the navigation of the channel and straits South of the 49th parallel being left free and open to both nations. By the Second Article of the same Treaty, the navigation of the Columbia river, from the point where the 49th parallel intersects its great Northern branch, was left open to the Hudson’s Bay Company and to all British subjects trading with the same. The effect of the Treaty was that Great Britain abandoned the claim to the line of the Columbia river, and the United States modified its proposal to adopt the 49th parallel as the boundary so far as to concede the whole of Vancouver Island to Great Britain. The news that the treaty had been signed reached England just as Sir Robert Peel’s ministry was going out of office. [Sidenote: The San Juan boundary question.] [Sidenote: Arbitration under the Treaty of 1871.] The delimitation of the boundary which the Treaty had affirmed gave rise to a further difficulty. The Treaty having provided that the sea line was to be drawn southerly through the middle of the channel which separates Vancouver Island from the continent and of Fuca’s Straits into the Pacific Ocean, the two nations were unable to agree as to what was the middle of the channel in the Gulf of Georgia between the Southern end of Vancouver Island and the North American coast. The main question at issue was the ownership of the island of San Juan, and the subject of dispute was for this reason known as the San Juan boundary question. The British claim was that the line should be drawn to the Eastward of the island, down what was known as the Rosario Straits. The Americans contended that it should be drawn on the Western side, following the Canal de Haro or Haro Channel. Eventually it was laid down by the 34th and following Articles of the Treaty of Washington of 8th of May, 1871--the same Treaty which provided for arbitration on the _Alabama_ question--that the Emperor of Germany should arbitrate as to which of the two claims was most in accordance with the true interpretation of the Treaty of 1846, and that his award should be absolutely final and conclusive. On the 21st of October, 1872, the arbitrator gave his award in favour of the United States, and it was immediately carried into effect, thus completing the boundary line from the Atlantic to the Pacific. [Sidenote: The Alaska boundary question.] In a message to Congress on the subject of the San Juan Boundary Award, President Grant stated ‘The Award leaves us, for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on this continent;’