Who can forget the salutation which the poet sends to the “one great clime,” which, nursed in Freedom, enjoys what he calls the “proud distinction” of not being confounded with other lands,—
“Whose sons must bow them at a monarch’s motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand”?
The present treaty is a visible step in the occupation of the whole North American continent. As such it will be recognized by the world and accepted by the American people. But the treaty involves something more. We dismiss one other monarch from the continent. One by one they have retired,—first France, then Spain, then France again, and now Russia,—all giving way to the absorbing Unity declared in the national motto, E pluribus unum.
4. Anticipation of Great Britain.—Another motive to this acquisition may be found in the desire to anticipate imagined schemes or necessities of Great Britain. With regard to all these I confess doubt; and yet, if we credit report, it would seem as if there were already a British movement in this direction. Sometimes it is said that Great Britain desires to buy, if Russia will sell. Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company, declared, that, without the strip on the coast underlet to them by the Russian Company, the interior would be “comparatively useless to England.”[24] Here, then, is provocation to buy. Sometimes report assumes a graver character. A German scientific journal, in an elaborate paper entitled “The Russian Colonies on the Northwest Coast of America,” after referring to the constant “pressure” upon Russia, proceeds to say that there are already crowds of adventurers from British Columbia and California now at the gold mines on the Stikine, which flows from British territory through the Russian possessions, who openly declare their purpose of driving the Russians out of this region. I refer to the “Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland,”[25] edited at Berlin as late as 1863, by A. Erman, and undoubtedly the leading authority on Russian questions. At the same time it presents a curious passage bearing directly on British policy, purporting to be taken from the “British Colonist,” a newspaper of Victoria, on Vancouver’s Island. As this was regarded of sufficient importance to be translated into German for the instruction of scientific readers, I am justified in laying it before you, restored from German to English.
“The information which we daily publish from the Stikine River very naturally excites public attention in a high degree. Whether the territory through which the river flows be regarded from a political, commercial, or industrial point of view, it promises within a short time to awaken a still more general interest. Not only will the intervention of the royal jurisdiction be demanded in order to give it a complete form of government, but, if the land proves as rich as there is now reason to believe it to be, it is not improbable that it will result in negotiations between England and Russia for the cession of the sea-coast to the British Crown. It is not to be supposed that a stream like the Stikine, which is navigable for steamers from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety miles, which waters a territory so rich in gold that it will attract myriads of men,—that the commerce upon such a road can always pass through a Russian gateway of thirty miles from the sea-coast to the interior. The English population which occupies the interior cannot be so easily managed by the Russians as the Stikine Indians of the coast manage the Indians of the interior. Our business must be in British hands. Our resources, our energies, our spirit of enterprise cannot be employed in building up a Russian emporium at the mouth of the Stikine. We must have for our merchandise a depot over which the British flag waves. By the treaty of 1825 the navigation of the river is secured to us. The navigation of the Mississippi was also open to the United States before the Louisiana purchase; but the growing strength of the North made the acquisition of that territory, either by purchase or by force of arms, an inevitable necessity. We look upon the sea-coast of the Stikine region in the same light. The strip of land which stretches along from Portland Canal to Mount St. Elias, with a breadth of thirty miles, and which, according to the treaty of 1825, forms a part of Russian America, must eventually become the property of Great Britain, either as the direct result of the gold discoveries, or from causes as yet not fully developed, but whose operation is certain. For can we reasonably suppose that the strip, three hundred miles long and thirty miles wide, which is used by the Russians solely for the collection of furs and walrus-teeth, will forever control the entrance to our immense northern territory? It is a principle of England to acquire territory only for purposes of defence. Canada, Nova Scotia, Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, and the greater part of our Indian possessions were all acquired for purposes of defence. In Africa, India, and China the same rule is followed by the Government to-day. With a power like Russia it would perhaps be more difficult to arrange matters; but if we need the sea-coast in order to protect and maintain our commerce with an interior rich in precious metals, then we must have it. The United States needed Florida and Louisiana, and took them. We need the coast of New Norfolk and New Cornwall.
“It is just as much the destiny of our Anglo-Norman race to possess the whole of Russian America, however desolate and inhospitable it may be, as it has been that of the Russian Northmen to possess themselves of Northern Europe and Asia. As the Wandering Jew and his phantom, so will the Anglo-Norman and the Russian yet gaze at each other from the opposite sides of Behring Strait. Between the two races the northern halves of the Old and New World must be divided. America must be ours.
“The recent discovery of the precious metals in our hyperborean Eldorado will most probably hasten the annexation of the territory in question. It can hardly be doubted that the gold region of the Stikine extends away to the western affluents of the Mackenzie. In this case the increase of the business and of the population will exceed our most sanguine expectations. Who shall reap the profit of this? The mouths of rivers, both before and since the time of railroads, have controlled the business of the interior. To our national pride the thought, however, is intolerable, that the Russian griffin should possess a point which is indebted to the British lion for its importance. The mouth of the Stikine must be ours,—or at least a harbor of export must be established on British soil from which our steamers can pass the Russian belt. Fort Simpson, Dundas Island, Portland Canal, or some other convenient point, might be selected for this purpose. The necessity of speedy measures, in order to secure the control of the Stikine, is manifest. If we let slip the opportunity, we shall live to see a Russian city arise at the gates of a British colony.”
Thus, if we credit this colonial ejaculation, caught up and preserved by German science, the Russian possessions were destined to round and complete the domain of Great Britain on this continent. The Russian “griffin” was to give way to the British “lion.” The Anglo-Norman was to be master as far as Behring Strait, across which he might survey his Russian neighbor. How this was to be accomplished is not precisely explained. The promises of gold on the Stikine failed, and it is not improbable that this colonial plan was as unsubstantial. Colonists become excited easily. This is not the first time that Russian America has been menaced in a similar way. During the Crimean War there seemed to be in Canada a spirit not unlike that of the Vancouver journalist, unless we are misled by the able pamphlet[26] of Mr. A. K. Roche, of Quebec, where, after describing Russian America as “richer in resources and capabilities than it has hitherto been allowed to be, either by the English, who shamefully gave it up, or by the Russians, who cunningly obtained it,” the author urges an expedition for its conquest and annexion. His proposition fell on the happy termination of the war, but it exists as a warning, with notice also of a former English title, “shamefully” abandoned.