910 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 “Stony 
Mountains,” 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 
Stony 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 “Treaty of Peace and Amity” between France and 
England contains the following provision [Art. X.]: 
“Quant aux limites entre la Baie de Hudson et les lieux ap- 
partenans 4 la France, on est convenu réciproquement qwil 
sera nommé incessamment des Commissaires, qui les déter- 
mineront dans le terme’ dun an: ... les mémes Commissaires 
auront le pouvoir de régler pareillement les limites entre les 
autres colonies Frangaises et Britanniques dans ce pays-li.”— 
Dumont, t.viii., pt.1, p. 332-338, 
Mr. Bancroft, misled by Mr. Greenhow, says of this arti- 
cle: 
“On thé 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.”"—Bancroft’s History, vol. iii., p. 343. 
