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already been referred to. Article V. related to the northeastern boundary. It provided for the appointment of commissioners to determine and mark the line and in the event of their disagreeing for the reference of the matter to a friendly sovereign or state. commissioners disagreed, and by a convention signed September 29, 1827, the controversy was referred to the King of the Netherlands. His award, which bore date January 10, 1831, was recommendatory rather than decisive. It in fact declared the line of 1783 to be incapable of exact definition, and recommended to the governments concerned the adoption of a certain compromise. This recommendation was not accepted, and the dispute continued. It was brought to a close by the Webster-Ashburton treaty.

The Northeastern Boundary, 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, chap. iii., pp. 65-83, chap. iv., pp. 85-161.

The award of the King of the Netherlands is given in the volume cited, pp. 119-136.

The origin and terms of the compromise adopted by Mr. Webster and
Lord Ashburton are fully given in 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations,
148-157.

As to the subsequent settlement of the boundary between Canada and
New Brunswick, see 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, 157–161.

The Red Line"
Map.

Any history of the settlement of the northeastern boundary dispute would be incomplete which omitted to mention the question that arose as to maps. The map used by the negotiators of 1782-83 was Mitchell's, but no copy with the lines marked on it was annexed to the treaty. When the conclusion of the provisional articles of peace became known, Count Vergennes, the French minister for foreign affairs, sent to Franklin a copy of a map, with the request that he would mark the boundaries of the United States upon it. By whom the map was made does not appear, nor whether the maker was of English, French, or other nationality. On the 6th of December, 1782, Franklin returned the map after having, as he said, marked the limits of the United States "with a strong red line." Early in 1842 Jared Sparks, while pursuing his researches among the papers relating to the American Revolution in the archives of the French department of foreign affairs, discovered Franklin's letter to Vergennes. Immediately instituting a search, he found among the 60,000 maps in the archives a small map of North America by D'Anville, dated 1746, with a red line upon it apparently drawn with a hair pencil or a pen with a blunt point, and apparently intended to indicate the boundaries of the United States. Besides this line there was nothing whatever to identify the map with the map marked by Franklin. In reality, it made the northeastern boundary run even below the line claimed by Great Britain westward from Mars Hill. Sparks, however,

at once sent a copy of the map to Mr. Webster, who, after inspecting it, instructed Mr. Everett to "forbear to press the search after maps in England or elsewhere." Mr. Webster retained the copy in his possession, but exhibited it only to the Maine commissioners and later to the Senate. That it bore any relation to the negotiations of 1782 and 1783 is more than doubtful. This was strongly intimated by Benton in the debates on the treaty. But when, through the publication of the debates in the Senate, the use made by Mr. Webster of the map became known he was vigorously assailed for not having exhibited it to Lord Ashburton, whom he was charged with having overreached. Mr. Webster very appropriately replied that he did not think it a very urgent duty on his part to go to Lord Ashburton and say that a doubtful bit of evidence had been found in Paris, out of which he might perhaps make something to the prejudice of the United States, or from which he might set up higher claims for himself, or obscure the whole matter still further. But it must have been known, at least to some of Mr. Webster's and Lord Ashburton's detractors in England, that there then existed in the foreign office, to which it had been removed from the British Museum, the veritable copy of Mitchell's map used in the negotiations of 1782 with Oswald's line, and also the line finally agreed on marked upon it. This map was exhibited by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett at the foreign office in March, 1843. It was subsequently restored to the British Museum, where it is now preserved. A copy of Mitchell's map, with Oswald's first line marked upon it, was found in 1843 among the papers of Mr. Jay. This line runs along the St. John from its mouth and follows the north branch to the head of Lake Medousa, where it turns westward, and on its course to the head of Connecticut River skirts the sources of the streams that empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence.

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Franklin to Vergennes, Dec. 6. 1782, Wharton's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev. VI. 120; Jared Sparks, in North Am. Rev. (1843), LVI. 470-471; Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 103; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, VII. 180; Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 422; Curtis's Life of Webster, II. 132, 134, 149, 154, 155, 159–162, 167; Proceedings of the New York Hist. Society, April 15, 1843, p. 67, Webster's Works, II. 145; Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, III. 205, 324, note; Greville's Memoirs, 2d part, I., Sept. 11, 1842, Sept. 17, 1842, Nov. 30, 1842, Feb. 9, 1843, pp. 101, 104, 126, 145; Croker Papers, 1841-42, vol. 2. pp. 393, 398, 400, 402; 71 London Quart. Rev. 560, 582; 4 Everett's Orations, 213; Abdy's Kent (1878), 152.

Mr. Everett, in a dispatch of March 31, 1843, describes the map thus: "It is a copy of Mitchell in fine preservation. The boundaries between the British and French possessions in America, as fixed by the treaty of Utrecht,' are marked upon it in a very full distinct line, at least a tenth of an inch broad, and those words written in several places. In like manner the line giving our boundary, as we have always

claimed it-that is, carrying the northwestern angle of Nova Scotia far to the north of the St. Johns-is drawn very carefully in a bold red line, full a tenth of an inch broad; and in four different places along the line distinctly written the boundary described by Mr. Oswald.' What is very noticeable is, that a line narrower, but drawn with care with an instrument, from the lower end of Lake Nipissing to the source of the Mississippi, as far as the map permits such a line to run, had once been drawn on the map, and has since been partially erased, though still distinctly visible." (Benton's Thirty Years' View, II. 671.)

10. OREGON TREATY.

$ 835.

June 15, 1846, a treaty was signed at Washington by James Buchanan, Secretary of State, and Richard Pakenham, British minister, for the settlement of what was commonly known as the Oregon question. The territory in dispute embraced 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 42nd 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 49th parallel of north latitude was agreed upon as the boundary, westward as far as "the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island." The boundary was to proceed thence southerly through the middle of that channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean. But it was expressly provided that the navigation of the whole of the channel and straits, south of the 49th parallel of north latitude, should remain free and open to both parties.

The claim of the United States to the whole of Oregon was founded upon (1) the entrance and exploration of the River of the West, which he named from his ship the Columbia River, by Captain Robert Gray, of the American ship Columbia, in 1792; (2) the exploration and descent of the main branch of the Columbia River by Lewis and Clark in their memorable expedition; (3) the establishment by John Jacob Astor in 1811 of the fur-trading settlement at Astoria, which was occupied by the British during the war of 1812, but restored to the United States on the conclusion of peace; (4) the acquisition by the United States by the treaty of February 22, 1819, of all the rights of Spain to territory on the Pacific north of the 42nd parallel of north latitude. The British claim was based upon (1) the explora

tions of Captain Cook in his third voyage to the Pacific; (2) the establishment of a fur-trading settlement at Nootka Sound by British merchants in 1788, and the Nootka Sound convention between Great Britain and Spain of October 28, 1790; (3) the subsequent explorations of Vancouver and Mackenzie and the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The question of the northern boundary of the United States, and of the extent to which it was to be carried westward of the Lake of the Woods, was suggested in connection with the Hawkesbury-King convention of 1803, and also in the convention concluded by Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney in 1807; but neither of these conventions was ratified. The next attempt to settle the question was made in the negotiations that resulted in the conclusion of the convention between the United States and Great Britain of October 20, 1818. The negotiators, however, failed to agree, and by Article III. a joint occupation for ten years was agreed upon. The question was discussed at London by Messrs. Rush and Canning in the negotiations growing out of the famous Russian ukase of 1821 in relation to the northwest coast. The negotiations were resumed in 1826 on the suggestion of the British Government. They were conducted on the part of the United States by Albert Gallatin. No agreement was reached, and on August 6, 1827, a convention was concluded by which the joint. occupation was extended indefinitely, subject to its termination by either party on twelve months' notice. The Webster-Ashburton treaty of August 9, 1842, did not provide for the adjustment of the dispute, and a proposal made by the British minister at Washington later in the year for the renewal of the negotiations remained without result, though President Tyler at one time thought of sending a special mission to England for the purpose of effecting a settlement. In 1844, Mr. Richard Pakenham arrived in the United States as minister of Great Britain and renewed, in behalf of his Government, the proposition to resume negotiations. The Democratic convention that assembled in Baltimore in May, 1844, declared that the title of the United States to the "whole of Oregon" was "clear and unquestionable." This declaration was popularly interpreted as meaning "Fifty-four forty or fight." On April 27, 1846, the President approved a joint resolution of Congress, which authorized him, in his discretion, to give notice of the termination of the joint occupation of the territory; and such notice was duly given. The subsequent settlement by a division of the territory doubtless was facilitated by the outbreak of the war with Mexico.

As has been seen, the treaty of June 15, 1846, provided that the boundary should follow the 49th parallel of north latitude to "the middle of the channel which separates the continent from VancouH. Doc. 551-vol 546

ver's Island," and should thence proceed southerly "through the middle of said channel." A controversy afterwards arose as to what was the channel thus referred to. The United States maintained that it was a channel to the westward, called Canal de Haro; the British Government contended for a channel to the eastward, called Rosario Strait. Between these two channels certain islands, one of which in particular, San Juan Island, was considered to be of strategic importance. From this circumstance the question came to be known as that of "the San Juan water boundary." By Articles XXXIV.-XLII. of the treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871, the dispute was referred to the German Emperor, as arbitrator, to determine through which of the two channels mentioned the line should run. He decided in favor of the claim of the United States.

For a full history of this boundary question, see 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, chap. vii., pp. 196–236.

As to the arbitration of the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, under the treaty of July 1, 1863, see 1 Moore, Int. Arbitrations, chap. viii., pp. 237–270.

11. CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.

§ 836.

April 19, 1850, a convention was signed at Washington for the purpose of setting forth the views and intentions of the governments of the United States and Great Britain concerning an interoceanic canal and the political independence of Central America. This convention formed the subject of long and varied controversies, which are detailed elsewhere. It was at length superseded by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of Nov. 18, 1901.

See supra, § § 351-367.

As to the London commission, under the convention of 1853, see Moore,
Int. Arbitrations, I. 391.

12. RECIPROCITY TREATY OF 1854.

§ 837.

June 5, 1854, William L. Marcy, Secretary of State, and Lord Elgin, special plenipotentiary of Great Britain, signed at Washington a treaty for the temporary adjustment of the question of the northeastern fisheries by means of a reciprocal arrangement embracing commerce and navigation as well as the fisheries. In consequence of this arrangement, the American fishermen were readmitted, so long as the treaty lasted, to the inshore fisheries, their right to which the convention of 1818. had renounced, while the British fishermen were admitted to the inshore fisheries on the eastern coasts of the United

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