LAST PHASE OF OREGON BOUNDARY 221
the Hudson's Bay Company wished to get some of the islands in the gulf. It was in 1847 that Bancroft wrote this ; in 1850 the Hudson's Bay Company began salmon-packing operations on San Juan. By 1848 Lord Palmerston in London and Mr. Crampton in Washington were asking for charts and sug- gesting that the boundary depended first of. all on interpreta- tion of the treaty rather than on a survey. Mr. Crampton said that only one channel seemed to have been surveyed that used by Vancouver. If this construction was accepted then the channel near the mainland would be the boundary, giving the only important island to the United States Whidby. The other islands, it was said, were of little or no value. But nothing was done about it.
Then followed events already related incorporation of San Juan into Washington Territory, the trouble over assessments and customs, the Marcy correspondence, the appointment of the commission, the difference of interpretation, the slow progress of the negotiations, the impatience of American settlers and intending settlers to have the matter decided, the shooting of the Hudson's Bay Company's pig, the military occupation by Harney, the agreement on joint military administration, and the submission of the case to arbitration. On October 21, 1872, the Emperor announced his award to be that the Haro Channel was "most in accordance with the true interpreta- tions" of the treaty of 1846. On March 10, 1873, a protocol was signed at Washington by Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, Sir Edward Thornton Minister of Great Britain to the United States, and Admiral Prevost by which the boundary was finally determined. No further trouble occurred; in a few weeks the marines were withdrawn and the United States held undisputed sovereignty.
Thus another chapter of Northwestern history was closed. On the merits of the case the decision appears to have been quite just; one cannot doubt that the only object in departing from parallel forty-nine short of the Pacific Ocean was to
