THE NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY - LINE. oni 
_ 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 navigation 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 being understood that this agreement 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 between 
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 Utrecht, and 
that the boundary was to run from the Lake of the Woods 
westwardly on latitude 49°."— American State Papers, Foreign 
Affairs, vol. iti., 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- 
westwardly to the Lake Mistosin; thence farther southwest to 
the latitude 49° north, and along that line indefinitely.” — 
American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, p. 97. 
