the navigation of the Long Sault passage in the St. Lawrence must be extended to below Barnhart's Island for the purpose of clearing the rapids. Webster-Ashburton These suggestions were incorporated in the treaty which was signed on the 9th of August 1842. The provisions relating to the boundary in question are comprised in the second and seventh articles, the former of which adopts the line of the commissioners under Article VII. of the Treaty of Ghent, so far as they agreed upon it,' and for the rest fixes the boundary as it has just been described. The text of the articles is as follows: "ARTICLE ÌI. "It is moreover agreed, that from the place where the joint commissioners terminated their labors under the sixth article of the treaty of Ghent, to wit, at a point in the Neebish Channel, near Muddy Lake, the line shall run into and along the shipchannel between St. Joseph and St. Tammany Islands, to the division of the channel at or near the head of St. Joseph's Island; thence, turning eastwardly and northwardly around the lower end of St. George's or Sugar Island, and following the middle of the channel which divides St. George's from St. Joseph's Island; thence up the east Neebish Channel, nearest to St. George's Island, through the middle of Lake George; thence, west of Jonas' Island, into St. Mary's River, to a point in the middle of that river, about one mile above St. George's or Sugar Island, so as to appropriate and assign the said island to the United States; thence, adopting the line traced on the maps by the commissioners, thro' the river St. Mary and Lake Superior, to a point north of Ile Royale, in said lake, one hundred yards to the north and east of Ile Chapeau, which lastmentioned island lies near the northeastern point of Ile Royale, where the line marked by the commissioners terminates; and from the last-mentioned point, southwesterly, through the middle of the sound between Ile Royale and the northwestern main land, to the mouth of Pigeon River, and up the said river, to and through the north and south Fowl Lakes, to the 1 Mr. Fish, in an instruction to Mr. Moran, at London, of May 21, 1869, acknowledges the receipt of a dispatch from Mr. Reverdy Johnson of April 23, with copies of five maps, the originals and duplicates of which were prepared by the commission under Articles VI. and VII. of the Treaty of Ghent, and says: "That commission having failed to come to an agreement as to a part of the line intended by the 7th article of the Treaty of Ghent, these maps of survey which they prepared were referred to by the negotiators of the Treaty of Washington, as the means of indicating the boundary agreed upon in the 2nd article of that Treaty." (MSS. Dept. of State.) 5627-13 lakes of the height of land between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods; thence, along the water communication to Lake Saisaginaga, and through that lake; thence, to and through Cypress Lake, Lac du Bois Blanc, Lac la Croix, Little Vermillion Lake, and Lake Namecan and through the several smaller lakes, straits, or streams, connecting the lakes here mentioned, to that point in Lac la Pluie, or Rainy Lake, at the Chaudière Falls, from which the commissioners traced the line to the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods; thence, along the said line, to the said most northwestern point, being in latitude 49° 23′ 55′′ north, and in longitude 95° 14′ 38′′ west from the observatory at Greenwich; thence, according to existing treaties, due south to its intersection with the 49th parallel of north latitude, and along that parallel to the Rocky Mountains. It being understood that all the water communications and all the usual portages along the line from Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods, and also Grand Portage, from the shore of Lake Superior to the Pigeon River, as now actually used, shall be free and open to the use of the citizens and subjects of both countries. "ARTICLE VII. "It is further agreed that the channels in the river St. Lawrence on both sides of the Long Sault Islands and of Barnhart Island, the channels in the River Detroit on both sides of the island Bois Blanc, and between that island and both the American and Canadian shores, and all the several channels and passages between the various islands lying near the junction of the river St. Clair with the lake of that name, shall be equally free and open to the ships, vessels, and boats of both parties." Comments on the In the message with which the treaty was submitted to the Senate it was observed that the region of country on and near the shore of Lake Superior, between Pigeon River on the north and Fond du Lac and the River St. Louis on the south and west, embraced, northward of the claim set up by the British commissioner under the Treaty of Ghent, a territory of 4,000,000 acres, considered valuable as a mineral region, while from the height of land at the head of Pigeon River westerly to the Rainy Lake the country was understood to be of little value, being described as a region of rock and water. The message also explained the provisions of the treaty relating to the common navigation of certain channels-a measure rendered necessary in order to secure the use of the water communication through the Great Lakes to both parties. Treaties of 1854 and 1871. By Article IV. of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 the right to navigate both the River St. Lawrence above the point where it ceases to be the boundary and the canals in Canada used as part of the water communication between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean was temporarily secured to the citizens and inhabitants of the United States. By Article XXVI. of the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871, the same right as to the St. Lawrence is secured in perpetuity. By Article XXVII. the British Government engaged to urge upon the government of the Dominion of Canada to secure to the citizens of the United States the use of the St. Lawrence, Welland, and other canals in the Dominion on terms of equality with its inhabitants; and the United States engaged to permit British subjects to use the St. Clair Flats Canal on terms of equality with the inhabitants of the United States, and also to urge upon the State governments to secure to British subjects in the same manner the use of the several State canals connected with the navigation of the lakes or rivers traversed by or contiguous to the boundary. By Article XXVIII. the right to navigate Lake Michigan for commercial purposes was secured to British subjects for a limited term.' 1 See, in relation to the subject of this chapter, the International Boundary of Michigan, by Annah May Soule. (Reprinted from Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXVI.) CHAPTER VII. THE SAN JUAN WATER BOUNDARY: ARBITRATION UNDER ARTICLES XXXIV.-XLII. OF THE TREATY OF MAY 8, 1871. Boundary from Lake of the Woods to Rocky Mountains. By the convention signed at London October 20, 1818, by Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush on the part of the United States and by Frederick John Robinson and Henry Goulburn on the part of Great Britain, the boundary between the territories of the United States and those of His Britannic Majesty, from the most north western point of the Lake of the Woods to the Stony or Rocky Mountains, was fixed at the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude. And in case it should be found that the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods was not on that parallel, it was provided that a line should be drawn from that point due north or south, as the case might be, till it should intersect the parallel, and that from such point of intersection the boundary should be continued due west along the forty-ninth parallel to the Stony Mountains.' Boundary Westward tains. On the 15th of June 1846 James Buchanan, of Rocky Moun- Secretary of State of the United States, and Richard Pakenham, British minister at Washington, concluded a treaty for the adjustment of differences between the two countries "respecting the sovereignty and government of the territory on the northwest coast of America, lying westward of the Rocky or Stony Mountains." The territory thus referred to is that which was known at the Article II. In connection with this chapter, see Bancroft's History of Oregon, and his History of the Northwest Coast; Benton's Thirty Years' View; Greenhow's History of Oregon and California; Twiss's Oregon Territory; Gallatin's Oregon Question; Curtis's Life of James Buchanan; Coues's History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark; Maine's International Law; Br. and For. State Papers, L. 796; LV. 743, 1211, 1281; LIX. 21; LXII. 188. |