convention concluded by Lord Hawkesbury and Rufus King on the 12th of May 1803 it was provided that, in view of the uncertainty as to the extent of the Mississippi northward, the boundary should be "the shortest line" that could be drawn "between the northwest point of the Lake of the Woods and the nearest source of the Mississippi."

Before this convention could be acted upon by the Senate the treaty with France of April 30, 1803, for the cession of Louisiana was confirmed. By this transaction the United States acquired a vast region west of the Mississippi. Whether it extended beyond the Rocky Mountains is a question as to which the authorities are not in accord; but there were other grounds on which the United States claimed territory on the Pacific. In 1792 Capt. Robert Gray, of the American ship Columbia, entered and explored the River of the West, which he named from his ship, the Columbia River. On the 18th of January 1803 President Jefferson sent a confidential message to Congress recommending that an appropriation be made for western exploration, and in the following summer Lewis and Clark set out on their memorable expedition, in which, after having traversed the country west of the Mississippi, they entered the main branch of the Columbia and descended the river to its mouth. In 1811 John Jacob Astor, an American merchant, formed at Astoria a fur-trading settlement. This settlement was occupied by the British during the war of 1812, but at the conclusion of peace was restored to the United States, in accordance with the requirements of the treaty. But in addition to these acts of discovery and occupation, the United States, by a treaty concluded February 22, 1819, acquired all the rights of Spain to territory on the Pacific north of the forty-second parallel of north latitude.

Grounds of British

Territorial Claim.

On the part of Great Britain, the first substantial claim of title was based on the explorations of Captain Cook in his third voyage to the Pacific. The Spanish explorations of the coast preceded this voyage by many years, but the Spaniards formed no settlements north of California. In 1786 an association of British merchants resident in the East Indies conceived the project of

After Captain Gray's death the log of the ship Columbia was used by his family as waste paper. An extract from it made in 1816 is all that remains of its contents. (S. Rep. 470, 25 Cong. 2 sess.)

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. 852-856.

opening a trade to the northwest coast of America for the purpose of supplying the Chinese market with furs. To this end they established in 1788 a settlement at Nootka Sound. In the following year a Spanish officer, in command of a frigate of twenty-six guns, took possession of the buildings and lands and seized two British vessels. The British Government demanded reparation, which Spain, by a treaty concluded October 28, 1790, commonly called the Nootka Sound convention, granted. By this treaty it was agreed that the buildings, lands, and vessels taken from the British should be restored, and that the respective subjects of the contracting parties should not be disturbed or molested in navigating or fishing in the sea, or in landing on the coasts in places not already occupied for the purpose of carrying on commerce with the natives or of making settlements. In 1793 explorations of parts of the coast were made by Vancouver, and in the same year Alexander Mackenzie traversed the continent from the east, exploring the territory north of the valley of the Columbia. About the same time settlements were made in that territory by the Hudson's Bay Company.

From this brief summary of the grounds on which the United States and Great Britain based their pretensions to the Oregon territory, the case appears to have been eminently one for diplomatic compromise. The original claim of Spain, by virtue of the discovery of America and the bull of Pope Alexander VI. of 1493, to all of the western hemisphere that was not allotted by the Pope to Portugal, was disregarded by other European powers. Colonies were planted both by England and by France all the way from the Floridas to Hudson's Bay,2 and the early charters granted by the British Crown purported to operate from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A stronger Spanish

1 Annual Register, 1790, p. 91.

By the treaty between Great Britain and Spain of July 18, 1670, Article VII., it was "agreed, that the Most Serene King of Great Britain, his Heirs and Successors, shall have, hold, keep, and enjoy for ever, with plenary right of Sovereignty, Dominion, Possession, and Propriety, all those Lands, Regions, Islands, Colonies, and places whatsoever, being or situated in the West Indies, or in any part of America, which the said King of Great Britain and his Subjects do at present hold and possess, so as that in regard thereof, or upon any colour or pretence whatsoever, nothing more may or ought to be urged, nor any question or controversy be ever moved concerning the same hereafter." (Br. and For. State Papers, I., Part 1, p. 609.)

claim than that above mentioned was that based on the explorations and assertions of sovereignty by the early Spanish navigators on the northwest coast; but, though the United States placed great stress on this source of title after its acquisition of the Spanish rights in 1819, it is clear that both the United States and Great Britain had made claims of discovery and occupation which impugned the Spanish title.

In resuming the thread of the diplomatic Early Negotiations. negotiations, which was dropped at the conclusion of the Hawkesbury-King convention in 1803, it is important to bear in mind the dates of the principal acts by which the United States acquired its claims to the Oregon territory, viz, the exploration of the Columbia River by Captain Gray in 1792, the conclusion of the Louisiana Treaty in 1803, the expedition of Lewis and Clark of the same year, the settlement at Astoria in 1811, and the treaty with Spain in 1819. In consequence of the conclusion of the Louisiana Treaty, the Senate advised that the Hawkesbury-King convention should be ratified without the fifth article, relating to boundaries. Great Britain declined to accept this amendment,' and the subject remained in suspense till 1807, when Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney endeavored to adjust it. On the 31st of December 1806, the commercial articles of the Jay Treaty being about to expire, they signed, as commissioners of the United States, with Lords Holland and Auckland as British commissioners, a treaty of amity and commerce. After this treaty was concluded the British commissioners proposed certain additional and explanatory articles, by the fifth of which it was provided that the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude should form the boundary westward from the Lake of the Woods "as far as the territories of the United States extend in that quarter," provided that nothing in the article should be construed "to extend to the northwest coast of America, or to the territories belonging to or claimed by either party, on the continent of America, to the westward of the Stony Mountains." The American commissioners objected to the words "as far as the territories of the United States extend in that quarter," and proposed to omit them. The British commissioners in turn proposed to substitute the words,

Treaties and Conventions of the United States, 1776-1887, p. 1324; Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 584; III. 90-97.

"as far as their said respective territories extend in that quarter," and to this proposal the American commissioners assented. The proviso in regard to territories westward of the Stony Mountains they accepted in the form in which it was proposed. The Government of the United States accepted the article as thus agreed upon, though it expressed a desire for the omission of the proviso on the ground that it was unnecessary and could have "little other effect than as an offensive intimation to Spain" that the claims of the United States extended "to the Pacific Ocean." However "reasonable" such claims might be "compared with those of others," it was, said Mr. Madison, impolitic, especially at that time, to strengthen Spanish jealousies of the United States. The additional and explanatory articles, however, were not concluded. President Jefferson refused to submit the treaty itself to the Senate, on the ground that it contained no renunciation by the British Government of the claim of impressment, and the negotiations at London came to an end.

Ghent.

In the negotiations at Ghent the AmeriNegotiations at can plenipotentiaries proposed, in respect of boundaries, the article agreed on by the commissioners of the United States and Great Britain in 1807. The British plenipotentiaries offered in turn the article first proposed by the British commissioners, Lords Holland and Auckland, with an additional paragraph stipulating for free access by British subjects through the territories of the United States to the Mississippi, and for the free navigation of that river. In the conferences that ensued the substance of an article, so far as it related to the boundary line, was agreed upon; but as the American plenipoten iaries would not accede to the additional paragraph, the article was finally omitted altogether.3

The next attempt to settle this boundary Convention of 1818. question was made during the negotiations that resulted in the conclusion of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain of October 20, 1818. John Quincy Adams, in his instructions to Messrs. Gallatin and Rush of July 28, 1818, observed that by correspondence with the Spanish minister at Washington it appeared

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 165.

2 Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, V. 23-24; Am. State Papers, For. Rel. III. 185.

3 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. IV. 377.

that the claims of Spain to territory on the Pacific extended to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, but he also observed that there was a Russian settlement in latitude fifty-five and a temporary lodgment connected with it as far south as the fortysecond degree. It was not known, said Mr. Adams, on what grounds the British contested the settlement at Astoria, which was formed before the war, and broken up by the British sloop of war Raccoon in the course of it, but which was restored in consequence of the treaty of peace. Mr. Adams authorized Messrs. Gallatin and Rush to accept the line agreed on in 1807.

When on the 20th of October 1818 a convention was concluded, the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude was adopted as the line from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, but no agreement could be reached as to the boundary westward. The American plenipotentiaries proposed to extend the line along the forty-ninth parallel due west to the Pacific Ocean. That line, they said, had, in pursuance of the Treaty of Utrecht, been fixed indefinitely as the boundary between the northern British possessions and those of France, including Louisiana, now a part of the United States; and so far as discovery gave a claim, the title of the United States to the whole country on the waters of the Columbia was, they argued, indisputable, since the river was discovered by Captain Gray, an American, and was first fully explored by Lewis and Clark. Moreover, the settlement at Astoria was, they maintained, the first permanent establishment made in that quarter. The British plenipotentiaries, on the other hand, asserted that former voyages, and principally that of Captain Cook, gave to Great Britain the rights derived from discovery, and they also alluded to purchases from natives south of the Columbia, which they alleged had been made before the American Revolution. They did not make any formal proposal for a boundary, but intimated that the Columbia was the most convenient that could be adopted, and that they would not agree to any arrangement that would not give them a harbor at the mouth of that river in common with the United States.' At the fifth conference the British plenipotentiaries proposed an article to the effect that the country lying between the forty-fifth and forty-ninth parallels of latitude should be open to the trade and commerce of both parties, without prejudice

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. IV. 381.