furnish an equitable solution of the difficulty and be the nearest approximation that could be made to an accurate construction of the words by which the line was described. This convention was submitted to the Senate, but no vote on it was taken. It was understood that it was not favorably regarded by the Senate; and the period prescribed for its ratification was permitted to expire.2 sion, 1871. When the Joint High Commission between Joint High Commis- the United States and Great Britain met in Washington in 1871, the subject of the northwestern boundary came before it as one of the unsettled questions which affected the relations of the United States towards Her Majesty's possessions, in North America.” 3 sions. On the 15th of March the British commisPreliminary Discus- sioners, in pursuance of their instructions, proposed that an arbitration of the question should be effected on the basis of the Johnson-Clarendon convention. This proposal the American commissioners declined, at the same time expressing a wish that an effort should be made to settle the question in the Joint High Commission. The British commissioners assented to this, and set forth the reasons which induced them to regard Rosario Strait as the channel described in the treaty of 1846. The American commissioners replied, presenting the reasons which induced them to regard the Canal de Haro as the true channel; and they also produced in support of their views some original correspondence of Mr. Edward Everett, to which no allusion had been made in previous discussions of the question. By this correspondence it appeared that Mr. New Evidence. Everett, during his mission to England, from 1842 to 1845, frequently discussed the northwestern boundary with Lord Aberdeen on the basis of the forty-ninth parallel, with such a deflection as to give all of Vancouver's Island to Great Britain. It also appeared that during the controversy preceding the conclusion of the treaty of 1846, Mr. William Sturgis, of Boston, was in confidential correspondence with Mr. Bancroft, his relative, then of President Polk's Cabinet, and also with Mr. Joshua Bates, of London, a member of the house of the Barings. In January 1845 Mr. Sturgis delivered a lecture on the Oregon question, the substance 1 Dip. Cor. 1868, part 1, pp. 400, 404. of which was published in a pamphlet.' This pamphlet and Mr. Sturgis's letters were communicated by Mr. Bates to Lord Aberdeen, and Mr. Bates stated in one of his letters to Mr. Sturgis that Lord Aberdeen had informed him that he considered the pamphlet a fair, practicable, and sensible view of the subject, and that it had been read by all the ministers. Mr. Everett, in a confidential dispatch to Mr. Calhoun of April 2, 1845, stated that "a person very high in the confidence of the government, but not belonging to it," had informed him that he considered Mr. Sturgis's view of the Oregon question as fair and candid. In his pamphlet Mr. Sturgis took the ground that both parties would attain their object in securing a just result "by adopting as the boundary a continuation of the parallel of 49° across the Rocky Mountains to tide-water, say to the middle of the Gulf of Georgia'; thence by the northernmost navigable passage (not north of 49°) to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and down the middle of these Straits to the Pacific Ocean; the navigation of the Gulf of Georgia, and the Straits of Juan de Fuca to be forever free to both parties, all the islands and other territory lying south and east of this line to belong to the United States, and all north and west to Great Britain. By this arrangement," continued Mr. Sturgis, "we should yield to Great Britain the portion of Quadra and Vancouver's Island that lies south of latitude of 49°, which, in a territorial point of view, is of too little importance to deserve a moment's consideration; and both parties would secure for a considerable extent a well defined natural boundary, about which there could hereafter be no doubt or dispute. Will Great Britain accede to this? I think she will." In a letter to Mr. Archibald Campbell of May 29, 1858, Mr. Everett, referring to the pamphlet and correspondence of Mr. Sturgis, observed that as the "radical principle" of the boundary was the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and the only reason for departing from it was to give the whole of Vancouver's Island to the party acquiring the largest part of it, "the deflection from the 49th degree southward should be limited to that object, and the nearest channel adopted which fulfills the above conditions." 2 The Oregon Question: Substance of a Lecture before the Mercantile Library Association, Delivered January 22, 1845, by William Sturgis. Boston: Jordan, Swift & Wiley, 1845. 2 S. Ex. Doc. 29, 40 Cong. 2 sess. 50-51; Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, V. 27-38. 5627-15 The British commissioners found in the correProposals and Counspondence of Mr. Everett nothing to induce ter Proposals. them to change the opinion which they had previously expressed, and they asked whether the American commissioners had any further proposal to make. The American commissioners proposed to abrogate that part of the treaty of 1846 which was in dispute and rearrange the boundary line. This proposal the British commissioners at a subsequent conference declined, and on the 19th of April they offered to adopt the middle channel-generally known as the Douglas Channelas that through which the boundary line should run, with the understanding that all the channels through the archipelago should be free and common to both parties. The American commissioners declined this offer and proposed the Haro Channel, with a mutual agreement that no fortifications should be erected by either party to obstruct or command it, and with proper provisions as to any existing proprietary rights of British subjects in the island of San Juan. The British commissioners replied that, convinced of the justice of their view of the treaty, they could not abandon it except after a fair decision by an impartial arbitrator. They therefore renewed their proposal of arbitration. The American commissioners replied that as their last proposition, which they had hoped would be accepted, had been declined, they would, should the other questions between the two governments be satisfactorily adjusted, agree to a reference to arbitration to determine whether the line should run through the Haro Channel or through the Rosario Strait, upon condition that either government should have the right to include in the evidence to be considered by the arbitrator such documents, official correspondence, and other official or public statements bearing on the subject of reference as it might consider necessary to the support of its case. To this condition the British commissioners agreed; but they proposed that the arbitrator should have the right to draw the boundary through an intermediate channel. The American commissioners declined this proposal, stating that they desired a decision, not a compromise. They also declined a proposal of the British commissioners to declare the proper construction of the treaty of 1846 to be that all the channels were to be open to navigation by both parties. They said that they did not so construe the treaty, and therefore could not assent to such a declaration. This discussion continued till the 22d of April, when Articles XXXIV. to XLII. of the treaty, for the arbitration of the controversy, were agreed to. Emperor of Germany as Arbitrator. By these articles it was provided that the respective claims of the United States and Great Britain to the Canal de Haro and the Rosario Straits should be submitted to the "arbitration and award of His Majesty the Emperor of Germany," who should decide, "finally and without appeal, which of those claims is most in accordance with the true interpretation of the Treaty of June 15, 1846." It was also provided that each party should submit to the arbitrator a written or printed statement, and that each should have the right to reply to the statement of the other. The arbitrator was authorized to proceed in the arbitration either in person or by a person or persons named by him for that purpose. The negotiations which resulted in the conclusion of this agreement of arbitration justified, as may be surmised by the foregoing summary of them, the contentious and almost turbulent history of the subject. The difficulty in effecting a settlement was enhanced by reports as to the strategic importance, from a military point of view, of the possession of San Juan Island. In reality, this question of the water boundary constituted one of the most troublesome of all the subjects with which the Joint High Commission was required to deal, and perhaps came nearer than any other to precipitating an unsuccessful termination of its labors.' For the conduct of its case before the arbiAmerican Agent. trator the Government of the United States chose as its representative George Bancroft, who, by his historical studies, as well as by his practical familiarity with the subject, which he gained as a member of the cabinet of Polk and as minister of the United States in London, was preeminently fitted for the task. When the case of the United States was committed to his charge he was minister at Berlin, a post in which he had already rendered illustrious Earl de Grey in the House of Lords, June 12, 1872, in defending the Treaty of Washington, said that Earl Derby adopted an easy mode of criticising the treaty in respect of questions which he did not desire to discuss by merely declaring that they were of no importance and that they could be settled with the utmost facility. "My noble friend," said Earl de Grey, "took as an instance the case of the island of San Juan; but so far from that question being settled with the utmost facility, it was one of those which caused us the greatest trouble. The United States commissioners raised great difficulties on the subject, and we were obliged to insist strongly upon the views of Her Majesty's Government with respect to it." (Hansard, CCVI. 1865.) services and which he continued to hold till his resignation of it in 1874. The treaty of which the interpretation is referred to Your Majesty's arbitrament," said Mr. Bancroft in his memorial to the arbitrator, “was ratified more than a quarter of a century ago. Of the sixteen members of the British cabinet which framed and presented it for the acceptance of the United States, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, and all the rest but one, are no more. The British minister at Washington who signed it, is dead. Of American statesmen concerned in it, the minister at London, the President and Vice-President, the Secre tary of State, and every one of the President's constitutional advisers, except one, have passed away. I alone remain, and after finishing the three score years and ten that are the days of our years, am selected by my country to uphold its rights. Six times the United States had received the offer of arbitration on their northwestern boundary, and six times had refused to refer a point where the importance was so great and the right so clear. But, when consent was obtained to bring the question before Your Majesty, my country resolved to change its policy, and in the heart of Europe, before a tribunal from which no judgment but a just one can emanate, to explain the solid foundation of our demand, and the principles of modera tion and justice by which we have been governed. The case involves question of geography, of history, and of international law; and we are glad that the discussion should be held in the midst of a nation whose sons have been trained in those sciences by a Carl Ritter, a Ranke, and a Heffter." British Agent. The representative of Great Britain before the arbitrator was Admiral James C. Prevost. His connection with the subject related back to the year 1856, when, a captain in the royal navy, he went to the northwest coast as British commissioner to cooperate with the commissioner of the United States in the demarcation of the boundary. His knowledge of the controversy was comprehensive and thorough, and, like that of Mr. Bancroft, was enlivened by participation in the making of its history. On the 29th of July 1871 Mr. Bancroft and Presentation of the British chargé d'affaires at Berlin delivered Cases. at the foreign office formal notes, identical in terms, addressed to Prince Bismarck, chancellor of the Empire, requesting the Emperor to accept the office of arbitrator. On the 1st of the following September Mr. Von Thile, the German |