I have to state to you that the Earl of Aberdeen, to whom I have
referred, informs me that he distinctly remembers the general tenor of
his conversations with Mr. MacLane on the subject of the Oregon
Boundary, and is certain that it was the intention of the Treaty to
adopt the mid-channel of the Straits as the line of demarkation, without
reference to islands, the position, and, indeed, the very existence of
which had hardly at that time been accurately ascertained; and he has no
recollection of any mention having been made, during the discussion, of
the Canal de Haro, or, indeed, any other channel than those described in
the Treaty itself.
I also inclose a Memorandum drawn up by Sir Richard Pakenham, the
negotiator of the Treaty of 1846.
[Inclosure in foregoing dispatch.]
Memorandum by Sir R. Pakenham on the
Water Boundary under the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
I have examined the papers put into my hand by Mr. Hammond, relating
to the line of boundary to be established between the British and
United States possessions on the northwest coast of America, and I
have endeavored to call to mind any circumstance which might have
occurred at the time when the Oregon Treaty was concluded, (June 15,
1846,) of a nature either to strengthen or to invalidate the
pretension now put forward by the United States Commissioner to the
effect that the boundary contemplated by the Treaty would be a line
passing down the middle of the channel, called Canal de Haro, and
not, as suggested on the part of Great Britain, along the middle of
the channel called Vancouver’s or Rosario Strait, neither of which
two lines would, as I humbly conceive, exactly fulfill the
conditions of the Treaty, which, according to their literal tenor,
would require the line to be traced along the middle of the channel
(meaning, I presume, the whole intervening space) which separates
the Continent from Vancouver’s Island. And I think I can safely
assert that the Treaty of June 15, 1846, was signed and ratified
without any intimation to us whatever on the part of the United
States Government as to the particular direction to be given to the
line of boundary contemplated by Article I of that Treaty.
All that we knew about it was that it was to run “through the middle
of the channel which separates the Continent from Vancouver’s
Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel
and of Fuca’s Straits to the Pacific Ocean.”
It is true that, in a dispatch from Mr. MacLane, then United States
Minister in London, to the American Secretary of State, Mr.
Buchanan, dated 18th May, 1846, which dispatch was not, however,
made public until after the ratification of the Treaty by the
Senate, Mr. MacLane informs his Government that the line of boundary
about to be proposed by Her Majesty’s Government would “probably be
substantially to divide [Page 245]
the territory by the extension of the line on the parallel of 49° to
the sea; that is to say, to the arm of the sea called Birch’s Bay,
thence by the Canal de Haro and Straits of Fuca to the ocean.”
It is also true that Mr. Senator Benton, one of the ablest and most
zealous advocates for the ratification of the Treaty, (relying, no
doubt, on the statement furnished by Mr. MacLane,) did, in a speech
on the subject, describe the intended line of boundary to be one
passing along the middle of the Haro Channel.
But, on the other hand, the Earl of Aberdeen, in his final
instructions, dated May 18, 1846, says nothing whatever about the
Canal de Haro; but, on the contrary, desires that the line might be
drawn “in a southerly direction through the center of King George’s
Sound and the Straits of Fuca to the Pacific Ocean.”
It is my belief that neither Lord Aberdeen, nor Mr. MacLane, nor Mr.
Buchanan, possessed at that time a sufficiently accurate knowledge
of the geography or hydrography of the region in question to enable
them to define more accurately what was the intended line of
boundary than is expressed in *the words of the Treaty, and it is
certain that Mr. Buchanan signed the Treaty with Mr. MacLane’s
dispatch before him, and yet that he made no mention whatever of the
“Canal de Haro as that through which the line of boundary should
run, as understood by the United States Government.”[xxxiv]
My own dispatches of that period contain no observation whatever of a
tendency contrary to what I thus state from memory, and they
therefore so far plead in favor of the accuracy of my
recollections.
