No. 75.
Lord John Russell to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: In pointing out, therefore, to your Lordship that in what-ever manner the question was ultimately settled, Her Majesty’s government could not yield the island of San Juan, Her Majesty’s government were, by implication, abandoning a large part of the territory they had claimed, and were merely insisting on the retention of an island, which, from the peculiarity of its situation, it was impossible for Her Majesty’s government to cede without compromising interests of the gravest importance.The British government in 1859 does not claim the so-called Rosario as the boundary.
* * * The fact is, that, by the instructions with which Captain Prevost was furnished, he was authorized, in case he should be of opinion that the claims of Her Majesty’s government, to consider the Rosario Strait as the channel of the treaty, could not be sustained, to adopt any other intermediate channel on which he and the United States commissioner might agree.
* * * * Sir R. Pakenham seems to think that the conditions of the treaty would obtain their most exact fulfillment if the line were carried through the Douglas Channel.[118]
* * * Or, again, if it would be inconvenient to both nations to have five or six islands partially divided between them, would it not be fair and expedient to look for a channel which shall be the nearest approximation to that line, midway between the continent and the island of Vancouver, which is designated by the treaty? And if Douglas’s Channel fulfills this condition, is it not the line most in accordance with the treaty, as well as with general policy and convenience?
* * * If I notice General Cass’s allusion to the letters which he says Mr. Bancroft repeatedly wrote to Lord Palmerston in 1848, it is only for the purpose of placing on record what, no doubt, Mr. Bancroft duly reported to his government at the time, viz, that Lord Palmerston gave Mr. Bancroft distinctly to understand that the British government did not acquiesce in the pretensions of the United States that the boundary line should be run down the Haro Channel. * * *Lord J. Russell does injustice to the moderation of his own administration in 1848. Lord Palmerston gave the acquiescence of silence.
Lord Lyons.