210 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



States and Great Britain was suspended by the Treaty 

 of October 20, 1818. By that treaty it was stipula 

 ted that from the Lake of the Woods to the &quot; Stony 

 Mountains,&quot; the line of demarkation between the pos 

 sessions of the two countries in America should be 

 the forty-ninth parallel of latitude westward to the 

 ^tony Mountains. 



The United States might well have insisted on pro 

 ceeding due west from the most northwestern point 

 of the Lake of the Woods, the terminal point in that 

 direction of the Treaty of Independence, which is 

 nearer the parallel of 50; but, in early unsuccessful 

 negotiations on this subject under President Jefferson, 

 we had agreed to adopt the 49th parallel, and that 

 agreement was renewed by the Treaty of 1818, in obe 

 dience to the assumption that this line had been es 

 tablished by the Treaty of Utrecht.* 



* The &quot;Treaty of Peace and Amity&quot; between France and 

 England contains the following provision [Art. X.] : 



&quot; Quant aux limites entre la Baie de Hudson et les lieux ap- 

 partenans a la France, on est convenu reciproquement qu il 

 sera nomme incessamment des Commissaires, qui les deter- 

 mineront dans le terme d un an : ... les memes Commissaires 

 auront le pouvoir de regler pareillement les limites entre les 

 autres colonies Fran9aises et Britanniques dans ce pays-la.&quot; 

 Dumont, t.viii., pt. 1, p. 332-338. 



Mr. Bancroft, misled by Mr. Greenhow, says of this arti 

 cle: 



&quot; On the Gulf of Mexico, it is certain that France claimed to 

 the Del Norte. At the northwest, where its collision would 

 have been with the possessions of the Company of Hudson s 

 Bay, no treaty, no commission, appears to have fixed its lim 

 its.&quot; Bancroft s History, vol. iii.,p. 343. 



