1824.] PROPOSITIONS FOR PARTITION. 339 



they assured Mr. Rush that their government would never assent to 

 the claim set forth by him respecting the territory watered by the 

 Columbia River and its tributaries, which, besides being essentially 

 objectionable in its general bearings, had also the effect of inter- 

 fering directly with the actual rights of Great Britain, derived from 

 use, occupancy, and settlement ; asserting, at the same time, that 

 " they considered the unoccupied parts of America just as much 

 open as heretofore to colonization by Great Britain, as well as by 

 other European powers, agreeably to the convention of 1790, 

 between the British and Spanish governments, and that the United 

 States would have no right to take umbrage at the establishment 

 of new colonies from Europe, in any such parts of the American 

 continent." * 



After much discussion on these points, Mr. Rush presented a 

 proposal from his government, that any country west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, which might be claimed by the United States, or by 

 Great Britain, should be free and open to the citizens or subjects 

 of both nations for ten years from the date of the agreement : 

 Provided, that, during this period, no settlements were to be made 

 by British subjects north of the 55th or south of the 51st degrees 

 of latitude, nor by American citizens north of the latter parallel. 

 To this proposal, which Mr. Rush afterwards varied by substituting 

 the 49th parallel of latitude for the 51st, Messrs. Huskisson and 

 Canning replied by a counter proposal, to the effect, that the 

 boundary between the territories of the two nations, beyond the 

 Rocky Mountains, should pass from those mountains westward 

 along the 49th parallel of latitude, to the north-easternmost branch 

 of the Columbia River, called Macgillivray's River on the maps, 

 and thence down the middle of the stream, to the Pacific ; the 

 British possessing the country north and west of such line, and the 

 United States that which lay south and east of it : Provided, that 

 the subjects or citizens of both nations should be equally at liberty, 

 during the space of ten years from the date of the agreement, to 

 pass by land or by water through all the territories on both sides of 

 the boundary, and to retain and use their establishments already 

 formed in any part of them. The British plenipotentiaries at the 

 same time declared that this their proposal was one from which 



* Protocol of the twelfth conference between the plenipotentiaries, held June 26th, 

 1824, among the documents annexed to President Adams's message to Congress of 

 January 31st, 1826. 



