CAB7-4 — Page 460

Page 460

Appendix No. 4.

VANCOUVER ISLAND.

Page 460

Rodd Point

432

Inclosure 2 in No. 125.

Report on the Defences of Esquimalt and. Victoria.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL STRANGE.

Keep on hill 450 yards in rear.

Signal Hill

•

Holland's Point

The old batteries to be maintained

and inclosed, viz. :——

4 9-in. 12-ton.

Defence of Esquimalt.

2 9-in. 12-ton Moncrieff.

2 7-in. 6-ton.

Sangster's Knoll Rodd Point

Signal Hill Cape Saxe

COLONEL LOVELL.

6 10-in. 18-ton.

6 7-in. 7-ton.

1 or 2 10-in. 18-ton.

..

6 10-in. 18-ton.

..

6 10-in. 18-ton.

Brothers' Island

Macaulay Point

Finlayson Point Victoria Point

Field armament

Beacon Hill

The old batteries to be maintained,

viz:

1 8-in. 9-ton.

Brothers' Island

2 64-prs.

3 7-in. 6-ton.

Macaulay Point

2 64-prs.

2 64-prs.

4 16-pr. R.M.L.

6 9-in. 12-ton R.M.L.

1 8-in. 9-ton R.M.L.

Total

5 7-in. 6-ton R.M.L. 6 64-prs. 14 16-prs.

Finlayson Point Victoria Point

Field armament

Torpedoes-

Esquimalt Victoria

Total

:::

:

..

{

1 8-in. 9-ton.

2 64-prs.

3 7-in. 6-ton. 2 64-prs.

2 64-prs.

1220-prs. 40-prs.

27 ground mines. 16

وو

1

And some contact mines.

20 10-in. 18-ton R.M.L,

1 8-in. 9-ton R.M.L.

6 7-in. 7-ton R.M.L.

3 7-in. 6-ton R.M.L. 6 64-prs.

12 20-prs.

Vide Plate It

Sir,

Commanding Royal Engineer's Office, Halifax, Nova Scotia, December 20, 1879.

WITH reference to your letter of instructions of the 1st July, 1879, and second letter of the same date,* directing me to report on the defences of Esquimalt and Victoria Harbours, and other points in British Columbia, I have to inform you that on my arrival at Victoria, Vancouver Island, on the 13th August, after calling upon the Governor and other officials, including Com- mander Arthur Paget, R.N., of Her Majesty's ship "Penguin," and Lieutenant-Commander Vere Orlebar, of Her Majesty's ship "Rocket," who afforded me every assistance in their power, I, in company with Lieutenant-Colonel Strange, R.A., Lieutenant Hussey, R.E., and Captain Dupont, the Acting-Assistant Adjutant-General of the Local Militia, visited and examined the temporary batteries constructed and armed by Lieutenant-Colonel Irvine, R.A., for the defence of the two harbours.

We also went round and closely examined the shores near those harbours, and drove over some of the principal roads leading to the towns of Victoria and Esquimalt from the smaller bays, &c., in the vicinity. We then made an inspection of the naval establishment at Esquimalt, and of the proposed new dock for which the preliminary works are being made in the small cove to the east of the Naval Yard.

Having noticed in the public papers that the fitness of Esquimalt Harbour as the position for the naval establishment in the North Pacific had been questioned in Parliament, I made inquiry as to what other harbours might be expected to afford greater advantages, and was referred to Burrard Inlet, a few miles to the north of the Fraser River; Bute Inlet, on the British Columbian coast, about half-way up the Straits of Georgia; Alberni Canal, leading into Barclay Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island; and Port Simpson, facing Dixon Entrance at the north of Queen Charlotte's Islands, the harbours between which the choice lay for the terminal point of the Canada Pacific Railway.

The dense summer fogs being expected to set in, I started on the 26th August in Her Majesty's ship "Rocket" to visit Nanaimo Harbour, and the weather continuing clear, extended the trip to the three harbours mentioned, but did not go to Port Simpson, as I was anxious to get back to Esquimalt, and there seemed but a remote probability of that port being selected for the terminus.

I also visited New Westminster, and ascended the Fraser River to about 15 miles above Yale, to inquire as to the defensive capabilities of the line of country through which there seemed great reason to expect that the Canada Pacific Railway would be carried to Burrard Inlet, and which lies close to the frontier of the United States.

I regret that, in consequence of a troublesome illness that attacked me while travelling, my move- ments were slower and more cramped than I could have wished.

While engaged in the general question of the defence of the Pacific coast of the Dominion my attention was called to a discrepancy that appears to exist between the boundary-line of the United States' Province of Alaska and British Columbia, as laid down on the maps and charts of the present day, and as described in the terms of the Treaty of the 28th February, 1825, as printed in McCulloch's “Commercial Dictionary," p. 668 of the second volume of the edition by Vethake, LL.D., Philadelphia,

1848.

* (A) and (B) in Inclosure 4 in No: 124.

† Not printed.

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