No. 70.
[Extracts.]
Captain Prevost to Mr. Campbell.
Her Britannic Majesty’s Ship
Satellite, Simiahmoo Bay, Gulf of
Georgia,
October 28, 1857.
4. By a careful consideration of the wording of the treaty, it would seem
distinctly to provide that the channel mentioned should possess three
characteristics: 1st. It should separate the continent from Vancouver’s Island. 2d. It should admit of the
boundary line being carried through the middle of it in a southerly
direction. 3d. It should be a navigable channel. To these three peculiar
conditions the channel known as the Rosario Strait most entirely
answers.Admiral Prevost on the channel of the
treaty.
5. It is readily admitted that the Canal de Arro is also a navigable
channel, and therefore answers to one characteristic of the channel of
the treaty.
The Canal de Haro, or Arro, is undoubtedly the navigable channel
which, at its position, separates Vancouver’s
Island from the continent, and
therefore, while other channels exist more adjacent to the
continent, cannot be the channel which “separates the continent from Vancouver’s
Island.”
7. With reference to your remarks upon the map drawn by “Charles
Preuss,” * * I beg you to understand me that I do not bring this map
forward as any authority for the line of
boundary. * *
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.
