396 Hudson's bay company's system. [1844. 



specting them, to a right of joint occupancy with other states, 

 agreeably to the Nootka Convention between herself and Spain, in 

 1790, and leaving the right of sovereignty in abeyance. On the 

 claim of Great Britain, thus formally reduced to specific terms, it 

 has been considered sufficient to show, that, agreeably to the usages 

 of nations, and to the never-failing practice of that power, as main- 

 tained by her government, particularly in the negotiation with the 

 United States in 1816, respecting the Newfoundland fishery,* the 

 Nootka Convention expired in 1796, and has ever since remained a 

 dead letter. 



The British government cannot continue to uphold the sub- 

 sistence of the Nootka Convention, upon which all its claims were 

 thus made to rest, in 1827, without directly impugning its own 

 declaration that " Great Britain knows no exception to the rule 

 that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war between the 

 same parties ;" as well as the legality of its present occupation of 

 the Falkland Islands, from which the British are excluded by that 

 convention : nor can the United States and their government 

 submit to such various interpretations of the same national law. 

 From the negotiation now in progress, neither the records of the 

 former discussions, nor subsequent events, 'nor the present state of 

 the parties, encourage the hope for any definite settlement of the 

 questions at issue, that is to say, of the boundaries west of the 

 Rocky Mountains : though possibly some change in the existing 

 convention, or some supplement to it may be effected, or more 

 probably its immediate abrogation may be the consequence ; and 

 under this view it will be proper to present some concluding obser- 

 vations on the condition of the countries, and their inhabitants, 

 subject to those stipulations. 



The countries to which the convention of 1827 applies, have un- 

 til a recent period, been, so far as regards the advantages derived 

 from them, entirely in the possession of Great Britain ; while the 

 United States, the other party to that treaty, have only secured the 

 continuance of their title unimpaired. The British represented first 

 by the North- West Company, and afterwards by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, have enjoyed the quiet and almost exclusive use of the 

 Columbia regions from 1814 to 1840. That the people of the Uni- 

 ted States did not participate in these advantages, doubtless arose 

 principally from the circumstance, that they could render their ex- 



* See page 318. 



