Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/191



occupied by Spain. When settlements were made by subjects of either power, free access to, and full privilege to trade were confined without molestation."

Such was the treaty between Spain and England about old Oregon. At the very most, it was only a treaty of joint occupancy for trade; no provisions having been made by either party for the policing or government of the country. Spain did not renounce the sovereignty of the country, and neither of the par- ties or both combining could make an effective treaty to bar out other nations while themselves pretending to hold the country in common. It is a funda- mental principle of the law of nations, that the territorial boundaries and limits of sovereignties shall be definite and fixed, so that the nation claiming jurisdic- tion over any country can be held to accountability for conduct within or pro- ceeding from such country. Joint occupancy defeats that principle of law, and is, therefore, absurd and nugatory.

And to show that Spain never intended to surrender the sovereignty of the country, the reader has only to follow the history of that treaty and see how its provisions were carried out.

The British government appointed Captain George Vancouver commissioner to receive the personal property seized by the Spaniards, and carry out the pro- visions of the treaty on the part of England; and Spain appointed as Spanish commissioner Senor Bodega y Quadra, and the two representatives of their respective countries met at Nootka Sound on August 28, 1792. After haggling and negotiating over the matter for two weeks, the Spaniard refused absolutely to deliver possession of any land except the ground on which the British house had been erected, probably about an acre. The ships and personal property had been returned to the Englishmen more than a year before, and the Spanish com- missioner now refused to give up more land than what was used with the one temporary house, and would not permit the English commissioner to raise the British flag over even that. This, the English commissioner refused, and sailed away. The English were never put in possession of a foot of the Pacific coast by Spain, and its territory was never surrendered to England in any manner whatever.

Spain's title to old Oregon by the right of prior discovery, whatever that amounts to, and continuous possession and assertion of that right, as against England, is therefore found to be perfect and indefeasible.

But this was not all of Spain's title. In the year 1763, thirteen years before the American colonies threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, England en- tered into a treaty with Spain, defining the boundaries of the respective terri- torial rights and possessions in North America. And by that treaty, the Mis- sissippi river, flowing from north to south in a direct course for fifteen hun- dred miles, was declared to be the perpetual boundary between the possessions of Spain, and the possessions of Great Britain in America ; and the entire coun- try west of that river lefas declared to be the territory of Spain.

There was, after the disagreements of Quadra and Vancouver, a subsequent effort to settle the matter at Nootka, in which, according to the British version. General Alava, on the part of Spain, surrendered the ground on which the Brit- ish buildings stood to Lieut. Pierce of the British navy. But the English never took possession or occupied the place. And commenting on these facts, the British historian, William Belsham, says :

"But though England, at the expense of three millions, extorted from the Spaniards a promise of restoration and reparation, it is well ascertained : First, that the settlement in question was never restored by Spain, nor the Spanish flag at Nootka ever struck; and secondly, that no settlement had been subse- quently attempted by England on the California coast. The claim of right set up by the court of London, it is therefore plain, has been virtually abandoned."

And now having set out the historical facts which conclusively show that Spain had, according to the law of nations, a good and sufficient title to the