THE NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY -LINE. 211 



It was further provided by the same treaty that 

 the country claimed by either Party westward of the 

 Stony Mountains, with its harbors, bays, and creeks, 

 and the navio-ation of all rivers within the same, 

 should be free and open for the term of ten years to 

 the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two Powers : 

 it beino: understood that this a2:reement should be 

 without prejudice to any exclusive claim of either, or 

 to the claim of any other Power. 



This treaty, which regulated the occupation of Or- 

 egon for so many years, although apparently equal on 

 its face, was very unequal, as we shall see, in fact, by 

 reason of the whole country being immediately over- 

 run and almost exclusively occupied by the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. 



But the pretensions of the United States received 

 notable reinforcement through the Treaty betw^een 



Mr. Madison had previously said, as if not perfectly certain 

 of the fact : 



" There is reason to believe that the boundary between Lou- 

 isiana and the British territories north of it was actually fixed 

 by Commissioners appointed under the Treaty of Utreclit, and 

 that the boundary was to run from the Lake of the Woods 

 westwardly on latitude 49°." — American State Papers^Foreign 

 Affairs^ vol. iii., p. 90, 



The point was settled, however, by inquiries made by Mr. 

 Monroe at London. He says : 



" Commissaries were accordingly appointed who executed * 

 the stipulations of the treaty in establishing the boundaries of 

 Canada and Louisiana by a line beginning on the Atlantic at 

 a cape or promontory in 58° 30' north latitude; thence south- 

 Avestwardly to the Lake Mistosin ; thence farther southwest to 

 the latitude 49° north, and along that line indefinitely." — 

 xinierican State Papers^ Foreign Affairs^ vol. iii., p. 97. 



