306 



CHAPTER XV. 



1814 to 1820. 



Restitution of Astoria to the United States by Great Britain, agreeably to the Treaty 

 of Ghent — Alleged Reservation of Rights on the Part of Great Britain — First 

 Negotiation between the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, 

 respecting the Territories west of the Rocky Mountains, and Convention for the 

 joint Occupancy of those Territories — Florida Treaty between Spain and the 

 United States, by which the Latter acquires the Title of Spain to the North- 

 West Coasts — Colonel Long's exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains — 

 Disputes between the British North- West and Hudson's Bay Companies — Union 

 of those Bodies — Act of Parliament extending the Jurisdiction of the Canada 

 Courts to the Pacific Countries — Russian Establishments on the North Pacific — 

 Expeditions in Search of Northern Passages between the Atlantic and the Pacific 

 — Death of Tamahamaha, and Introduction of Christianity into the Sandwich 

 Islands. 



The capture of Astoria by the British, and the transfer of the 

 Pacific Company's establishments on the Columbia to the North- 

 West Company, were not known to the plenipotentiaries of the 

 United States at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814, when 

 they signed the treaty of peace between their country and Great 

 Britain. That treaty contains no allusion whatsoever to the north- 

 west coasts of America, or to any portion of the continent west of 

 the Lake of the Woods. The plenipotentiaries of the United 

 States had been instructed by their government to consent to no 

 claim on the part of Great Britain to territory in that quarter south 

 of the A^th parallel of latitude, for reasons which have been already 

 stated ; and, after some discussion, they proposed to the British an 

 article similar in effect to the fifth article of the convention signed, 

 but not definitively concluded, in 1807, according to which,* a 

 line drawn along that parallel should separate the territories of the 

 powers so far as they extended west of the Lake of the Woods, 

 provided, however, that nothing in the article should be construed 

 as applying to any country west of the Rocky Mountains. The 

 British plenipotentiaries were willing to accept this article, if it were 

 also accompanied by a provision that their subjects should have 

 access to the Mississippi River, through the territories of the United 



* For the reasons and the convention here mentioned, see chap. xiii. 



