were considered as a final disposal of Mr. Bagot's objections, and Mr. Canning declined committing to paper those which he had intimated in conversation.

The discussion of the Russian pretensions in the negotiation now proposed, necessarily involves the interests of the three powers, and renders it manifestly proper that the United States and Great Britain should come to a mutual understanding, with respect to their respective pretensions, as well as upon their joint views with reference to those of Russia.

The principles settled by the Nootka Sound convention of 28th October, 1790, were

1st. That the rights of fishing in the south seas, of trading with the natives of the Northwest Coast of America; and of making settlements on the coast itself, for the purposes of that trade, north of the actual settlements of Spain, were common to all the European nations, and, of course, to the United States.

2d. That so far as the actual settlements of Spain had extended, she possessed the exclusive rights, territorial, and of navigation and fishery; extending to the distance of ten miles from the coasts so actually occupied.

3d. That, on the coasts of South America, and the adjacent islands, south of the parts already occupied by Spain, no settlement should thereafter be made either by British or Spanish subjects; but, on both sides, should be retained the liberty of landing and of erecting temporary buildings for the purposes of the fishery. These rights were, also, of course, enjoyed by the people of the United States.

The exclusive rights of Spain to

any part of the American continents have ceased. That portion of the convention, therefore, which recognises the exclusive colonial rights of Spain on these continents, though confirmed, as between Great Britain and Spain, by the first additional article to the treaty of the 5th of July, 1814, has been extinguished by the fact of the independence of the South American nations and of Mexico. Those independent nations will possess the rights incident to that condition, and their territories will, of course, be subject to no exclusive right of navigation in their vicinity, or of access to them, by any foreign nation.

A necessary consequence of this state of things, will be, that the American continents, henceforth, will no longer be subject to colonization. Occupied by civilised, independent nations, they will be accessible to Europeans, and each other, on that footing alone; and the Pacific Ocean, in every part of it, will remain open to the navigation of all nations, in like manner with the Atlantic.

Incidental to the condition of national independence and sovereignty, the rights of interior navigation of their rivers will belong to each of the American nations within its own territories.

The application of colonial principles of exclusion, therefore, cannot be admitted by the United States as lawful, upon any part of the Northwest Coast of America, or as belonging to any European nation. Their own settlements there, when organized as territorial governments, will be adapted to the freedom of their own institutions, and, as constituent parts of the union, be subject to the princi

ples and provisions of their constitution.

The right of carrying on trade with the natives throughout the Northwest Coast, they cannot renounce. With the Russian settlements at Kodiack, or at New Archangel, they may fairly claim the advantage of a fur trade, having so long enjoyed it unmolested, and because it has been, and would continue to be, as advantageous, at least, to those settlements as to them. But they will not contest the right of Russia to prohibit the traffic, as strictly confined to the Russian settlement itself, and not extending to the original natives of the coast.

If the British Northwest and Hudson's Bay Companies have any posts on the coast, as suggested in the article of the Quarterly Review, above cited, the 3d article of the convention of the 20th October, 1818, is applicable to them. Mr. Middleton is authorised, by his instructions, to propose an article of similar import, to be inserted in a joint convention between the United States, Great Britain, and Russia, for a term of ten years from its signature. You are authorised to make the same proposal to the British government, and, with a view to draw a definite line of demarkation, for the future, to stipulate that no settlement shall hereafter be made on the Northwest Coast, or on any of the islands thereto adjoining, by Russian subjects south of latitude 55; by citizens of the United States north of latitude 51, or by British subjects, either south of 51 or north of 55. I mention the latitude of 51, as the bound within which we are willing to limit the future settlement of the

United States, because it is not to be doubted that the Columbia river branches as far north as 51, although it is most probably not the Tacoutche Tesse of Mackenzie. As, however, the line already runs in latitude 49, to the Stony Mountains, should it be earnestly insisted upon by Great Britain, we will consent to carry it in continuance, on the same parallel to the sea.

I have the honor to be, with great respect,

Sir, your very humble

And obedient servant, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Richard Rush, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary U. S. London.

Extract of a LETTER from MR. RUSH to MR. ADAMS, dated August 12th, 1824.

I now come to the last of the subjects that the president confided to me-that contained in your instructions of the 2d July, 1823, relative to the Northwest Coast of America. Although no arrangement was concluded on this subject, it is not the less incumbent upon me carefully to apprise you of the discussions by which it was marked. They will probably be found not without interest.

I opened this subject with the British plenipotentiaries at the eleventh conference, I remarked, that, although it had been understood in my preparatory conversations with the proper organ of his majesty's government, that the respective territorial or other claims of the United States and Russia, as well as of Great Britain and Russia, regarding the country westward of the Rocky Mountains, were to be matter of separate discussion at St. Petersburgh; yet,

that those of the United States and Britain were now, according to the understanding in the same conversations, to be taken up for formal discussion in London.

It bore

My government was aware, that the convention of October, 1818, between the United States and Great Britain, one article of which contained a temporary regulation of this interest, had still four years to run; but the president, nevertheless, was of opinion, that the present was not an unsuitable moment for attempting a new and more definite adjustment of the respective claims of the two powers to the country in question. It was a country daily assuming an aspect, political, commercial, and territorial, of more and more interest to the United States. upon their relations with other states, upon their fisheries as well as their commerce in the Pacific, upon their fur trade, and the whole system of their intercourse with vast tribes of the Indians. I reminded the British plenipotentiaries, that, by the third article of the treaty of Washington, of February the twenty-second, 1819, between the United States and Spain, the boundary line between the two countries was fixed, in part, along the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source, in latitude 42 north, and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South sea; and that Spain had also renounced to the United States, by the same article, all her rights north of that parallel. I then made known, at this and other conferences-for, from the extent of the subject, I was unable even to open it all at one conference-what I understood to be the nature of the title of the United States to the whole of the country

north of the parallel stated. I said, that, apart from all the right as thus acquired from Spain, which, however, was regarded by my government as surpassing the right of all other European powers, on that coast, the United States claimed, in their own right, and as their absolute and exclusive sovereignty and dominion, the whole of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, from the 42d to at least as far up as the 51st degree of north latitude. This claim they rested upon their first discovery of the river Columbia, followed up by an effective settlement at its moutha settlement which was reduced by the arms of Britain during the late war, but formally surrendered up to the United States at the return of peace.

Their right, by first discovery, they deemed peculiarly strong, having been made not only from the sea by captain Gray, but also from the interior by Lewis and Clarke, who first discovered its sources, and explored its whole inland course to the Pacific ocean. It had been ascertained that the Columbia extended by the river Multnomah, to as low as 42 north; and, by Clarke's river, to a point as high up as 51, if not beyond that point; and to this entire range of country, contiguous to the original dominion of the United States, and made a part of it by the almost intermingling waters of each, the United States, I said, considered their title as established, by all the principles that had ever been applied on this subject by the pow ers of Europe, to settlements in the American hemisphere. I asserted, that a nation, discovering a country by entering the mouth of its principal river at the sea coast.

must necessarily be allowed to claim and hold, as great an extent of the interior country as was described by the course of such principal river, and its tributary streams and that the claim, to this extent, became doubly strong, where, as in the present instance, the same river had also been discovered and explored from its very mountain springs to the sea.

Such an union of titles, imparting validity to each other, did not often exist. I remarked, that it was scarcely to be presumed that any European nation would henceforth project any colonial establishment on any part of the Northwest Coast of America, which, as yet, had never been used to any other useful purpose than that of trading with the aboriginal inhabitants, or fishing in the neighboring seas; but that the United States should contemplate, and at one day form, permanent establishments there, was naturally to be expected, as proximate to their own possessions, and falling under their immediate jurisdiction. Speaking of the powers of Europe, who had ever advanced claims to any part of this coast, I referred to the principles that had been settled by the Nootka Sound convention of 1790, and remarked that Spain had now lost all her exclusive colonial rights, that were recognised under that convention, first, by the fact of the independence of the South American states and of Mexico, and next, by her express renunciation of all her rights, of whatever kind, above the 42d degree of north latitude, to the United States. Those new states would, themselves, now possess the rights incident to their condition of political independence, and the claims of the United States above

the 42d parallel, as high up as 60, claims as well in their own right, as by their succession to the title of Spain, would henceforth necessarily preclude other nations from forming colonial establishments upon any part of the American continents. I was, therefore, instructed to say, that my government no longer considered any part of those continents as open to future colonization by any of the powers of Europe, and that this was a principle upon which I should insist in the course of the negotiation.

I added, that the United States did not desire to interfere with the actual settlements of other nations on the Northwest Coast of America, and that, in regard to those which Great Britain might have formed above the 51st degree of latitude, they would remain, with all such rights of trade with the natives, and rights of fishery, as those settlements had enjoyed hitherto. As regarded future settlements, by either of the parties, I said that it was the wish of my government to regulate these upon principles that might be mutually satisfactory, and tend to prevent all collision. I was, therefore, instructed to propose, first, the extension to a further term of ten years, of the third article of the convention of October, 1818; and secondly, that Britain should stipulate, during the like term, that no settlement should be made by any of her subjects on the Northwest Coast of America, or the islands adjoining, either south of the fiftyfirst degree of latitude, or north of the fifty-fifth degree: the United States stipulating that none should be made by their citizens north of the fifty-first degree.

It is proper, now, that I should

as

give you faithful information of the manner in which the British plenipotentiaries received my proposal, and the principles under which I had introduced it. I may set out by saying, in a word, that they totally declined the one, and totally denied the other. They said that Great Britain considered the whole of the unoccupied parts of America, as being open to her future settlements, in like manner heretofore. They included within these parts, as well that portion of the Northwest Coast, lying between the 42d and 51st degrees of latitude, as any other parts. The principle of colonization on that coast, or elsewhere, on any portion of those continents not yet occupied, Great Britain was not prepared to relinquish. Neither was she prepared to accede to the exclusive claim of the United States. She had not, by her convention with Spain, in 1790, or at any other period, conceded to that power any exclusive rights on that coast, where actual settlements had not been formed. She considered the same principles applicable to it now, as then. She could not concede to the United States, who held the Spanish title, claims which she had felt herself obliged to resist, when advanced by Spain, and on her resistance to which, the credit of Great Britain had been thought to depend.

Nor could Great Britain at all admit, the plenipotentiaries said, the claim of the United States, as founded on their own first discovery. It had been objectionable with her in the negotiation of 1818, and had not been admitted since. Her surrender to the United States of the post at Columbia river, after the late war, was in fulfilment of

the provisions of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, without affecting questions of right on either side. Britain did not admit the validity of the discovery by captain Gray. He had only been on an enterprise of his own, as an individual, and the British government was yet to be informed under what principles or usage, among the nations of Europe, his having first entered or discovered the mouth of the river Columbia, admitting this to have been the fact, was to carry after it such a portion of the interior country as was alleged. Great Britain entered her dissent to such a claim; and, least of all, did she admit that the circumstance of a merchant vessel of the United States having penetrated the coast of that continent at Columbia river, was to be taken to extend a claim in favor of the United States along the same coast, both above and below that river, over latitudes that had been previously discovered and explored by Great Britain herself, in expeditions fitted out under the authority, and with the resources of the nation. This had been done by captain Cook, to speak of no others, whose voyage was, at least, prior to that of captain Gray. On the coast, only a few degrees south of the Columbia, Britain had made purchases of territory from the natives before the United States were an independent power; and upon that river itself, or upon rivers that flowed into it, west of the Rocky Mountains, her subjects had formed settlements coeval with, if not prior to, the settlement by American citizens at its mouth.

Such is a summary of the grounds taken at the very outset by the British plenipotentiaries, in