340 PROPOSITIONS FOR PARTITION. [1824. 



Great Britain would certainly not depart ; and, as all prospect of 

 compromise was thus destroyed, the negotiation ended. 



In this discussion between the United States and Great Britain, 

 upon the subject of their respective claims to the sovereignty of 

 the countries west of the Rocky Mountains, the grounds of those 

 claims were first made to assume a form somewhat definite ; and 

 this may be considered as principally due to the labor and pene- 

 tration of Mr. Rush, who seems to have been the first to inquire 

 carefully into the facts of the case. The introduction by him of the 

 Nootka convention, as an element in the controversy, was according 

 to express instructions from his government.* It appears to have 

 been wholly unnecessary, and was certainly impolitic. No allusion 

 had been made to that arrangement in any of the previous discus- 

 sions with regard to the north-west coasts, and it was doubtless 

 considered extinct ; but when it was thus brought forward by the 

 American government in connection with the declaration against 

 European colonization, as a settlement of general principles with 

 regard to those coasts, an argument was afforded in favor of the 

 subsistence of the convention, of which the British government did 

 not fail to take advantage, as will be hereafter shown. 



* " The principles settled by the Nootka Sound convention of 28th October, 1790, 

 were — 



" ' 1st. That the rights of fishing in the South Seas ; of trading with the natives of 

 the north-west coast of America; and of making settlements on the coast itself, for 

 the purposes of that trade, north of the actual settlements of Spain, were common to 

 all the European nations, and, of course, to the United States. 



" ' 2d. That, so far as the actual settlements of Spain had extended, she possessed 

 the exclusive rights territorial, and of navigation and fishery ; extending to the dis- 

 tance of ten miles from the coast so actually occupied. 



" ' 3d. That, on the coasts of South America, and the adjacent islands south of the 

 parts already occupied by Spain, no settlement should thereafter be made either by 

 British or Spanish subjects; but, on both sides, should be retained the liberty of land- 

 ing and of erecting temporary buildings for the purposes of the fishery. These rights 

 were, also, of course, enjoyed by the people of the United States. 



" ' The exclusive rights of Spain to any part of the American continents have 

 ceased. That portion of the convention, therefore, which recognizes the exclusive 

 colonial rights of Spain on these continents, though confirmed, as between Great 

 Britain and Spain, by the first additional article to the treaty of the 5th of July, 1814, 

 has been extinguished by the fact of the independence of the South American nations 

 and of Mexico. Those independent nations will possess the rights incident to that 

 condition, and their territories will, of course, be subject to no exclusive right of nav- 

 igation in their vicinity, or of access to them, by any foreign nation. 



" ' A necessary consequence of this state of things will be, that the American con- 

 tinents, henceforth, will no longer be subject to colonization. Occupied by civilized, 

 independent nations, they will be accessible to Europeans, and each other, on that 



