The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-24 00:00:00

Jtnin 11 7.‘ int

LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1845.

A correspondent of the Times, in a letter pub-
lished in that journal on Thursday last, adverts to the
recent announcements touching the arrival in this
country, from the United States, of some of the
Royal Sappers and Miners who " have been lately
employed upon the survey of the boundary between
that territory and British North America." He very
naturally expatiates on the immense importance of
accelerating the survey and settlement of the conter-
minous limits of the Oregon territory and that
part of the dominions of the United States
immediately impinging thereon ; and in re-
ference to our present condition of compa-
rative uncertainty, even as to the mere geographical
or assumed frontier points, and of our absolute igno-
rance as to the physical features :of the boundary so
needful to be promptly and distinctly ascertained,
he expresses his astonishment that the Government
should have hitherto taken no means for securing,
towards the attainment of an object that is important
and urgent in its nature, the invaluable aid and
talents of certain distinguished individuals among its
own servants, already engaged in another part of the
American Continent on the Boundary Survey, under
the stipulations of the ASHBURTON Treaty. In allu-
sion to Colonel ESCOTT and the other Commissioners
charged with this latter survey, he remarks, that the
return of the Sappers and Miners in question gives
a colour of great probability to the general report,
that the work in question approaches rapidly to its
completion. If so, he demands, why should not the
same officers, who have been selected on the express
recommendation of our Astronomer Royal, for
conducting the scientific operations under the
ASHBURTON Treaty, be transferred, immediately
on the completion of these labours, to the
Oregon boundary ? And we quite concur in holding
that no such means as those thus at hand and
in full training for the work, can be collected again
for ascertaining and determining the international
boundaries between the Oregon territory and the
United States, if the Commissioners in question be
allowed to return to England without entering into
this momentous investigation, whatever shape the
Oregon affair may hereafter take—whether it result
in a partition of that vast region between the two
countries, or we shall insist upon our extreme and
indefeasible right to the whole of it. In either case,
it is very certain that the first and the indispensable
step to be taken is —to survey and fix the line to be
hereafter recognised as that which divides the Oregon
country from the territory of the United States.
" Better know what we should claim, and then claim it
as becomes our country, than procrastinate until the
invaded rights of our fellow-subjects imperatively de-
mand the presence of a British fleet in the North
Pwific."

This alternative we have ourselves, in treating of
the Oregon question, so often urged upon the earnest
consideration of the Government, that we do not feel
called upon to go again into the general principles on
which we have always regarded the occupation pro-
ject of the United States, as one which could neither
he evaded nor postponed. We have shown, in many
former articles on this subject, how completely we
had crippled our own case with regard to the Canada
Boundary question, by a culpable inactivity—an un-
accountable apathy—an unpardonable indifference to
the palpable State necessities, which demanded that
the reserved conditions of boundary stipulated by the
treaty of 1763, between France and England, and,
again, by our preposterous treaty with the United
States, perpetrated at Ghent in 1814 ;—should be
practically discharged by the actual survey and deter-
mination of that frontier which, in 1845, after refe-
rences and arbitrations, the award of which has been
receded from with such singular bad faith on the part
of America towards the Governments of this country
and of the late King of HOLLAND, is now about to be
finally ascertained and laid down.
If delay,—that official delay which it is the misfor-
tune of Great Britain ever to complain of as the cer-
tain accompaniment or result of her diplomatic
failures,—if this delay was to be deprecated in the
case of the north-western and north-eastern boundaries
of the United States—if the protracted adjustment of
those territorial disputes, even in the moment of its
tardy accomplishment, is only attainable by territorial
sacrifices on our part, which, whether they
be worthless or not, we ought never to have
been in a condition of liability to be called
upon to make ; delay in the settlement
of the Oregon frontier is calculated to be productive
now of infinitely greater embarrassment and mischief.
For the reasons upon which it has been our duty so
often to ground the case for the possessory title of
Great Britain, we retain our conviction that the
honour of this country is involved to a most serious
extent in the vindication of that title. What the
result of deliberations in the British Cabinet or the
Legislature may be, as to any equitable suggestions
that may be urged in favour of permissive occupation
by subjects of the United States, or of territorial ex-
change, it is impossible for us to speculate upon. But
the tone already assumed in two branches of the
American Legislature on this Oregon question ; the
unscrupulous policy and moral turpitude evinced
by its Executive in their underhand intrigues
in connexion with the PRESIDENT'S scheme for
annexing Texas to the immense federal dominions
of the United States ;—offer little prospect of our
being enabled, with a just regard to the dignity and
the just rights of that country, to find any course
Practicable that shall lee short of a positive and abso-
lute demonstration of our sovereignty over the
Oregon. The interests of a large and most valuable
branch of our foreign commerce (though we advert
to them as being of secondary importance to the great
principles of inter-national law and territorial
sovereignty, we contend for), especially demand, at
the hands of our Government, a degree of attention
and care, in dealing with this subject proportioned to
the present and future importance of that region from
whom the most valuable of the valuable furs that
find so ready a sale in the markets of China, are
now supplied. On still higher considerations of
humanity, we do trust that a timely
demonstration of earnestness of purpose, and energy
of action, on the part of our Ministers and their diplo-
matic agents, may not only avert the extreme result
of an ultimate collision between two great countries,
and that sacrifice of human life which would inevi-
tably be entailed by such a collision, but, by rectifying
one of those vague and undefined conditions of State
relations, the mischievous tendencies of which it is im-
possible to exaggerate, may remove a baneful source
of jealousies, excitement, and heartburnings between
the American people and the British nation ; and thus
tend, rather to the consolidation of friendly feelings,
than the exacerbation of resentful ones, in those whom
it is for the benefit of the civilised world, of universal
civilisation, to retain in reciprocal amity.

The laws relative to debt, and to the protection of
game, are certainly among the most remarkable ano-
malies to be found in the institutions of this country.
The juxta-position in which we place them on the
present occasion is no more anomalous in itself, than
almost every aspect under which these laws present
themselves to the consideration of the statesman, the
legislator, or the moralist. In the " Ninth Report of
the Inspectors of Prisons," just issued from the Par-
liamentary Paper-office, we find these laws of debt