U.S. is squeezing Britain

Our special despatch announces the ratification of the treaty whereby Russia agrees to sell and the United States agrees to buy all that tract of land lying north and west of the 60th degree of latitude and known as the Russian Possessions in North America.

The importance of this purchase cannot be overestimated.

It opens to American enterprise the inexhaustible fisheries and the extensive fur trade of that region, besides giving the United States control of a strip of seaboard, 10 leagues in width, from Fort Simpson to the 60th degree of latitude.

Award that power San Juan Island, and Great Britain will have scarcely a foothold of coast on the Pacific that she can call her own, or with which, in case of war with our neighbour, she would not find it next to impossible to communicate.

John Bull, in America, is being hemmed in by Brother Jonathan in a manner much more forcible than agreeable; and if the Duke of Buckingham really stated, as reported, that the cession of the Russian territory to the Americans is a matter of indifference to Her Majesty’s Government, he was either ignorant of the subject on which he spoke, or the home government is trying to rid herself of her colonies.

The understanding between the United States and Russia is cordial, and although the cession of this territory does not indicate an alliance offensive and defensive between the two powers, it would seem that Russia is preparing for trouble on the Eastern question, and is endeavouring to buy the moral support and sympathy of America in the struggle which the whole world is aware must soon take place. The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle,

April 17, 1867