224 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



northwest coast of America, Vancouver s Island and 

 British Columbia can not ever be of special impor 

 tance to her either as a military post or as a colony. 

 Nor can they be of any military advantage to the 

 Canadian Dominion, and may, on the contrary, con 

 stitute in her hands a temptation to needless expense 

 in fortifications, notwithstanding which, owing to the 

 remoteness of those countries by land and their in 

 accessibility to her by sea, the Dominion would find 

 them quite untenable in the presence of the powerful 

 American States on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 



To the United States, on the other hand, it is im 

 portant to have had the question decided in our favor. 

 We are now a real power on the Pacific coast, which 

 Great Britain is not and can not be. Holding the 

 Territory of Alaska to the north of the British pos 

 sessions, the Territory of Washington, the State of 

 Oregon, and the great and rich State of California 

 ceded to us by the Mexican Eepublic, with the grow 

 ing States and Territories on their rear, it would have 

 been to us intolerable to be excluded from the great 

 channel between Vancouver s Island and the main 

 land, or to traverse it only under the guns of British 

 fortresses on that island. Such a settlement would 

 have had in it the germs of war : the present affords 

 assurance of Stable peace. 



Happily the United States and Great Britain are 

 now delivered from the complications in their rela 

 tions occasioned by the exorbitant power of the Hud 

 son s Bay Company. By other provisions of the same 

 Treaty of 1846, the United States had made to Great 



