published during the present year by the same authority as the map of Mr. Preston. Upon this map the boundary line is drawn from the forty-ninth parallel through the Gulf of Georgia, the Canal de Haro, and the Straits of Fuca, to the Pacific Ocean. Doubtless the present able surveyor-general, Mr. Tilton, has carefully studied the language and terms of the treaty, and has interpreted its meaning therefrom, without any special knowledge of the actual intentions of its authors.

"I have read Mr. Arrowsmith's letter to the secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company, appended to your letter, and am struck with his ingenuity in avoiding the direct question put to him as to the authority by which he was guided in marking the boundary line. Mr. Arrowsmith gives carefully the date of the publication of the map, but adds that, at that time, it contained no boundary line whatever, and that it continued without one until 1852, when he engraved the boundary line as it now stands upon the plate, and published it in 1853. He gives, as his authority for introducing the engraved boundary line, the map of Preuss, published in Washington City in 1848. He then states the reasons why he deviated from the line as laid down by Preuss, giving the larger island to Great Britain and the smaller to the United States, for reasons satisfactory to himself. The diagram of Mr. Preston was considered by Mr. Arrowsmith as confirmatory of that of Mr. Preuss, and as showing the views of the United States Government down to October, 1852.

"I was well aware of the estimation in which Mr. Arrowsmith was held, in England and elsewhere, as an accurate collector, compiler, and publisher of maps; and the inquiry of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the production of his reply at this time, confirms my opinion.

"I would now respectfully call your attention to the fact that, in the map of 1849, the boundary line of the forty-ninth parallel is drawn and coloured, and, although no boundary line is laid down between Vancouver's Island and the territories of the United States, the whole boundary channel, from the forty-ninth parallel to the Pacific Ocean, is so distinctly

portrayed, by colouring differently the coast of Vancouver's Island and the adjacent coasts of the United States, that it is a mere quibble on his part to say that the map contains no boundary line whatever.' While he carefully avoids giving the authority for marking thus distinctly the boundary channel, he is critically minute in giving his authority for engraving the line in 1852, and his reasons for dividing the islands of Cypress and Sinclair between the two territories. He does not, however, attempt to explain why he postponed the introduction of the engraved boundary line until 1852, and its publication until 1853. Mr. Preuss's map was published and given forth to the world in June, 1848. Certainly, so eminent a collector of maps as Mr. Arrowsmith could not have failed, before the close of 1852, to obtain possession of a map published in the city of Washington, by order of the United States Senate. If he had it, as it is to be presumed, he evidently regarded it as of no authority until about that period.

"It is to be presumed that, when Mr. Arrowsmith receives the map of Surveyor-General Tilton for 1856, his original impression as to the channel of the treaty will be confirmed, and that he will restore the boundary channel to his map, as in 1849, with the addition of the line from the forty-ninth parallel to the Pacific Ocean.

"If I have not failed entirely in my object, I think you must be satisfied, from the correspondence which has resulted from your letter of the 28th ultimo, that the views I have maintained in regard to the channel are too firmly fixed to admit of my agreeing to any arrangement for defining the boundary line which would divert it from the Canal de Haro. It has been my earnest endeavour to satisfy you of the force and justice of my convictions, by an unreserved exhibition of the evidence upon which I relied to sustain my reading of the treaty. If I have failed in my expectations, the effort has at least given me additional confirmation of the correctness of my views. The evidence I have produced remains uncontroverted and incontrovertible. On the other hand, no argu

ment has been advanced or evidence adduced in favour of Rosario Straits that has not, to my mind, been satisfactorily refuted or invalidated.

"I agree with you in the importance of an early determination and settlement of the boundary line, but much as I should regret any delay in consequence of a disagreement between us, I must frankly, but respectfully, decline accepting any proposition which would require me to sacrifice any portion of the territory which I believe the treaty gives to the United States; and in doing so allow me to say that there is not the slightest probability that your Government, yourself, or any other person, will ever be called upon for a renewal of the proposition contained in your letter of the 24th instant.

"Fully appreciating the liberal and conciliatory spirit which actuates you on the present occasion, I can reciprocate cheerfully your kind expressions in relation to our past intercourse, both personal and official.

"With the highest regard and most perfect esteem, I have the honour to be, most respectfully and sincerely, your obedient servant,

"ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL,

"Commissioner on the part of the United States for "determining the North-west Boundary Line.

"Captain James C. Prevost,

"First British Commissioner North-west Boundary
"Survey, &c."

Captain Prevost replied as follows :(1)—

"Her Britannic Majesty's Ship Satellite, Simiahmoo Bay, "Gulf of Georgia, December 1, 1857.

"SIR, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo, in which you decline to agree to the proposal I made in my letter of the 24th ultimo with a view to our being able ourselves to determine the water boundary line between the possessions of Her Britannic

(') American State Papers, p. 44.

Majesty and those of the United States, as settled in the first article of the treaty of 15th June, 1846.

"2. Could I regard the correspondence of Mr. McLane and the speech of Mr. Benton as of greater weight than the treaty itself, I should probably, in the absence of direct contradictory evidence of equal value, respond to your view that the boundary line should pass through the Canal de Haro; but, taking the treaty alone as my authority, and with its words plainly and unmistakably before me, I could never conscientiously admit that the Canal de Haro is a channel which intrinsically answers to the channel described in that treaty. In that treaty I find two fixed points named-the continent on one hand and Vancouver's Island on the other, and it is agreed that the boundary line is to run through the middle of the channel separating the former from the latter. In this case, in my opinion, the continent is de facto the continent, as much as the island is de facto the island; and holding this view, I conceive that no interpretation of the treaty per se can admit of the Canal de Haro being regarded as the channel through which the boundary line should pass. It appears to me that the claim to this channel rests entirely on the correspondence of Mr. McLane and the speech of Mr. Benton. If upon this ground the Canal de Haro be admitted as the channel of the treaty, with equal justness it might be argued that the line along the forty-ninth parallel should not strike the water at the forty-ninth parallel, but that it should deflect to Birch's Bay, which is a few miles to the southward; for Mr. McLane, in his letter of the 18th May, 1846, states that the offer will probably be to divide the territory by the extension of the line on the parallel of forty-nine 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;' but I find no mention of Birch's Bay in the treaty, any more than I do of the Canal de Haro; and as the words of the treaty are as distinct upon the one head as they are upon the other, I cannot admit that they should be departed from, either to carry the boundary line through the Canal de Haro, or to deflect it from

the forty-ninth parallel to Birch's Bay. I conceive that the correspondence of Mr. McLane and the speech of Mr. Benton, and the concurrent proceedings in the Senate of the United States, must be viewed in connection with the whole Oregon question as agitated at the time, and not merely with reference to the small portion of that question which is comprised in the determination of the line of boundary between the continent and Vancouver's Island. I have received the whole of this evidence with the greatest respect, and I have given to it the most careful and anxious study and reflection, but I cannot admit it as otherwise than secondary to the treaty. While upon this point, I would respectfully submit to you that if the treaty was intended by the United States Government to accord with the correspondence of Mr. McLane and the speech of Mr. Benton, I conceive that the general maxim you have quoted from Vattel would be more applicable to the United States than to the British Government, for if the former intended that the Canal de Haro should be the channel through which the boundary line was to pass, they should have taken care that it was so expressed clearly and plainly' in the treaty. That it was never either the proposition or in the contemplation of the British Government, every further reflection I give to the subject only the more firmly con

vinces me.

"3. Notwithstanding the construction you are pleased to put upon the quotation I used from Vattel to show that it was not necessary to give a term everywhere the same signification in the same deed, I must, with the utmost deference, still maintain that it is strictly to the point for which I quoted it; and I think further reflection on your part will show you that the objection because the term occurs only once,' whereas the rule applies to words which occur more than once,' is but a mere play upon words; the whole spirit of the paragraph in Vattel being so evident. The word 'southerly,' in reference to which the quotation was made, although only once printed, is applied twice, and, therefore, is in the same category as if it were used twice; for although the actual

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