confide entirely in his justice. But since Her Majesty's government apparently assumes that an award in favor of the American Government would be "odious," the United States must not neglect to invite attention to the true aspect of the case.

The American Government is the more surprised at this manner of presenting the subject by the government of Her Britannic Majesty, inasmuch as Captain Prevost, after months employed in exploring the waters, conceded that the British claim to the so-called Rosario Strait "could not be substantiated," and this opinion was formally adopted by Sir Richard Pakenham and by Lord John Russell; the latter of whom himself declares that he abandoned by implication all but the island of San Juan.

Another reason why an award in favor of the so-called Rosario as the channel would be odious, is, that it would transfer to the foreign allegiance of Great Britain, islands east of San Juan which have long [42] been and are now in the undisputed posses*sion of the United States. The United States have likewise been virtually in possession of the island of San Juan; though each party maintains in it a small garrison. The civil population on that island is thoroughly American. Out of ninety-six resident males of twenty-one years of age Appendix No. 76. and upward, the number of American citizens is fifty-six; the number of those born in Great Britain and Ireland is but twentysix. Of both sexes and all ages, there are one hundred and seventynine Americans and but fifty-two of British nationality on the island of San Juan. In the whole archipelago, the American population numbers three hundred and fourteen, the British but ninety. How unsuitable it would be, then, to assign to Great Britain islands which have never been out of the possession of the United States, and which are occupied almost exclusively by their citizens!

Appendix to Me19, p. 22, 1. 2-6.

The United States do not understand how a controversy could have arisen on the meaning of the boundary treaty of June 15, morial No. 10 and No. 1846. It will be remembered that it was they who, in the administration of Sir Robert Peel, recalled the intimation of Mr. Huskisson in 1826, and suggested that the disputed boundary might be arranged by just so much deflection from the forty-ninth parallel, as would leave the whole of Vancouver island to Great Britain. For more than two years, through two successive envoys, they continued to propose this settlement. At length Lord Aberdeen consented to it. The language of the treaty for carrying out the arrangement came from him. The United States accepted it in the sense in which they had suggested it; and by all rules for the equitable construction of contracts, Great Britain ought not now o attach to it a sense different from that in which Lord Aberdeen must have known that the United States accepted it. Moreover, before the treaty of June, 1846, was signed, Lord Aberdeen, well knowing by the experience of more than two years that the United States had proposed as their ultimatissimum, not to divide Vancouver island, instructed the British minister at Washington, that [43] what England *was to obtain was the channel "leaving the whole of Vancouver's island in the possession of Great Britain." Thus both parties had the same object in view; both parties intended the same thing and expressed in writing their intentions before the treaty was signed. The Government of the United States of that day assented to the treaty of 1846, with the understanding, communicated in advance to the British Government, that the boundary line was to deflect from the forty-ninth parallel for the sole purpose of giving the south of Vancouver Island to Great Britain, so that it was necessarily to

pass through the canal de Haro. The American Senate accepted it in that sense, and only in that sense. After it had been accepted, and before the ratifications were exchanged, Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons announced in memorable words, that Her Appendix to MeMajesty's government had made the contract in the same morial No. 46. sense. Not long afterwards the present agent of the United States in this arbitration, then the plenipotentiary of the United States near the Court of St. James, officially called the official attention of Lord Palmerston to this construction; and from Lord Palmerston, then the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who, on the 29th of June, 1846, had, as a member of the House of Commons, listened to Sir Robert Peel's interpretation of the treaty, and, with the knowledge of this interpretation, had on the same evening welcomed it as honorable to both countries, the note of the American plenipotentiary received the acquiescence of silence.

The broad and deep channel of Haro, in its ceaseless ebb and flow, is the ever faithful and unimpeachable interpreter of the treaty. Time out of mind, it formed the pathway for the canoe fleets of the Red Men. It is the first channel discovered by Anglo-Americans or Europeans within the strait of Fuca; it is the first that was explored and surveyed

from side to side; it is the first through which Europeans sailed [44] from the Fuca Strait to the waters above the parallel *of 49.

And now, in the increase of emigration and trade, it approves itself as "the channel" of commerce by the unanimous choice of the ships of all nations.

Everything favors a peaceful adjudication. The influential and active Hudson's Bay Company has ceased to exist. The United States have paid them, and all other British companies or citizens, for their possessory rights large indemnities, which they themselves and the British government acknowledge to be most ample. The generation of Britons who reluctantly assumed the unwelcome task of keeping the fruitful region of Northwest America in a wilderness condition, has passed away. Under the genial influence of the United States, cities rise on the stations of fur-traders, and agriculture supersedes hunting and trapping. This condition of the country facilitates the final recognition of the rights of the United States, and encourages the belief that an award favorable to them will be accepted without an emotion of surprise or discontent.

10 D

APPENDIX TO THE REPLY.

No. 51.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. BANCROFT, MR. BUCHANAN, AND LORD PALMERSTON.

Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.

LONDON, November 3, 1846.

*

*

*

*

*

*

The straits of Haro

*

SIR: While in the Navy Department I caused a traced copy of Wilkes's chart of the Straits of Haro to be made. If not needed in the Navy Department I request that the President will the treaty boundary. direct it to be sent to this Legation. It is intimated to me that questions may arise with regard to the islands east of that strait. I ask your authority to meet any such claim at the threshold by the assertion of the central channel of the Straits of Haro as the main channel intended by the recent treaty of Washington. Some of the islands, I am well informed, are of value.

Very respectfully, &c.,

Hon. JAMES BUCHANAN,

Secretary of State.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Bancroft.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, December 28, 1846.

structs Mr. Bancroft

SIR: I have obtained from the Navy Department, and Mr. Buchanan innow transmit to you, in accordance with the request con- that Haro is the tained in your dispatch No. 1, [November 3,] the traced boundary channel.

copy of Wilkes's chart of the Straits of Haro. This will enable [60] you to act understandingly *upon any question which may here

after arise between the two governments in respect to the sovereignty of the islands situate between the continent and Vancouver's Island. It is not probable, however, that any claim of this character 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, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

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

JAMES BUCHANAN.

[Inclosure: Chart of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, &c. By the U. S. Ex. Ex., 1841.]

SIR:

Mr. Bancroft warns Mr. Buchanan of the designs of the Hudson's Bay Company.

While on this point I ought to add that my attention has again been called to the probable wishes of the Hudson's Bay Company to get some of the islands on our side of the line in the Straits of Fuca. I speak only from my own judgment and inductions from what I observe and hear; but it would not surprise me if a formal proposition should soon be made on the part of the British Government to run the line between the two countries at the west from the point where it first meets the water through the straits to the Pacific Ocean.

Such a proposition is in itself very proper, if there be no ulterior [61] motive to raise unnecessary doubts and to claim islands_ *that are properly ours. The ministry, I believe, has no such design. Some of its members would be the first to frown on it. But I am not so well assured that the Hudson's Bay Company is equally reasonable, or that on the British side a boundary commissioner might not be appointed favoring the encroaching propensities of that company.

*

GEORGE BANCROFT.

*

Mr. Bancroft's interview with Lord Palmerston.

The Hudson's Bay Company have been trying to get a grant of Vancouver's Island. I inquired, from mere curiosity, 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 proposition 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 astro