352 BRITISH PROPOSITIONS REJECTED. [1827. 



hold the qualified rights which she now possesses over the whole of 

 the territory in question. " To the interests which British industry 

 and enterprise have created Great Britain owes protection. That 

 protection will be given, both as regards settlement and freedom 

 of trade and navigation, with every attention not to infringe the 

 coordinate rights of the United States ; it being the earnest desire 

 of the British government, so long as the joint occupancy con- 

 tinues, to regulate its own obligations by the same rule which 

 governs the obligations of any other occupying party." Thus, in 

 1826, the British government based its claims, with regard to the 

 territories west of the Rocky Mountains, entirely on the Nootka 

 convention of 1790, and the acts of occupation by its subjects 

 under that agreement ; the abrogation of which, by the war between 

 the parties, in 1796, — ten years before a single spot in those territo- 

 ries had been occupied by a British subject, — has been already so 

 fully demonstrated,* that any further observations would be super- 

 fluous. 



The proposition of the British plenipotentiaries, with regard to the 

 renewal of the existing arrangement for ten years, was rejected by 

 the president of the United States,! on tne grounds — that, so far as 

 it would tend to prevent the Americans from exercising exclusive 

 sovereignty at the mouth of the Columbia River, it would be con- 

 trary to their rights, as acknowledged by the treaty of Ghent, and 

 by the restitution of the place agreeably to that treaty ; — that the 

 proposed additional provisions do not define, but leave open to 

 disputation, the acts which might be deemed an exercise of exclu- 

 sive sovereignty; — and that, from the nature of the institutions of 

 the United States, their rights in the territory in question must be 

 protected, and their citizens must be secured in their lawful pursuits, 

 by some species of government, different from that which it has 

 been, or may be, the pleasure of Great Britain to establish there. 

 Mr. Gallatin, on the 24th of May, 1827, communicated to the 

 British commissioners the fact of the rejection of their proposition, 

 and the reasons for it, declaring, at the same time, formally, in 

 obedience to special instructions, that his government did not hold 

 itself bound hereafter in consequence of any proposal which it had 

 made for a line of separation between the territories of the two 

 nations beyond the Rocky Mountains ; but would consider itself at 

 liberty to contend for the full extent of the claims of the United States. 



* See the examinations of this question, at pp. 213, 257, and 318. 



t Letter of February 24th, 1827, from the Hon. Henry Clay to Mr. Gallatin. 



