Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1872, Part II, Volume V

No. 44.

Extract from the speech of Mr. Benton, of Missouri, in the Senate, June 18, 1846. Debate on the ratification of the Oregon treaty. Appendix to the Congressional Globe, first session Twenty ninth Congress. 1845– ’46. Page 867.

“The first article of the treaty—and it is the main one, and almost the whole treaty—is in the very words which I myself would have used if the two governments had left it to me to draw the boundary-line between them. The line established by that article—the prolongation of the boundary on the east side of the Rocky Mountains—follows the parallel of 49° to the sea, with a slight deflection through the Straits of Fuca, to avoid cutting the south end of Vancouver Island. * * * * *Mr. Benton finds that the boundary-line passes through the Canal de Haro.

When the line reaches the channel which separates Vancouver Island from the continent, (which it does within sight of the mouth of Fraser’s River,) it proceeds to the middle of the channel, and thence, turning south, through the channel De Haro, (wrongly written Arro on the maps,) to the Straits of Fuca; and then west through the middle of that strait to the sea.” * * * * *