Page:Manifest Destiny in the West.pdf/5

152, to whom Mr. Astor's British partners had sold out his trading-posts on the Columbia, had obtained possession of the country for purposes of trade; and finally, being merged in the Hudson's Bay Company, retained it under sanction of the convention of 1818, which left the boundary question an open one, and permitted the subjects of either country to hunt, fish, and trade without hinderance in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains for a period of ten years.

It was now that a struggle of diplomacy really began between the Government of Great Britain and that of the United States to bring about a settlement of their conflicting claims to the mouth of the Columbia, and the navigation of that river. Neither nation desired to go to war about it. The United States could not afford it. Great Britain remembered her former experiences in fighting her half-civilized relations on their own soil, and judged it would be an awkward piece of business to attempt a seizure of American territory.

In the decade following the convention of 1818, by a treaty with Spain the southern and south-western boundaries of the United States became fixed, it being agreed that along the forty-second parallel the line should extend to the Pacific; all the territory north of that line to which Spain had ever laid claim, to belong to the United States. The Spanish discoveries extended to latitude 54° 40′. Beyond that, the Russians claimed the coast. This allotment was any thing but agreeable to Great Britain, who, through the explorations of the Hudson's Bay Company, had obtained possession of a large extent of inland territory north of the forty-ninth parallel. The Columbia River, reaching by its great branches far into the interior of the continent, and having its mouth in a climate of almost perpetual spring, must not be given up without a close struggle.

Both Governments weighed their claims over and over in their secret councils of State. The United States founded their claim on the following several points:

The right purchased of Spain, the first discoverer.

The subsequent actual discovery of the Columbia by Captain Gray.

The settlement at the mouth of the Columbia by Mr. Astor; and the principle "that the discovery and occupation of the mouth of a river gives title to the entire territory drained by it."

The treaty of Ghent, in 1814, by which all places taken from the United States during the war of 1812 were restored, Astoria being one of them; and primarily, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, by which France came to an agreement with Great Britain concerning the northern boundary of Louisiana—said boundary to be the forty-ninth parallel from a point near or at the Lake of the Woods, indefinitely westward. And also by the treaty of Versailles, in 1763, by which the boundary question between France and Great Britain in North America was definitely settled—France owning the territory south of a line drawn due west from the source of the Mississippi, and Great Britain that east of the Mississippi and north of the forty-ninth parallel. Subsequently, the right of Great Britain to the territory east of the Mississippi was lost through the war of the Revolution, and her claim confined to the territory north of the forty-ninth parallel; no western boundary ever being spoken of.

The last point was that of contiguity.

As for Great Britain's pretensions to the territory drained by the Columbia River, the points sought to be made were these:

Discovery.

Contiguity.

The comparison of claims brought to light a mass of evidence by no means