No. 364.
Sir Edward
Thornton to Mr. Blaine.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of yesterday’s date, relating to the British Cree Indians who, it is stated, are still encamped upon the American reservation near Beaver Creek, defying orders to move, and saying that they will fight if their removal be attempted.
In compliance with the wish which you express in that note, I have telegraphed to the governor-general of Canada upon the subject, and am to-day forwarding to his excellency a copy of your note.
I am convinced that the government of the Dominion will use its influence to the utmost to prevent predatory incursions into United States territory by British Indians. At the same time the Government of the United States can fully appreciate the difficulty of preventing such incursions across so extended a frontier, for the forces of the United States were unable about four years ago to prevent Sitting Bull and his followers from crossing the frontier and taking refuge in British territory, although I am confident that this government earnestly desired that they should not be allowed to do so.
The only means which the Government of the Dominion has found to prevent the commission of depredations and disturbances by those American Indians, refugees in Canada, has been by furnishing them subsistence, which it has done to the utmost of its power and at great cost in money; besides that, they have consumed a great number of buffalo in those regions, thus greatly diminishing the amount of subsistence which more properly belongs to the British Indians, and creating great discontent among Her Majesty’s subjects of that race.
I hope, however, that the authorities of the United States may still, without the use of force, be able to induce the British Indians above mentioned to recross the frontier and return to their homes without commiting further depredations.
I have, &c.,