§ MR. EASTWICKasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there has been any correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States on the subject of the Boundary between British North America and the territory purchased by the United States from Russia on the 30th 1488 of March, 1867, or any Commission sent out to examine the Boundary; and, whether the rights of navigation, &c. conceded to Great Britain by the Convention of 28th February, 1825, are still in force?
§ VISCOUNT ENFIELDin reply, said, that Sir Edward Thornton was instructed in the autumn of last year to suggest to the Government of the United States the appointment of a Joint Commission to survey and lay down the Alaska Boundary. The American Government approved, and a Bill was brought into Congress for authorizing the President to take part in it. Pressure of business, however, prevented the Bill from being proceeded with, and the matter must therefore stand over for the next Session of Congress. With regard to the second Question, acting under the opinion of the Queen's Advocate, Mr. Ford, then Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Washington, was informed on the 30th of December, 1867—
That the United States were bound by the recitals from the Convention which were incorporated in the Treaty of Cession as far as the geographical limits of the ceded territory are concerned; but that as regards the other articles of the Convention, whereby certain points connected with the commerce, navigation, and fisheries of British and Russian subjects were settled for their reciprocal convenience, the obligations contracted by Russia towards Great Britain under these articles do not devolve upon the United States by virtue of the Treaty of Cession.