No. 244.
No. 490.]
Legation of the United States,
London, October 17, 1870. (Received November
4.)
Copies of the documents, transcripts of which were sent me in your
above-cited dispatch, were annexed to my communication with Lord
Granville.
Mr. Motley to Earl Granville.
Legation of the United
States, London,
October 17,
1870.
My Lord: I have the honor, by direction of
my Government, to call your attention to a discovery which has been
made by the engineer officers of the United States, in
[Page 403]
regard to the true
location of the boundary line between the British possessions in
North America and the United States, as ascertained by the usual
scientific method of determining such matters.
It appears by a communication from the honorable the Secretary of the
Treasury of the United States to the State Department, inclosing a
letter of the 23d June last from the collector of customs at
Pembina, Minnesota, that the United States military commission under
Major General Sykes, United States Army, had by a series of careful
solar and lunar observations located and established the forty-ninth
parallel, or international boundary line, upward of 4,600 feet north
of the one hitherto recognized. The result of this change in one
respect at least your lordship will find noted in the above-cited
letter of the collector of Pembina, copy of which I annex among
other documents.
The question arising at the Treasury Department, whether the said new
line has been established by competent authority binding upon the
two governments of Great Britain and the United States, has been
answered, as you will observe, by inclosed copy of a letter from the
acting Secretary of State of the United States, that no joint action
of the two governments had been taken for marking upon the surface
of the ground that portion of the boundary along the forty-ninth
parallel which extends from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky or
Stony Mountains.
It has therefore been suggested by the State Department that no
proceedings be adopted by the custom-house authorities which will
disturb the existing condition of things on the border until the
British government can be informed of the discovery which has been
made by the United States military commission and General Sykes.
I have accordingly the honor herewith to notify your lordship of said
discovery.
I have the honor, &c.,
The Right Hon. the Earl Granville,
&c., &c., &c.
