1790.] REVIEW OF THE NOOTKA CONVENTION. 215 



named seas ; but the British were, at the same time, specially pro- 

 hibited from approaching the territories under the actual authority 

 of Spain, and were thus debarred from the exercise of a privilege 

 advantageous to themselves and most annoying to Spain, which 

 they previously possessed in virtue of their maritime superiority. 

 Both parties were by the convention equally excluded from settling 

 on the vacant coasts of South America, and from exercising that 

 jurisdiction which is essential to political sovereignty, over any spot 

 north of the most northern Spanish settlement on the Pacific : but 

 the British and the Russians were the only nations who would be 

 likely to occupy any of those territories, and the British would not, 

 probably, concede to the Russians any rights greater than those 

 which they themselves possessed ; and any establishment which 

 either of those powers might form in the north, under circumstances 

 so disadvantageous, would be separated from the settled provinces 

 of Spain by a region of mountains, forests, and deserts, of more 

 than a thousand miles in extent. The convention, in fine, estab- 

 lished new bases for the navigation and fishery of the respective 

 parties, and their trade with the natives on the unoccupied coasts 

 of America ; but it determined nothing regarding the rights of either 

 to the sovereignty of any portion of America, except so far as it 

 may imply an abrogation, or rather a suspension, of all such claims, 

 on both sides, to any of those coasts. 



It is, however, probable that the convention published, as the 

 result of this negotiation, did not contain all the engagements 

 contracted by Great Britain and Spain towards each other on that 

 occasion. It was generally believed in Europe that a secret treaty 

 of alliance was at the same time signed, by which the two nations 

 were bound, under certain contingencies, to act together against 

 France, with the understanding that the stipulations of the conven- 

 tion published should remain inoperative ; and this supposition is 

 strengthened by the third article of the treaty of alliance between 

 those powers, concluded on the 25th of May, 1793, setting forth 

 that, " Their majesties having perceived just grounds of jealousy 

 and uneasiness for the safety of their respective dominions, and for 

 the maintenance of the general system of Europe, in the measures 

 which have been for some time past adopted by France, they had 

 already agreed to establish between them an intimate and entire con- 

 cert, upon the means of opposing a sufficient barrier to those dan- 

 gerous views of aggression and aggrandizement," &c. 



