buchanan objected, as being informal, and contrary to the practice of the United States Government, which coincided, he added, in that respect, with that of the Government of Great Britain, and he requested me, in case your Lordship's instructions did not preclude me from so doing, to communicate to him in writing the present proposal of Her Majesty's Government, together with the considerations upon which it is founded, as explained in your Lordship's dispatch. He might otherwise, he said, find it difficult to convey to the President and to his colleagues in the Cabinet as clear an exposition as he could wish of the views of Her Majesty's Government upon the subject, adding that these appeared to him to be so fair and unobjectionable that he could conceive no possible case in which any inconvenience to either Government would result from an unreserved communication of them in writing. I trust that your Lordship will not disapprove of my having, under these circumstances, so far departed from the course pointed out by your Lordship's instructions as to comply with Mr. Buchanan's request by addressing to him the note of which I have the honor to inclose a copy, and in which I have embodied the substance of your Lordship's dispatch. With respect to the expediency of laying down that part of the boundary line suggested by your Lordship's dispatch, Mr. Buchanan said that he coincided in opinion with Her Majesty's Government, but he added that it was his own "impression," although he had not examined the subject with sufficient attention to enable him yet to say that it was his "opinion," that it would be desirable to go further, and to proceed to mark out on the ground, without unnecessary delay, the boundary line from the point where the forty-ninth parallel of latitude meets the shore of the Gulf of Georgia, eastward to where it strikes the Columbia River, (the portions for which an estimate is made in the third section of Colonel Estcourt's Memorandum,) and this appeared to him to be advisable from the reports he had lately received of the rapid manner in which colonists from the United States are spreading in that direction. Speaking of the word "channel," as employed in the Convention of June, 1846, Mr. Buchanan said that he himself, and he presumed Mr. Pakenham, in negotiating and signing that Convention, had always conceived "channel" to mean the "main navigable channel," wherever situated, but he admitted that he had never himself examined, nor did he even recollect ever to have seen, Vancouver's chart; and although he did not seem prepared to contest the probability of the channel marked with soundings by Vancouver in that chart being, in fact, "the main navigable channel," he evidently hesitated to adopt that opinion without further geographical evidence, throwing out a suggestion that it would perhaps be better that such instructions should be given to the naval officers to be employed as Joint Commissioners, as would enable them both to determine which of the channels was, in fact, the main navigable channel, and to mark the boundary down the middle of that channel so soon as ascertained. The subject, Mr. Buchanan assured me, should receive the immediate attention of the United States Government, with every disposition to avoid delay or difficulty in the accomplishment of an object which he felt to be extremely desirable for both Governments. I have, &c., JOHN F. CRAMPTON. Mr. Crampton to Mr. Marcy. WASHINGTON, February 9, 1856. SIR: I have been instructed by Her Majesty's Government to call the serious attention of the Government of the United States to the unsatisfactory and hazardous state of things which continues to exist on the boundary which divides the Territory of Washington from the British Possessions occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company; and Her Majesty's Government direct me to express their regret that their repeated re monstrances have not led to any measures which seem to have succeeded in restraining the acts of the authorities of that Territory. I have already had the honor of addressing your Department (in a note to Mr. Hunter on the 27th July last) respecting the depredations upon the property of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Island of San Juan, by Mr. Ellis Barnes, Sheriff of Watcom County, of the Territory of Washington, in virtue of an alleged claim for taxes due to the authorities of the Territory; and I have now the honor to inclose the copy of a further letter from the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, together with its accompanying documents, in regard to the same matter, from which it appears that no reparation whatever has been made to the Company for the very heavy losses which they incurred on that occasion. You will at once perceive, Sir, that the occurrence in question has arisen out of the conflicting claims of the authorities of Vancouver's Island and of Washington Territory to the jurisdiction of the Island of San Juan, as appertaining, under the provisions of the Treaty between Great Britain and the United States of 1846, to the dominions of their respective Governments. San Juan is one of the small islands lying in the Gulf of Georgia, between Vancouver's Island and the main-land; and the question which has arisen between the parties regards the position of the channel through the middle of which, by the provision of the Treaty of 1846, the boundary line is to be run. In the early part of the year 1848, I had the honor, by the instruction of Her Majesty's Government, to propose to the Government of the United States to name a Joint Commission for the purpose of marking out the northwest boundary; and more particularly that part of it in the neighborhood of Vancouver's Island, in regard to which, as you will perceive from a reference to my note of the 13th January of that year to the Honorable James Buchanan, the Secretary of State of the United States, Her Majesty's Government already foresaw the [xxxvi] possibility of the occurrence of misunderstanding between the settlers of the respective nations; and Her Majesty's Government, moreover, then proposed, in order at once to preclude such misunderstandings, that before instructing their respective Commissioners, the two Governments should agree to adopt as the "channel" designated by the Treaty, that marked by Vancouver in his charts as the navigable channel, and laid down with soundings by that navigator. Mr. Buchanan entirely concurring in the expediency of losing no time in determining the position of the boundary line, nevertheless felt some objection to adopting the channel marked by Vancouver as the "channel" designated by the Treaty, in the absence of more accurate geographical information, and he suggested that the Joint Commissioners, when appointed, should be in the first place instructed to survey the region in question, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the channel marked by Vancouver, or some other channel, as yet unexplored, between the numerous islands of the Gulf of Georgia, should be adopted as the channel designated by the Treaty, or, in other words, should be found to be the main channel, through the middle of which, according to the generally admitted principle, the boundary line should be run. To this suggestion Her Majesty's Government, in the hope that immediate measures would be taken by the Government of the United States to name Commissioners to proceed to the spot with those already designated by the British Government, made no objection. It has been a subject of regret to Her Majesty's Government that, from causes upon which it is unnecessary to dwell, no appointment of Commissioners has, up to the present time, been made by the Government of the United States; and I am now instructed again to press this matter on their earnest attention. Should it appear possible, however, that this proposal cannot be met by the Government of the United States without further difficulty or delay, I would again suggest the expediency of the adoption by both Governments of the channel marked as the only known navigable channel by Vancouver, as that designated by the Treaty. It is true that the Island of San Juan, and perhaps some others of the group of small islands by which the Gulf of Georgia is studded, would thus be included within British territory; on the other hand, it is to be considered that the islands in question are of very small value, and that the existence of another navigable channel, broader and deeper than that laid down. by Vancouver, by the adoption of which some of those islands might possibly fall within the jurisdiction of the United States, is, according to the reports of the most recent navigators in that region extremely improbable; while, on the other hand, the continued existence of a question of doubtful jurisdiction in a country so situated as Washington Territory and Vancouver's Island, is likely to give rise to a recurrence of acts of a similar nature to those to which I have had the honor of calling your attention, and which I have no doubt would not be less deplored by the Government of the United States than by that of Great Britain. I am, &c., No. 4. JOHN F. CRAMPTON. CONVERSATION AND CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. BANCROFT AND VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.1 SIR: UNITED STATES LEGATION, The Hudson's Bay Company have been trying to get a grant of Vancouver's Island. I inquired, from mere curosity, about it. Lord Palmerston replied that it was an affair that belonged exclusively to the Colonial Office, and he did not know the intentions of Lord Grey. He then told me, what I had not known before, that he had made a proposi tion at Washington for marking the boundaries in the northwest by setting up a landmark on the point of land where the forty-ninth parallel touches the sea, and for ascertaining the division line in the channel by noting the bearings of certain objects. I observed that on the main land a few simple astronomical observations were all that were requisite ; that the water in the Channel of Haro did not require to be divided, since the navigation was free to both parties; though, of course, the islands east of the center of the Channel of Haro were ours. He had no good chart of the Oregon waters, and asked me to let him see the traced copy of Wilkes's chart. He spoke of the propriety of settling As officially printed in the United States. definitively the ownership of the several islands, in order that settlements might not be begun by one party on what properly belongs to the other. On returning home I sent him my traced copy of Wilkes's chart, with the note, of which I inclose a copy. I am, &c., GEORGE BANCROFT. Mr. Bancroft to Viscount Palmerston.' 90 EATON SQUARE, July 31, 1848. MY DEAR LORD: As your Lordship desired, I send for your inspection a traced copy, made for me at the Navy Department, of Wilkes's Chart of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget's Sound, &c., &c. Unluckily, this copy does not extend quite so far north as the parallel of 49°; though it contains the wide entrance into the Straits of Arro, the channel through the middle of which the Boundary is to be continued. The upper part of the Straits of Arro is laid down, though [xxxvii] not on a large scale, in Wilkes's map of *the Oregon Territory, of which I am sorry to say I have not a copy, but which may be found in the Atlas to the Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. I remain, &c., GEORGE BANCROFT. Viscount Palmerston to Mr. Bancroft. FOREIGN OFFICE, August 24, 1848. Viscount Palmerston presents his compliments to Mr. Bancroft, and has the honor to return to him herewith, with his best thanks, the traced copy of Wilkes's Chart of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, &c., which Mr. Bancroft so obligingly sent to Lord Palmerston on the 31st ultimo. Mr. Bancroft to Viscount Palmerston. 108 EATON SQUARE, November 3, 1848. MY LORD: I did not forget your Lordship's desire to see the United States surveys of the waters of Puget's Sound, and those dividing Vancouver's Island from our territory. These surveys have been reduced, and have just been published in three parts; and I transmit, for your Lordship's acceptance, the first copy which I have received. The surveys extend to the line of 49°; and by combining two of the charts, your Lordship will readily trace the whole course of the channel of Arro, through the middle of which our boundary line passes. I think you will esteem the work done in a manner very creditable to the young navy officers concerned in it. I have, &c., GEORGE BANCROFT. 1 Inclosure in last foregoing letter. |