1826.] DETERMINATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 351 



deny its application to the United States, now the owners of Lou- 

 isiana.* 



The British plenipotentiaries were, however, clear and explicit as 

 to the intentions of their government, which were declared, at the 

 conclusion of their statement, in terms of moderation and forbear- 

 ance truly edifying. Great Britain, they assert, claims, at present, 

 nothing more than the rights of trade, navigation, and settlement, 

 in the part of the world under consideration, agreeably to the pro- 

 visions of the Nootka convention, the basis of the law of nations 

 with regard to those territories and waters, under the protection of 

 which many important British interests have grown up ; and she 

 admits that the United States have the same rights, but none other, 

 although they have been exercised only in one instance, and not 

 at all since 1813. In the territory between the 42d and the 49th 

 parallels of latitude, are many British posts and settlements, for the 

 trade and supply of which, the free navigation of the Columbia, 

 to and from the sea, is indispensable; the United States possess 

 not a single post or settlement of any kind in that whole region. 

 Great Britain, nevertheless, for the sake of peace and good under- 

 standing, agrees to submit to a definitive partition of that territory, 

 giving to the United States the whole division south of the Co- 

 lumbia, and a large tract containing an excellent harbor, north of 

 that river ; and, the United States having declined to accede to this 

 proposition, it only remains for Great Britain to maintain and up- 



* " This construction does not appear either to have been that intended at the time 

 by the grantors, or to have governed the subsequent conduct of Great Britain. By 

 excepting from the grants, as was generally the case, such lands as were already oc- 

 cupied by the subjects of other civilized nations, it was clearly implied that no other 

 exception was contemplated, and that the grants were intended to include all unoccu- 

 pied lands within their respective boundaries, to the exclusion of all other persons or 

 nations whatsoever. In point of fact, the whole country drained by the several rivers 

 emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, the mouths of which were within those charters, 

 has, from Hudson's Bay to Florida, and, it is believed, without exception, been occu- 

 pied and held by virtue of those charters. Not only has this principle been fully 

 confirmed, but it has been notoriously enforced much beyond the sources of the rivers 

 on which the settlements were formed. The priority of the French settlements on 

 the rivers flowing westwardly from the Alleghany Mountains into the Mississippi was 

 altogether disregarded ; and the rights of the Atlantic colonies to extend beyond those 

 mountains, as growing out of the contiguity of territory, and as asserted in the earliest 

 charters, was effectually and successfully enforced." 



The American minister might also have cited the charters granted to the Virginia 

 Company by King James I., in 1609 and 1611, in virtue of which, the Dutch settle- 

 ments on the Hudson River, in a country first discovered, explored, and occupied, 

 under the flag of the United Provinces, were, in 1664, — forty years after the disso- 

 lution of the company, — during peace between the two nations, seized by British 

 forces, as being included in the territories conceded to that company. 



