186 ANDREW FISH
officers of the navy stationed near Victoria, and from the English gentlemen residing on Vancouver's Island, the Americans received naught but courtesy, kindness and at- tention, from first to last ; and by none have I heard the acts of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants more strong- ly censured than by subjects of Great Britain who have long resided on the island, and who are cognizant of the many abuses practiced by the Company and its agents."
The British people had small cause to take the Company's side; they had their own serious grievances against it.
It has seemed necessary to dwell upon these things in order to understand the highly charged atmosphere in wJhich the dispute over San Juan in 1859 almost brought about serious bloodshed.
SAN JUAN ISLAND
I have already said that the long boundary dispute over the Oregon country was settled in 1846 by a treaty which con- tinued the boundary along the forty-ninth parallel "to the middle of the channel which separated the continent from Van- couver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean." But "the channel which separates the continent from Van- couver's Island" (the Gulf of Georgia) is studded with islands, through which there is more than one navigable passage. Two played prominent parts in the dispute : the Canal de Haro, the most westerly, running for the most part along the coast of Vancouver's Island ; and theJRiosario Strait, the most easterly, running between the islands and the mainland. The important point was that if the Canal de Haro were the boundary the islands would be American, and if the line ran through Rosario Strait they would be British. The_islands involved were San Juan. Orcas, Lopez, Waldron, Blakely, Decatuy, Snaw, and some smaller ones ; in all an area of about one hundred and seventy square miles. 13 San Juan, the most considerable, con-
13 British Columbia by F. H. Howay and E. O. G. Scholefield. p. 301.
