Addington to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

I have laid before the Earl of Clarendon your Letter of the 11th
of April last, forwarding Extracts of a Despatch from the Governor of
Vancouver's Island respecting a Claim made by American Citizens on
behalf of the United States to the Sovereignty of the Islands in the
Canal de Arro; and relating to an alleged violation of British Territory
on the West Coast of Vancouver's Island.

With regard to the Islands in the Canal de Arro, I am directed by
Lord Clarendon to refer you to my Letter of the 10th of February
1848, transmitting a Copy of a Despatch from Her Majesty's Minister at
Washington, reporting a conversation with Mr Buchanan, then Secretary
of State of the United States, upon the expediency of defining the
Boundary between the British and American Territories in the Gulf of
Georgia and Fuca's Straits, and also to my Letter of the 21t of
November 1849, stating that the Government of the United States proposed
to lay before Congress at its next Session the proposal of Her Majesty's
Government to appoint a Commission to mark the Boundary in Question; and
I am to add that no further Report has been received from Mr Crampton
on this subject.

It appears to Lord Clarendon that if the matter be of importance
and that the affair requires accordingly to be settled, Mr Crampton
should be instructed again to call the attention of the American
Government to it; but if not, I am to suggest, for the consideration of
the Duke of Newcastle, that it might be well not to add another Question
to the many now pending and not likely soon to be arranged.

*

With respect to the violation of Territory which is undoubtedly
British, and to which there is no disputed claim to Sovereignty, Lord
Clarendon is of opinion that the Governor of Vancouver's Island should
take such steps 
as the Duke of Newcastle may think proper for asserting
and maintaining British Rights in such Territory from Foreign
Aggression.