188 RIGHTS DERIVED FROM DISCOVERY. [1789. 



jacent territories for their respective sovereigns ; but such acts are, 

 and were then, generally considered as empty pageants, securing 

 no real rights to those by whom, or in whose names, they were per- 

 formed. Nor does it appear that any portion of the above-men- 

 tioned territories had become the property of a foreigner, either by 

 purchase, occupation, or any other title, which can be regarded as 

 valid. It has been already said that Mr. Meares, in his Memorial, 

 addressed to the British Parliament, in 1790, laid claim to certain 

 tracts of land about Nootka Sound, as having been ceded to him by 

 the natives of the country, in 1788 ; but it was, at the same time, 

 shown that this claim was unsupported by sufficient evidence, and 

 was, moreover, directly, as well as indirectly, contradicted by Mr. 

 Meares himself, in his journal of the same proceedings : and other 

 circumstances will be mentioned hereafter, serving to prove the 

 falsehood of that person's assertions, and of his pretensions to the 

 possession of any part of the American territory. 



The right of exclusive sovereignty over these extensive regions 

 was claimed by Spain, in virtue of the papal concession, 1493, of 

 the first discovery of their coasts by Spanish subjects, and of the 

 contiguity of the territories to the settled dominions of Spain. Of 

 the validity of the title derived from the papal concession it appears 

 to be needless, at the present day, to speak. That the Spaniards 

 were the first discoverers of the west coasts of America, at least as 

 far north as the 56th parallel of latitude, has been already shown ; 

 and the fact is, and has' been ever since the publication of Maurelle's 

 Journal, in 1781, as indisputable as that the Portuguese discovered 

 the south coasts of Africa. The extent of the rights derived from 

 discovery are, however, by no means clearly defined by writers on 

 public law ; and the practice of nations has been so different in dif- 

 ferent cases, that it seems impossible to deduce any general rule of 

 action from it. That a nation whose subjects or citizens had as- 

 certained the existence of a country previously unknown, should 

 have a better right than any other to make settlements in that coun- 

 try, and, after such settlement, to own it, and to exercise sovereignty 

 over it, is in every respect conformable with nature and justice ; but 

 this principle is liable to innumerable difficulties in its application to 

 particular cases. It is seldom easy to decide how far a discovery 

 may have been such, in all respects, as should give this strongest 

 right to settle, or to what extent of country a title of sovereignty 

 may have been acquired by a particular settlement : and even where 

 the novelty or priority and sufficiency of the discovery are admit- 



