RS EL SES ETS APS ESS

510 The Last Forty Years.

because their fellow-countrymen were not allowed to trespass with impunity, and pressure was brought to bear upon the authorities at Washington on the subject. Much ill-feeling was aroused, some portion of which found utterance in the = nual message issued by President Grant during the autumn. The situation looked grave ; and under such inauspicious cireumstances the year 1870 drew to a close,

Early in the ensuing year it became known that the question of the fisheries, together with other important matters in dispute between Great Britain and the United States, were to be referred to a Joint Commission appointed by the Governments of the two countries. The principal causes of dispute, other than the fisheries, were the famous Alabama claims, the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the Canadian canals, and the boundary-line between the United States and British Columbia. This last question, which had been supposed to be finally settled by the Treaty of 1846,* had again become the subject of controversy, and had very nearly led to open hostilities. In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Canal de Haro and Rosario Strait, and near the coast of the Island of Vancouver, : is an island called San Juan. The imperfect definition of the boun- | { î dary, as laid down in the Oregon Treaty, led to incessant disputes À as to the ownership of this island. For some time prior to 1859 it was by mutual arrangement occupied by a joint staff of British and American officials. In the summer of the year last named, General Harney, a United States military commander having authority in Washington Territory, took the extraordinary step of quartering a | considerable military force there. A. season of great excitement | ens.°d, Mr, (afterwards Sir James) Douglas, Governor of Van-