treaty clearly indicated "the channel which separates the continent from Van-¦ couver's Island." The Gulf of Georgia washing the continent at the northern end of the line; the Canal de Haro, Vancouver's Island, at the southern end, and at its junction with the Straits of Fuca, presented to the eye a continuous channel that unmistakably separated, throughout its whole length, the continent from Vancouver's Island, and about which it might well have been supposed by them (with their full knowledge of the motive that induced this deflection from the forty-ninth parallel) there could be no question. But a glance at the chart of the United States Coast Survey, on a large scale, accurately defining the space through which the boundary line is to be traced, will show much more forcibly how well the language of the treaty was chosen to express in few words the object of the negotiators.

On the assumption that the language used by Mr. McLane to describe the boundary line had been originally the words of the proposition, (or projet of the treaty,) and not retained, you say that it "would seem rather to show that discussion on the subject had taken place, and that the line of boundary had been designedly altered, and the wording of the treaty as it now stands substituted to meet the alteration."

I am somewhat at a loss to know between whom you suppose this discussion to have taken place; whether between Mr. McLane and Lord Aberdeen or between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Pakenham. It could not have been between the former, for it would not appear that there was any opportunity for discussion after their conference and before the departure of their despatches; or if it had been, Mr. McLane would certainly have notified his government of the fact. Nor do I see how any discussion could have taken place between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Pakenham that could have effected any alteration in the proposition; for it would appear that Mr. Pakenham had neither power to accept nor offer modifications, as will be seen by an extract from Mr. McLane's letter and his own statement in the conference with Mr. Buchanan. Mr. McLane

says:

It may be considered certain also in my opinion that the offer now to be made is not to be submitted as an ultimatum, and is not intended as such, though I have reason to know that Mr. Pakenham will not be authorized to accept or reject any modification that may be proposed on our part, but that he will in such case be instructed to refer the modification to his government.

From the foregoing extract it will be perceived that Mr. Pakenham had no authority to accept any proposed alteration to the treaty, though it is not presumed the proposition for the change you suggest could have been expected from Mr. Buchanan. On the other hand, Mr. Pakenham was not authorized to propose any modifications, as has been seen from his conference with Mr. Buchanan, June 6th, in which he submits "the draught of a convention setting forth the terms which he had been instructed to propose to the government of the United States for the settlement of the Oregon question," which could not have been otherwise than in conformity with the terms of the proposition communicated by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. McLane. I cannot, therefore, admit that the original proposition was "designedly altered" with the consent of either Mr. Buchanan or Mr. McLane. Nor can I agree with you that the islands you refer to, "barren, rocky and valueless" as they might then have been deemed, would have been conceded as readily as you suppose, after the positive assertions of the President (communicated to Mr. McLane by Mr. Buchanan) that he would not consent to surrender any territory claimed by the United States south of the forty-ninth parallel, with the exception of the southern end of Vancouver's Island. I cannot conceive the motive which could induce any officer of the United States government to surrender a portion of the territory which the line proposed by the British government threw on the American side, when at the same time he knew the proposition was not an ultimatum,

ISLAND OF SAN JUAN.

and not intended as such, as will be seen from the extract of Mr. McLane's letter heretofore quoted. In addition thereto he says:

I do not think there can be much doubt, however, that an impression has been produced here that the Senate would accept the proposition now offered, at least without any material modification, and that the President would not take the responsibility of rejecting it without consulting the Senate. If there be any reasonable ground to entertain such an impression, however erroneous, an offer less objectionable in the first instance, at least, could hardly be expected."

And he again says:

Feeling very sure, however, that the present offer is not made or intended as an ultimatum, I think it only reasonable to infer an expectation on the part of those who are offering it, not only that modifications may be suggested, but that they may be reasonably required.

From the foregoing extracts you must perceive that the United States government was not in a position to make concessions, and from the speech of Mr. Benton, which I submitted to your perusal, you will have seen that a portion of the members of the Senate insisted upon modifications, which would have been asked of the British government, if Mr. Pakenham had been authorized to grant them, and were only prevented from doing so by the delay incident to sending to England.

I cannot therefore admit that any such alteration as you suggest could have possibly taken place. Everything connected with the settlement of the Oregon question was at that time deemed important. And no officer of the United States government would have ventured to make such a concession without its being fully understood by all who had any connection with making or ratifying the treaty. Even the reason you suggest for the concession is one which would apply with greater force against the boundary line running through Rosario Straits than through the Canal de Haro; for Rosario Straits being narrower than the Canal de Haro, the objection to the former applies with greater force than it does to the latter. After much reflection and consideration, I am quite unable to conceive when and where this " designed alteration" could have taken place, and if it be not an entire supposition, I would respectfully ask for further information on the subject, in order that I may regulate my judgment accordingly.

Your opinion that the line of boundary was altered, you say, is strengthened by your "having been officially informed, by high and competent authority, that the channel commonly known in England as the Vancouver Strait-that now called the Rosario Strait-was the channel contemplated by the British government as the channel of the treaty; and the mention of a particular channel by Mr. McLane, and the absence of the name of that channel from the treaty, together with the very peculiar wording of the treaty, would seem almost conclusively to prove the fact."

I have no means of determining the source from which the high and competent authority you refer to received his information; but I would respectfully suggest that, after the cotemporaneous documentary evidence I have produced, the mere assertion of any person at this time, no matter what his position may be, unless he was immediately concerned in the negotiation of the treaty, can be of little weight: It is quite possible that the British government may have contemplated Rosario Straits as the channel; but I would respectfully submit that they proposed the Canal de Haro, and that the United States government accepted that proposition.

In your endeavor to show that the Canal de Haro could not have been the only channel regarded in the United States as the channel of the treaty, both at the time of its ratification and afterwards, you state that you have in your possession a "Map of Oregon and Upper California, published at Washington City in 1848, drawn by Charles Preuss, under the order of the Senate of the United States,' in which the boundary line between the British possessions and those of the United States, distinctly lithographed and colored, is carried down through the channel now called Rosario Straits," &c. You further say that, if

the "Canal de Haro was the only channel contemplated by the Senate of the United States as the channel of the treaty, it seems remarkable that within a short period of its conclusion a map should be 'drawn under the order of the Senate,' and published and given forth to the world with a boundary line upon it, not drawn through the Canal de Haro," but through Rosario Straits.

I have also in my possession a copy of the same map, and, as its title declares, it is a "Map of Oregon and Upper California, from the surveys of John Charles Frémont and other authorities," and is accompanied by a geographical memoir, which was also published by the Senate at the same time. By an examination of that memoir, it will be seen that the accurate delineation of the boundary formed no part of the object for which the map was directed. The boundary line north, as well as south, on that map was drawn merely to show the extent of the country described in the memoir.

By a comparison of the Mexican or southern boundary on the same map with the true line as defined by the commissioners and surveyors appointed under the treaty, an error quite as remarkable will be found on that line as on the northwestern boundary, and one which, upon examination, must completely dispel any impressions that may have been made upon your mind that it has any authenticity, or is of any authority whatever as a map showing the boundary between the British possessions and the United States. The best evidence of this is to be found in the fact that, after its publication, the Mexican boundary line was surveyed and marked by the United States government without reference to Mr. Preuss's map, and the true line was found to be totally different from that laid down by Mr. Preuss.

By examining carefully the lithographed line on this map, drawn from the forty-ninth parallel to the Straits of Fuca, it will be seen that, instead of running through the middle of Rosario Straits, as you suppose, it runs directly against Sinclair's Island on the north, and Cypress Island on the south; leaving a space of over five miles without any boundary line; but if this should be joined, it would bisect the two islands. It also runs tangent to Smith's Island on the eastern side-an island upon which it is the intention of the United States government to build a light-house, and for which an appropriation has

been made.

I point out the inaccuracies of this map, so far as relates to the boundary line, without any intention of depreciating it in any respect, but simply in order to show you that it is not considered authority for the boundary lines drawn upon it, and that it was not intended to be so considered. I could exonerate the Senate from censure for publishing the map and giving it forth to the world with their apparent sanction, but I presume it will hardly be necessary for me to do so on this occasion.

I have never seen the diagram, alluded to by you, of a portion of Oregon Territory, "dated Surveyor General's Office, Oregon City, October 21, 1852, and signed by John B. Preston, Surveyor General," and having the boundary line drawn through Rosario Straits; but no authority can be attached to it, as it formed no part of the duties of the surveyor general's office to determine the boundary line between the United States and British possessions. I am, however, informed, by credible authority, that Mr. Preston was led into the error by seeing the map of Mr. Preuss. Had he seen the "Map of Vancouver's Island and the Adjacent Coasts, compiled from the surveys of Vancouver, Kellet, Simson, Galiano, and Valdes, &c., &c., &c., by J. Arrowsmith, 10 Soho square, London, published April 11, 1849"-more recent than that of Preuss-he no doubt would have drawn the line through the Canal de Haro; for as that purports to be a map especially of "Vancouver's Island and the coasts adjacent," no doubt could have been entertained that much care was taken to make it accurately conform to the terms of the treaty. On that map, on a large scale, all the islands east of the Canal de Haro are colored carefully

with the same tint as that given to the territory to which they geographically and conventionally pertain, viz., that of the United States.

The.maps of Preuss and Preston are of no authority, as far as the boundary line is concerned. They therefore afford no evidence of the true channel of the treaty. And since its ratification, I am not aware of any authority having been given either by the United States or British government for surveying and mapping it definitively until the appointment of the present commission.

In further illustration" of your proposition that the Rosario Strait is the channel of the treaty," you say that "it would seem to be clear that, in whatever channel the boundary line commences its southerly course, it should continue through the middle of the said channel until it reaches the Straits of Fuca," and add that "it has been agreed that the initial point of the boundary line is found in the channel called the Gulf of Georgia, and the continuance of that channel is, as was deemed by Vancouver, through the Rosario Strait."

I fear there is some misunderstanding in regard to an initial point. I certainly am not aware of having agreed to any, though I do not deem it a matter of any moment whether the starting point of the line be at the forty-ninth parallel or the Pacific Ocean. But even granting that the line starts at the fortyninth parallel, and is traced through the middle of the Gulf of Georgia, I do not admit that it must necessarily be continued through Rosario Straits, even if Vancouver's chart be referred to. You say Vancouver considered Rosario Strait a continuation of the Gulf of Georgia, and that it was included in that name. By an examination of the chart it will be perceived that the name as lettered passes directly through and over the cluster of islands between the Canal de Haro and the straits now called Rosario Straits, and that it was intended by Vancouver to apply the name of Gulf of Georgia to all the waters between Vancouver's island and the continent as far south as Fuca's Straits, (if the lettering on his chart is to be considered as any guide,) and applies equally to every other channel in the vicinity. But whatever name may have been given to the waters broken up by the islands, they are all continuations of the waters proceeding from the Straits of Fuca or Gulf of Georgia, and all perfectly on an equality in that respect. The Canal de Haro having the largest volume of water passing through it, it is the main channel among them, and therefore more particularly entitled to be considered as the continuation or connection of the two channels with which all are directly or indirectly connected. And here I beg to say in regard to the relative merits of the two channels, I must again refer you to the extract from Captain Alden's report on that subject in my letter of the 2d instant, in which he pronounces the Canal de Haro to be the widest, deepest and best channel, and in almost every respect the better of the two.

Upon your supposition that the Canal de Haro had originally been named in the projet of the treaty, and that "the line of boundary through it had been designedly altered, and the wording of the treaty as it now stands substi tuted to meet the alteration," you found an argument to prove that Rosario Straits was "the channel" intended as the substitute for the Canal de Haro as follows: "The channel through which the boundary line was to pass not being designated by name, inasmuch as it had no name on the map which was, I have not the least doubt, used by the British government at the time, viz: that of Vancouver, where the channel, now called the Rosario Strait, is shown, as in fact it really is, as a continuation of the waters now called the Gulf of Georgia, the whole being named by Vancouver the Gulf of Georgia."

It has been acknowledged that the Rosario Straits, in common with the other channels, is a continuation of the Gulf of Georgia, and that the general name of the "Gulf of Georgia" was given by Vancouver to embrace all the waters between the continent and Vancouver's Island as far south as the Straits of Fuca. But I have shown from his chart that Vancouver did not particularly apply it to the channel called Rosario Straits. If, however, the British government so

understood it, and the "Canal de Haro" was dropped from the original projet of the treaty, as you suppose, for the purpose of substituting what was then considered a part of the Gulf of Georgia, it is strange that "the Gulf of Georgia" was not inserted instead of the present language, so inapplicable to Rosario Straits. In this argument, if I understand it correctly, Rosario Straits is claimed as the channel for two very different reasons-one because it had a name, the other because it had no name. If the Canal de Haro were mentioned in the original projet and afterwards expunged to give place to a channel without a name, care should have been taken so to describe it that no other channel, either with or without a name, could be found answering to the language of the treaty. In a previous part of this communication I proposed to show that the intention and understanding of the British and United States governments in relation to the water boundary remained unchanged from the conference between Lord Aberdeen and Mr. McLane until the complete and final ratification of the treaty by the two governments. After the message was prepared and the necessary papers copied at the State Department, the President transmitted them to the Senate on the 10th of June for their advice as to his acceptance or rejection of the projet of the treaty submitted by Mr. Pakenham in his conference with Mr. Buchanan. The motive that induced the President to take the unusual course of asking the previous advice of the Senate arose from the prominent part taken by the Senate in the discussions of the Oregon question, and the im portance the British government attached to the opinions and action of that body, as will have been seen by the extracts from Mr. McLane's letter heretofore quoted. As I am desirous of showing you the exact position the Senate occupied in relation to the negotiation and ratification of the treaty, I must make one more extract from Mr. McLane's letter on that subject:

It is not to be disguised, (he says,) that since the President's annual message and the public discussion that has subsequently taken place in the Senate, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to conduct the negotiation in its future stages, without reference to the opinion of senators, or free from speculation as to the degree of control they may exercise over the result. Whatever therefore might be prudent and regular in the ordinary course of things, I think it of the utmost importance upon the present occasion, if the President should think proper to propose any modification of the offer to be made by Mr. Pakenham, that the modification should be understood as possessing the concurrence of the co-ordinate branch of the treatymaking power.

After several days' debate the Senate advised the President "to accept the proposal of the British government for a convention to settle boundaries, &c., between the United States and Great Britain west of the Rocky or Stony Mountains."

In accordance with that advice the President accepted the proposal, and on the 16th of June laid before the Senate, for their "consideration and with a view to its ratification," "the convention concluded and signed by the Secretary of State on the part of the United States, and the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of her Britannic Majesty on the part of Great Britain."

Upon its receipt a debate ensued which resulted in a resolution, "that the President be requested to communicate to the Senate a copy of all the correspondence which has taken place between this (the United States) government and that of Great Britain relative to the Oregon, treaty, together with the despatches and instructions forwarded to our minister, Mr. McLane, and a full and complete copy of his despatches and communications to this government on the same subject not heretofore communicated to the Senate."

The scope of the resolution exhibits the deep interest manifested by the Senate in every step of the negotiation, and shows clearly that no detail connected therewith was deemed unworthy of their consideration.

On the 18th of June the Senate gave its "constitutional advice and consent to the treaty," and the President ratified it. On the 22d Mr. Buchanan transmitted to Mr. McLane at London the treaty ratified by the President and Senate,