opposition to our claims. On my remarking, immediately, and before proceeding to any discussion of them, that I had not before been aware of the extent and character of all these objections, they replied, that it was also for the first time that they had been apprised, in any authentic and full way, of the nature of the claims, as I had now stated them, on behalf of the United States; claims which they said they were bound to declare, at once, Great Britain was wholly unprepared to admit; and, especially, that which aimed at interdicting her from the right of future colonization in America.

Resuming the subject, I said, that it was unknown to my government, that Great Britain had ever even advanced any claim to territory on the Northwest Coast of America, by the right of occupation, before the Nootka Sound controversy. It was clear, that, by the treaty of Paris, of 1763, her territorial rights in America were bounded westward by the Mississippi. The claim of the United States, under the discovery by captain Gray, was, therefore, at all events, sufficient to overreach, in point of time, any that Great Britain could allege along that coast, on the ground of prior occupation or settlement. As to any alleged settlements by her subjects on the Columbia, or on rivers falling into it, earlier, or as early as the one formed by American citi zens at Astoria, I knew not of them, and was not prepared to admit the fact. As to the discovery itself of captain Gray, it was not for a moment to be drawn into question. It was a fact before the whole world. The very geographers of Britain had adopted the

name which he had given to this river.

Vancouver himself, undoubtedly the first British navigator who had ever entered it, admitted that he found captain Gray there; and the very instructions to this British officer, drawn up in March, 1791, and to be seen among the records of the British admiralty, expressly referred by name, to the previous expedition in that quarter of the American sloop, the Washington. Was this, I asked, to be accounted nothing? Did it lie with a foreign power, whose own archives might supply her with the essential, incontestible fact of the first discovery by the vessel of another power, of a vast river, whose waters, from their source to the ocean, had remained until then totally unknown to all civilised nations-did it lie with such foreign power to say, that the discovery was not made by a national ship, or under national authority? The United States, I said, could admit no such distinction; could never surrender, under it, or upon any ground, their claim to this discovery. The ship of captain Gray, whether fitted out by the government of the United States or not, was a national ship. If she was not so in a technical sense of the word, she was in the full sense of it, applicable to such an occasion. She bore at her stern the flag of the nation, sailed forth under the protection of the nation, and was to be identified with the rights of the nation. The extent of this interior country attaching to this discovery, was founded, I said, upon a principle at once reasonable and moderate-reasonable, because, as discovery was not to be limited to the local spot of a first landing place,

there must be a rule both for enlarging and circumscribing its range; and none more proper than that of taking the water courses which nature had laid down, both as the fair limits of the country, and as indispensable to its use and value-moderate, because the nations of Europe had often, under their rights of discovery, carried their claims much farther. Here I instanced, as sufficient for my purpose, and pertinent to it, the terms in which many of the royal charters and letters patent had been granted by the crown in England, to individuals proceeding to the discovery or settlement of new countries on the American continent: Among others, those from Elizabeth, in 1578, to sir Humphrey Gilbert, and, in 1584, to sir Walter Raleigh: those from James I. to sir Thomas Yates, in 1606 and 1607, and the Georgia charter of 1732. All these, extracts from which I produced, comprehended a range of country fully justifying my remark. By the words of the last, a grant is passed to all territories along the seacoast, from the river Savannah to the most southern stream of" another great river, called the Alatamaha, and westward from the heads of the said rivers, in a direct line, to the South seas." To show that Britain was not the only European nation, who, in her territorial claims on this continent, had had an eye to the rule of assuming water courses to be the fittest boundaries, I also cited the charter of Louis XIV., to Crozat, by which "all the country drained by the waters emptying directly or indirectly into the Mississippi," is declared to be 'comprehended under

the name, and within the limits, of Louisiana.

Russia

If Britain had put forth no claims on the Northwest Coast, founded on prior occupation, before the Nootka Sound contest, still less could she ever have established any, I remarked, at any period, founded on prior discovery. Claims of the latter class belonged wholly to Spain, and now, consequently, to the United States. The superior title of Spain on this ground, as well as others, was, indeed, capable of demonstration. had acknowledged it in 1790, as the state papers of the Nootka Sound controversy would show. The memorial of the Spanish court to the British minister, on that occasion, expressly asserted, that, notwithstanding all the attempted encroachments upon the Spanish coasts of the Pacific ocean, Spain had preserved her possessions there entire, possessions which she had constantly, and before all Europe, on that and other occasions, declared to extend to as high at least as the sixtieth degree of north latitude. The very first article of the Nootka Sound convention, attested, I said, the superiority of her title: for, whilst, by it, the nations of Europe generally were allowed to make settlements on that coast, it was only for the purposes of trade with the natives, thereby excluding the right of any exclusive or colonial establishments for other purposes. As to any claim on the part of Britain under the voyage of captain Cook, I remarked, that this was sufficiently superseded, (passing by every thing else,) by the journal of the Spanish expedition from San Blas, in 1775, kept by

Don Antonio Maurelle, for an account of which, I referred the British plenipotentiaries to the work of Daines Barrington, a British author. In that expedition, consisting of a frigate and schooner, fitted out by the viceroy of Mexico, the Northwest Coast was visited in latitude, 45, 47, 49, 53, 55, 56, 57, and 58, not one of which points, there was good reason for believing, had ever been explored, or as much as seen, up to that day, by any navigator of Great Britain. There was, too, I said, the voyage of Juan Peres, prior to 1775; that of Aguilar, in 1601, who explored that coast in latitude 45; that of de Fuca, in 1592, who explored it in latitude 48, giving the name, which they still bore, to the straits in that latitude, without going through a much longer list of other early Spanish navigators in that sea, whose discoveries were confessedly of a nature to put out of view those of all other nations. I finished by saying, that, in the opinion of my government, the title of the United States to the whole of that coast, from latitude 42, to as far north as latitude 60, was, therefore, superior to that of Britain, or any other power; first, through the proper claim of the United States by discovery and settlement, and secondly, as now standing in the place of Spain, and holding in their hands all her title.

Neither my remarks nor my authorities, of which I have endeavoured to present an outline, made the impression upon the British plenipotentiaries which I was desirous that they should have produced. They repeated their animated denials of the title of the United States, as alleged to have been acquired by themselves, en

larging and insisting upon their objections to it, as I have already stated them. Nor were they less decided in their renewed impeachments of the title of Spain. They said, that it was well known to them what had formerly been the pretensions of Spain to absolute sovereignty and dominion in the South seas, and over all the shores of America which they washed; but, that these were pretensions which Britain had never admitted: on the contrary, she had strenuously resisted them. They referred to the note of the British minister to the court of Spain, of May 16th, 1790, in which Britain had not only asserted a full right to an uninterrupted commerce and navigation in the Pacific, but also that of forming, with the consent of the natives, whatever establishments she thought proper on the Northwest Coast, in parts not already occupied by other nations. This had always been the doctrine of Great Britain, and from it, nothing that was due, in her estimation, to other powers, now called upon her in any degree to depart.

As to the alleged prior discoveries of Spain, all along that coast, Britain did not admit them, but with great qualification. She could never admit that the mere fact of Spanish navigators having first seen the coast at particular points, even where this was capable of being substantiated as the fact, without any subsequent or efficient acts of sovereignty or settlement following on the part of Spain, was sufficient to exclude all other nations from that portion of the globe. Besides, they said, even on the score of prior discovery on that coast, at least as far up as the 48th degree of north latitude, Britain

herself had a claim over all other nations.

Here they referred to Drake's expedition in 1578, who, as they said, explored that coast on the part of England, from 37 to 48 north, making formal claim to these limits in the name of Elizabeth, and giving the name of New Albion to all the country which they comprehended. Was this, they asked, to be reputed nothing in the comparison of prior discoveries, and did it not even take in a large part of the very coast now claimed by the United States as, of prior discovery on their side? Such was the character of their remarks on this part of the title. In connection with them, they called my attention to the report of a select committee of the house of representatives, in April last, on the subject of Columbia river. There is a letter from general Jesup in this report, adopted by the committee as part of the report, and which, as the British plenipotentiaries said, had acquired importance in the eyes of their government from that fact. They commented upon several passages of this letter, a newspaper copy of which they held in their hands, but chiefly on that part which contains an intimation that a removal from our territory of all British subjects, now allowed to trade on the waters of the Columbia, might become a necessary measure on the part of the United States, as soon as the convention of 1818 had expired. Of this intimation the British plenipotentiaries complained, as one calculated to put Great Britain especially upon her guard, arriving, as the document did, at a moment when a friendly negotiation was pending between the two powers, for the adjustment

of their relative and conflicting claims to that entire district of country. Had I any knowledge, they asked, of this document? I replied that I had not, as communicated to me by my government. All that I could say of it was, and this I would say confidently, that I was sure it had been conceived in no unfriendly spirit towards Great Britain. Yet, I was bound, unequivocally, to re-assert, and so I requested the British plenipotentiaries would consider me as doing, the full and exclusive sovereignty of the United States over the whole of the territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, washed by the river Columbia, in manner and extent as I had stated, subject, of course, to whatever existing conventional arrangements they may have formed in regard to it with other powers. Their title to this whole country they considered as not to be shaken. It had often been proclaimed in the legislative discussions of the nation, and was otherwise public before the world. Its broad and stable foundations were laid in the first uncontradicted discovery of that river, both at its mouth and at its source, followed up by an effective settlement, and that settlement the earliest ever made upon its banks. If a title in the United States, thus transcendent, needed confirmation, it might be sought in their now uniting to it the title of Spain. It was not the intention of the United States, I remarked, to repose upon any of the extreme pretensions of that power to speculative dominion in those seas, which grew up in less enlightened ages, however countenanced in those ages; nor had I, as their plenipotentiary, sought any aid from such pretensions; but, to

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the extent of the just claims of Spain, grounded upon her fair enterprise and resources, at periods when her renown for both, filled all Europe, the United States had succeeded, and, upon claims of this character, it had, therefore, become as well their right as their duty to insist. I asserted again the incontestible priority of Spanish discoveries on the coast in question. I referred to the voyage of Cortez, who, in 1537, discovered California to those of Alarçon and Coronado, in 1540; to that of Cabrillo, in 1542; all of whom were prior to Drake, and the last of whom made the coast, by all the accounts that are given, as high up as latitude 44. As to Drake, I said, that, although Fleurieu, in his introduction to Marchand, did assert that he got as far north as 48, yet Hakluyt, who wrote almost at the time that Drake flourished, informs us that he got no higher than 43, having put back at that point from "the extreme cold." All the later authors or compilers, also, who spoke of his voyage, however they might differ as to the degree of latitude to which he went, adopted from Hakluyt this fact of his having turned back from the intensity of the weather. The preponderance of probability, therefore, I alleged, as well as of authority, was, that Drake did not get beyond 43 along that coast. At all events, it was certain that he had made no settlements there, and the absence of these would, under the doctrine of Great Britain, as applied by her to Spain, prevent any title whatever attaching to his supposed discoveries. They were, moreover, put out of view by the treaty of 1763, by which Britain agreed to consider the Mississippi

as her western boundary upon that continent.

Our discussions, which grew into length, and only a condensed view of which I have aimed at presenting to you, terminated without any change of opinion on either side. They were ended on the side of Great Britain, by her plenipotentiaries repeating, that they found it altogether impossible to accede, either to the proposal of the United States, or to the reasoning invoked in its support. That, nevertheless, they desired to lay a foundation of harmony between the two countries in that part of the globe. That, with this view, and setting aside the discordant principles of the two governments, in the hope of promoting it, they had to propose, first, that the third article of the convention of October, 1818, should now be considered as at an end. Secondly, that, instead of it, the boundary line between the territories, respectively claimed by the two powers, westward of the Rocky Mountains, should be drawn due west, along the 49th parallel of latitude, to the point where it strikes the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia, and thence, down, along the middle of the Columbia, to the Pacific ocean; the navigation of this river to be forever free to the subjects and citizens of both nations: and further, that the subjects or citizens of either should not, in future, be allowed to form settlements within the limits to be thus assigned to the other, with a saving in favor of settlements already formed within the prohibited limits, the proprietors or occupants of which, on both sides, should be allowed to remain ten years longer.

They remarked, that, in submitting it, they considered Great Bri