To carry into effect this proposal, on our part, Great Britain would have to give up posts and settlements south of the Columbia. On the part of the United States, there could be no reciprocal withdrawing from actual occupation, as there is not, and never has been, a single American citizen settled north of the Columbia.
The United States decline to accede to this proposal, even when Great Britain has added to it the further offer of a most excellent harbor, and an extensive tract of country on the Straits of De Fuca—a sacrifice tendered in the spirit of accommodation, and for the sake of a final adjustment of all differences, but which, having been made in this spirit, is not to be considered as in any degree recognizing a claim on the part of the United States, or as at all impairing the existing right of Great Britain over the post and territory in question.
Such being the result of the recent negotiation, it only remains for Great Britain to maintain and uphold the qualified rights which she now possesses over the whole of the territory in question. These rights are recorded and defined in the convention of Nootka. They embrace the right to navigate the waters of those countries, the right to settle in and over any part of them, and the right freely to trade with the inhabitants and occupiers of the same.
These rights have been peaceably exercised ever since the date of that convention; that is, for a period of near forty years. Under that convention, valuable British interests have grown up in those countries. It is fully admitted that the United States possess the same rights, although they have been exercised by them only in a single instance, and have not, since the year 1813, been exercised at all. But beyond these rights they possess none.
To the interests and establishments which British industry and enterprise have created, Great Britain owes protection. That protection will be given, both as regards settlement and freedom of trade and navigation, with every attention not to infringe the coördinate rights of the United States; it being the earnest desire of the British government, so long as the joint occupancy continues, to regulate its own obligations by the same rule which governs the obligations of any other occupying party.
Fully sensible, at the same time, of the desirableness of a more definite settlement, as between Great Britain and the United States, the British government will be ready, at any time, to terminate the present state of joint occupancy by an agreement of delimitation; but such arrangement only can be admitted as shall not derogate from the rights of Great Britain, as acknowledged by treaty, nor prejudice the advantages which British subjects, under the same sanction, now enjoy in that part of the world.
(No. 7.)
Convention between the United States and Great Britain, signed at London, October 20th, 1818.
Article 2.—It is agreed that a line drawn from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods, along the 49th parallel of north latitude, or, if the said point shall not be in the 49th parallel of north latitude, then that a line drawn from the said point due north or south, as the case may be, until the said line shall intersect the said parallel of north latitude, and from the point of such intersection due west along and, with the said parallel, shall be the line of demarkation between the territories of the United States and those of his Britannic majesty; and that the said line shall form the northern boundary of the said territories of the United States, and the southern boundary of the territories of his Britannic Majesty, from the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains.