Hammond to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

I have laid before the Earl of Malmesbury your letter of the 11th
Instant, inclosing a despatch from Governor Douglas respecting the
intrusion of Citizens of the United States into the Island of San Juan in the Gulf of Georgia; and I am to state to you in reply that
His Lordship will transmit to Lord Lyons by the next mail a copy of
your letter and of its inclosure and will direct him to call the
immediate attention of the Government of the United States to the
circumstance therein set forth, and to point out the serious
difficulties in which the two Governments may be involved if while
the question of boundary in that quarter remains unsettled, American
Citizens should intrude themselves into any Territory which has
hitherto been considered and treated as part of Her Majesty's
Dominions.

In the meanwhile it appears to Lord Malmesbury that the best course
to be pursued by Governor Douglas is to continue to warn off all
persons who may attempt to assert any rights of occupancy as against
the British Dominions in the Island of San Juan, and to maintain, as
he has hitherto done, the rights of the British Crown to the Island,
avoiding giving occasion to acts of violence and merely upholding
British Possessions by the ordinary exercise of the Civil Power.