Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/272

256 session of the Country in the name of his Sovereign, and previously, in 1791 [1792], Captain Vancouver had surveyed the Coast and the River Columbia from its mouth to the falls, which are 200 Miles from the Sea. Soon after Sir Alexander McKenzie's Voyages, the North West Company established Trading posts in the Country beyond the Rocky Mountains and upon the head Waters of the Columbia River. So that besides the repeated Acts of taking formal possession, British Subjects have for above Twenty Years been in actual possession of the Interior of the Country in question and have maintained the same uninterruptedly.

"It was only about two years ago that the Government of the United States began to set up pretensions to the North West Coast; for until after their purchase of Louisiana from Bonaparte they had never possessed or had even claimed any Territory to the Westward of the Missisippi; but upon making the purchase of the Province of Louisiana and finding that its Geographical Boundaries to the Northward and Westward had never been expressly limited or defined, they immediately took advantage of this circumstance to claim Boundaries as extensive and indefinite as possible ad without waiting to have the matter of right investigated or ascertained they hastened to take possession of the Country so claimed by them, intending doubtless when they once had taken possession to maintain it whether right or wrong. With a view, therefore, to extend their territorial claims across the Continent to the Pacific Ocean and establish a communication therewith through the Rivers Mississourie and Columbia, the American Government in the year 1806 [1803] fitted out an expedition to explore the Country under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clarke, who proceeded to the head of the River Mississourie thence across the Rocky Mountains to the River Columbia and so down to the mouth of that River from whence they returned [1806] by the same route.