PERTAINING TO THE UNRATIFIED TREATY OF 1800. 



Extract from despatch of Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney to Mr. Madi- 

 son, in relation to the unratified treaty of December 31, 1806. 



London, April 25, 1807. 



Sir: We had the honor to inform you, in our letter of the 22d 

 instant, that the British commissioners having proposed to us to 

 endeavor to adjust the terms of a supplemental convention relative 

 to boundary, to a trade by sea between the United States and British 

 northern colonies, and to the subjects reserved for future explanation 

 by the second article of our treaty, we had resumed our conferences 

 with them, and had made considerable progress in digesting the 

 plan of such a convention, when the business was interrupted by an 

 entire change of the King's ministers. It is the purpose of this 

 despatch concisely to explain that negotiation and its objects. 



After many interviews and much discussion, the British commis- 

 sioners at length presented to us the project of which a copy is now 

 transmitted, differing in many essential particulars from that which 

 had been originally offered on our part. 



To the fifth article, regulating our boundary in the northwest, 

 which has encountered much zealous opposition here, even in the form 

 suggested by the British commissioners, from the prejudices, sup- 

 posed interests, and mistaken views of many persons, an explana- 

 tion of some of which will be found in an idle paper written by Lord 

 Selkirk, (of which a copy is enclosed,) we finally objected, that the 

 division line between our respective territories in that quarter ought 

 to be drawn from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the 

 Woods due north or south until it shall intersect the parallel of 

 forty-nine degrees, and from the point of such intersection due west 

 along and with that parallel. This was agreed to by the British Com- 

 missioners. 



We objected, also, to the terms, defining the extension of the west 

 line, viz : "as far as the territories of the United States extend in that 

 quarter." It appeared to us that, by these words, a great portion of 

 the subject was in danger of being set at large; that the provision 

 would, perhaps, do no more than establish between the parties the 

 commencement of the line, and might, of course, leave it open to 

 Great Britain to found a claim hereafter to any part of the tract 

 of country to the westward of that commencement, upon the notions 

 of occupancy or conquest, which you will find stated by Lord Selkirk 

 in the paper above mentioned, or upon some future purchase from 

 Spain, as intimated by others. We therefore proposed to omit the 

 words in question altogether, which the concluding proviso appeared 

 to render wholly unnecessary, even upon the ideas of the British com- 

 missioners. This was not agreed to; but it was said there would be 



236 



