The officers of my regiment stationed on San Juan island were informed by the British officers that they considered the case won, because, the Crown Prince of Germany having married a daughter of Queen Victoria, his influence and that of his wife would be brought to bear on the Emperor William to induce him in his final judgment to favor the English claim. Time went on, the respective memorials of the governments were presented, and the arguments made before the three eminent judges of the Imperial Court of Berlin. The English officers on the island and the officials in Victoria grew more and more confident of an award in their favor; but one day it was whispered abroad that a commission of German lawyers were in Victoria asking questions of English shipmasters. From the extensive coal fields of British Columbia, as Nanaimo, on Vancouver island, in particular, fleet after fleet of English ships sail with coal for Pacific ports in the United States, and for Japan, China, Australia, and the islands of the South Sea. Now these deeply laden vessels must be taken to sea through the best channel, the main ship channel; and it can be confidently stated that no English shipmaster would have held his warrant an hour after it was known to the underwriters that he had failed to take the ship through the main channel, the Canal de Haro, with its six and a half miles of unbroken width and 180 fathoms of depth, but had chosen the Rosario strait, with the entrance to its waters obstructed by several rocky islets making its safe navigation by sailing vessels dependent on favorable winds and tides. In answer to the plain question of the commissioners, "What do you consider the main channel through the San Juan archipelago?" the reply of the English ship captains was in every case, I believe, "The Canal de Haro;" for, however much national feelings may have inclined them to favor the British claim to Rosario strait, professional pride would compel the true answer. After these facts became known, the British officers were less sanguine of a favorable award, and I think they were not surprised when it was made in our favor. On the 21st of October, 1872, the Emperor William made his award. He said: "After hearing the report made to us by the experts and jurists summoned by us upon the contents of the interchanged memorials and their appendices, we have decreed the following award: Most in accordance with the true interpretations of the treaty concluded on the 15th of June, 1846, between the governments of Her Britannic Majesty and of the United States of America, is the claim of the government of the United States that the boundary line between the territories of Her Britannic Majesty and the United States should be drawn through the Haro Channel." The news of the award must have been sent from Berlin by the British minister at once and communicated instantly to the authorities in Victoria, and through them to the officer in command of the British camp on the island. The first information our officers received was a message from Capt. Bazalgette, who for thirteen years had held the British command. The messenger arrived in the American camp soon after reveille. Capt. Bazalgette said he would evacuate the island at once, in accordance with the terms of the award, notice of which he had just received. Captain (then lieutenant) Ebstein of my regiment, to whom I have before referred, started at once with a small detachment of mounted men and rode rapidly over the sixteen miles that separated the two camps. His instructions from his commanding officer were to receipt for any buildings or other property the British officers might desire to turn over. He also had with him a flag to run up on the flagstaff after the British should have taken their departure. He says: “As I rode into the camp, a number of sailors and marines were engaged, under the direction of an officer, in cutting down the handsome flagstaff which stood in the middle of the parade ground. In a few moments it fell with a loud crash. The ostensible reason given for this act was that the staff was needed for a spar on board one of the naval vessels then lying at the dock waiting to transport the troops. These were the Scout and the Petrel, British men-of-war. A young subaltern, however, with perhaps more candor than judgment, put it more correctly when he said, 'You know we could never have any other flag float from a staff that had borne the cross of St. George.'" Capt. Ebstein ran up his flag on a telegraph pole, and the few Americans present greeted it with hearty cheers as the English soldiers sailed away to Victoria. In the meanwhile the information had been received by our government and communicated to Gen. E. S. Canby, commanding the Department of the Columbia, with headquarters in Portland, Oregon, who immediately took steps to send a detachment of troops to San Juan to salute the British flag, and pay the other usual honors on the occasion of an evacuation; but the hasty departure of the English garrison had prevented this act of courtesy on our part. Circumstances indicated that this pleasant duty would have devolved upon me. I have always regretted that I could not have been personally associated with the final act in a series of events which had commenced with the first boundary treaty ninety years before. Many anxious hours had been spent by statesmen, English and American, over the questions raised by national and local jealousies and rivalries, and the conflicting claims of colonies, companies of traders, states and provinces, combined with an uncertain geographical knowledge of the country, and an ignorance of its commercial, agricultural and political value, as the boundary line slowly marched from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, through almost a century of time. The disputes had more than once threatened to end in war. It was the good sense of military commanders that opened the way for a peaceful settlement. It was the word of a soldier king that put the vexed question forever at rest. More and more, thoughtful men expect that, in the settlement of international difficulties, nations should arbitrate whenever possible, fight only when they must. But I would have my friends understand that war is not an unmixed evil. Indeed it has more than once proved a blessing to a people. "War is honorable in those Who do their native right maintain, Between the lawless spoiler and the weak." In our own country we are a better, a stronger people from the necessity laid upon us to open the continent, step by step, to the progress of civilization, from New England to the Golden Gate, by the strong hand of the military power. Much of cruelty, much of injustice, has marked our dealings with the native race, the Indian tribes whom we found in possession of the land; and for these acts I have no word of excuse, for, next to slavery, the treatment in many cases of the native race is the darkest page in American history. But blessings have followed in the train of war. The War of the Revolution made us a nation of freemen. The War of 1812 gave us confidence in ourselves and gained us the respect of England and of Europe. The war with Mexico, although in my judgment not justifiable, opened new fields to American enterprise. The War of the Rebellion made us what we were not before, one people from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. I would not fire the hearts of the young with military ardor for the lust of glory. I would not have them forget the dark side of war. But I would have them so filled with love of country that they would willingly follow in the footsteps of their fathers, and if the emergency shall demand the sacrifice of life, freely give it, that the blessings which follow in the train of a righteous war, freedom for persons, property, and conscience, and the reign of law, may be the heritage of those who follow them. THE OJIBWAYS IN MINNESOTA.* BY REV. JOSEPH A. GILFILLAN. In describing the Ojibway people as seen during more than twenty years of missionary work among them, I cannot claim infallibility for the impressions I am about to record, but only that they appeared so to me. It should be stated also that the names Ojibway and Chippewa are exactly synonymous, the latter being a more anglicized form of the same word. THEIR GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. In 1873 the local distribution of the Ojibways in Minnesota was not much different from what it is now. There were 800 or 900 about Mille Lacs; about 1,200 at Red lake; about 1,000 around Leech lake; and about 600 around Cass lake and lake Winnibigoshish. At Gull lake about 200 lingered who had not been removed to the White Earth reservation, and there were 600 or 800 scattered through the immense pine forests stretching from Winnibigoshish, by Sandy lake, to the Northern Pacific railroad; while at White Earth about 1,700 were located, very largely French mixed-bloods. Those who lived at White Earth had been removed there within five years, mostly from Gull lake and Crow Wing; but the mixed bloods had come from many different parts of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Pembina band were then living at Pembina river, and the Bois Forts or Lake Vermilion Indians where they still live. The principal changes since that time have been that perhaps 300 of the Mille Lacs band and the remaining 200 Gull *Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, November 8, |