Mr. Crampton to Mr. Marcy.
Sir: I have been instructed by Her Majesty’s Government to call the serious attention of the Government of the United States to the unsatisfactory and hazardous state of things which continues to exist on the boundary which divides the Territory of Washington from the British Possessions occupied by the Hudson’s Bay Company; and Her Majesty’s Government direct me to express their regret that their repeated remonstrances [Page 248] have not led to any measures which seem to have succeeded in restraining the acts of the authorities of that Territory.
I have already had the honor of addressing your Department (in a note to Mr. Hunter on the 27th July last) respecting the depredations upon the property of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Island of San Juan, by Mr. Ellis Barnes, Sheriff of Watcom County, of the Territory of Washington, in virtue of an alleged claim for taxes due to the authorities of the Territory; and I have now the honor to inclose the copy of a further letter from the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, together with its accompanying documents, in regard to the same matter, from which it appears that no reparation whatever has been made to the Company for the very heavy losses which they incurred on that occasion.
You will at once perceive, Sir, that the occurrence in question has arisen out of the conflicting claims of the authorities of Vancouver’s Island and of Washington Territory to the jurisdiction of the Island of San Juan, as appertaining, under the provisions of the Treaty between Great Britain and the United States of 1846, to the dominions of their respective Governments.
San Juan is one of the small islands lying in the Gulf of Georgia, between Vancouver’s Island and the main-land; and the question which has arisen between the parties regards the position of the channel through the middle of which, by the provision of the Treaty of 1846, the boundary line is to be run.
In the early part of the year 1848; I had the honor, by the instruction of Her Majesty’s Government, to propose to the Government of the United States to name a Joint Commission for the purpose of marking out the northwest boundary; and more particularly that part of it in the neighborhood of Vancouver’s Island, in regard to which, as you will perceive from a reference to my note of the 13th January of that year to the Honorable James Buchanan, the Secretary of State of the United States, Her Majesty’s Government already foresaw the possibility of the occurrence of misunder*standing between the settlers of the respective nations; and Her Majesty’s Government, moreover, then proposed, in order at once to preclude such misunderstandings, that before instructing their respective Commissioners, the two Governments should agree to adopt as the “channel” designated by the Treaty, that marked by Vancouver in his charts as the navigable channel, and laid down with soundings by that navigator.[xxxvi]
Mr. Buchanan entirely concurring in the expediency of losing no time in determining the position of the boundary line, nevertheless felt some objection to adopting the channel marked by Vancouver as the “channel” designated by the Treaty, in the absence of more accurate geographical information, and he suggested that the Joint Commissioners, when appointed, should be in the first place instructed to survey the region in question, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the channel marked by Vancouver, or some other channel, as yet unexplored, between the numerous islands of the Gulf of Georgia, should be adopted as the channel designated by the Treaty, or, in other words, should be found to be the main channel, through the middle of which, according to the generally admitted principle, the boundary line should be run.
To this suggestion Her Majesty’s Government, in the hope that immediate measures would be taken by the Government of the United States to name Commissioners to proceed to the spot with those already designated by the British Government, made no objection.
[Page 249]It has been a subject of regret to Her Majesty’s Government that, from causes upon which it is unnecessary to dwell, no appointment of Commissioners has, up to the present time, been made by the Government of the United States; and I am now instructed again to press this matter on their earnest attention.
Should it appear possible, however, that this proposal cannot be met by the Government of the United States without further difficulty or delay, I would again suggest the expediency of the adoption by both Governments of the channel marked as the only known navigable channel by Vancouver, as that designated by the Treaty. It is true that the Island of San Juan, and perhaps some others of the group of small islands by which the Gulf of Georgia is studded, would thus be included within British territory; on the other hand, it is to be considered that the islands in question are of very small value, and that the existence of another navigable channel, broader and deeper than that laid down by Vancouver, by the adoption of which some of those islands might possibly fall within the jurisdiction of the United States, is, according to the reports of the most recent navigators in that region extremely improbable; while, on the other hand, the continued existence of a question of doubtful jurisdiction in a country so situated as Washington Territory and Vancouver’s Island, is likely to give rise to a recurrence of acts of a similar nature to those to which I have had the honor of calling your attention, and which I have no doubt would not be less deplored by the Government of the United States than by that of Great Britain.
I am, &c.,