portance than any yet discussed had arisen between the two governments. It has been noticed before how surely trouble springs up, sooner or later, from the ignorance of geography which prevails when the boundaries of new countries are assigned. The frontier-line between the state of Maine and Canada could not be agreed upon by the British and the Americans, when the region became settled. It was a matter of high importance to the residents of the debated ground whether they lived under British or American government and laws; and in the existing temper of the two nations, it appeared too probable that not only skirmishes would take place along the frontier, but that a national war might ensue. Sober people in England, now quieted and made reasonable by a quarter of a century of peace, could hardly conceive of such a thing as a national war for such a cause; but it appears that the statesmen on both sides the Atlantic really apprehended such an issue. In 1839, Lord Palmerston had sent out commissioners to explore the line claimed by the British, and see whether it accorded with the features of the country; and, after these commissioners had reported, two more were sent out to make a similar investigation into the line claimed by the Americans. Their report, in 1841, was adverse to the American claim. Arbitration had before been tried, and had failed. The King of the Netherlands had pronounced on two points out of three, and declared the other impossible to settle. He had determined that the British were right as to which was the true river-head specified, and what the proper parallel of latitude; but as to which of two ranges of highlands was intended, there was no evidence to show. After some confusion, both parties declined the award. And thus, there was no reason to hope anything from arbitration. In this perplexity, Sir R. Peel's government chose the fittest man in Great Britain for the business, and sent him out as a special ambassador to Washington, fully empowered to settle all matters in dispute between the two governments. Lord Ashburton (late Mr. Baring), a thorough Englishman in mind and manners, was yet so connected with America by commercial and family relations as to have much sympathy with American feelings, and full knowledge of American

institutions, customs, and modes of thought. He went out in February 1842, was courteously and even joyfully received, and brought matters round presently. A treaty which settled the boundary question was signed on the 9th of August following. It was not to be supposed that everybody was satisfied. Lord Palmerston, for one, was sure to be displeased; and his prophecies of the dissatisfaction that would be felt, and the mischiefs that would arise, were very strong. But no difficulties have as yet been heard of; and the inestimable good of peace and national amity appears to have been obtained without sacrifice. The agreement gave 7-12ths of the disputed ground, and the British settlement of Madawaska, to the United States, and only 5-12ths of the ground to Britain; but it secured a better military frontier to England, and it included heights commanding the St. Lawrence which the award of the King of Holland had assigned to the Americans. The best testimony to the equality of the arrangements was the amount of discontent among American politicians being about equivalent to that declared in England. But in both countries, the vast majority were satisfied and gratified; and the chances against war appeared to be stronger than for several years past. Lord Ashburton, after having been honoured throughout every step of his travels in the United States, received the thanks of parliament on his return home.

All danger was not over, however. It has been mentioned before that in 1822 Lord Castlereagh told Mr. Rush that such was the condition of the Oregon question between England and the United States, that war could be produced by holding up a finger. Now, after the lapse of twenty years, the question was as unsettled, and almost as perilous, as ever. It may be remembered that an agreement was made in the treaty of 1818-19, that for a period of ten years the Oregon territory should be open to occupation by settlers from both countries. The period was afterwards indefinitely extended. In 1843, the American president announced that he was going to negotiate with Great Britain for the final settlement of their claims to the Oregon territory. A push was immediately made in congress to get Oregon occupied and put under military organisation,

as territory belonging to the United States; and the restless among the vivacious American nation began to form and equip caravans for the long and dreary passage to Oregon, over and beyond the Rocky Mountains. They acted as if their national existence depended on their appropriating the whole available coast of the Pacific, and as if there were no rashness in tempting a crowd of emigrants to cross a desert continent, among myriads of buffaloes and through tribes of hostile Indians, to take possession of a district whose capabilities and conveniences were little known, and which might prove to be the property of a foreign power. Such rashness and indecent haste made the question of settlement more difficult-British statesmen being disgusted, and American statesmen ashamed, without being able freely to say so. In the course of several conferences between the negotiators on each side in 1844, it was understood that the matter should be settled by compromise-by dividing the territory lying along the Columbia River. The new president, Mr. Polk, avowed his dislike to any surrender whatever of the American claim; but declared that it was too late when he entered upon office to draw back from the compromise principlea declaration which made the majority on both sides of the Atlantic rejoice that that much was agreed upon before Mr. Polk became president. Throughout the session of 1845, the debates in congress on the subject of Oregon were so conducted as apparently to impair grievously the chances of peace. But it is probable that their very violence wrought in the other direction. Statesmen, worthy of the name, on both sides were better aware what they were about than boastful and quarrelsome orators; and the more arrogance and rancour that were expressed, the more were the negotiators stimulated to find a basis of agreement.

In his message of December 1845, the American president used language of dogmatism, if not defiance, which some members of the senate declared themselves unable to agree to. In the next month, Queen Victoria said, in her speech to parliament, that she regretted the unsettled state of the Oregon question, and that no effort consistent with national honour should be wanting on her part to

bring the controversy to an early and peaceful termination. With these speeches before them, the American Houses of Congress went into debate. The debates were protracted through three months, ending on the 23rd of April, with a signal and somewhat unexpected victory of the moderate party. With a view to driving on the matter to a decision by force, the war-party had carried resolutions that notice of the cessation of a joint occupancy of Oregon should be given to Great Britain. After a conference, it was settled that the resolution about such notice should stand, being accompanied by a declaration that it was for the purpose of inducing a speedy amicable settlement of the dispute, on the ground of an equitable compromise. As soon as the news of this resolution arrived in England, Lord Aberdeen sent out a new proposal of compromise to our minister at Washington. The president submitted the proposal to the senate, who approved it by a large majority. The president then accepted the terms; and in June, the treaty was signed which settled at last the Oregon question. Vancouver's Island remained to Great Britain, and the free navigation of the Columbia; and the territory in dispute was divided in a way which appears likely to be permanently satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Webster, indeed, avows his anticipation that the combined population of Americans and British, similar in race and separated only by national distribution, will set up for themselves ere long, and form a republic on the Pacific. However that may be, they are no longer at war, or in anticipation of it. This happy act of reconciliation was one of the last to be perfected by Sir R. Peel's government, and the ultimate success of Lord Aberdeen's mild and discreet administration of our foreign affairs.

CHAPTER XIII.

India-Sikh Invasion-The Sandwich Islands-Van Diemen's LandSouth Australia-New Zealand-Canada-Compensation Question -Fires at Quebec-St. John's-Hamburg-Smyrna-New York.

In the records of Indian affairs during this period we find a curious mingling of notices—the formation of companies for the construction and management of railways, which are to encourage commerce and extend peace over the whole of those vast regions; and hints that the British may soon be compelled to interfere in the Punjaub, from the excesses that were perpetrated there against one after another of the rulers who succeeded Runjeet Singh. In 1845, we find the India Company addressing the governorgeneral, Sir Henry Hardinge, on the subject of railways, in the evident anticipation that the peninsula may in time be intersected with them, so as completely to change its financial condition, and perhaps the character of its population; and in the same year-towards its close-we see our territory invaded in the north-west, by an army of Sikhs crossing the Sutlej; whether with or without the sanction of the existing government at Lahore, was not immediately known. The governor-general was in the north-west at the time, having had reason to expect some trouble there; and it was on the 13th of December that the decisive news reached him that a Sikh army had crossed the Sutlej. On the 18th, the battle of Moodkee was fought, under Sir Hugh Gough, when the Sikhs were beaten, but not effectually discomfited. In this battle fell Sir Robert Sale, the hero of Jelalabad; a man whom the whole nation would have been delighted to see enjoying his old age in England, after his long toils and sufferings in the East. Here, however, his left thigh was shattered by a ball, and he soon died of the wound. The next battle, that of Ferozshah, was rendered remarkable by the circumstance of the governor-general offering his services