HOW WE WON THE SAN JUAN ARCHIPELAGO.*

BY GENERAL EDWIN C. MASON.

I propose to relate some incidents, not generally known to the public, in the final settlement of the Northwest Boundary between the United States and the British Possessions.

Part of my information is derived from the records of the War Department, but chiefly from conversations with actors in the scene. For many years I was the Inspector General of the Military Department of the Columbia, which includes within its boundaries the Puget Sound region, where the difficulties occurred. My duties required me to make frequent visits to San Juan island during the period of the joint occupation, and I became interested in this bit of American history because we were never nearer a war with England than at that time. The story I shall tell brings out one feature in the training of the American professional soldier. He is taught that every means for the peaceable settlement of a difficulty should be tried before force is used, but that there must be at the same time no surrender of the rights and dignity of the nation. The patience and forbearance of our trained army and naval officers has saved our country from bloodshed and loss of treasure, in more than one difficulty with foreign powers, with the Indians on our plains, and the lawless mobs in our cities. In the San Juan affair General Winfield Scott won the title of "The Great Pacificator." His countrymen did well in bestowing upon him this title, for his pacific course on that occasion saved us from war.

Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, November 9, 1896. General Mason died April 30, 1898.

Every student of American history knows that the cry “54.40 or fight" was sufficient at one time to rouse the spirit of the American people against what were considered the unjust demands of Great Britain in the matter of the boundary line between the United States and her Majesty's possessions in the Northwest.

The Hudson Bay Company claimed what is now Washington and Oregon down to the California line. It was unreasonable; not so the American claim to territory above the 49th parallel of latitude.

The treaty of Washington, June 15th, 1846, fixed the boundary line on that parallel. The treaty reads: "Along the said forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific ocean." The vagueness and uncertainty of the wording of this section led to the subsequent difficulties. The value, and the commercial and military importance, of the San Juan archipelago were not appreciated by the distinguished gentlemen who negotiated the treaty. A glance at an atlas in use in 1846 will show how little was really known of the vast region northwest from the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri to the Pacific ocean. But if the statesmen of Washington and London did not appreciate the value of the group of islands separating the waters of the Bay of Georgia from Puget sound, the Hudson Bay Company did. This powerful and influential corporation, created in 1670 by Charles the Second of England, was invested with the absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignty, and exclusive traffic, over an undefined territory which, under the name of Rupert's Land, comprised all the regions discovered, or to be discovered, within the entrance of Hudson bay.

Pushing westward, by 1770 the company had reached the Pacific, and buying up or coalescing with rival companies, French and English, and claiming jurisdiction through 75 degrees of longitude, from Davis' Strait to Mount St. Elias, and through 28 degrees of latitude, from the mouth of the Mac

kenzie to the borders of California, it virtually ruled the western world north of the undisputed territory of the United States. The cession of Oregon and the fixing of the boundary line on the 49th parallel destroyed of course the rights of the company south of that line.

At the time when this story begins the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company were established at Victoria on Vancouver island, and Sir James Douglas, C. B., was governor and commander in chief in and over Vancouver island and its dependencies, as well as chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company.

A glance at the map (plate I) will show five channels for the passage of vessels. Of these the Rosario straits to the eastward and the Canal de Haro to the westward were alone in controversy.

I have said that the Hudson Bay Company appreciated the value of the archipelago, and was not slow in taking advantage of the doubtful wording of the treaty and assuming control of the islands. The islands in the group number nineteen and contain about 200 square miles. They vary in size, from a few acres, to San Juan, which is about fifteen miles long and from three to six miles wide, comprising some 60 square miles. The climate of the region is very mild and humid, thus offering special advantages for sheep raising and the cultivation of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. The strategic advantage of the group is apparent to the most casual observer. The power that holds these islands, controls the waters of Puget Sound and the vast waterways to the northward. The great coal fields of Nanaimo and other points in British Columbia are only accessible through the channels of this group; and indeed British Columbia is dominated by the power that holds with a military and naval force the islands and their navigable channels.

The foreign policy of England in regard to her territorial claims commends itself to a military man by its promptness and certainty. She generally acts first and talks afterward. In this case she assumed at once that the Rosario strait was the boundary line and acted on this assumption by directing