No. 2

I have to acknowledge your Despatches No 5 of the 18th May
last and No 7 of 12th June last on the subject of an outrage
committed by American Citizens in the Canal de Arro; which I have
communicated to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with a
request that their contents may be taken into immediate consideration.

2. I wish, however, to call your attention to a question of some
importance which appears to arise on these papers.

3. In your Despatch of the 24th November 1853, on the subject of
the boundary question in the Canal do Arro, you expressed it to be your
intention that these Islands should
 remain a de facto dependency of Vancouver's Island unoccupied by
any Settlement of Whites, except a Fishing Station, which was
established some years ago by the Hudson's Bay Company on the Island of San Juan,

an intention which appears to Her Majesty's Government judicious; the
question of boundary being still unsettled, however just the ground
which you might have for asserting the British right.

4. But Mr Griffin in his letter, accompanying your present despatch of May 18th, says

When I first established myself here, 15th November 1853, I was
given explicitly to understand by your Excellency, that this was British
Territory, and that I should be protected by my Country from all Foreign
aggressors.

And he appears to have entered on agricultural operations on the Island
of San Juan accordingly.

5. I cannot reconcile these two statements, and have to instruct
you to furnish a more detailed report of the circumstances and date of
the British occupation of the Island of San Juan.