A few days after writing this letter, the United States Commissioner again wrote to Mr. Cass, and enclosed the map, a copy of which is annexed to this volume. The letter was as follows :(1)

"Camp Simiahmoo, June 21, 1859. "SIR,-In my letter to the department of the 20th of January, I referred to the fact that the channels and islands composing the archipelago skirting Vancouver's Island at and immediately south of the forty-ninth parallel had never been accurately laid down on the maps representing the space between the continent and Vancouver's Island, and stated that Captain Richards, Royal Navy, surveyor of the British water boundary commission, had recently been engaged in making a survey of this archipelago, and that as soon as I was furnished by him with a copy of his map I would forward to the department a tracing of the Coast Survey chart corrected in that particular, and I now have the honour herewith to transmit it accordingly.

"I also stated that a general impression had been created that the channels of the archipelago were only navigable for small steamers. It will be seen by the soundings laid down in the accompanying chart, that this is an erroneous idea, and that they are navigable for vessels of the largest class. In respect to navigability merely, they are therefore on an equality with the channels claimed or proposed as the channel' through which the boundary line should be run; while in other respects, with the exception of the main channel, the channel of the archipelago nearest to Vancouver's Island has the first claim to be considered the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island.'

"At the time the treaty was concluded the archipelago at the forty-ninth parallel was represented on the maps of that day as a part of Vancouver's Island, and, consequently, at and immediately south of the forty-ninth parallel to about latitude

(1) American State Papers, p. 88.

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48° 47′ there appeared to be but a single channel between the continent and Vancouver's Island. The line contemplated by the negotiators of the treaty must therefore necessarily have been through the middle of that channel (the Gulf of Georgia) until it reached the Archipelago de Haro, not, as asserted by Captain Prevost in his letter of October 28, 1857, to be the fact that at the forty-ninth parallel there is only one navigable channel lying between the channel and Vancouver's Island,' but because only one was known to exist at and prior to the date of the treaty. This assertion of Captain Prevost is the more remarkable, considering that in 1853 he, to some extent, explored the channels of the archipelago west of the Gulf of Georgia; and the name of the steamer, Virago, which he commanded at the time, is indelibly connected with a passage from the Gulf of Georgia to the inner channels near Vancouver's Island. In passing through what the early Spanish navigators named 'Portier's Inlet,' a little north of the forty-ninth parallel, the steamer encountered a rock, which created some apprehensions for her safety. On the Coast Survey chart the inlet is designated by Virago Rock,' and is generally spoken of as Virago Passage.

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"The maps in use by the negotiators of the treaty represented the Archipelago de Haro with sufficient accuracy to show that there were several channels connecting the Gulf of Georgia and Straits of Fuca. The literal meaning of the treaty would indicate the boundary channel to be the nearest channel to Vancouver's Island, and it has been satisfactorily proven that such was the intention of the negotiators by the production of contemporaneous evidence, showing the object of the deflection of the boundary line from the forty-ninth parallel to be merely to give the whole of Vancouver's Island to Great Britain, with the undeniable understanding of both Governments that, to accomplish this object, the boundary line was to reach the Straits of Fuca through the Canal de Haro. The despatches of Mr. McLane and Lord Aberdeen of May 18, 1846, alone, are sufficient confirmation of this fact; but they are amply sustained by other contemporaneous evi

dence. Mr. McLane mentions the name of the channel nearest Vancouver's Island (the Canal de Haro), where more than one was known to exist, without specially stating the object of its selection. Lord Aberdeen specifies distinctly the object, viz., to give to Great Britain the whole of Vancouver's Island and its harbours,' without naming the channel which would accomplish it.

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"Before I entered into the discussion of the boundary question with the British commissioner, the language of the treaty seemed to me to be susceptible of two distinct interpretations, either that the channel which separates the continent. from Vancouver's Island' meant the nearest navigable channel to Vancouver's Island, without regard to its relative size, or that it might mean the main channel between the continent and Vancouver's Island.

"A careful investigation of the subject, with all the light thrown upon it by the contemporaneous evidence I then possessed, led me to the conclusion that a combination of these two interpretations would best enable me to carry the treaty into effect, in accordance both with its letter and spirit.

"My conclusion was that the Gulf of Georgia and the Canal de Haro constituted the boundary channel understood and intended by the framers and signers of the treaty. If the true interpretation of the treaty be that the channel' through which the boundary line is to be run is the main channel, the line I have claimed is then the line intended by the treaty. If, however, the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island' is to be construed as the nearest channel to Vancouver's Island, the line should be run so as to throw the archipelago, west of the Gulf of Georgia, on the American side of the line.

"In admitting the Gulf of Georgia to be the channel' intended by the treaty, between latitude 49° and 48° 47', I did so with some reluctance, as I considered the principle upon which the water boundary was established to be merely to avoid cutting off the southern end of Vancouver's Island, so as to give the whole of the island to Great Britain, and no more.

But as the channel within the archipelago, at the forty-ninth parallel nearest Vancouver's Island, was not considered well adapted to a boundary channel, and, indeed, was little known, I took the broad view, as the Gulf of Georgia was the main channel, and as at the time of the treaty but one channel was known to be in existence, that I should be carrying the treaty into effect in good faith towards my own Government, and most liberally towards Great Britain, by ignoring the archipelago, so as to place myself in the position of the negotiators of the treaty when they had the maps of the day before them.

"The refusal of the British commissioner to adopt the Gulf of Georgia and the Canal de Haro as the boundary channel, together with the additional contemporaneous evidence I have gathered since my discussion with him in 1857, has caused me carefully to review the conclusion at which I had arrived at that time. I still am of the opinion that if the boundary line had been drawn upon the maps of the day, immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, that it would have been drawn through the Gulf of Georgia and Canal de Haro. But the extraordinary pretensions of the British Government that the channel nearest the continent was contemplated by them as the boundary channel of the treaty, and the refusal of the British commissioner to be in the slightest degree influenced by contemporaneous evidence proving the contrary, it seems to me would justify the United States in claiming the boundary line through the channel nearest Vancouver's Island from the forty-ninth parallel to the Straits of Fuca..

"The Gulf of Georgia and Canal de Haro, constituting the main channel, is the natural boundary between the continent and Vancouver's Island, and by far the most convenient in every respect to both Governments. This boundary line carries British vessels from the Pacific Ocean to Fraser River, the nearest point of the British possessions on the continent with which they will have any communication, by a route seventeen miles shorter than by Rosario Straits, the channel they claim as the boundary; while between Simiahmoo Bay,

Bellingham Bay, and Puget Sound, Rosario Straits will be most convenient to American vessels. But between the Pacific Ocean and Point Roberts [American territory], the Canal de Haro is equally convenient for American vessels as it is for British vessels bound for Fraser River, a few miles north of it. In no point of view, however, is Rosario Straits necessary for British vessels, unless the Archipelago de Haro become British territory.

"The Canal de Haro being the only link in the boundary channel between the forty-ninth parallel and the Straits of Fuca, which has been proven by contemporaneous evidence, the question is upon what principle was the Canal de Haro understood to be the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island?' It must have been either because it was the channel nearest to Vancouver's Island, or because it was the main channel. If the former, the archipelago skirting Vancouver's Island to the forty-ninth parallel belongs to the United States; if the latter, the Gulf of Georgia is the boundary channel, and this archipelago belongs to Great Britain. This group of islands is the only one about which any dispute could be got up with plausible show of fairness; and the liberality of the United States in proposing to adopt such a line as would give it to Great Britain, has hitherto prevented such a dispute and transferred it to the Haro group.

"Upon the accompanying map will be found the following lines traced through different channels, viz. :—

"1st. The boundary line contemplated by the treaty, as shown by contemporaneous evidence, through the middle of the Gulf of Georgia and Canal de Haro, the main channel between the continent and Vancouver's Island.

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"2nd. The boundary line claimed by the British commissioner, through the Gulf of Georgia and Rosario Straits, on the pretence that the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island' means the channel nearest to the continent.

"3rd. The boundary line proposed by the British commissioner as a compromise, through the Gulf of Georgia, a