Mr. Bancroft to Mr. Buchanan.
Sir: * * * * * * *
The Hudson’s Bay Company have been trying to get a grant of Vancouver’s Island. I inquired, from mere curiosity, about it. Lord Palmerston replied that it was an affair that belonged exclusively to the Colonial Office, and he did not know the intentions of Lord Grey. He then told me, what I had not known before, that he had made a proposition at Washington for marking the boundaries in the northwest by setting up a landmark on the point of land where the forty-ninth parallel touches the sea, and for ascertaining the division line in the channel by noting the bearings of certain objects. I observed that on the main-land a few simple astronomical [Page 149] observations were all that were requisite; that the water in the channel of Haro did not require to be divided, since the navigation was free to both parties; though, of course, the islands east of the center of the channel of Haro were ours. He had no good chart of the Oregon waters, and asked me to let him see the traced copy of Wilkes’s chart. He spoke of the propriety of settling definitively the ownership of the several islands, in order that settlements might not be begun by one party on what properly belongs to the other. On returning home I sent him my traced copy of Wilkes’s chart, with a note, of which I inclose a copy.Mr. Bancroft’s interview with Lord Palmerston.
I am, &c.,
James Buchanan, Esq., Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.