314 NEGOTIATION AT LONDON. [1818. 



decision being in favor of the United States, their government 

 would be disposed to indemnify the North- West Company for any 

 improvements which they might, in the mean time, have made there. 

 On these points, Mr. Prevost, having no instructions, could only 

 reply, as he did, to the effect — that his government would, doubtless, 

 if it should determine to keep up the settlement, satisfy any claims of 

 the North- West Company which might be conformable with justice 

 and the usages of civilized nations. After a few days more spent 

 on the Columbia, the Blossom quitted the river with Mr. Prevost, 

 whom she carried to Peru, the post remaining in the hands of the 

 British traders, who have ever since continued to occupy it. 



Whilst these measures for the restitution of Astoria were in 

 progress, a negotiation was carried on, at London, between the 

 plenipotentiaries of the American and British governments, for the 

 definitive arrangement of many questions which were left unsettled 

 by the treaty of Ghent, including those relating to the boundaries 

 of the territories of the two nations west of the Lake of the Woods.* 

 Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, the plenipotentiaries of the United 

 States, proposed — that the dividing line between those territories 

 should be drawn from the north-western extremity of that lake, 

 north or south, as the case might require, to the 49th parallel 

 of latitude, and thence along that parallel west to the Pacific 

 Ocean. The British commissioners, Messrs. Goulburn and Robin- 

 son, after a discussion in which they endeavored to secure to British 

 subjects the right of access to the Mississippi, and of navigating 

 that river, agreed to admit the line proposed as far west as the 

 Rocky Mountains ; and an article to that effect was accordingly 

 inserted in the projet of a convention. 



The claims of the respective nations to territories west of the 

 Rocky Mountains were then considered. Messrs. Rush and Galla- 

 tin " did not assert that the United States had a perfect right to that 

 country, but insisted that their claim was at least good against Great 

 Britain ; " and they cited, in support of that claim, the facts of the 

 discovery of the Columbia River, of the first exploration from its 

 sources to its mouth, and of the formation of the first establishments 

 in the country through which it flows, by American citizens. 

 Messrs. Goulburn and Robinson, on the other hand, affirmed " that 

 former voyages, and principally that of Captain Cook, gave to 

 Great Britain the rights derived from discovery ; and they alluded to 



* President Monroe's message to Congress, with the accompanying documents, 

 sent December 29th, 1818. 



