206 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 
that of the United States. It was the assumption 
that discovery by any European State, followed by. 
occupation on the sea-coast, carried the possessions 
of such State indefinitely landward until they met 
the possessions of some other European State. 
At the same time, France had entered into America 
by the waters of the St. Lawrence, had ascended that 
river to the Lakes, had then descended by the Missis- 
sippi to the site of the future New Orleans, and had 
thus laid the foundation of a title not only to the ex- 
plored territories watered by the St. Lawrence or in 
front of it on the sea-coast, but also to undefined, be- 
cause unknown, regions beyond the Mississippi. 
Hence arose the first great questions of boundary 
in North America, those between England, France, 
and Spain, which were settled by the Peace of Utrecht. 
France retained possession of the territories on the 
St. Lawrence and the Mississippi; whilst England 
retained her country of Hudson’s Bay and her Prov- 
inces on the Atlantic coast, and acquired Nova Scotia 
and Newfoundland. [Treaty of Utrecht, March 31- 
April 11, 1713. ] 
Subsequently, the fortunes of war made England 
mistress of the Canadian and coast establishments of — 
France, leaving to the latter only the territory beyond 
the Mississippi. [Treaty of Fontainebleau, Nov. 3, 
1762, and Treaty of Paris, Feb. 10, 1763.] 
Meanwhile, Spain continued, with but brief inter- 
ruption, in undisputed sovereignty of the two Floridas, 
and of the vast provinces of New Spain, of undefined 
extension west and north toward the Pacific. 
