fl«] PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 455 



that convention ; that is, for a period of near forty years. Under that 

 convention, valuable British interests have grown up in those countries. 

 It is fully admitted that the United States possess the same rights, 

 although they have been exercised by them only in a single instance, 

 and have not, since the year 1813, been exercised at all. But beyond 

 these rights they possess none. 



To the interests and establishments which British industry and enter- 

 prise 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 continues, to regulate its own obligations by the 

 same rule which governs the obligations of any other occupying party. 



Fully sensible, at the same time, of the desirableness of a more 

 definite settlement, as between Great Britain and the United States, the 

 British government will be ready, at any time, to terminate the present 

 state of joint occupancy by an agreement of delimitation; but such 

 arrangement only can be admitted as shall not derogate from the rights 

 of Great Britain, as acknowledged by treaty, nor prejudice the advantages 

 which British subjects, under the same sanction, now enjoy in that part 

 of the world. 



(2.) 



American Counter-Statement annexed to the Protocol of the seventh Con- 

 ference, by Mr. Gallatin, the Plenipotentiary of the United States. 



The American plenipotentiary has read with attention the exposition 

 of the claims and views of Great Britain in regard to the territory west 

 of the Rocky or Stony Mountains, annexed by the British plenipotentia- 

 ries to the protocol of the last conference, and assures them that it will 

 receive from his government all the consideration to which it is so justly 

 entitled. 



He will not make any observations on that part of the exposition, which, 

 as explanatory of the views of the British government in reference to 

 a continued joint occupancy, he can only refer to his government. The 

 remarks he will now offer are necessarily limited to the respective claims 

 of the two countries, and to the proposals for a definitive engagement 

 which have been made by each party. 



Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of the 

 territory in question. Her claim extends to the whole, but is limited to 

 a right of joint occupancy in common with other states, leaving the right 

 of exclusive dominion in abeyance. She insists that hers and Spain's 

 conflicting claims were finally adjusted by the convention of Nootka, in 

 1790; that all the arguments and pretensions, whether resting upon prior- 

 ity of discovery, or derived from any other consideration, were definitively 

 set at rest by that convention ; that, from its date, it was only in its text 

 and stipulations that the title, either on her part or on that of Spain, was 

 to be traced ; and that it was agreed by that convention, that all the parts 

 of the north-west coast of America, not previously occupied by either 



