Hammond to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

With reference to your Letter of the 9th Instant respecting the
regret felt by the inhabitants of Vancouver's Island at not being
included in the late Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, I am
directed by the Earl of Clarendon to request that you will call Lord
John Russell's attention to the circumstances which led to no mention
being made of Vancouver's Island in the Treaty.

The Treaty relates not only to reciprocal commerce, but to
reciprocal rights of Fishery; and as the British Fisheries in the
Pacific could not be comprehended in the Treaty, consistently with the
Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, no provision could be made for the
interests of the inhabitants of Vancouver's Island in regard to the
other point to which the Treaty applied.

Lord Clarendon is however prepared to instruct Her Majesty's
Minister at Washington to ascertain whether the Government of the United
States would consent to the Treaty being extended so as to embrace
Vancouver's Island, but His Lordship would wish in the first instance to
be informed in what manner and to what extent the special privileges of
the Hudson's Bay Company under Charter would admit of any Treaty
stipulations being made in favor of Vancouver's Island.