Treaties of 1854 and 1871.

By Article IV. of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 the right to navigate both the River St. Lawrence above the point where it ceases to be the boundary and the canals in Canada used as part of the water communication between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean was temporarily secured to the citizens and inhabitants of the United States. By Article XXVI. of the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871, the same right as to the St. Lawrence is secured in perpetuity. By Article XXVII. the British Government engaged to urge upon the government of the Dominion of Canada to secure to the citizens of the United States the use of the St. Lawrence, Welland, and other canals in the Dominion on terms of equality with its inhabitants; and the United States engaged to permit British subjects to use the St. Clair Flats Canal on terms of equality with the inhabitants of the United States, and also to urge upon the State governments to secure to British subjects in the same manner the use of the several State canals connected with the navigation of the lakes or rivers traversed by or contiguous to the boundary. By Article XXVIII. the right to navigate Lake Michigan for commercial purposes was secured to British subjects for a limited term.1

See, in relation to the subject of this chapter, the International Boundary of Michigan, by Annah May Soule. (Reprinted from Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXVI.)

CHAPTER VII.

THE SAN JUAN WATER BOUNDARY:

ARBITRATION UNDER ARTICLES XXXIV.-XLII. OF THE TREATY OF MAY 8, 1871.

Boundary from Lake

of the Woods to

Rocky Mountains.

By the convention signed at. London October 20, 1818, by Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush on the part of the United States and by Frederick John Robinson and Henry Goulburn on the part of Great Britain, the boundary between the territories of the United States and those of His Britannic Majesty, from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods to the Stony or Rocky Mountains, was fixed at the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude. And in case it should be found that the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods was not on that parallel, it was provided that a line should be drawn from that point due north or south, as the case might be, till it should intersect the parallel, and that from such point of intersection the boundary should be continued due west along the forty-ninth parallel to the Stony Mountains.'

Boundary Westward of Rocky Mountains.

On the 15th of June 1846 James Buchanan, Secretary of State of the United States, and Richard Pakenham, British minister at Wash ington, concluded a treaty for the adjustment of differences between the two countries "respecting the sovereignty and government of the territory on the northwest coast of America, lying westward of the Rocky or Stony Mountains." The territory thus referred to is that which was known at the

'Article II. In connection with this chapter, see Bancroft's History of Oregon, and his History of the Northwest Coast; Benton's Thirty Years' View; Greenhow's History of Oregon and California; Twiss's Oregon Territory; Gallatin's Oregon Question; Curtis's Life of James Buchanan; Cones's History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark; Maine's International Law; Br. and For. State Papers, L. 796; LV.743, 1211, 1281; LIX. 21; LXII. 188.

time as the Oregon territory, embracing what is now comprised in British Columbia and the States of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It was bounded, according to the claim of the United States, by the forty-second parallel of north latitude on the south, by the line of 54° 40′ on the north, and by the Rocky or Stony Mountains on the east. It embraced, roughly speaking, an area of 600,000 square miles. Over all this territory the United States claimed to be the rightful sovereign. This claim was disputed by Great Britain. The treaty of June 15, 1846, was intended to terminate the dispute by a nearly equal division of the territory. The first article, by which the dividing line was defined, reads as follows:

de, .ven

.nates,

United

"From the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north lat where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and tions between the United States and Great Britain te the line of boundary between the territories of States and those of Her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward 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: Provided, however, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits, south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties."

Indefiniteness of Water Boundary.

This article, so far as it described the boundary on land along the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, was definite, and the line only required to be surveyed; but an examination of the text in connection with a map of the coast will disclose the fact that the language relating to the water boundary was not definite. Just below the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, where it strikes the Gulf of Georgia, there is an archipelago, commonly called the Haro Archipelago, consisting of a large number of small islands, between which there are several channels that connect the waters of the Gulf of Georgia with the waters of the Straits of Fuca. At the time when the treaty was made only two of these channels had been surveyed and marked. These were the Canal de Haro, named after its Spanish explorer, and a channel to the east, which was variously known as Rosario Strait, as Ringgold's Channel, sometimes as Vancouver's Straits or Channel, and by Spanish navigators as the Canal de Fidalgo. But, in spite of its wealth of names, this eastern channel, though designated as the Canal de Fidalgo on the Spanish admiralty charts, was not designated by name on any of the general maps