aottatain," in about the latitude 53°; "Simpson's River," a little north of latitude 55°; and "Stickene River," in 55° 50'. All these would be within the British territory, or are so situated that the British, by their convention with Russia, would have the right of navigating them; and they would afford convenient communication with most of their establishments north of 49°; and if this adjustment should be made they would retain none south of that line. I should be reluctant to cede to Great Britain the free navigation of the Columbia, for there are serious objections to giving to any nation the unlimited right of using a stream where it flows wholly through the territories of another. For obvious reasons the exercise of such a right must endanger the harmony and peace of the parties; and, especially at such a remote point, would be a fruitful cause of jealousy, and very likely to occasion collision. But Great Britain will not relinquish the right to the free navigation and use of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, if she retains the territory north of 49°. The use of these straits would, in fact, be indispensable to her, for through them is the only convenient access to a considerable portion of this territory. * thinks that the line deflected the all that either party I have anticipated in some degree another point to which Lord Aberdeen has given great prominence in all our conversations, Mr. Everett viz, the entire impossibility that England should accept thinks th terms which she has already refused. I do not think I can whole of Vancouver be mistaken in saying that, unless it comes in the form of to Great Britain, is an award, she will never agree to the naked proposition of will concede. the forty-ninth degree. I have, however, a pretty confident belief that she would accept that line with the modification alluded to in my dispatches above mentioned, viz, the southern extremity of Quadra and Vancouver's Island, though cut off by the forty-ninth parallel, to be theirs. Lord Aberdeen has never told me they would agree to this; but I am still of the opinion expressed in my former dispatches, and for the reasons therein stated, that they would do so, and I am confident that this is the best boundary which we can get by negotiation. The concession of the southern end of the island, while of little importance to us, would be a great boon to them, as giving them a passage through the Straits of Fuca; and on the ground of this advantage, I am of opinion that they would consider themselves justified in acceding in other respects to the forty-ninth degree; but if the expectation prevails that they can be led by negotiation to agree to a boundary which we should regard as more favorable than this, I am confident that expectation will prove delusive. At the same time I have spared no pains to impress upon Lord Aberdeen's mind the persuasion that the utmost which the United States can concede is the forty-ninth parallel with the modification suggested, taking care always to add that I had no authority for saying that even that modification would be agreed to. * * EDWARD EVERETT. JOHN C. CALHOUN, Esq., [27] No. 23. Mr. Everett to Mr. Calhoun. LONDON, March 7, 1845. SIR: I took an opportunity a few days since to explain to the Comte de St. Aulaire, the French embassador, at his request, the merits of the claim of the United States, and the present state of the controversy. I have since done the same thing in conversation with the Chevalier Bunsen, the Prussian minister, who, at my recommendation, has made himself acquainted with Mr. Greenhow's work. Lord Ashburton not much difficulty justment. A day or two since I had a good deal of conversation with Lord Ashburton on the general question. Knowing that he is habitually consulted by the Government on American subjects, I thought it thinks there will be of some importance to endeavor to impress his mind with in coming to an ad the reasonableness of the American pretensions. Having done this, I stated to him my confident opinion that the Government of the United States would never accept a boundary materially less favorable than the forty-ninth degree of latitude. He said he did not think there would be much difficulty in coming to an adjustment, unless steps were taken on our side which wore the appearance of defiance and menace. Any such step would put it out of the power of England, as a similar step on her part would put it out of the power of the United States, to compromise on any terms. I attach the greater importance to these remarks, because Lord Ashburton has lately conferred with Lord Aberdeen on the subject. JOHN C. CALHOUN, Esq., Secretary of State. * EDWARD EVERETT. No. 24. Mr. Everett to Mr. Calhoun. [Confidential.] LONDON, April 2, 1845. SIR: A person very Mr. Sturgis's pam phlet regarded by a friend of the British ministry as fair and candid, high in the confidence of the government, but not belonging to it, informed me a day or two since that he considered the view of the Oregon question lately delivered on the subject in Boston by Mr. William Sturgis as fair and candid. [28] JOHN C. CALHOUN, Esq., Secretary of State. EDWARD EVERETT. No. 25. Lord Ashburton to Mr. Sturgis. pamphlet as distinct and impartial. LONDON, April 2, 1845. SIR: Your lecture on the Oregon question reached me last week, and as the subject itself interests me, and still more so everything connected with the maintenance of peace and friendly intercourse between our countries, I lost no time in reading it. I beg you will accept my very best thanks for your obliging attention. Your treatise ena- Lord Ashburton bles me every day to answer satisfactorily the question put regards Mr. Sturgis's to me so often, where is the Oregon and what is this dispute about? You have stated the case distinctly in a few pages, and what is indeed uncommon, you have stated it with great impartiality. Your leaning is perhaps to the side of the American argument; but if those who have to settle the subject by negotiation treat it with the same fairness and candor you have done, there can be no danger of its leading to consequences which all honest men would deprecate. I have personally a high opinion of the future destinies of that portion of the coast of the Pacific. The Northern Pacific Ocean, and in the course of time probably the eastern shores of Asia, will find their masters in the country north of California. But I have a very low opinion of any interest either your country or mine are likely to have in any division of the territory. From the moment it becomes of any real importance, it will not be, and should not be, governed from either Washington or from Westminster. You do not, or should not want land, and we certainly do not want colonies, and least of all such as would be unmanageable from [29] their distance, and only serve to embroil us with our neighbors. I am not without a wish that this new Pacific republic should be founded by our own race, which with all their defects, are likely to spread the best description of Christian civilization; but to say the truth, I care little whether this be done from Old England directly, or intermediately through New England. What I do care about is that we should not quarrel about this or any other measure, and I really believe that we should all be better by leaving this question to sleep again for another half century. Repeating my thanks for your obliging attention, I have the honor to be, sir, your very obedient, The Hon. WM. STURGIS. ASHBURTON. No. 26. Mr. Bates to Mr. Sturgis. [Strictly confidential.] LONDON, May 1, 1845. pronounces Mr. Stur MY DEAR SIR: I wrote you some weeks since to thank you for the pamphlets you were so kind as to send me on the Oregon Lord Aberdeen question. Since the date of my letter the few copies of your piss pamphlet cheat address sent over have circulated pretty rapidly, and have and sensible. been read by all the ministers, I have no doubt. I now inclose you an article cut from the Examiner of last week. It was written by my friend Senior, the political economist, as you will see, with your paper before him. He showed it to me before it was printed, as he frequently does his articles for reviews, (I suppose for the purpose of getting a commonsense opinion,) and I advised him to send it to Lord Aberdeen, with a note to say, if he found anything amiss in it that it should not be published. Lord Aberdeen answered that it was all right, except an unimportant omission in regard to the negotiations of 1818-19. A few days since Lord Aberdeen, among others, dined with Mr. Van der Weyer. After dinner Lord Aberdeen came to me, and talking on various [30] matters, got to America and the Oregon *question. I carefully avoided leading the conversation, but he seemed desirous to talk Oregon. The sum of what he said was this: he complimented your paper as a clear and sensible view of the matter; that the declaration [of] the President required to be met by a declaration of some sort from this government; that what had been said he hoped would be taken in the sense it was given as meaning simply that the British government do not admit that the United States have a right to the whole of Oregon. I told him that the declaration of the President appeared to have excited very little attention in the United States. He seemed anxious to impress on my mind that this country was disposed for peace and an amicable settlement of the question. The Hon. WM. STURGIS. * * * JOSHUA BATES. * Extract from an article by Mr.Senior, in the [London] Examiner, No. 1943. Saturday, April 26, 1845. The only real claim on contiguity. "If arbitration be unobtainable, the only mode of accommodation is mutual concession; and the terms which we suggest for of the British rests that mutual concession are those which, if we were arbitrators, we should award, namely, that the boundary should be the forty-ninth parallel until it meets the Pacific, and then the sea. Our only real claim rests on contiguity, and this would give us more than mere contiguity entitles us to. This would give us the whole of Vancouver's Island, and it would give us an abundance of good harbors. It would also give us the country which is best for the purposes for which we use it, the fur trade. * * Whatever be Lord Aberdeen's policy, the Opposition will, we trust, not add to its difficulties. We trust that the English negotiators will not deny every principle of law, however sacred, which they find opposed to them, and every fact, however notorious, that makes against them." Narrative of the United States exploring expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, by Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., commander of the expedition, in five volumes and an atlas: Philadelphia, 1845. [VOLUME IV, CHAPTER XIV, 1841, PAGE 484.] "A large boat expedition was also fitted out, of which I took charge in person, to proceed across the Straits of the Fuca, to comCanal de Haro in July plete the survey of the Canal de Arro, with the adjacent bays and harbors, and thence to the mouth of Fraser's Wilkes surveys 1841. river. "On the morning of the 25th July, 1841, the brig parted company, and in the afternoon I set out, with seven boats, to cross the strait. "On the 26th we began the survey of this labyrinth of islands, which was continued the next day, 27th. * "On the 28th the duties of our surveyors were again resumed, and a finish made of those of the Canal de Arro. This was effected through the strenuous exertions of both officers and men, and the same night we reached the Vincennes. We had completed all that was essential for the navigation of the Canal de Arro." ** No. 28. Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Pakenham. [Extract.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, July 12, 1845. Mr. Buchanan of with free ports on He (the President) has, therefore, instructed the undersigned again to propose to the government of Great Britain that the Oregon Territory shall be divided between the two fers the line of 499 countries by the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, from Vancouver. the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean; offering at the same [32] time to make *free to Great Britain, any port or ports on Vancouver's Island, south of this parallel, which the British government may desire. * * * Rt. Hon. R. PAKENHAM, &c., &c., &c. * * * JAMES BUCHANAN. No. 29. Mr. Pakenham to Mr. Buchanan. [Extract.] WASHINGTON, July 29, 1845. The undersigned, therefore, trusts that the American plenipotentiary will be prepared to offer some further pro- Mr. Pakenham reposal for the settlement of the Oregon question more con- jects Mr. Buchanan's sistent with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable offer. expectations of the British government, as defined in the statement marked D, which the undersigned had the honor to present to the American plenipotentiary at the early part of the present negotiation. R. PAKENHAM. Hon. JAMES BUCHANAN, &c., &c., de. |