282 TREATY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. [1807. 



eminent, no line separating those British possessions from Louisiana 

 or Canada is to he seen. In the other works, political, historical, 

 and geographical, which have been examined with reference to this 

 question, notliing has been found calculated to sustain the belief 

 that any line of separation was ever settled, or even proposed ; nor 

 has any trace of such an agreement been discovered in the archives 

 of the Department of Foreign Affairs of France, which have been 

 searched with the view of ascertaining the fact.* 



The belief, nevertheless, that the 49th parallel of latitude was 

 fixed, by commissaries appointed agreeably to the provisions of the 

 treaty of Utrecht, as the northern limit of Louisiana and Western 

 Canada, has been hitherto universally entertained without suspicion 

 in the United States, and has formed the basis of most important 

 treaties. 



During the negotiations above mentioned, between the United 

 States and Great Britain, no attempt was made, on the part of the 

 latter power, to controvert the assertion of the Americans respecting 

 this supposed boundary line ; and, in the fifth of the additional and 

 explanatory articles proposed to be annexed to the treaty signed by 

 the plenipotentiaries on that occasion, it was agreed that " a line 

 drawn due north or south (as the case may require) from the most 

 north-western point of the Lake of the Woods, until it shall inter- 

 sect the 49th parallel of north latitude, and from the point of such 

 intersection, due west, along and with the said parallel, shall be the 

 dividing line between his majesty's territories and those of the 

 United States, to the westward of the said lake, as far as their said 

 respective territories extend in that quarter ; and that the said line 

 shall, to that extent, form the southern boundary of his majesty's 

 said territories and the northern boundary of the said territories of 

 the United States : Provided, That nothing in the present article 

 shall be construed to extend to the north-west coast of America, 

 or to the territories belonging to or claimed by either party on the 

 continent of America to the westward of the Stony Mountains." f 

 This article was approved by both governments ; President Jeffer- 

 son, nevertheless, wished that the proviso respecting the north-west 

 coast should be omitted, as it " could have little other effect than 

 as an offensive intimation to Spain that the claims of the United 

 States extend to the Pacific Ocean. However reasonable such 

 claims may be, compared with those of others, it is impolitic, espe- 



See the complete investigation of this subject in the Proofs and Illustrations, 

 under the letter F. 



t President Jefferson's Message to Congress of March 22d, 1R0R. 



