No. 56.

Extract from letter of Messrs. Campbell and Parke to the Secretary of State.

Sir: * * * * * * *

A map should be examined showing the relative position of the Hudson Bay Company’s establishment at Victoria on Van*couver’s Island, Nisqually on Puget Sound, and Fort Langley on Fraser River, and [Page 155] the position of the Canal de Haro and Rosario Straits as avenues of communication between the three points. It would be well also to consider the relative importance of these three establishments in those waters.Why the vessels of the Hudson’s Bay Company used the so-called Rosario straits. [70]

* * * * * * * * *

It is not at all probable that any vessel from foreign parts or from the Columbia River ever did communicate directly with Fort Langley (on Fraser River) without touching at the other posts on the lower waters, Victoria and Nisqually. It is well known, on the contrary, that these trips of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s vessels were made periodically for the purpose of distributing the regular supplies of food and merchandise for trading purposes, and receiving in return the furs collected at the several posts. Now, by referring to the map, it will be seen that a vessel leaving the Columbia River for the foregoing purpose would first touch at Victoria, then at Nisqually, and then at Fort Langley on Fraser River. In making this trip no navigator would dream of taking the Canal de Haro in sailing from Nisqually to Fort Langley, when the more direct and much shorter route lay through Rosario Straits. * * Although Rosario Strait was generally used, (and good reasons have been given herein for this general use,) the Canal de Haro was not only known by these very Hudson Bay Company’s employés to be navigable, but by their own affidavits it is shown that two of their own vessels made successful passages through this channel prior to the date of the treaty. * * * * * *

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Late United States Boundary Commissioner.
JNO. G. PARKE, Major of Engineers, Brevet Major-General.