The Claims of Great Britain 248 
ever been claimed by the most ardent English historian in respect 
to the achievements of Sir Francis Drake and others, it amounts 
to nothing as against the Spanish claim; and so in reference to 
the alleged discovery by the British captains, Cook, Mears, and 
Vancouver, for the evidence is conclusive that this same coast 
had been navigated and the land discovered more than 260 years 
before by the Spanish navigator Maldonado (1528). If, then, 
Great Britain gained nothing in her claim, either as to sovereignty 
or occupancy, by the Nootka treaty of 1790, as she did not, she 
certainly had no right to complain. 
When this treaty was submitted to the British Parliament it 
was denounced by the opposition as a cowardly surrender. 
“Nothing has been gained,” said Mr Charles Fox, “ but, on the 
contrary, much has been surrendered;” and, speaking further, 
Mr Fox said: “Our right before the convention (whether ad- 
mitted or denied by Spain was of no consequence) was to settle 
any part of South or Northwest America not fortified against us 
by previous occupancy, and we are now restricted to settle in 
certain places only and under certain conditions. Our rights of 
fishing extended to the whole ocean, and now it is hmited and 
not to be exercised within certain distances of Spanish settle- 
ments. Our right of making settlements was not as now a right 
to build huts, but to plant colonies, if we thought proper. In 
renouncing all right to make settlements in South America we 
have given to Spain what she considered as inestimable and have 
in return been contented with dross.” But whatever rights Great 
Britain had by virtue of the Nootka treaty of 1790 were lost, 
totally destroyed, when in 1796 Spain declared war against Great 
Britain, as it is a principle of public law that a declaration of 
war destroys all treaties between the belligerents. 
The claim of Spain to the whole of Oregon territory south of 
the sixty-first parallel was acknowledged by the Russian goy- 
ernment, the only power holding claims which conflicted with 
Spain. In 1790 complaints had been made to the Russian court 
against Russian subjects for invading the Spanish territory south 
of 61° of northern latitude. To this complaint the Emperor 
of all the Russias, through the proper channel, rephed in these 
words : 
‘“The Emperor assures the King of Spain he is extremely sorry that 
the repeated orders issued to prevent the subjects of Russia from vio- 
lating in the smallest degree the territory belonging to another power 
should have been disobeyed.”’ 
