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pose an article of similar import, to be inserted in a joint convention between the United States, Great Britain, and Russia, for a term of ten years from its signature. You are authorized to make the same proposal to the British Government, and, with a view to draw a definite line of demarkation, for the future, to stipulate that no settlement shall hereafter be made on the Northwest Coast, or on any of the islands thereto adjoining, by Russian subjects South of latitude 55; by citizens of the United States North of latitude 51, or by British subjects, either South of 51 or North of 55. I mention the latitude of 51 as the bound within which we are willing to limit the future settlement of the United States, because it is not to be doubted that the Columbia river branches as far North as 51, although it is most probably not the Tacoutche Tesse of Mackenzie. As, however, the line already runs in latitude 49, to the Stoney Mountains, should it be earnestly insisted upon by Great Britain, we will consent to carry it in continuance, on the same parallel to the sea. Copies of this instruction will likewise be forwarded to Mr. Mid-regarding the country westward of the Rocky Mountains, dleton, with whom you will freely, but cautiously correspond on this subject, as well as in relation to your negofiation respecting the suppression of the slave trade. I have the honor to be, with great respect, sir, your very humble and obedient servant,

arrange with us the questions of boundary upon the Northwest Coast.

At that time, however, I had been put in possession of nothing distinctive or final upon the subject, and was to wait the arrival of the negotiation itself, for the full and authentic statement of the British claims. I am the more particular in referring back to this latter communication, as it appears that I was under important misapprehensions in it, in regard to the true nature of the British claims. They proved, on formally and accurately disclosing themselves, to be far more extensive than I had believed, and were advanced in a manner more confident than I had even then anticipated.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

RICHARD RUSH, Envoy Extraordinary

and Minister Plen. U. S. London.

I opened this subject with the British Plenipotentiaries at the eleventh conference. I remarked, that, although it had been understood in my preparatory conversations with the proper organ of his Majesty's Government, that the respective territorial or other claims of the United States and Russia, as well as of Great Britain and Russia, were to be matter of separate discussion at St. Peters burgh: yet, that those of the United States and Britain were now, according to the understanding in the same conversations, to be taken up for formal discussion is

London.

My Government was aware, that the convention of October, 1818, between the United States and Great Britain, one article of which contained a temporary regulation of this interest, had still four years to run; but the Presi dent, nevertheless, was of opinion, that the present was

Extract of a Letter from Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams, dated not an unsuitable moment for attempting a new and more

August 12th, 1824.
No. 10.

VI. NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA.

definite adjustment of the respective claims of the two Powers to the country in question. It was a country daily assuming an aspect, political, commercial, and territorial, of more and more interest to the United States. It bore upon their relations with other States, upon their fisheries as well as their commerce in the Pacific, upon their fur trade, and the whole system of their intercourse with vast tribes of the Indians. I reminded the British Plenpotentiaries, that, by the third article of the treaty of Washington, of February 22d, 1819, between the United States and Spain, the boundary line between the two countries, was fixed, in part, along the Southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source, in latitude 42 North, and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea; and that Spain had also renounced to the United States, by the same article, all her rights North of that parallel. I then made known, at this and other conferences-for, from the extent of the subject, I was unable even to open it all at one conference-what I understood to be the nature of the title of the United States to the whole of the country North of the parallel stated. I said, that, apart from all the right as thus acquired from Spain, which, however, was regarded by my Government as surpassing the right of all other European Powers on that coast, the United States claimed, in their own right, and as their absolute and exclusive sovereignty and dominion, the whole of the country West of the Rocky Mountains, from the 42d to at least as far up as the 51st degree of North latitude. This claim they rested upon their first discovery of the river Columbia, followed up by an effective settlement at its mouth-a settlement which was reduced by the arms of Britain during the late war, but formally surrendered up to the United States at the return of peace.

I now come to the last of the subjects that the President confided to me-that contained in your instructions of the 2d of July, 1823, relative to the Northwest Coast of America. Although no arrangement was concluded on this subject, it is not the less incumbent upon me carefully to apprize you of the discussions by which it was marked. They will probably be found not without interest. In one of my preliminary communications respecting the negotiation, viz. my number 356, I informed you, that I had thought it necessary, yielding to events that transpired after your instructions were received, to treat of this subject of the Northwest Coast with this Government alone, without considering the negotiation as common also to Russia, as had been contemplated by your instructions. In this deviation from your instructions, I assigned my reasons, which, as they weighed strongly with me at the time, and do not appear, from any lights that I possess, to have lost any of their force since, I must hope will have been approved. My duty, therefore, will now be confined to informing you of the discussions that took place, in my hands, with Britain, and as limited to the interests of the United States and Britain. These are the only discussions, I may add, with which I have any acquaintance, not having heard from Mr. Middleton of the nature of those that were carried on at St. Petersburgh, though, through the kindness of the Russian Ambassador at this Court, I have, very recently, been apprized of their result. It is probable that it has been through some accident that I have not heard from Mr. Middleton, having apprized him of the course that I had felt myself compel- Their right, by first discovery, they deemed peculiarly ied to adopt. In obedience to your instructions, I also strong, having been made, not only from the sea, by Capwrote to him on the subject of the Slave Trade, transmit-tain Gray, but also from the interior, by Lewis and Clarke, ting him a copy of the convention with this Government, as soon as I had signed it.

In another of my communications, written before the negotiation opened, viz. my number 358, I gave you a general intimation of what I then supposed would be the terms upon which this Government would be disposed to

who first discovered its sources, and explored its whole inland course to the Pacific Ocean. It had been ascer tained that the Columbia extended, by the river Multno mah to as low as 42 North; and, by Clarke's river, to a point as high up as 51, if not beyond that point; and to this entire range of country, contiguous to the original

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dominion of the United States, and made a part of it by to the protocol of the twelfth conference. I said, that the almost intermingling waters of each, the United these limits were supposed to be sufficient to secure to States, I said, considered their title as established, by all Great Britain all the benefit to be derived from the setthe principles that had ever been applied on this subject tlements of her Northwest and Hudson's Bay Companies by the Powers of Europe, to settlements in the American on that coast, and were indicated with that view. The hemisphere. I asserted, that a nation discovering a coun-insertion of a limit of ten years, which I introduced as try, by entering the mouth of its principal river at the sea applicable to the above restriction upon future settlecoast, must necessarily be allowed to claim and hold, as ments, may require explanation. In your despatch to me, great an extent of the interior country as was described as I understood it, there was no such limit of time speciby the course of such principal river, and its tributary fied. streams; and that the claim, to this extent, became doubly strong, where, as in the present instance, the same river had also been discovered and explored from its very mountain springs to the sea.

But, in your instructions to Mr. Middleton, of the 22d of July, 1823, which you enclosed to me, I perceive that there was this limit introduced, and that it was under this limit the proposal was described to him as the one which I was to submit to the British Government. I concluded that it would be erring on the safe side, to take, in this particular, the instructions to Mr. Middleton, as my guide, and I did so accordingly.

Such an union of titles, imparting validity to each other, did not often exist. I remarked, that it was scarcely to be presumed that any European nation would henceforth project any colonial establishment on any part of the Northwest Coast of America, which, as yet, had never been used to any other useful purpose than that of trading with the aboriginal inhabitants, or fishing in the neighboring seas; but that the United States should contemplate, and at one day form, permanent establishments there, was na-duced it. I may set out by saying, in a word, that they turally to be expected, as proximate to their own possessions, and falling under their immediate jurisdiction. Speaking of the Powers of Europe, who had ever advanced claims to any part of this coast, I referred to the principles that had been settled by the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790, and remarked that Spain had now lost all her exclusive colonial rights, that were recognized under that Convention, first, by the fact of the Independence of the South American States, and of Mexico, and next, by her express renunciation of all her rights, of whatever kind, above the 42d degree of North latitude, to the United States. Those new States would, themselves, now possess the rights incident to their condition of political independence, and the claims of the United States above the 42d parallel, as high up as 60, claims, as well in their own right, as by their succession to the title of Spain, would henceforth necessarily preclude other nations from forming colonial establishments upon any part of the American continents. I was therefore instructed to say, that my Government no longer considered any part of those continents as open to future colonization by any of the Powers of Europe, and Nor could Great Britain at all admit, the Plenipotentiathat this was a principle upon which I should insist in theries said, the claim of the United States, as founded on course of the negotiation.

It is proper now, as on the question of the St. Lawrence, that I should give you faithful information of the manner in which the British Plenipotentiaries received my proposal, and the principles under which I had intrototally declined the one, and totally denied the other. They said that Great Britain considered the whole of the unoccupied parts of America, as being open to her future settlement, in like manner as heretofore. They included within these parts, as well that portion of the Northwest Coast, lying between the 42d and 51st degrees of latitude as any other parts. The principle of colonization on that coast, or elsewhere, on any portion of those continents not yet occupied, Great Britain was not prepared to relinquish. Neither was she prepared to accede to the exclusive claim of the United States. She had not, by her convention with Spain, in 1790, or at any other period, conceded to that Power any exclusive rights on that coast, where actual settlements had not been formed. She considered the same principles applicable to it now, as then. She could not concede to the United States, who held the Spanish title, claims which she had felt herself obliged to resist, when advanced by Spain, and on her resistance to which, the credit of Great Britain had been thought to depend.

their own first discovery. It had been objectionable It was in this manner that I first laid down, for the in- with her in the negotiation of 1818, and had not been formation of this Government, the principles contained in admitted since. Her surrender to the United States of your despatches, or flowing from them. I combined, with the post at Columbia River, after the late war, was in fulwhat you had written to me, the contents of the Message filment of the provisions of the first article of the treaty of the President to Congress, of the 2d of December last, of Ghent, without affecting questions of right on either a document which I could not but regard with the highest side. Britain did not admit the validity of the discovery solemnity towards marking out my duty. I added, that by Captain Gray. He had only been on an enterprise of the United States did not desire to interfere with the ac- his own, as an individual, and the British Government was tual settlements of other nations on the Northwest Coast yet to be informed under what principles or usage, among of America, and that, in regard to those which Great Bri-the nations of Europe, his having first entered or discotain might have formed abore the 51st degree of latitude, vered the mouth of the river Columbia, admitting this to they would remain, with all such rights of trade with the have been the fact, was to carry after it such a portion of natives, and rights of fishery, as those settlements had en- the interior country as was alleged. Great Britain enterjoyed hitherto. As regarded future settlements, by either ed her dissent to such a claim; and, least of all, did she of the parties, I said that it was the wish of my Govern- admit that the circumstance of a merchant vessel of the ment to regulate these upon principles that might be mu- United States having penetrated the coast of that contitually satisfactory, and tend to prevent all collision. Inent at Columbia River, was to be taken to extend a claira was, therefore, instructed to propose, first, the extension in favor of the United States along the same coast, both to a further term of ten years, of the third article of the above and below that river, over latitudes that had been Convention of October, 1818; and, secondly, that Bri- previously discovered and explored by Great Britain hertain should stipulate, during the like term, that no settle-self, in expeditions fitted out under the authority and with ment should be made by any of her subjects on the Northwest Coast of America, or the Islands adjoining, either South of the 51st degree of latitude, or North of the 55th degree: the United States stipulating that none should be made by their citizens North of the 51st degree. This proposal I drew up in form, and annexed it (marked F) VOL. II-E

the resources of the nation. This had been done by Captain Cook, to speak of no others, whose voyage was at least prior to that of Captain Gray. On the coast, only a few degrees South of the Columbia, Britain had made purchases of territory from the natives before the United States were an independent Power; and upon that river

itself, or upon rivers that flowed into it, West of the Rocky Mountains, her subjects had formed settlements coeval with, if not prior to, the settlement by American citizens at its mouth.

[H. of R.

granted, by the Crown in England, to individuals proceeding to the discovery or settlement of new countries on the American Continent: Among others, those from Elizabeth, in 1578, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and, in Such is a summary of the grounds taken at the very 1584, to Sir Walter Raleigh: those from James I. to Sir outset by the British Plenipotentiaries, in opposition to Thomas Yates, in 1606 and 1607, and the Georgia charter our claims. On my remarking, immediately, and before of 1732. All these, extracts from which I produced, proceeding to any discussion of them, that I had not be-comprehended a range of country fully justifying my refore been aware of the extent and character of all these mark. By the words of the last, a grant is passed to objections, they replied, that it was also for the first time all territories along the seacoast, from the river Savanthat they had been apprized in any authentic and full way, nah to the most Southern stream "of another great river of the nature of the claims, as I had now stated them, on called the Alatamaha, and Westward, from the heads of behalf of the United States; claims which they said they the said rivers, in a direct line, to the South Seas." To were bound to declare, at once, Great Britain was wholly show that Britain was not the only European nation, unprepared to admit; and, especially, that which aimed who, in her territorial claims on this continent, had had at interdicting her from the right of future colonization an eye to the rule of assuming water courses to be the in America. fittest boundaries, I also cited the charter of Louis XIV. to Crozat, by which "all the country drained by the waters emptying directly or indirectly into the Mississippi," is declared to be comprehended under the name, and, within the limits, of Louisiana.

Resuming the subject, I said, that it was unknown to my Government, that Great Britain had ever even advanced any claim to territory on the Northwest Coast of America, by the right of occupation, before the Nootka Sound controversy. It was clear, that, by the treaty of Paris, of 1763, her territorial rights in America were bounded Westward by the Mississippi. The claim of the United States, under the discovery by Captain Gray, was, therefore, at all events, sufficient to overreach, in point of time, any that Great Britain could allege along that coast, on the ground of prior occupation or settlement. As to any alleged settlements by her subjects on the Columbia, or on rivers falling into it, earlier, or as early, as the one formed by American citizens at Astoria, I knew not of them, and was not prepared to admit the fact. As to the discovery itself of Captain Gray, it was not for a moment to be drawn into question. It was a fact before the whole world. The very geographers of Britain had adopted the name which he had given to this river.

If Britain had put forth no claims on the Northwest Coast, founded on prior occupation, before the Nootka Sound contest, still less could she ever have established any, I remarked, at any period founded on prior discovery. Claims of the latter class belonged wholly to Spain, and now, consequently, to the United States. The superior title of Spain on this ground, as well as others, was indeed capable of demonstration. Russia had acknowledged it in 1790, as the State papers of the Nootka Sound controversy would show. The memorial of the Spanish Court to the British Minister, on that occasion, expressly asserted, that, notwithstanding all the attempted encroachments upon the Spanish coasts of the Pacific Ocean, Spain had preserved her possessions there entire, possessions which she had constantly, and before all Europe, Vancouver himself, undoubtedly the first British navi- on that and other occasions, declared to extend to as high gator who had ever entered it, admitted that he found at least as the 60th degree of North latitude. The very Captain Gray there, and the very instructions to this first article of the Nootka Sound Convention attested, I British officer, drawn up in March, 1791, and to be seen said, the superiority of her title: for, whilst, by it, the among the records of the British admiralty, expressly re-nations of Europe generally were allowed to make settleferred by name to the previous expedition in that quar-ments on that coast, it was only for the purposes of trade ter, of the American sloop the Washington. Was this, with the natives, thereby excluding the right of any exI asked, to be accounted nothing? Did it lie with a fo-clusive or colonial establishments for other purposes. As reign Power, whose own archives might supply her with to any claim on the part of Britain under the voyage of the essential incontestible fact of the first discovery by Captain Cook, I remarked, that this was sufficiently suthe vessel of another Power, of a vast river whose waters, perseded, passing by every thing else, by the Journal of from their source to the ocean, had remained until then, the Spanish expedition from San Blas, in 1775, kept by totally unknown to all civilized nations-did it lie with Don Antonio Maurelle, for an account of which I referred such foreign Power to say, that the discovery was not the British Plenipotentiaries to the work of Daines Barmade by a national ship, or under national authority?rington, a British author. In that expedition, consisting The United States, I said, could admit no such distinc- of a frigate and schooner, fitted out by the Viceroy of tion; could never surrender, under it, or upon any ground, Mexico, the Northwest Coast was visited in latitude 45, their claim to this discovery. The ship of Captain Gray, 47, 49, 53, 55, 56, 57, and 58, not one of which points, whether fitted out by the Government of the United there was good reason for believing, had ever been exStates or not, was a national ship. If she was not so in a plored, or as much as seen, up to that day, by any navigatechnical sense of the word, she was in the full sense of tor of Great Britain. There was, too, I said, the voyage it, applicable to such an occasion. She bore at her stern of Juan Peres, prior to 1775; that of Aguilar, in 1601, the flag of the nation, sailed forth under the protection who explored that coast in latitude 45; that of De Fuca, of the nation, and was to be identified with the rights of in 1592, who explored it in latitude 48, giving the name, the nation. The extent of this interior country attaching which they still bore, to the straits in that latitude, withto this discovery, was founded, I said, upon a principle at out going through a much longer list of other early Spaonce reasonable and moderate-reasonable, because, as nish navigators in that sea, whose discoveries were condiscovery was not to be limited to the local spot of a first fessedly of a nature to put out of view those of all other landing-place, there must be a rule both for enlarging and nations. I finished by saying, that, in the opinion of my circumscribing its range; and none more proper than that Government, the title of the United States to the whole of taking the water-courses which Nature had laid down, of that coast, from latitude 42, to as far North as latitude both as the fair limits of the country, and as indispensable 60, was, therefore, superior to that of Britain, or any other to its use and value-moderate, because the nations of Power; first, through the proper claim of the United Europe had often, under their rights of discovery, carried States by discovery and settlement, and, secondly, as now their claims much farther. Here I instanced, as sufficient standing in the place of Spain, and holding in their hands for my purpose, and pertinent to it, the terms in which all her title. many of the royal charters and letters patent had been!

Neither my remarks nor my authorities, of which I have

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1st SESSION.

endeavored to present an outline, made the impression Rocky Mountains, washed by the river Columbia, in manupon the British Plenipotentiaries which I was desirous ner and extent as I had stated, subject, of course, to that they should have produced. They repeated their ani- whatever existing conventional arrangements they may mated denials of the title of the U. States, as alleged to have formed in regard to it with other Powers. Their have been acquired by themselves, enlarging and insisting title to this whole country they considered as not to be upon their objections to it, as I have already stated them. shaken. It had often been proclaimed in the legislative Nor were they less decided in their renewed impeach-discussions of the nation, and was otherwise public before ments of the title of Spain. They said, that it was well the world. Its broad and stable foundations were laid in known to them what had formerly been the pretensions the first uncontradicted discovery of that river, both at its of Spain to absolute sovereignty and dominion in the mouth and at its source, followed up by an effective settleSouth Seas, and over all the shores of America which they ment, and that settlement the earliest ever made upon its washed; but, that these were pretensions which Britain banks. If a title in the United States, thus transcendent had never admitted on the contrary, she had strenuous-needed confirmation, it might be sought in their now unitly resisted them. They referred to the note of the British ing to it the title of Spain. It was not the intention of the Minister to the Court of Spain, of May 16th, 1790, in United States, I remarked, to repose upon any of the exwhich Britain had not only asserted a full right to an un- treme pretensions of that Power to speculative dominion interrupted commerce and navigation in the Pacific, but in those seas, which grew up in less enlightened ages, also that of forming, with the consent of the natives, what- however countenanced in those ages; nor had I, as their ever establishments she thought proper on the Northwest Plenipotentiary, sought any aid from such pretensions ; Coast, in parts not already occupied by other nations. but, to the extent of the just claims of Spain, grounded This had always been the doctrine of Great Britain, and upon her fair enterprise and resources, at periods when from it, nothing that was due, in her estimation, to other her renown for both, filled all Europe, the United States Powers, now called upon her in any degree to depart. had succeeded, and, upon claims of this character, it had, As to the alleged prior discoveries of Spain, all along therefore, become as well their right as their duty to inthat coast, Britain did not admit them, but with great sist. I asserted again the incontestible priority of Spanish qualification. She could never admit that the mere fact discoveries on the coast in question. I referred to the of Spanish navigators having first seen the coast at parti- voyage of Cortez, who, in 1557, discovered California; to cular points, even where this was capable of being sub- those of Alarçon and Coronado, in 1540; to that of Castantiated as the fact, without any subsequent or efficient brillo, in 1542, all of whom were prior to Drake, and the acts of sovereignty or settlement following on the part of last of whom made the coast, by all the accounts that are Spain, was sufficient to exclude all other nations from that given, as high up as latitude 44. As to Drake, I said, portion of the globe. Besides, they said, even on the that, although Fleurieu, in his introduction to Marechand, score of prior discovery on that coast, at least as far up as did assert that he got as far North as 48, yet Hakluyt, the 48th degree of North latitude, Britain herself had a who wrote almost at the time that Drake flourished, inclaim over all other nations. forms us that he got no higher than 43, having put back at Here they referred to Drake's expedition in 1578, who that point from the "extreme cold." All the later authors as they said, explored that coast on the part of England, or compilers, also, who spoke of his voyage, however they from 37 to 48 North, making formal claim to these limits might differ as to the degree of latitude to which he in the name of Elizabeth, and giving the name of New Al- went, adopted from Hakluyt this fact of his having turned bion to all the country which they comprehended. Was back from the intensity of the weather. The preponderthis, they asked, to be reputed nothing in the comparisonance of probability, therefore, I alleged, as well as of auof prior discoveries, and did it not even take in a large thority, was, that Drake did not get beyond 43 along that part of the very coast now claimed by the United States coast. At all events, it was certain that he had made no as of prior discovery on their side? Such was the cha- settlements there, and the absence of these would, under racter of their remarks on this part of the title. In con- the doctrine of Great Britain, as applied by her to Spain, nection with them, they called my attention to the report prevent any title whatever attaching to his supposed disof a select Committee of the House of Representatives, in coveries. They were, moreover, put out of view by the April last, on the subject of Columbia River. There is a treaty of 1763, by which Britain agreed to consider the letter from General Jesup in this report, adopted by the Mississippi as her Western boundary upon that ConCommittee as part of the report, and which, as the British tinent. Plenipotentiaries said, had acquired importance in the eyes Our discussions, which grew into length, and only a conof their Government from that fact. They commented densed view of which I have aimed at presenting to you, upon several passages of this letter, a newspaper copy of terminated without any change of opinion on either side. which they held in their hands, but chiefly on that part Having stated the principal points which marked them, my which contains an intimation that a removal from our ter- duty seems to be drawing to a close, without the necessiritory of all British subjects, now allowed to trade on the ty of setting before you all the amplifications and details waters of the Columbia, might become a necessary mea- into which, on topics so copious, they would sometimes sure on the part of the United States, as soon as the Con-run. They were ended on the side of Great Britain, by vention of 1818 had expired. Of this intimation the British Plenipotentiaries complained, as one calculated to put Great Britain especially upon her guard, arriving, as the document did, at a moment when a friendly negotiation was pending between the two Powers, for the adjustment of their relative and conflicting claims to that entire district of country. Had I any knowledge, they asked, of this document? I replied that I had not, as communicated to me by my Government. All that I could say of it was, and this I would say confidently, that I was sure it had been conceived in no unfriendly spirit towards Great Britain. Yet, I was bound, unequivocally, to re-assert, and so I requested the British Plenipotentiaries would consider me as doing, the full and exclusive sovereignty of the United States over the whole of the territory beyond the

her Plenipotentiaries repeating, that they found it altogether impossible to accede, either to the proposal of the United States, or to the reasoning invoked in its support. That, nevertheless, they desired to lay a foundation of harmony between the two countries in that part of the globe-to close, not leave open, sources of future disagreement, which time might multiply and aggravate. That, with this view, and setting aside the discordant principles of the two Governments, in the hope of promoting it, they had to propose, first, that the third article of the Convention of October, 1818, should now be considered as at an end. Secondly, that, instead of it, the boundary line between the territories, respectively claimed by the two Powers, Westward of the Rocky Mountains, should be drawn due West, along the 49th parallel

The protocol of the preceding conference was read over and signed.

The American Plenipotentiary resumed the communication which he had commenced in that conference, on the subject of the territorial claims on the Northwest Coast of America, Westward of the Rocky Mountains, and concluded by giving in the paper marked F. annexed hereto, as containing the proposal of his Government on that head. Adjourned to Monday, the 5th of April.

Protocol of the Twentieth Conference of the American and British Plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, on the 29th of June, 1824.

and signed.

length, the sentiments of their Government with respect The British Plenipotentiaries stated and explained, st to the conflicting claims of Great Britain and the United the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They deStates to the territories in North America lying between clined the proposal made on this subject by the American Plenipotentiary, and annexed to the twelfth protocol, beclaims of their Government to a degree inconsistent, as cause it would substantially have the effect of limiting the they thought, with the credit and just interests of the na tion. After much discusssion and mutual explanation of it was agreed that, following the example given by the the claims on each side, when taken in their full extent, American Plenipotentiary in his proposal, it would be advisable to attempt a settlement on terms of mutual convenience, setting aside, for that purpose, the discordant principles on which the respective claims were founded.

Whereupon, the British Plenipotentiaries stated, in general terms, that they were ready either to agree on a boundary line, to be drawn due west from the Rocky Mountains, along the 49th parallel of latitude, to the Northeasternmost branch of the Columbia or Oregon Ri