Every student of American history knows that the cry "54.40 or fight" was sufficient at one time to rouse the spirit of the American people against what were considered the unjust demands of Great Britain in the matter of the boundary line between the United States and her Majesty's possessions in the Northwest.

The Hudson Bay Company claimed what is now Washington and Oregon down to the California line. It was unreasonable; not so the American claim to territory above the 49th parallel of latitude.

The treaty of Washington, June 15th, 1846, fixed the boundary line on that parallel. The treaty reads: "Along the said forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific ocean." The vagueness and uncertainty of the wording of this section led to the subsequent difficulties. The value, and the commercial and military importance, of the San Juan archipelago were not appreciated by the distinguished gentlemen who negotiated the treaty. A glance at an atlas in use in 1846. will show how little was really known of the vast region northwest from the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri to the Pacific ocean. But if the statesmen of Washington and London did not appreciate the value of the group of islands separating the waters of the Bay of Georgia from Puget sound, the Hudson Bay Company did. This powerful and influential corporation, created in 1670 by Charles the Second of England, was invested with the absolute proprietorship, subordinate sovereignty, and exclusive traffic, over an undefined territory which, under the name of Rupert's Land, comprised all the regions discovered, or to be discovered, within the entrance of Hudson bay.

Pushing westward, by 1770 the company had reached the Pacific, and buying up or coalescing with rival companies, French and English, and claiming jurisdiction through 75 degrees of longitude, from Davis' Strait to Mount St. Elias, and through 28 degrees of latitude, from the mouth of the Mac

kenzie to the borders of California, it virtually ruled the western world north of the undisputed territory of the United States. The cession of Oregon and the fixing of the boundary line on the 49th parallel destroyed of course the rights of the company south of that line.

At the time when this story begins the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company were established at Victoria on Vancouver island, and Sir James Douglas, C. B., was governor and commander in chief in and over Vancouver island and its dependencies, as well as chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company.

A glance at the map (plate I) will show five channels for the passage of vessels. Of these the Rosario straits to the eastward and the Canal de Haro to the westward were alone in controversy.

I have said that the Hudson Bay Company appreciated the value of the archipelago, and was not slow in taking advantage of the doubtful wording of the treaty and assuming control of the islands. The islands in the group number nineteen and contain about 200 square miles. They vary in size, from a few acres, to San Juan, which is about fifteen miles long and from three to six miles wide, comprising some 60 square miles. The climate of the region is very mild and humid, thus offering special advantages for sheep raising and the cultivation of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. The strategic advantage of the group is apparent to the most casual observer. The power that holds these islands, controls the waters of Puget Sound and the vast waterways to the northward. The great coal fields of Nanaimo and other points in British Columbia are only accessible through the channels of this group; and indeed British Columbia is dominated by the power that holds with a military and naval force the islands and their navigable channels.

The foreign policy of England in regard to her territorial claims commends itself to a military man by its promptness and certainty. She generally acts first and talks afterward. In this case she assumed at once that the Rosario strait was the boundary line and acted on this assumption by directing

British magistrates to exercise civil jurisdiction throughout the group. Before the days of the telegraph or the transcontinental railway, news from the far west traveled slowly, and it was some time before the government at Washington awoke to the condition of affairs.

Under date of July 14th, 1855, Mr. Marcy, Secretary of State, wrote to Governor Stevens of Washington Territory as follows: "He [President Pierce] has instructed me to say to you, that the officers of the territory should abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds which are calculated to provoke any conflicts, so far as it can be done without implying the concession to the authority of Great Britain of an exclusive right over the premises. The title ought to be settled before either party should exclude the other by force, or exercise complete and exclusive sovereign right within the fairly disputed limits.

On the 17th of July, Mr. Marcy wrote to Mr. Crampton, the British minister, informing him of the letter to the governor of Washington Territory and expressing the hope that all collision may be avoided. The Americans who had settled on San Juan island were restless under the anomalous condition of affairs, and it was certain that difficulty would sooner or later occur.

A humble and generally inoffensive pig was the innocent cause of a disturbance that came nearer to bringing on a war between England and America than any event since 1812.

One day in June, 1859, an American by the name of Lyman A. Cutler shot and killed a pig that was the property of the Hudson Bay Company. This pig had been found damaging the field or garden of Cutler, whose request to the person in charge to have the pig confined was treated with contempt. Provoked by this, Cutler shot the animal. He afterward offered money in payment to twice its value, which was refused. The next day the British ship of war Satellite, with a Mr. Dallas, a factor of the Hudson Bay Company, aboard, visited the island. Mr. Dallas threatened to take the American by force to Victoria for trial. Cutler resisted, and, arming himself, threatened to shoot anyone who would attempt his arrest. The arrest was not made.

General W. S. Harney commanded at that time the Department of Oregon, with headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia river. These matters came to his ears through a petition from the Americans of San Juan island for protection. In making his report to Washington the general says: "To attempt to take by an armed force an American citizen from our soil to be tried by British law, is an insult to our flag and an outrage upon the rights of our people that has roused them to a high state of indignation. It will be well for the British Government to know the American people on this coast will never sanction any claim they may assert to any other islands in Puget Sound than that of Vancouver, south of the 49th parallel and east of the Canal de Haro. Any attempt at possession by them will be followed by a collision."

Without waiting for instructions from Washington, which would have taken thirty days by pony express across the continent, or sixty by steamer via the isthmus of Panama, General Harney took prompt action on the petition of the Americans for protection, and immediately ordered Capt. George E. Pickett, of the 9th Infantry, to proceed at once from Fort Bellingham to San Juan island and take station with his company D of the 9th Infantry. His orders provided for the protection of the people from the northern Indians of British Columbia and the Russian possessions (now our Alaska); he was also informed that another serious and important duty would devolve upon him in the occupation of the islands, arising from the conflicting interests of the American citizens and the Hudson Bay Company. He was informed that it would be his duty to afford adequate protection to the American citizens in their rights as such, and to resist all attempts at interference by the British authorities residing on Vancouver island, by intimidation or force, in the controversies of the above mentioned parties. General Harney goes on to say that protection has been called for in consequence of the action of the chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, Mr. Dallas, in having recently visited San Juan island with a British sloop of war and threatened to take an American citizen by force to Victoria for trial by British laws. "It is hoped a second attempt of

this kind will not be made; but to insure the safety of our citizens the general commanding directs you to meet the authorities from Victoria at once, on a second arrival, and inform them they cannot be permitted to interfere with our citizens in any way. Any grievances they may allege as requiring redress can only be examined under our own laws, to which they must submit their claims in proper form."

Captain Pickett was a brave and gallant officer, cool, and of excellent judgment. He was a southern man and on the outbreak of the rebellion, two years after these events, resigned his commission in the United States Army and took service with the Confederacy. He rose to high rank in the southern army, and commanded the Confederate troops in that justly famous charge on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. That 3d day of July, 1863, when at one o'clock in the afternoon General Lee made his supreme effort to retrieve the fortunes of the day, and launched a grand assault upon the Union center along Cemetery Ridge, George Pickett's division was probably the most distinguished in that splendid army of northern Virginia for discipline and valor. It was composed of fifteen Virginia regiments, the very flower of southern chivalry. The bold, determined and enterprising spirit he had manifested in Indian scouts and campaigns on the frontier, where he had been ordered immediately after graduating from the Military Academy, fitted him for dealing with the emergency that had been precipitated by the action of the British authorities. It was his fine soldierly qualities, developed by active service on the frontier, that made him one of General Lee's trusted lieutenants.

But to return to my subject. Captain Pickett did not wait for the quartermaster's transport steamer to come out of Puget sound and move his company and stores, for he had heard that a British man-of-war was maneuvering about the island, and, appreciating the importance of gaining a foothold on San Juan unmolested, he shipped his men with their stores and supplies on a fishing schooner, and quietly sailed away from Fort Bellingham in the night, passing Lummi island into Rosario strait, and through the narrow channel between