view as 'not entirely just,' I must request your attention to paragraph No. 281, Book II., Chap. xvii., in which Vattel declares that it is not necessary to give a term the same sense everywhere in the same deed. He says:

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"If any one of those expressions which are susceptible of different significations occurs more than once in the same piece, we cannot make it a rule to take it everywhere in the same signification.'

"In the following paragraph he says:

"Every interpretation that leads to an absurdity ought to be rejected; or, in other words, we should not give to any piece a meaning from which any absurd consequences would follow, but must interpret it in such a manner as to avoid absurdity.'

"Now the boundary line can be carried in closer adherence to a 'southerly' direction through the Rosario Strait than it can if taken through the Canal de Haro, and for this reason I argued that, so far as this particular was concerned, the Rosario Strait should be adopted in preference to the Canal de Haro; but the boundary line cannot be carried in a southerly' direction through the Straits of Fuca to the Pacific Ocean, and here is a trifling obscurity. It is, however, unnecessary to go beyond the treaty itself for an interpretation. Two points are named, the Pacific Ocean and the Straits of Fuca, and the former is to be reached through the latter; and as there is no doubt as to the position and limits of either, there can be no question as to what was the evident intention of the treaty-makers, and I must respectfully submit that such an interpretation, so strictly in accordance with the rules laid down by Vattel, and with the dictates of common sense, can neither be styled as 'not entirely just,' nor such as would render the treaty a nullity.'

"7. With reference to your remarks upon the map drawn by Charles Preuss, under the order of the Senate of the United States,' I must still observe that the map is an official document, published under high authority, and is indisputable evidence that the Canal de Haro could not have been the only channel regarded in the United States as the channel of the

treaty. The trifling inaccuracies you point out with regard to the line touching Sinclair and Cypress Islands, or any other trifling inaccuracies, do not weaken the fact that the line does not pass through the Canal de Haro. It is sufficiently clear that it was intended to trace the boundary line through the channel contiguous to the continent, and a glance at the map represents the line as a very natural boundary. I beg you to understand me, however, that I do not bring this map forward as any authority for the line of boundary. That authority is to be sought in the treaty alone, but I merely produce this map as a counter evidence to what you have advanced as to the Canal de Haro being the channel of the treaty. Both this map, dated in 1848, and the diagram, to which I before alluded, of a portion of Oregon Territory, drawn in 1852, are official documents, and are, therefore, entitled to some weight. The map to which you refer, drawn by J. Arrowsmith in 1849, is the publication of a private individual, and, therefore, cannot be produced against an official document, even were the boundary line upon it carried through the Canal de Haro; but I append hereto the copy of a letter from Mr. Arrowsmith, in which he declares that there were no boundary lines upon his map until 1853, when he copied the line from Mr. Preuss's map. You remark that, had Mr. Preston seen the map of Arrowsmith of 1849, he would no doubt have drawn the line of boundary on the diagram of Oregon Territory as passing through the Canal de Haro. I can scarcely conceive that a Government official, in preparing an official document, would seek his information from the publications of a private individual; although it was very natural that Mr. Arrowsmith, as a private individual, should be guided in his delineation of the boundary line by an official document, published under the order of the Senate. I have Mr. Arrowsmith's map of 1853 in my possession, and will lay it before you should you desire to see it; but, of course, I do not refer to it as any authority, nor should I have brought forward either it or his letter had you not endeavoured to bring his map of 1849 as a document to be placed in opposition to the diagram of Mr. Preston,

"8. Having thus endeavoured to show you that all the arguments you have advanced can, to my mind, be fully rebutted, and that, therefore, they entirely fail in convincing me that the Canal de Haro can in any way be regarded as the channel of the treaty, I must again repeat my positive conviction that when two or more channels exist between a continent and an island, that channel which is contiguous to the continent must be the channel which separates the continent from the island, and that, therefore, the Rosario Strait, as being the navigable channel most adjacent to the continent, must be the channel which, at its position, 'separates the continent from Vancouver's Island,' and consequently that it must be the channel through which the boundary line should pass. While my opinion is thus firmly fixed upon the Rosario Strait as the channel of the treaty, your opinion appears no less firmly fixed upon the Canal de Haro; and, therefore, so long as we both hold to these opinions, the prospect is very remote that we shall ever attain the end for which we were both commissioned. Eleven years have passed since the treaty of the 15th June, 1846, was signed and ratified. At the time of its conclusion the interests of British subjects and of American citizens around this neighbourhood were comparatively unimportant, and the settlement of the boundary line between the continent and Vancouver's Island was not urgently required; but now, with the greater interests involved, and with the fast increasing population and settlement of the country, it becomes a matter of grave importance that the boundary line should be defined. I am aware that Her Majesty's Government are desirous to have the line determined, and I have no doubt the Government of the United States are equally interested in the matter. It, therefore, I conceive, becomes our positive as well as our conscientious duty to endeavour, in a conciliatory spirit, and by mutual concession, to settle the matter. I will at once frankly state how far I am willing to concede, but beyond what I now offer I can no further go. In contemplating your view that all the channels between the continent and Vancouver's Island, from the termination of the

Gulf of Georgia to the eastern termination of the Straits of Fuca, are but a continuation of the channel of the Gulf of Georgia, I see a way by which I can in part meet your views without any gross violation of the terms of the treaty. I am willing to regard the space above described as one channel, having so many different passages through it, and I will agree to a boundary line being run through the 'middle' of it, in so far as islands will permit. In making this concession, which is the only approach to your views that I can possibly entertain, I beg it may be distinctly understood that I am induced thereto by no change of opinion on any one point, but that I am alone influenced by the considerations I have above given, and by an earnest desire to prevent a disagreement between us, and a reference of the matter to our respective Governments; and I further beg it may also be distinctly understood that I make the present offer without committing either my Government or myself, or any other person, to a renewal of it at any subsequent period, should it not now be accepted; but I feel confident that the liberal and conciliatory spirit which has actuated me on the present occasion will not fail to meet with the same ready response from you that hitherto it has been my privilege and pleasure always to experience in all the intercourse we have had.

"With every assurance of my high esteem and deep consideration, I have the honour to subscribe myself, sir, your very obedient and humble servant,

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"JAMES C. PREVOST,

Captain of H.B.M. ship Satellite, and Her Majesty's "First Commissioner for the before-mentioned Boundary. "Archibald Campbell, Esq.,

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

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Captain Prevost at the same time enclosed a copy of a letter from Mr. John Arrowsmith to the Secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company, dated 10,

Soho Square, September 29, 1856, which was as follows :(1)

"SIR,-In your letter of the 22nd instant, having reference to the boundary line between this country and the United States boundaries in the Gulf of Georgia and De Fuca Straits, you say that Mr. Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of Washington Territory, United States, writing to the Governor of Vancouver's Island in May last, states that I published a map of Vancouver's Island and the adjacent coast on the 11th April, 1849, in which the boundary line between the two States is laid down as running through the Canal de Arro; and that the Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company will feel obliged by my informing them if such map was published by me, and if so, by what authority I was guided when thus marking the boundary.

"My reply is, that I published the map of Vancouver's Island and the adjacent coast, which was compiled from the surveys of Vancouver, Kellett, Simpson, Galliano, Valdez, &c. &c., on the 11th April, 1849, but that the map at that time contained no boundary lines whatever, and that it continued so until the end of 1852, when I engraved the boundary line as it now exists upon the plate, and I published the map with the date 1853.

"The authority which guided me in introducing the engraved boundary line, was a map emanating from the Senate of the United States, dated Washington City, 1848, the full title of which is, ' Map of Oregon and Upper California, from the Surveys of John Charles Frémont and other authorities, drawn by Charles Preuss, under the order of the Senate of the United States, Washington City, 1848. Scale, 1:300,000. Lith., G. E. Weber & Co., Baltimore.'

"In transferring the boundary line from the above map to my own plate, the only change which I made in drawing the boundary line was, that instead of carrying it to the islands of Sinclair and Cypress, as marked in the Senate map, I

(1) American State Papers, p. 35.