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

Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Bancroft.

Department of State, Washington, December 28, 1846.

Sir: I have obtained from the Navy Department, and now transmit to you, in accordance with the request contained in your dispatch No. 1, [November 3,] the traced copy of Wilkes’s chart of the Straits of Haro. This will enable you to act understandingly *upon any question which may hereafter arise between the two governments in respect to the sovereignty of the islands situate between the continent and Vancouver’s Island. It is not probable, however, that any claim of this character will be seriously preferred on the part of Her Britannic Majesty’s government to any island lying to the eastward of the Canal of Arro, as marked in Captain Wilkes’s “Map of the Oregon Territory.” This, I have no doubt, is the channel which Lord Aberdeen had in view, when, in a conversation with Mr. MacLane, about the middle of May last, on the subject of the resumption of the negotiation for an amicable settlement of the Oregon question, his lordship explained the character of the proposition he intended to submit through Mr. Pakenham. As understood by Mr. MacLane, and by him communicated to this department in his dispatch of the 18th of the same month, it was, “First, to divide 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,” &c.Mr. Buchanan instructs Mr. Bancroft that Haro is the boundary channel.[60]

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

George Bancroft, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

[Inclosure: Chart of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, &c. By the U. S. Ex. Ex., 1841.]

Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.

Legation of the United States, London, March 29, 1847.

Sir: * * * * * * *

While on this point I ought to add that my attention has again been called to the probable wishes of the Hudson’s Bay Company to get some of the islands on our side of the line in the Straits of Fuca. I speak only from my own judgment and inductions from what I observe and hear; but it would not surprise me if a formal proposition should soon be made on the part of the British Government to run the line between the two countries at the west from the point where it first meets the water through the straits to the Pacific Ocean.Mr. Bancroft warns Mr. Buchanan of the designs of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Such a proposition is in itself very proper, if there be no ulterior motive to raise unnecessary doubts and to claim islands *that are properly ours. The ministry, I believe, has no such design. Some of its members would be the first to frown on it. But I am not so well assured that the Hudson’s Bay Company is equally reasonable, or that on the British side a boundary commissioner might not be appointed favoring the encroaching propensities of that company. * *[61]

I am, &c.,

GEORGE BANCROFT.

James Buchanan, Esq., &c., &c., &c., Washington City.