Haro channel. Obscure men bear positive testimony to that about which they knew nothing. A set of written questions is presented to them, and in different places, and on different days, they answer in large part in the same words, implying that answers, as well as questions, were prepared beforehand. The testimony thus picked up is of the less value, as the witnesses were not cross-examined; and yet, without being confronted or cross-examined, they involve themselves in contradictions if not in falsehoods.

The questions are framed so as to seem to be to the point, and yet most of them are of no significance.

British Case, pp. 48, 49.

William H. McNeill pretends to have used Vancouver's charts, not knowing that Vancouver made no charts except as an illustration of his own voyage. Then he affirms that [23] *in coming south from Fraser's River he went through Rosario straits; while the Rosario straits on Vancouver's map lie far to the north of Fraser's River. Again, he says that the navigation of Haro straits is much impeded by numerous small islands and rocks; whereas it may be seen by the charts of the British Admiralty, as well as those of the United States Coast Survey, that the channel is broad and singularly deep, and where the bottom is marked rocky, the soundings show a depth of three hundred, six hundred, and even a thousand feet. The same man puts his name to the statement that what he calls the strait of Rosario was the only surveyed channel; whereas the canal de Haro had been surveyed both by Spanish and American expeditions.

British Case, p. 51.

William Mitchell testifies twice over that the so-called Rosario strait was the only known channel; while the channel of Haro appears on the Spanish chart, on the French, on the American, and is given by Vancouver himself. The same William Mitchell testifies, like McNeill, and equally falsely, that in June, 1846, the straits of Rosario, so called, were the only surveyed channel.

But Alexander C. Anderson exceeds others in alacrity. He testifies that as late as 1851 the passage through the Haro strait British Case, p, 54. was incompletely known. "Now the large charts prepared by Wilkes and his officers had been for several years exposed for sale to anybody that chose to buy them, and it is absolutely certain that they were presented by the American minister at London to Lord Palmerston, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and by him thankfully acknowledged, in the year 1848; so that the Government of Her Britannic Majesty happily possesses the means of correcting the rash declarations of the last-named witness. The American Government cannot offer the rebutting testimony of American mariners, for their fur-trade on the northwest coast had been

Appendix No. 51.

broken up by the British before 1810, and when at a later day [24] they attempted to renew it, they *had been forcibly compelled by

the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company to give up the field. The American sailors, therefore, who were familiar with those regions have long since gone to slumber with their fathers.

But the British Case enables the American Government to cite the log-books of the Hudson's Bay Company. It nowhere ventures to say that the log-books of the vessels of the Hudson's Bay Company prove that they never went through the Haro channel, but only British Case, p. 11. that they used the so-called Rosario straits as the "leading. channel." This is a confession that the log-books of those vessels show that sometimes one channel was used by them, sometimes the other. It is admitted by the British Case that in 1843 the Cadboro sailed through Haro straits, and that once, at least, the

British Case, pp. 52, 48.

p. 39.

Hudson's Bay Company's steamer Beaver chose the same route. Commander Mayne admits that when the Hudson's Bay Company Mayne's Four Years established their headquarters at Victoria, the canal de in British Columbia, Haro became used. In corroboration of this use of the channel of Haro, especially from the year 1842 to 1846, some affidavits and statements are offered, correcting the testimony con- Appendix Nos. 53, tained in the British Case, and confirming facts which the 54, 55, 57, 58, 59. 60, British Case itself admits. From the want of time, no notice could be given to the other party; but among the witnesses will be found some of the highest officers in the Army and Navy of the United State, as well as men known by their works to the scientific world.

61.

It is a remarkable characteristic of the British Case, that while it seems to make assertions in language of the most energetic affirmation, it qualifies them so as to make them really insignificant. It might almost be said that the British Case gives up its own theory of the ignorance of Lord Aberdeen as to the character of the Haro channel; for it affirms, not that he was ignorant about its navigability, but that he "had no assurance that it was even navigable in its upper waters."

British Case, p. 30.

"No assurance" is a very vague expression; so is [25] *the phrase "upper waters;" and with them both nothing is asserted, while the form of the statement is an ample confession that Lord Aberdeen was at least perfectly well acquainted with the exist ence of the strait. When, using the same words with which they introduced their total misapprehension of Mr. Webster's opinion, they write of the Haro channel, "It is not too much to say that Her Majesty's Government had a firm belief that it was a dangerous strait," it is enough to reply that not one word has been presented to show that Lord Aberdeen believed it a dangerous strait; and without his positive testimony, which has not been produced, this is an idle and groundless assertion. Strange as it is for a great nation to come before a tribunal like that of the German Emperor, and complain that the treaty which they themselves draughted contains an ambiguity due, not to bad faith, but to ignorance, the United States have avowed themselves ready Proctocols 36 and to abrogate that part of the treaty on the ground alleged by 37 of Conference be the British Government, that it might have been made missioners, at Wash under a mutual misunderstanding; and to re-arrange the boundary which was in dispute before the treaty was concluded. When put to the test, the British are compelled practically to acknowledge the candor and forbearance of the Americans in the formation of the treaty, and that, if the work were to be done over again, they have no hope of a settlement so much to their advantage. The treaty, as it is understood by the United States, made very large concessions to Great Brit ain; and the British Government insists upon preserving it.

tween the High Com

ington.

Then, since Her Majesty's Government will not consent to cancel the treaty, it must be accepted according to its plain meaning; and if its meaning is not plain, the party which draughted it must suffer the consequences of the ambiguity.

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*III.—PROCEEDINGS UNDER THE TREATY OF 1846.

The United States have always held the treaty to be free from ambiguity, and have maintained their understanding of it with unvarying consistency. If between a channel that had a name, and one that had none, the British Government intended to take the British Case, pp. channel without a name, it should have described it with 28, 33. distinctness and care; instead of which, the words of their description

exclude the channel without a name, and apply exactly and alone to the Haro Channel.

Appendix No. 68, p. 107.

In January, 1848, the British minister at Washington, treating the "islets" of the San Juan archipelago as of "little or no value," expressed a "wish" to the United States that the passage used by Vancouver in passing from Admiralty Inlet to the north, might be mutually considered as the channel of the treaty. No claim whatever was preferred, and the wish was excused, "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 letter of Lord Palmerston, under which the British minister at Washington expressed this wish of Her Majesty's Government, has never been communicated to the Government of the United States.

To Mr. Bancroft, who, immediately after the ratification of the treaty, was selected as the United States minister at London, and who on all occasions spoke and wrote of the canal de Haro as the boundary channel, Lord Palmerston, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, never presented any counter claim; and the American minister was persuaded that danger to the immediate peaceful execution of the treaty arose, not from within the ministry, but from the [27] parliamentary influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose desires the ministry seemed reluctant to adopt.

Appendix No. 51, pp. 60, 61.

Mr. Bancroft did not suffer the authoritative interpretation of the treaty on the part of his Government to rest on the uncertainty of conversations which time might obliterate, or memory pervert.

On the last day of July, 1848, Lord Palmerston observed that he had no good chart of the Oregon waters; and having asked to see a traced copy of Wilkes' chart, Mr. Bancroft immediately sent it to him with this remark:

** * 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 Haro, the channel through the middle of which the boundary is to be continued. The upper part of the straits of Haro is laid down, though not on a large scale, in Wilkes' map of the Oregon Territory.

Obtaining from Washington an early copy of Wilkes' surveys, Mr. Bancroft delivered it to Lord Palmerston with the following official note:

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 Haro, through the [28] 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 the honor, &c.,

Viscount PALMERSTON, &c., &c.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

To this formal and authorized announcement of the Haro as the boundary, the answer of Lord Palmerston, written after four.days, was in like manner official, and ran as follows:

FOREIGN OFFICE, November 7, 1848.

SIR: I beg leave to return you my best thanks for the surveys of Puget's Sound and of the Gulf of Georgia, which accompanied your letter of the 3d instant.

The information as to soundings contained in these charts will no doubt be of great service to the commissioners who are to be appointed under the treaty of the 15th of June, 1846, by assisting them in determining where the line of boundary described in the first article of the treaty ought to run.

I have the honor, &c.,

GEORGE BANCROFT, Esq., &c., &'c.

PALMERSTON.

Here is no pretense of an ignorance of the channel of Haro as affecting the interpretation of the treaty-that theory was not started until after the death of Sir Robert Peel-but a calm, wise, assent to the use of the large charts of Wilkes in running the boundary. And this assent was virtually a concession that the American interpretation was just and true. Lord Palmerston declined all controversy about the channel. He received a formal, authoritative statement of the [29] line as understood by the United States, and in his *reply made

no complaint and proposed no other interpretation. This note is the first and the last and the only word that the United States possess from Lord Palmerston under his own hand on the subject of the boundary. The correspondence relating to it is inserted in full in the Appendix. The American minister of that day had very good opportunity to know what was going forward, and every motive to give the most correct information to his Government.

Appendix No. 51.

In December, 1852, Lord Aberdeen came to the head of affairs. The last official word of the Americans to Great Britain on the boundary had been that it passes through the center of the channel of Haro. At the beginning of his ministry, in the winter of 1852-253, the territorial legislature of Oregon included the whole of the archipelago of Haro in one of its counties. Had Lord Aberdeen been dissatisfied with the state of the question, he, who made the treaty and now had returned to power, was bound to have taken this subject earnestly in hand; but he remained silent, made no excuses that he had draughted the treaty in ignorance, and entered no counter pretension to the American view.

The administration which, in February, 1855, succeeded that of Lord Aberdeen, was one over which the Hudson's Bay Company exercised great influence. The progress of colonization demanded a settlement of the question of jurisdiction-the more so, as the British Government had made a grant of the island of Vancouver to that company. Accordingly, in 1856 the two Governments agreed to send out commissioners to mark the line of boundary.

The United States, in perfect good faith, gave their commissioner full powers, and communicated his instructions unreservedly to the British Government. The British Government gave its commissioner ostensible instructions, which were readily communicated to the United States, but fettered him by additional ones, which were kept secret, and of which the United States repeatedly but vainly solicited a copy, *until, some years later, Lord Malmesbury, in the ministry of Lord Derby, became once more Secretary of State for Foreign

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Affairs.

Could the Hudson's Bay Company obtain possession of the island of San Juan, they would have exclusive possession of the best channel, and of the only safe one in time of war. No British authority in Great Britain or in Vancouver expressed any desire for the so-called Rosario channel, on which the British Case now affects to lay so much stress. The members of Her Britannic Majesty's Government did not pretend among themselves to a right to it "as the channel indicated by the words of the treaty," but, yielding to the importunity of the influential government of Vancouver, they were willing to hazard an experimental attempt

to gain the island of San Juan. To accomplish this end, the British commissioner received the following secret instruction :

p. 108.

If the commissioner of the United States will not adopt the line along Rosario Strait, and if, on a detailed and accurate survey, and on weighing the evidence Appendix No. 69, on both sides of the question, you should be of opinion that the claims of 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 othor 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.

According to his commission, and according to his ostensible instructions, Captain Prevost was a commissioner, and, no more than a commissioner, to mark the boundary line according to the treaty of 1846; but by his secret instructions, which he resolutely refused to communicate, he was in fact a plenipotentiary appointed to negotiate for a channel

which should take the island of San Juan from the United States. [31] *It must be borne in mind that Captain Prevost had authority to offer a compromise only on the condition that, after personal examination and the weighing of evidence on both sides of the question, he "should be of opinion that the claims of Her Majesty's Government to consider Rosario Strait as the channel indicated by the words of the treaty cannot be substantiated." After having been five months within the straits of Fuca, and after having verified and approved the accuracy of the United States Coast Survey chart of the channels and islands between Vancouver Island and the continent, and after consenting to Appendix No. 70, adopt it for the purpose of determining the boundary line, he p. 109, 1. 5-15. proposed such a compromise as would have left to the United States the so-called Rosario Straits and every island in the archipelago except San Juan.

Appendix No. 72, p. 110, 1. 5,6.

The commissioner of the United States, Mr. Archibald Campbell, divined the character of the secret instructions under which Captain Prevost was acting, adhered with intelligence and uprightness to his duty as commissioner, and "declined to accede to any compromise.”

Captain Prevost, the British commissioner, who, by his offer of compromise, had conceded that the British claim to the so-called Rosario straits "cannot be substantiated," struggled hard to recover the position of a zealous champion of the right of Great Britain to that channel. But for this he had drifted too far, and he was too honest to succeed. As an interpreter of the treaty Captain Prevost writes very correctly: "The channel menAppendix No. 70. tioned should possess three characteristics: 1. It should separate the continent from Vancouver's Island; 2. It should admit of the boundary line being carried through the middle of it in a southerly direction; 3. It should be a navigable channel." He adds: "It is readily admitted that the Canal de Arro is a navigable channel, and therefore answers to one characteristic of the channel of the treaty."

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Map O.

*This admission, written from on board a ship anchored within sight of the Haro channel, is conclusive as to the first point. As to his second characteristic, a glance at the map will show the Imperial Arbitrator that the line which is drawn due south from the middle of the channel on the parallel of 49°, strikes the channel of Haro, and leaves the so-called Rosario far to the east. As to Captain Prevost's remaining characteristic, the United States. Appendix No. 70, again cite his testimony, for he writes: "The canal de Haro p.108, 1. 21–25. is the channel separating Vancouver's Island from the con