1818.] CONVENTION OF UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN. 315 



purchases from the natives south of the Columbia, which they 

 alleged to have been made prior to the American revolution. 

 They did not make any formal proposition for a boundary, but 

 intimated that the river itself was the most convenient which could 

 be adopted ; and that they would not agree to any which did not 

 give them the harbor at the mouth of that river, in common with 

 the United States." 



It is needless here to repeat the proofs that Cook saw no part of 

 the west coast of America south of Mount San Jacinto, near the 

 57th degree of latitude, which had not been already explored by 

 the Spaniards ; with regard to the purchases from the natives 

 south of the Columbia, alleged to have been made by British 

 subjects prior to the revolution, history is entirely silent. The de- 

 termination expressed on the part of the British government not to 

 assent to any arrangement which did not give to Great Britain the 

 mouth of the Columbia, was at least unequivocal, and was sufficient 

 to show that all arguments on the American side would be unavailing. 

 It was, accordingly, at length agreed that all territories and their 

 waters, claimed by either power, west of the Rocky Mountains, 

 should be free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects, of 

 both for the space of ten years ; provided, however, that no claim 

 of either, or of any other nation, to any part of those territories, 

 should be prejudiced by the arrangement. 



This convention having been completed, it was signed by the 

 plenipotentiaries on the 20th of October, 1818, and was soon after 

 ratified by the governments of both nations.* The compromise 

 contained in its third article, with regard to the territories west of 

 the Rocky Mountains, was, perhaps, the most wise, as well as the 

 most equitable, measure which could have been adopted at that 

 time ; considering that neither party pretended to possess a perfect 

 title to the sovereignty of any of those territories, and that there 

 was no prospect of the speedy conclusion of any arrangement with 

 regard to them, between either party and the other claimants, 

 Spain and Russia. The agreement could not certainly, at the 

 time, have been considered unfavorable to the United States ; for, 

 although the North- West Company held the whole trade of the 

 Columbia country, yet the important post at the mouth of that 

 river was restored to the Americans without reservation, and there 

 was every reason for supposing that it would be immediately re- 



* See the third article of the convention of October, 1818, among the Proofs and 

 Illustrations, in the latter part of this History, under the letter K, No. 2. 



