Mr. Crosby to the Attorney-General.
Sir: In compliance with your request that I would furnish you with any information which I may possess with regard to the navigation of Rosario Straits by British and other vessels previous to 1846, and whether this or the canal de Haro was the channel most frequently used up to that period and since, these being the channels now in dispute as to which is the true boundary line on the northwest coast between the United States and Great Britain, I have the honor to make the following statement, prefacing it with a brief account of my opportunities for acquiring this information, and the sources from which it was derived.
I was a resident of Washington Territory from 1853 to 1860. I was for several terms a member of the territorial legislature and *in the discharge of my official duties had occasion to thoroughly investigate the subject of the claims of the Hudson Bay Company, and its branch organization, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, which foreign corporations at that time, and for several years afterward, retained their trading-posts and establishments in different portions of the territory. This was a source of much complaint, as they claimed large tracts of unoccupied land, and thus materially interfered with the settlement of the country.[72]
The searching for the foundation of these extensive claims necessarily involved the history of all the region west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Columbia River to the forty-ninth parallel.
My information, other than the facts of which I was personally cognizant during my seven years’ residence, was derived from statements made me by persons who had been in the country many years. Among these were the earlier missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, the first settlers, old trappers, and, in many instances, the chief factors and traders of the Hudson Bay Company. One of the topics of frequent conversation was the early navigation of Puget Sound and the adjacent waters. I gleaned from corroborating evidence the following facts. At the time of the treaty of 1846, the vessels employed between Victoria, the trading-post at Nisqually, near the head of the Sound, Fort Langley on Fraser River, and the other posts on the northern coast, were the Hudson Bay Company steamer Beaver and the schooner Cadboro. The company owned two or three small brigs, which were principally used in the trade with California and the Sandwich Islands. Each year two ships were dispatched from England, bringing out trading goods and other supplies and returning with the furs collected at the depots of Victoria and Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, from the various trading-posts on the coast and in the interior, west of the Rocky Mountains. On the arrival of these ships all of the posts, both of the interior and the coast, were fitted out with what was estimated as a supply sufficient to answer for trading purposes and the support of the employés for a year ahead.
The usual course for the two vessels especially assigned to this duty on the sound and northern coast was in the spring of each year—which was the time of the arrival and distribution—to take supplies up to Nisqually for that post and the station at Cowlitz Plains, some fifty miles south. The extensive farm at this *latter place was started for the purpose of raising grain, potatoes, and other vegetables, for the supply both of the northern posts and the Russian possessions at Sitka and the Aleutian Islands. For their bread stuffs the Russian-Americans were entirely dependent upon this farm, and the [Page 157] Puget Sound Agricultural Company had therefore with them a large and lucrative trade. At Nisqually were large herds of cattle, which were slaughtered as required and salted down. These provisions were taken on board the Beaver and Cadboro, and, with the other supplies, delivered at the posts on Fraser River and up the coast.[73]
Coming down from Nisqually, the masters of the vessels naturally, in their trips to Fraser River, turned into Rosario Straits. From up the sound it was the first channel which led off to the north.
I have mentioned this customary manner of delivering the annual supplies, because it is the principal reason why the Rosario Straits at that time was generally used by the fur company’s vessels. Another cause may be found in the fact that the canal de Haro is a broad, deep arm of the sea, being, in fact, but a continuation of the straits of Fuca, sweeping in with a rushing tide, and meeting the waters of the Gulf of Georgia at its northern end. Its extreme depth made it difficult to find good anchorage.Why the so-called Rosario Strait was used.
Rosario Straits is a very much narrower channel. It is not comparatively deep, is well sheltered, and affords everywhere secure anchorage. Of late years it has been found to be dangerous for large ships on account of sunken rocks, but the vessels then navigating it were small, and therefore of light draught, and ran little or no risk on that account.
The statement that the canal de Haro is a channel but recently known is absurd. The steamer Beaver went through it years before the treaty, and that the schooner Cadboro did so is established by the fact that one of the passages leading into the canal de Haro is known by the name of the Cadboro Pass. All the northern Indians who came to Victoria to trade passed through the canal de Haro, as did also the Indians from Fraser River and the company’s factors and traders at the posts on that river who frequently visited Victoria between the trips of the supply-vessels. In 1853 Admiral (then Lieutenant) Alden passed through the canal de Haro in the United States Coast-Survey steamer Active. Governor Douglas, of Vancouver’s Island, gave him much valuable information concerning it, and evinced a thorough and complete* knowledge of its tides and depth of water. Douglas was the governor by virtue of being the senior chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company. He had selected the site and established the post at Victoria in 1842. A man of great energy, he made himself acquainted with everything relating to the interests of the company he represented, and this involved not only a knowledge of the fur-trade and the character of the Indians, but also that of the surrounding country and its adjacent waters.The canal de Haro used by the vessels of the Hudson Bay Company before 1846. [74]
In the spring of 1854, on a visit to Victoria, I was a witness to the fact that Canal de Haro was the channel used by the English vessels. At that time quite a considerable trade had sprung up with Nanaimo, in consequence of the working of the extensive coal-mines at that place, which is on the eastern side of Vancouver’s Island, near the fiftieth parallel. I was standing, with several other persons, watching a large bark, which had just left the harbor, and under full sail was heading up the passage, when one of the party, an old Hudson Bay Company ship master, remarked, “If the breeze holds she will go through Haro straits flying; but if it fails, she will drift a long way before finding anchorage. The channel is so broad and the straits so deep that it is like being out at sea.”Canal de Haro the passage to the north.
From 1854 to 1860, I was frequently at Vancouver’s Island, and know personally that Canal de Haro was the usual route to Fraser river, the Nanaimo coal-mines, and the saw-mills at Burrard’s Inlet.
[Page 158]In 1857, the British steam corvette “Satellite” and the surveying steamer Plumper arrived at Vancouver’s Island. Captains Prevost and Richards, commanding these vessels, were the British commissioners to settle the boundary line. When they went to Nanaimo for coal, they passed through Canal de Haro.
In 1858 occurred what is known as the Fraser river excitement, consequent upon the discovery of gold in that river and its tributaries. During that year I made frequent visits to Victoria, and was also up Fraser river. Victoria was the disembarking point for the ocean steamers from San Francisco. Steamers to be used between Victoria and Fraser river were brought up from California; others were hastily built on the sound for that purpose; some of these smaller steamers also plied between the American towns and the river. In the great rush of gold miners, the steamers, though crowded to their utmost capacity, could not convey all seeking *passage. Every other means therefore of water conveyance was in addition brought into service—schooners, sloops, boats, and canoes. The route at first adopted was entirely through the canal de Haro, but the steamers eventually went by a still nearer passage. After going part of the way up the canal de Haro, they turned into the channel on the western side of Saturna island, passing into the Gulf of Georgia by what is known as the “Active pass.”[75]
In 1859, I was for several months on San Juan island, and frequently saw the steamers and other vessels passing between Victoria and Fraser river. The canal de Haro and the nearer route inside of Saturna island were the only routes used; nor did I ever see or hear of any steamer or sailing-vessel during the gold excitement going from Victoria to Fraser river by the way of Rosario straits. In the hurry of those stirring times, the master of any vessel who took such a roundabout route to reach his destination would have been not only severely ridiculed, but in all probability would have lost his carrying trade, both of passengers and of goods.
The “middle channel” which was proposed by Captain Prevost as a compromise, at its entrance, between the islands of San Juan and Lopez, is so narrow that it cannot be seen until you are quite near. A vessel approaching it has to run in by the landmarks. It is but a few hundred yards across, and is only used by vessels going into San Juan harbor, which is on the inner side of the island, a short distance from the entrance. The avowed object of this proposal was, to obtain San Juan Island, the most valuable of the islands in the Archipelago. The channel designated passes into the canal de Haro, near its northern end, and would present the anomaly of the canal de Haro being adopted as the boundary for a portion of its course in its direct passage to the ocean, and then diverged from, thus conflicting with the clause in the Treaty which expressly stipulates the course of the water-line shall be through a continuous channel.Worthlessness of the middle channel.
The assertion that San Juan is essential for the protection of Vancouver’s Island is as absurd as the pretended ignorance of the navigability of the canal de Haro. The nearest portion of San Juan is eighteen miles from the entrance to Victoria harbor, and owing to the immense width of the channel, there is no point at which fortifications could be established which could interfere with the passage of vessels to the settlements of British Columbia.
*The canal de Haro is the only one of the channels which is over a cannon-shot across. The difference in width and depth of water between it and Rosario Straits is so great that it appears like contrasting an inland sea with a river.[76] Difference between Haro and Rosario straits.
[Page 159]With the growing commerce of that section Rosario straits has completely fallen into disuse, and the canal de Haro is now, and has been for many years, the route exclusively used between Victoria and British Columbia.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. Geo. H. Williams, Attorney-General.