OREGON

American ownership of Oregon is the most important result that came from the cession of Louisiana to the United States, and the history of how this result came about forms an interesting sequel to the record of that cession. Three nations have laid claim to the Oregon country, as it was first called, which embraced the territory along the Pacific Coast from the forty-second parallel northward to the parallel of 54° 40'; being the southern limits of the Russian possessions, which that power owned by virtue of priority of discovery by Behring, the celebrated Russian navigator, after whom Behring Straits were named. Spain claimed this country on the ground that Juan de Fuca, in 1592, discovered and entered the straits which bear his name, and that Bruno Heceta sailed along this coast in 1775. The English claims rested on the voyages of Meares in 1786, and later, on those of Vancouver in 1789, along the coasts and into the Straits of Fuca. claims of the United States, which came in last, transcended all these in the principles of national rights, especially as to priority of interior exploration as against England.

The

At St. Petersburg, April 5, 1824, Russia having relinquished any right which might accrue to her south of 54° 40′, the question of ownership to the coast south of that parallel was left open to negotiation to the other powers just named.

After Spain, in 1819, had sold Florida and all her claims on the Pacific to the United States, as told in previous pages of this work, then came a contest between Great Britain and the United States for this immense empire, slumbering in obscurity, inhabited by savage tribes of Indians, some of them hitherto unknown to civilization. The claims of the United

51

States rested, first, on the explorations of Robert Gray, who sailed from Boston on September 30, 1787, with two vessels, the "Washington" and the "Columbia," under the patronage of J. Barrell, S. Brown, C. Bulfinch, J. Darley, C. Hatch and J. M. Pintard. Their destination was the northwest coast of America, by doubling Cape Horn. The object of the expedition was to establish trade relations, which it did to the entire satisfaction of the proprietors; but these objects were insignificant compared to the national character destined to grow out of it. The expedition arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792, up which stream Captain Gray with difficulty sailed over the sandbar at its mouth and made his way along its meanders till the snowcapped peak of Mount Hood became visible. He named this river the "Columbia," after the vessel which he had the honor of commanding in the service of its proprietors; but in the sublimer service of America, as history shows it to have been. He returned to Boston by a western passage around the world. No American vessel had circumnavigated the world before, and to him belongs the distinguished honor of first carrying the stars and stripes on such a voyage.

Thomas Jefferson, when Secretary of State under Washington, in 1792, had proposed to send an expedition up the Missouri for the purpose of securing the fur trade with the Indians; and when he became President of the United States, even before Louisiana had been purchased, he took measures to send an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast. For this purpose the services of Meriwether Lewis, a captain in the regular army, and afterward private secretary to President Jefferson, and Capt. William Clark, were secured by Jefferson to explore the Missouri River to its sources, thence to cross the divide of its watershed and find some stream that led to the Pacific. They had a command of forty-four men, a few

of whom were to accompany the expedition no farther than the headwaters of the Missouri. A few days after President Jefferson had given Captain Lewis his instructions as commander of the expedition news of the conclusion of the treaty for the cession of Louisiana reached the United States, and without further delay the expedition started. Their route lay up the Missouri river as far as they could go with their boats, thence across the divide to the headwaters of the Columbia River with horses purchased from the Indians. From the headwaters of boat navigation on the Columbia River they navigated this stream to its mouth, arriving at Cape Disappointment, situated on its north bank, November 15, 1805, where they remained till March 26, 1806. Previous to their departure from St. Louis, President Jefferson had given Lewis and Clark authority to purchase necessary supplies for the return of the expedition, either across the country or for passage in vessel around Cape Horn for the whole company; but, thanks to the good management of the commanders of the expedition, there was no necessity for using this authority, and they commenced their return up the Columbia River to its sources; thence across the divide to the headwaters of the Missouri River; thence down that stream to St. Louis, arriving there September 23 same year, their return thus having been by the same route on which they had advanced into the unknown two years before.

In 1811 John Jacob Astor established a fort, which he named Astoria, on the south bank of the Columbia River, ten miles above its mouth. This fort was captured by the British and named Fort George during the War of 1812, but was restored at the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, after which it became a permanent point of American occupation under its original name, and as such an evidence of American ownership.

Much has been said and written on international law, the binding force of which is a resort to arms if diplomacy fails; there is an unwritten law of nations that priority of discovery, exploration and occupation is an acknowledged national title to lands thus discovered, explored and occupied. On this basis rested the title to the Pacific Coast between the parallel of 42° on the south to the parallel 54° 40′ on the north. Both England and America based their claims on this priority, as above stated, controlling which was a boundary line between the two nations on the north, which was established in a preliminary way when Astoria was restored to the Americans by the treaty of Ghent.

At this time the forty-ninth parallel was first mentioned between the American and British commissioners, but at the treaty of Utrecht, negotiated in 1713, between Great Britain on one side and Spain and France on the other, the forty-ninth parallel was assumed to be the dividing line between the French Province of Louisiana and the British possessions to the north. Some historians have denied the binding force of that treaty in establishing the line of the forty-ninth parallel, but that this demarkation began here no one who studies the intricate meshes of this question can doubt. In the debates at the ratification in the British House of Commons on the Ashburton treaty mention was made of a map which had belonged to the late King George III, made by Mr. Faden, the King's geographer, after the peace of 1783. This map had hung in the King's library during his lifetime, and subsequently in the foreign office; but it had disappeared about the time of the Ashburton treaty. On it was written, in the handwriting of King George III, "This is Oswald's line," referring to a red line on the forty-ninth parallel, immediately above these words. Mr. Richard Oswald was one of the British Commissioners who negotiated the provisional treaty of peace of 1782 between England and America. In 1843 Sir Robert Peel and

Lord Aberdeen showed this map to Edward Everett, United States Minister to the Court of St. James. On it was the red line as fixed at the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Mr. Rush and Mr. Gallatin acted on the part of the United States and Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Robinson on the part of Great Britain at the first English and American negotiations on the forty-ninth parallel. The American plenipotentiaries proposed that a line should be drawn from the northwestern extremity of the Lake of the Woods, thence to the forty-ninth parallel, which might be to the north or the south of that point, and that a dividing line between the two nations should be on this parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, in running a line from this point on the Lake of the Woods to the forty-ninth parallel, it was found that this parallel was about a degree to the southward; hence that tangent point running into the Lake of the Woods on all accurate maps of the United States showing its northern boundary. This line ran substantially along the ridge dividing the northern watershed from the Mississippi watershed. It was a natural boundary, never questioned by either nation, as far as the Rocky Mountains.

When the issue as to the ultimate ownership of Oregon became a matter of discussion between Great Britain and the United States, certain principles in our political and financial statecraft hinged upon these final negotiations.

The Hudson Bay Company had been chartered by King Charles II in 1669, whose limits on the south had never been defined; but whose ambitions in that direction were in rivalry not only with the American Fur Company, but with American settlements as they tended westwardly. This opulent company had a strong influence with the British Cabinet; on the other side, American emigrants to this country had an equally strong influence with the American Congress. Here was a collision of interests that must be settled by diplomacy to pre