compromise in case of failure to obtain Rosario Straits, which might be agreed upon if it should be found the United States had no contemporaneous evidence to show the real intentions. of the two Governments. And here I conceive is the secret of the claim for Rosario Straits. The British Government never could have seriously expected the United States to agree to that channel as a boundary, but made it a pretence, in the hope of being thus able to obtain a compromise line, by which they would secure the valuable and much-coveted island of San Juan.

"The motive which induced the first proposition of Lord Palmerston to the United States, to appoint commissioners to mark out the water boundary, is embodied in Mr. Crampton's letter to Mr. Buchanan, of January 13, 1848. Extracts from that letter will best exhibit Lord Palmerston's motive and object in making the proposal. (See extract accompanying correspondence with Captain Prevost.) (')

"If the foregoing extracts be a sincere expression of the views of the British Government in regard to the water boundary at the date of Mr. Crampton's letter (and there certainly could have been no motive for throwing doubt upon the wording of the treaty if it clearly meant Rosario Straits as the the channel), at that early day they considered the boundary line between the Gulf of Georgia and the Straits of Fuca as less distinctly and accurately defined by the verbal description of the treaty than any part of the boundary line between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, not hitherto determined and marked. And in this opinion it would appear that Mr. Pakenham agrees with Lord Palmerston, so far at least as regards the supposition that Rosario Straits is the particular channel the negociators of the Oregon convention had in view in employing the word 'channel.' As this is the only official document in my possession wherein Mr. Pakenham's views in regard to the boundary are expressed or alluded to, I consider it important as establishing the fact that in his 'suggestion' to his Government he did not claim Rosario Straits to be the boundary channel intended by Mr. Buchanan and himself, the

(1) Ante p. 45, and American State Papers, pp. 40, 41.

6

signers of the treaty. The very important part he had in the negociation and conclusion of the treaty ought to constitute him high authority with the British Government in all matters pertaining to the boundary. If Mr. Pakenham had received no other instructions from Lord Aberdeen in regard to the proposition he was authorised to submit to the United States for the settlement of the Oregon question than those Lord Napier exhibited to me, it is not easy to conceive how he could foresee any serious doubt or difference of opinion between the two Governments in regard to that portion of the boundary now in dispute. But the views of Mr. Pakenham are not sufficiently disclosed in Mr. Crampton's letter to justify an opinion as to the exact nature and extent of his 'suggestion to Her Majesty's Government in regard to the water boundary. I think it not improbable, however, that the instructions of Lord Palmerston to Mr. Crampton were based upon that 'suggestion.' If the British Government should persist in refusing to adopt the Canal de Haro as the treaty channel, the production of Mr. Pakenham's despatch containing the suggestion referred to may become important to the United States, further to reveal the origin of the British claim to the Haro Archipelago.

"After Lord Aberdeen's conference with Mr. McLane, in which he designated the Canal de Haro as the boundary channel he intended to propose to the United States through Mr. Pakenham, he could not, in good faith, have made such a change in the proposition or projet of the treaty as would throw these numerous islets' on the British side of the line without informing Mr. McLane, so that he might notify his Government of the fact, or without instructing Mr. Pakenham to inform Mr. Buchanan of the modification. And unless the despatch of Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Pakenham enclosing the projet of the treaty (which I have not seen) contains instructions which authorised Mr. Pakenham to make such changes in the projet as would throw the Haro Archipelago on the British side of the line; and unless Mr. Pakenham made such changes, and informed Mr. Buchanan that he had done so, the

proposition of the British Government, as explained by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. McLane, must (in good faith) have remained unaltered in its meaning, and the projet of the treaty must have been submitted to Mr. Buchanan as it was received from Lord Aberdeen. That Lord Aberdeen never informed Mr. McLane of any such designed alteration, and that Mr. Pakenham never communicated to Mr. Buchanan that any such alteration was made in the projet of the treaty, either by Lord Aberdeen or himself, is evident from the fact that Mr. McLane's letter of May 18, explanatory of the intended proposition, was transmitted to the Senate with the projet of the treaty, when the President asked the previous advice of that body in regard to its acceptance, and also from Mr. Buchanan's letter to Mr. Bancroft of December 28, 1846, hereinbefore quoted. As Rosario Straits, therefore, cannot be claimed as 'the channel,' either upon the literal wording of the treaty, or upon the intentions of the actual negociators,' from the contemporaneous evidence of Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, or Mr. Pakenham, the highest British authority upon the subject of the treaty, I am at a loss as to the source from which the Earl of Clarendon could have obtained the information heofficially' communicated to Captain Prevost that the British Government contemplated Rosario Straits as the treaty channel.

"In preparing the draught of joint instructions which accompanies Mr. Crampton's letter, the British Government, with an apparent air of frankness, and even generosity, did not neglect the opportunity of so wording it as to secure to themselves every possible advantage that could be derived from a one-sided construction of the first article of the treaty, including the proviso, in the event of the United States being found ignorant of or indifferent to their territorial rights in respect to the Haro Archipelago. The instructions in regard to matters of detail, respecting the mode of marking the line (which should more appropriately be left to the commissioners), are so burdensomely minute and verbose as almost to hide from view the objects to be gained. The following paragraph embodies

the gist of the whole document, so far as relates to the boundary line :—(1)

"That part of the channel of the Gulf of Georgia which lies nearly midway between the forty-eighth and forty-ninth parallels of north latitude, appears by Vancouver's chart to be obstructed by numerous islands, which seem to be separated from each other by small and intricate channels, as yet unexplored; it has therefore been mutually determined between the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, in order to avoid the difficulties which would probably attend the exploration of all these channels, that the line of boundary shall be drawn along the middle of the wide channel to the east of those islands, which is laid down by Vancouver, and marked with soundings as the channel which had been explored and used by the officers under his command. You will find the line thus described traced in red, in the copy from Vancouver's chart hereto annexed.'

"Upon an examination of the Admiralty chart of ‘Vancouver Island and the Gulf of Georgia,' published February 28, 1849, and compiled from the surveys of Galiano and Valdes in 1792, Vancouver in 1793, and Captain Kellet, Royal Navy, in 1847—although some parts of the space between the continent and Vancouver's Island do not appear to have been minutely surveyed-it will be found that the Canal de Haro, as far as it is laid down with soundings, is unmistakably represented as the channel which would give the whole of Vancouver's Island and its harbours to Great Britain,' while its great width and deep soundings show it to be by far the largest channel connecting the Straits of Fuca with the Gulf of Georgia. Although the chart was not published until a year after the date of Mr. Crampton's letter, the results of the survey were no doubt in possession of the Admiralty as soon after the completion of the survey as the work could be plotted. If I may judge by the survey connected with this commission, it is customary for the surveyors of the British Government to

(1) Copy of the draught will be found ante p. 48, and American State Papers, p. 42.

forward to the Admiralty from time to time the plotting and sketches of their work as it progresses; and it is reasonable to suppose that such was the case at the time Captain Kellet was engaged in the survey of these waters. The survey does not appear to have been carried on beyond the working season of 1847, which generally closes about the 1st of October on account of the constant rains after that period. Why the survey was discontinued, or why the time was consumed in pushing it into American waters, as far south as Hood's Canal, which might have completed the Canal de Haro, can only be explained by the supposition that any further detailed knowledge of those parts' did not promise to be such as the British 'Government had been led to expect'-probably by the Hudson's Bay Company. I send herewith a tracing of the chart above referred to.

"Her Majesty's Government seemed also to be of opinion that a naval officer of scientific attainments and conciliatory character, appointed on the part of each Government, would be sufficient for the purpose of marking out that part of the boundary which they considered as the least distinctly and accurately defined by the verbal description of the treaty of any part of the line dividing the United States from the British possessions. Before sending out these officers as commissioners, Her Majesty's Government were of the opinion that they should be instructed as to the particular channel through which the water boundary line is to run, considering it to be a question turning upon the interpretation of the treaty, rather than upon local observation and survey. The argument presented in favour of Vancouver (or Rosario) Straits, it has already been shown, was without any foundation in fact, and had no weight with Mr. Buchanan when presented. I mention it now as evincing at that time an apparent disposition on the part of the British Government to carry the treaty into effect according to the intentions of the negociators of the treaty, and not according to an inversion of the meaning of the language of the treaty. And here I beg to call attention to the simple manner in which Her Majesty's Government destroys the argument founded