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Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent fttre fiimAs A des taux de reduction diff brents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich*, il est film* A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite. et de heut en bes, en prenant Ie nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. rata 3 eiure. 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 ' B8th Congress, 1st Session. II '» 4 ';/- Rep. No. 308, OREGON TEllRITORY, (To accompany bill H. R. No. 21. J Ho. OF Reps. March 12, 1844, Mr. A. V. Brown, from th«» Committee on the Territories, made the fol- lowing REPORT: The Committee on the Territories^ to uhom ivas referred the hill No. 21, "/« organize a Territorial Govermnent in the Oregon Territory^ and for other purposes J^ beg leave to present the following report: The committee hav^ not thought it advisable to recommend the passage of the bill referred to them, organizing as it does a new and distinct Terri- torial Government for the Oregon country. They have considered the present population of that region hardly sufficient for such a purpose. They have, however, prepared another bill, in lieu of that one, which is herewith reported, and its passage most earnestly recommended to the favorable con- sideration of the House. This bill proposes to extend the civil and crimi- nal jurisdiction of the Territory of Iowa over all our Pacific and interme- diate possessions. It provides for the establishment of the necessary mili- tary posts within the country, and on the principal route leading to it. It pledges the future action of Congress in giving to all such as have gone, or may go there, such an interest in land as may secure to them homes, and some remuneration for the toils and hardships incident to the settlement of every new country. Such provisions have been inserted in the proposed amendment, as will make the exercise of jurisdiction and the enforcement of our laws in that distant country neither difficult nor expensive. We do not doubt, however, that the whole arrangement will be of but brief dura- tion ; giving way, in a few years, to a full and complete organization of one or more distinct Territorial Governments west of the Rocky mountains. In presenting this bill thus modified, and recommending its passage, it is a source of satisfaction to the committee to know that it is in precise accord- ance with the avowed opinions not only of the present, but of several pre- ceding Presidents of the United States. As far back as December. 1824, Mr. Monroe, in his annual message to the two Houses of Congress, strongly recommended the propriety of establishing a military post at the mouth of the Columbia river, or at some other point within our acknowledged limits. This he did, not only as a protection to our then increasing commerce, and to our fisheries, but as a protection to all our interests in that quarter, and as a means of conciliating the various tribes of Indians throughout our northwestern possessions. He further added, "that it was thought, also, that by the establishment of such a post, the intercourse helween our west- ern States and Territories and the Pacific, and our trade with the tribes Blair & Rives, priat. M< J '-\ v., »•? ^ c?v -7, c^_ 2 Rep. No. 308. residing in the interior, on each side of tlie Rocky moiintnlns, wonid be essentially promoted." Mr. Adams, in his message to the next succeeding Congress, follows up this suggestion of Mr. Monroe, and recommends not only the establishment of a mihtary post at or near the mouth of the Colum- bia, but the equipnjent of a public ship for the exploration of the whole northwestern coast of this continent. If these recommendations are limited to the proteclionof our commerce and fisheries, to the trade with the inter- mediate Indian tribes, and to the promotion of our intercourse with the Pacific, it must have been only because at that time we had no fixed popu- lation there, looking to the permanent settlement of the country for agri- cultural purposes. Since 1824 and 1825, however, we have advanced far beyond the then necessities of our people, and are now called upon to give the protection of our laws and the benefit of our free inslirafions to those who have made it their permanent abode, and whose purposes are to bring into cultivation that vast portion of our empire. The President of the United States, in his annual message at the com- mencement of the present session, presented these altered circumstances in the condition of that country to the attention of Congress, and with much cogency recommended the very measure which the committee have re- ported. He says : " In the mean time, it is proper to remark, that many of our citizens are either already established in the territory, or are on their way thither, for the purpose of forming permanent settlements, while others are preparing to follow ; and, in view of these facts, I must repeat the rec- ommendations contained in previous messages, for the establishment of mil- itary posts at such places on the line of travel, as will furnish security and protection to our hardy adventurers against hostile tribes of Indians inhab- iting those extensive regions. Our laws should also follow them, so modi- fied as the circumstances of the case may seem to require. Under the influence of our free system of government, new republics are destined to spring np, at no distant day, on the shores of the Pacific, similar in policy and in feeling to those existing on this side of the Rocky mountains, and giving a wider and more extensive spread to the principles of civil and reli- gions liberty." In the bill which we have reported, it will be found that we have re- sponded not only to the opinions of Mr. Monroe and Mr. Adams in relation to the establishment of military posts, but we have adopted the just and proper sentiments of the present Executive in reference to the increased settlement of our population in that distant region. Our people have gone to Oregon, and we are only sending our laws after them. It might be greater pre- cision, however, to say that our laws had preceded them ; that they had been always there, coeval with our rights to the country ; and that we are now only proposing to give them" activity and force by gov- ernment organization. In doing so, we introduce no new policy into the action of the Federal Government. At the time of the establishment of our national independence, our population was confined to a com- paratively narrow slip of country bordering on the Atlantic. As fast, how- ever, as our settlements extended into the west in suflicient numbers, new territories were established. These, at first, were confined to the Mississippi river for their common western boundary. After the acquisition of Louisiana, the same wise and necessary policy has been pursued, observing limits, in several cases, but little short of the Rocky mountains. In the rapid march of our empire-republic, the time has now arrived for the extension of tlte t '> t Itep. No. 308. 8 T same policy beyond those mountains, recognising the shores of the Pacific as the only final terminus of our dominions. The propriety of this extension is dependent, of course, on the validity of the tiile of the United States to the territory embraced in the bill. This question we were obliged to meet, anterior to all action on the subject. In its investigation, we have looked into the most authentic histories of voyages and discoveries on the northwestern coast of America. We have consulted the opinions of our most distinguished and best-informed public men, from Mr. Jeft'erson down to the present time. We have carefully examined nil the treaties among the several nations claiming to have an interest in the subject ; not neglecting to profit by the reports made by Mr. Baylies to the 19th, and Mr. Gushing to the 25th Congress, and by the several reports and speeches of the late lamented Senator from Missouri, who had devoted so much of the labor of his great mind to the investigation of this subject. The result of all this investigation has been a thorough conviction that the United States has a good and indefeasible title, as against any foreign power, to the country extending east and west from the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean; and north and south from the limits of Mexico, in latitude 42 degrees north, to those of Russia, in latiuide 54 degrees 40 minutes north. The southern boundary was fixed by the treaty with Spain in 1819, com- monly called the Florida treaty. By that treaty, it is agreed that the boundary- line between the possessions of the two nations west of the Mississippi, after reaching the river Arkansas, shall be. » following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas to its source in latitude 42 degrees ; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South sea." In 1828 this line was con- firmed by Mexico, as the successor of Spain, in a treaty of limits between herself and the United States. The southern boundary, is then, fixed and certain. As to the northern one, it was settled at 54 degrees and 40 min- utes by a treaty between the United States and Russia, dated 17th April, 1824 ; by which it was agreed that there should not be formed, by the citizens of the United States, or under the authority of the same, any estab- lishment upon the northwest coast of America, nor in any of the islands adjacent, to the north of 54 degrees and 40 minutes of north latitude ; and, in like manner, none by Russia or her subjects south of the same parallel of latitude. By virtue of these treaties, Russia on the north, Mexico on the south, and the United States on the east, are all agreed and well satisfied as to the boundaries of the Oregon country. Great Britain alone asserts or pre- tends any title to it, or any part of it, adverse to that of the United States. Before we enter upon any examination of her title, we respectfully beg leave to submit our views on another question presented to our considera- tion. It is contended that the passage of the bill now reported would be inconsistent with the actual relations of the two Governments defined by the convention of the 20th October, 1818. The 3d article is as follows: " Art. 3. It is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either parly on Ihe northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony mountains,shall, to- gether with its harborsjbays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers with- in the same, be free and open for the term often years from the date of the sig- nature of the present convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two powers. It being well understood, that this agreement is not to be con- strued to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contract- ing parties may have to any part of said country; nor shall it be taken to iV\; 4 Rep. No. 308. affect the claim of any other power or state to any part of said country: the only object of the high conlructing parties, in tfiut respect, being to pre- vent disputes and differences among themselves." The provisions of this article were indefinitely extended by the con- vention of 1827 — with, however, an agreement that it should be competent for either, at any time after the 20th of October, 1828, on giving due notice of twelve months to the other contracting party, to annul and abrogate said convtiution. The first remark which the committee will submit on the provisions of the 3d article of the convention of 1818, is, that they do not refer to the possessian of the territory at all. That possession had always been in the United States until the war of 1812. It was then lost by con- quest ; but it was fully restored by the treaty of peace, and the formal sur- render of it to the United States under that treaty. It was only the right of entering into the country— into its bays and harbors — for the mere purposes of such trade and commerce as was then carried on in that region, that was secured to the subjects of Great Britain. The same rights might have been extended to any of the ports, bays, and rivers of the Atlantic; but if extended in the precise words of the convention of 1818, who v/ould have thought that Great Britain would have been admitted to the joint ocr.npunci/ of Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and the other Slates of the Union'/ If the possession of the territory was in the United States at the time of the convention of 1818 — a fact which no one has ever attempted to deny — the provision of the 3d section can only be regarded as a permission to the subjects of Great Britain to participate with ours in the individual rights of trade and commerce enjoyed by our own citizens within the territory. The bill which is now reported does not eject them from the country at all. It does not deprive them of tfie privilege of entering into the couutiy, its biiys and rivers ; — not at all. But it even guaranties a fuller and more perfect en- joyment of these individual rights, under an organized and well adiiiinis- tered system of laws. From extreme caution, and to exhibit toward Great Britain the most scrupulous regard for all existing stipulations, which might be supposed to have an application to the subject, the bill proposes a speedy surrender of ail British subjects who may be charged with any violations of our laws to the nearest British authorities having jurisdiction over such cases. The permission given to British subjects to participate with our own citizc ns in the enjoyment of personal or individual rights within the territory, never can be considered as circumscribing the right of the United States to establish a proper government for the regulation ot all persons inhabiiing the country, of which she had the undisputed possession. In this view, the provision for delivering up British subjects to their nearest tribunals could not have been justly required; but the same has been conceded by the committee, on the scrupulous principle just adverted to. As to the twelve months' notice required to be given by the convention of 1827, the committee do not regard that as at all necessary, in order to open the way to such action as is contemplated by this bill. The committee do not know that, for the purpose of organizing such a government as is now contemplwied, it is at all important to annul or abrogate that convention. That country is large, and there is evidently room enough for the subjects and citizens of both countries, in the exercise of all their enterprise in trade and commerce. All that will be required of them is to confonnto the laws, and to rcsptct t!ic iiislitutioiis, which \vc may establish. Doing this, we shall \ 1 Rep. No. 308. 5 nevor envy the equal participation in the benefits nnd advantages to be de- rived from a well organized system of government. Any possible incon- veniences arising from the continuance of the convention of 1827, not now nnliripaled by the committee, can, and doul)tless will, be looked to by the Executive, who can at any time abrogate the same, by giving the notice contemplated in it. The giving of that notice, being a matter of treaty stip- ulation, belongs, perhaps, exclusively to the Executive ; on whose province there is no occasion, and the committee have no inclination, to intrude. In connexion with this branch of the subject, the committee will advert to tlie fact, (as it is now understood to be,) that negotiations are in progress between the United States and Great Britain on the subject of this territory. They conceive that this should make no difference in the action of the committee. They have to act on the subject as it is now presented to them — not as it may be changed or altered hereafter, by any future arrangements between the two countries. If the United States have wow the right to the Oregon country — if they have now the sole and undisputed possession of it — if our people have now permanent settlements in it, and are every day suffering for the want of a properlyorgatiized government to protect the virtuous and to restrain the vicious, — we ought not to withhold our action, under the possibility of some alteration in the relations of the two countries in that region, at some uncertain and indefinite period. That negotiation can still progress; and any treaty stipulation inconsistent with our legisla- tion, will control it to the extent of such interference. No one, we be- lieve, supposes that the pending negotiations can ever result in tfie entire loss of the Oregon country. Enough will doubtless • i.v»ain of it, under any circumstances, to require the extension of our laws iii ihe manner now coniempl.ited. If the present negotiation relates (as the committee appre- hend it does) solely to the ascertainment and settlement of the northern boundary of the territory, they can anticipate, from no examination which they have been able to make, any such loss of country in thai direction, as will at all affect the propriety of the passage of the bill which is now pre- sented to the House. There is enough, doubtless, for that negotiation to act upon, without re- sorting even to the supposition that any portion of our territory south of lat- itude 54 degrees 40 minutes north may be lost. We propose the extension of our laws fully up to that latitude, and will now submit the grounds on which we maintain that the United States has a full and indefeasible right and title to that point. We adopt as our own, and submit to the House, the views of a former committee* on the question of title; which we believe- must carry conviction to every disinterested and impartial mind: As preliminary to the discussion of the contested points of the case, and as net dful to the full understanding of its merits, the committee premise a brief account of the voyages of discovery, enterprises, and settlements of the powers in question, on the northwest coast and interior of the conti- nent, so far as they bear upon the present controversy ; referring to the doc- uments appended to this report for a full and detailed account of the his- tory of northwestern discovery. Spain, having established her power in Mexico, was impelled, by the same causes which led to the original conquest, to seek its extension. She was im- pelled to undertake expeditions by sea and land to the northwest, by another inducertlent — namely, the hopeof discovering a direct northerly pat>sage, by * See Mr. Cusbiog's report to the 25tb Congress. it < $ Kep. No. 308. sen, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean ; which nnticipntcti passage used to be projected in the old maps of the seventeenth century by Mie name oi the Straiis of Aninn. Hernan Cortes himself set the example of these enterprises, by under- taking several of them at his own charge, and conducting one of them in person, ex()loring the Gulf of California, and thus leading the way to the settlement of that country, and to the subsequent voyages of the Spaniards and others along the northwestern coast of America. Prior to the visit of any other Kuropean power, the Spaniards had prosecuted their discoveries to Cape Mendocin and Cape Blanco, in voyages of unquestionable authen- ticity. Complete and authentic evidence also exists, that Don Esteban Martinez, in 1774, made the first discovery of the sound of Noolka ; that in 1775 Don Bruno Eleceta, Don Juan de Ayala ai;d Don Juande la Bode- ga y Quadra, were the first to discover the bay ol the river Columbia, which they culled Entrada de Hiccta. Though there is not the same authentic evidence of some other voyages of ancient date in that quarter ascribed to Spanish navigators, yet it is at present generally admitted that in 1509 Juan de Fuca discovered and ex- plored the strait which now universally bears his name. The river Columbia itself was first entered and explored by Captain Hobert Gray, of Boston, in the year 1702, in the ship Columbia, whose name, applied to the river, also perpetuates the memory of the original dis- covery. The first European establishment founded on any part of the northwest coast, from California to the 40lh degree of north latitude, was made by Fidulgo, in 1790, on the main land at the eutrnnce of the strait of Juan de Fuca, Leaving the Pacific, we find that three only of the great European pow- ers acquired a permanent foothold in North America, from the side of the Atlantic. Spain secured to herself the countries of Mexico extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, and so indefinitely to the northwest ; and also the country of Florida, limited to the northeastern shore of the Gulf. France obtained the valley of the St. Lawrence on the one hand, and that of the Mississippi on the other ; the whole connected together by the great lakes, and constituting a noble and unique territory, stretching from the northeast to the southwest, in the rear of the English settlements on the Atlantic, restricted by them on the east, but extending westward indefi- nitely towards the Pacific and the possessions of Spain. England got possession of the region of country on the Atlantic, extend- ing from the neighborhood of the St. Lawrence on the northeast, to Florida on the south, and westward indefinitely, in conflict with the claims of France in that direction. England also established herself in the waters of Hudson's bay, with a claim extending into the interior indefinitely, in conflict with the claims of France along the St. Lawrence and the great lakes. Whatever rights, be the same more or les.s, were held by Spain in the northwest, have, as already stated, been expressly ceded to the United States by Spain and by the Mexican republic. Whatever rights Great Britain had in virtue of her possessions between the St. Lawrence and F^lorida, she recognised as vested in the United States by the treaty concluded at Paris the 3d September, 1783, comnraonly called the " treaty of peace ;" acknowledging the said States to be free, sovereign, ! 1 { Rep. No. 308. 7 and independent; nnd relinquishing "all claims to tho government, pro- pricly, and territorial riffhls of the same, and every part thereof J^ Wlmiever rights France had, subsequently to the conquest by Great Oriluin and the now United States, (lor we performed a large part of that work.) of that part of her possessions lying on the St. Lawrence, she ceded to the Uiiited States, by the treaty concluded at Paris the iiOth of April, iyU3, commonly called "the Louisiana treaty." At the date of the Florida treaty, therefore, in 1819, there remained to Great Britain, of her ancient territory in North America, only tho countries of tho St. Lawrence and of Hudson's bay; all the residue of the continent, eastward of the Rocky mountains, and sonMi and west to the confines of the iVlexican republic, having become undeniabiy vested in the United States. This result was reached by various treaties and conventions between Spain, France, Great Britain, and the United Stales ; the combination of wliich treaties restricted or extended, in one way or another, by express com- pacts, the respective territories of Great Britain and tho United States; which compacts, therefore, and the acts consequent on them, constitute the n(?xt stage in the history of the title of the United States to the territory of Oregon. By treaty between Great Britain and France, concluded at Utrecht, the 17th of April, 1713, art. iii, "Hudson's bay, together with all lands, &e., which belong thereunto," was restored to Great Britain; and the article pro- ceeds: " It is agrrefd on both sides to determine within a year, by commissioners lo be forthwith named by each party, the limits which are to be fixed between the said Bay of Hudson and the places appertaining to the French; * * * * the same cummiNsioners shall also have orders to describe and settle, in like manner, the boundaries between the other British and French coiunies in those parts." — Jenkinson's Trecties, vol. 8. And the commissioners appointed under this article adopted the 49th parallel of latitude as the line of demarcation between the possessions of Englitnd and France in that quarter, and west of the Mississippi; in pur- suance of which, the same limit was ratified and confirmed between Great Britain and the United States, as the successor of f^rance, by the second article of the convention of the 20th of October, 1818, so far west as to the Rocky mountains. By the treaty between Great Britain, France, and Spain, concluded at Paris the 10th of February, 1763, the former was confirmed in the pos- session of the conquered provinces of France on the St. Lawrence ; and, on the other hand, relinquished irrevocably all claims to territory beyond the Mississippi, in the seventh article, as follows: "The confines between the British and French possessions in North America shall be fixed irrevocably (seront irrevocablement fixes) by a line drawn along ihe middle of the Mississippi, from its source to the river Iberville; and from thence, by the middle of the river Iberville, and the lakes Maurepas and Ponlchartrain, to the sea;" (that is, to the Gulf of Mexico.) — (CAoi- men, vol. ii ; Martens ReeueU, voL 1.) The Louisiana treaty cedes to the United States the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent it had in the hands of Spain in 1800, and that it had when previously possessed by France, with all its rights and appurtenances. This description is, to be sure, sufficiently loose. But Napoleon, having made the cession at tlie moment of going to war with Great Britain, and 8 Re >. No. 308. 1 'li I having made it to prevent the conntry from falling info the Finnds of iFie lutter, and having ceded it to the United Slates out of friendly rs to- wards us, and in order to augment our power as oguinst that of Hriiain ; — being actuated by these motives, he, of course, chose to execute a quit- claim, rather than a warranty of boundarres; and the United States, pliiced in the position of acquiring, at a cheap price, o territory of a value alto- gether inestimable to her, {tor Louisiana would have been well purchased at a cost of twenty times sixty millions of francs,) had no disposition to be hypercritical on this point, and thus fuizard the loss of such a favorable contingency. ( Jinrbe Marbois,Hist. ^^r, de la Louisiane.) And though much controversy sprang tip in regard to the southwestern or southeastern limits of Louisiana, yet all this resolved itself at length into a question with Spain, as did also the doubts as to the western limits of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson, at any rale, took enlarged views of the rights of the Uni- ted States in this respect; and in his message to Congress of the 18lh of January, 1803, recomniended the exploration of the northwestern parts of the country — not on the Missouri merely, but "even to the Western ocean;" putting the expediency as wtl) July last, from William H. sheritC, esq,, captain ot hi»< Miije.>ty's ship Andromache, we, ihe undersigned, do, in coni'urmiiy to the Isl article of the treaty of Ghent, restore lo the Government of the United Slates, through its agent, J. B. Pievost, esq., the settlement of Fort Georfje, on the river Columbia. '■ Given under our hands, in triplicate, at Fort George, Columbia river, this fth of October, 1818. " P. HICKEY, " Captain of Ms Mai' sty's ship Blosiom. "JAMES REITH, " Oflh/e Noithicest Company.^* It is true, that in the despatch of Earl Bathurst, and in Lord Castlereagh's instructions to the British minister at Washington, a reservation is made, that the surrender of possession should not be deemed an admission of the absolute and exclusive right of dominion claimed by the United States; but at the same time, in explanation to Mr. Rush, as stated in a published de- spatch, ''Lord Castlereagh admitted, in the most ample extent, our right to he reinstated, and to he the parly in possession while treating- of the title." In this condition were the rights of the parties in 1818, at the time of the signature of the convention of the 2t)th of October ; and by virtue of the express stipulations of that convention, in the same condition (so far as re- gards possession) do the rights of the parties still continue. If our title was good tlien, it is good now ; and whatever defects, if any, there were in it then, have been healed by the Florida treaty ; and by the direct admissions of the British Government, we are entitled now to be in possession of the territory, and so to remairt, until the question of ultimate title can he de- termined. It would seem, indeed, that the English themselves are beginning to en- tertain rational views on the subject ; for, in remarking upon it recently, a respectable London journal (the Post) says : 10 Rep. No. 308. " The United States Government now says that the agent of the American Fur Company had no right to dispose of thejurisdiction ; and the President, it wou'. ! '^ppear, is determined lo enforce that claim. It must be admitted that the United Siales have ap^iureniiy a good cam ; and if, on investigation, it be found that the sale of the properly only took place, and that the allegiance could not be transferred, ihe surrender of the post to the United Scales may be the most prudent course. We have but a limited interest in the occupation of Astoria, while to the United Stat«s it is of great importance." Having thus detailed the general facts affecting the title, it now becomes the duty of the committee to resume these facts, and to apply to them the recognised principles of the law of nations, which prescribe the rights of the parties. The civilized people of Europe and America, which are associated to- gether by their identity of origin and religion, and still more by the inniimera- ble lies of a common civilization, of commercial and social intercourse, and the intercommunication of arts and of knowledge, and which recognise a rule of mutual dealing, composed of treaty stipulations, of prescriptive usages, and of certain general principles of right, called the law of nations, — these people have been accustomed to acquire and to define their possessions in America by the rule of — 1. The right of discovery and exploration, fol- lowed by settlement ; and, 2. Its corollary, the right of extension by conti- guity to actual settlements. This rule, in its elementary ingredients, is thus laid down by Vattel : " All mankind have an equal right to things that have not yet fallen into the possession of any one; and those things belong to the person who first takes possession of them. When, there- fore, a nation finds a country uninhabited, and without an owner, it may lawfully take posses- sion of it; and afler it has sufficiently made known its will in this respect, it cannot be deprived of it by another nation. Thus, navigators going on voyages of discovery, furnished with a commission from their sovereign, and meeting with islands or other lands in a dest rt state, have taken possession of them in the name of their nation ; and this title has been usually re- spected, provided it was soon after followed by a real possession."— (§ 207, Chitiy's Vattel.) " The whole earth is destined to feed its inhabitants ; but this it would be incapable of doing if it were uncultivated. Every nation is then obliged, by the law of nature, to cultivate the land that has fallen to its share; and it has no right to enlarge its boundaries, or have recourse to the assistance of other nations, but in proportion as the land in its possession is incapable of furnishing it with necessaries. Those nations (such as ttie ancient Germans, and Kome modern Tartars) who inhabit fertile countries, but disdam to cultivate iheir lands, and choose raiher to live by founder, are wanting to themselves, are injurious to all their neighbors, and deserve to be extirpated as savage and pernicious beasts. There are others, who, to avoid labor, choose lo live only by hunting, and their flocks. This might, doubtless, be allowed in the first ages of the world, when the earth, without cultivation, produced more than was sutiicient to feed its small number of inhabitants. Bui at present, when the human race is so greatly multiplied, it could nol subsist if all nations were disposed lo live in thai manner. Those who still pursue this idle mode of life, usurp more extensive territories than, with a reasonable share of labor, they would have occasion for; and have, therefore, no reason to complain if other nations, more industrious and loo closely confined, comelo lake possession of a part of those lands."— (§ 81.) " It is asked whether a nation may lawfully take possession of some part of a vast country, in which there are none but erratic nations, whose scanty population is incapable of occupying the whole. We have already observed, (S 81,) in establishing the obligation to cultivate the earth, that those nations cannot exclusively appropriate lo themselves more land than ihey have oc- casion for, or more than they are able lo settle and cultivate. Their unsettled habitation in those immense regions cannot be accounted a true and legal possession ; and the people of Europe, too closely pent up at home, finding land of which the savages stood in no particular need, and of which they made no actual and constant use, were lawfully entitled lo take pos- session of it, and settle it with colonies."— ($ 309.) This rule of prior discovery, occupation, and of extension by contiguity, to the exclusion of others, has been recognised, with more or less of pre- cision in its application, by all the Europeans who have established them- selves in America, and pervades the discussions, negotiations, and treaties, which expressly regulate, or which have motived, the limits of their re- pective territories. So far as regards themselves, and their mutual relations, I Rep. No. 308. 11 its chief defect is its vagueness, and (he consequent conflict of pretensions, which it either creates, or at least does not prevent. In its application to the primitive inhabitants of the New World, it is more questionable in use, and more injurious in its effects. When it be- gan to be applied by Spain, Portugal, England, and other European states engaged in colonial enterprises, it was fre(iuently associated with the idea of religion, as exemplified in the bull of Alexander VI defining the rights of Spain and Portugal, and the commission of Henry VII to the Cabots; the concession being to take possession of countries not already occupied by Christians, Ho'vever detective, therefore, the rule may be in itself, and however destitute of all reason or justice when made the pretext of con- quering and reducing to servitude organized communities like those of ancient Peru and Mexico, it is, nevertheless, the real foundation of the great European colonies in America. And these rights of the Indians stand in the way of England, as well as the United States ; and cannot be alleged by her against us, and in her own favor. And when a European people has become established in America, and has grown up to national power, the application of the rule is then a matter of absolute necessity ; for the Indian tribes being, for the most part, migratory in their habits, as well as transitory and evanescent in their very existence, and possessing in their barbarous state few or none of the social institutions essential to the pres- ervation of their separate nationality, — to treat them as independent nations, with all the international rights of such, would be absolutely destructive to the civilized states of European stock in or adjoining which they happen to be found, by admitting within the natural limits of such state the in- trusion of some other foreign, and perhaps hostile power. Accordingly, Chief Justice Marshall says: " All the nations of Europe who have acquired territory on this continent, have asserted in themselves, and have recognised in others, the exclusive right of the discoverer to appropriate the lands occupied by the Indians." And Judge Story says : "Ii may be asked, what was the effect of this principle of discovery, in respect to the rights of the natives themselves 1 In the view of the Europeans, it crejied a pecular relation between themselves and the aboriginal inhabitants. The latter weie admitted to possess a present right of oi.-cupancy, or use in the soil, which was subordinate to the ultimate dominion of the dis- coverer. ♦ • ♦ * But, notwithstanding this occupancy, the European discoverers claimed and exercised the right to grant the soil, while yet in the possession of the natives — subject, how- ever, to their right of occupancy; and the title so granted was universally admitted to coavey a sufficient title in the soil to the grantees in perfect dominion." And Chancellor Kent says : " This assumed but qualified dominion over the Indian tribes, regarding them as enjoying no higher title to the soil than that founded on simple occupancy, and to be incompetent to transfer their title to any other power than the Government which claims the jurisdiction of their terri- tory by right of discovery, arose, in a great degree, from the necessity of the case. ♦ ♦ « It was founded on the pretension of converting the discovery of the country into a conquest; and it is now too late to draw into discussion the validity of that pretension, or the restrictions which it imposes. It is established by numerous compacts, treaties, laws, and ordinances, and founded in immemorial usage. The country has been colonized and settled, and is now held by that title. It is the law of the land, and no court of justice can permit the right to be dis< turbed by speculative reasonings or abstract rights." And the peculiar necessity of adnering to the rule, in all dealings be- tween the United States and any of the European Powers, is forcibly illus- trated by the pretensions brought forward by Great Britain at Ghent, and the answer of the Arncricnr« ministers, as in the following extracts from one of their letters : 12 Rep. No. 308. ■11 " No maxim of public law has hiiherto been more universally established among the powers of Europe possessina; territories in America, and there is none to which Great Britain has more uniforinlyand inflexibly adhered, than that ofsuffering no interposition of a foreign power in the relations between the acknowledged sovereign of the lerriiory and the Indians situated upon it. Without the admission of this principle, there would be no intelligible meaning attached to stipu- lation establishing boundaries between the dominions in America of civilized nations possess- ing territories inhabited by Indian tiibes. ♦ ♦ * "The Indians residing within the limits of the United Slates • ♦ are so far de- pendent, as not to have the right to dispose of their lands to any private persons, nor lo any power other than the United States, and to be under their protection alone, and not under that of any other power. Wheiher called subjects, or by whatever name designated, such is the re- lation between them and the United Stales. ♦ ♦ ♦ These principles have been uniformly recognised by the Indians themselves ♦ • ♦ in all the • ♦ ♦ treaties between them and the United States. "The United States cannot consent that Indians residing within their boundaries, as ac- knowledged by Great Britain, shall he included in the treaty of peace, in any manner which will recognise them as independent nations, whom Great Britain, having obtained this recog- nition, would hereafter have the right tu consider, in every respect, as such. Thus, lo recognise those Indians as independent and sovereign nations, would take from the United States, and trans- fer to those Indians, all the rights of soil and sovereignly over the territory which they inhabit; and this being accomplished through the agency of Great Britain, would place them efl'ectually and exclusively under her protection, instead of being, as heretofore, under that of the United States. " The United States claim, of right, with respect lo all European nations, and particularly with respect to Great Britain, the entire sovereignty over the whole territory, and all the per- sons embraced within the boundaries of their dominions. Great Britain has no right to take cognizance of the relation subsisting between the several communities or persons living therein ; they form, as to her, only parts of the dominion of the United States; and it is altogether im- material whether, or how far, under their political institutions or policy, these communities or persons are independent states, allies, or subjects. With respect to her, and all other foreign nations, they are parts of a whole, of which the United States are sole and absolute sovereigns." Recurring, then, to the rule of discovery and occupation in its actual practice, and for the sake of greater pertinency as well as brevity, taking examples in the practice of England herself alone, we find that the English Government, having made discoveries on the Atlantic coast, proceeded to occupy, at detached points on the coast, in right of that discovery, and by the rule of discovery and occupation, and of extension by contiguity, to claim and to grsint, from sea to sea, across the whole continent, as exempli- fied in the charters of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Virginia; and this not only in those early ages, but at the present time ; for in right of discovery and occupation in Hudson's bay, she has claimed of us since the treaty of Ghent, and we have conceded to her, an extension by contiguity, through the far interior of the continent, to the foot of the Rocky mountains. And it follows irresistibly from the premises, that the United States, hav- ing in themselves, and as the successors of Spain, all the rights appertain- ing to the first navigation along the northwest coast, the first discovery of the bay of Juan de Fuca, and of the rivers of Aguilar and Columbia, the first exploration of the same, and the first occupation orsettle:iient of either ; and having, in like manner, all the rights of extension across to or along the Pacific, by contiguity, which appertained to Spain as the possessor of New Spain, to England prior to the treaty of Versailles, and to France as the possessor of Louisiana, — it follows irresistibly that we have the right of dominion to the territory of Oregon, wholly exclusive of Great Britain. Precisely the same conclusion may be reached in a different way, by considering separately the Spanish, the French, and the AiTierican title ; which, moreover, will be the most convenient means of examining the pre- tensions of Great Britain. The Spanish title : Spain (or her successor, the Mexican republic) has rights, acknowledged by all the world, as far north on the Pacific as the A2d parallel. And in the Rep. No. 308. 13 same right tliat she goes thus far, she might, but for the intervention of treaties, go further. Certain it is, that she first explored the northwest coast, by ships from Manilla or Mexico. JShe is the admitted discoverer of the river ot Aguilar, and of the inlet of the Columbia. She discovered the strait of Juan de Fuca. She discovered Nootka sound. First of all Euro- peans, she founded a sctttlement on that coast, at the entrance of the strait of Juan de Fuca. And the natural extension of her possessions northwaid from California, would carry her along until she met some other power hav- ing equal or better rights ; and, with the exception of the United States, she would encounter none such until she arrived at Prince of Wales island in h^litude 54, and at the settlements of Russia. So well founded were these, the rights of Spain, that while, prior to the conclusion of the Florida treaty, Great Britain was accustomed, as against the United States, to assert rights of sovereignty in the northwest, founded on pretended discoveries and pur- chases from the Indians, afterwards she was constrained to change her ground, as explained by Mr. Gallatin, [letter of August 7, 1827,) and to content herself with simply denying our right of exclusive sovereignty, without pretending to any on her own part. In fact, the claim of England, by discovery and occupation, was of the flimsiest kind — resting only upon Drake's voyage, his landing in the bay of Bodega (latitude 38) in 1578, and some pretended purchases by him of the Indians of that neighborhood ; that is to say, the discovery of a country long before discovered by the Spaniards, and taken possession of by them, and to this day comprehended within the acknowledged limits of California. As to his purchases of the Indians, that again can avail nothing ; for, by the municipal law of every European Government in America, (and of Britain above all, as already seen,) no foreign state can acquire jurisdiction, or even title, by purchase from Indians within the territorial limits of another. If it were otherwise, the rule would be fatal to the claims of Great Britain on the whole north- west coast; for the owners of the ship Columbia made extensive purchases of the Indians, the political benefit of which would enure to the United States. Her new pretensions, or new grounds of cavil, since resorted to by her, depend on the Nootka convention (so called.) The Nootka convention is a treaty between Spain and Great Britain, signed at the Escurial on the 28th of October, 1790, in conclusion of the dispute occasioned by the seizure of English vessels at Nootka sound by Don Esteban Martinez, as detailed in the appendix to this report. When the intelligence of that event reached Europe, it came through Spain, who herself gave the first information to the English Government, and accompanied it with the fullest declaration of a pacific purpose, and of her readiness to enter into all proper explanations. But Mr. Pitt haughtily repelled every friendly advance, and appealed at once to the belligerent propensities of Parliament, in behalf of the wounded honor of the nation ; demanded and obtained an extraordinary supply of a million sterling, and prepared for war ; and thus hurried Spain, who had neither disposition nor readiness for war .at that time, into the conclusion of this treaty. Article 1 stipulates for the restitution of the property of British subjects dispossessed by Martinez. Article 2 engages to make restitution of, or compensation for, any like seizures which might have been subsequently made. Article 3 provides that the respective subjects of Spain and Great Britain shall not be disturbed or molested; either in navigating or carrying on their 14 Rep. No. 308. p h fisheries in the Pacific ocean, or in the South seas, or in landing on the coasts of those seas, in places not already occupied, for the purpose of car- rying on their commerce with the natives of the country, or o( making set- tlements there : — the whole subject, nevertheless, to the restrictions and pro- visions specified in the three folloicing articles. Article 4 guards against contraband trade with the Spanish settlements in America. Article 5 agrees that, in any settlements to be made by either party, " the subjects of the other shall have free access, and shall carry on their trade without molestation." Article 6 provides for the free continuance of the fisheries on the east and west coasts and islands of South America, south of the occupation of Spain; and concludes, " Provided, that the said respective subjects shall retain the liberty of landing on the coasts and islands so situated, for the purposes of their fishery, and of erecting thereon huts and other temporary buildings, serving only for those purposes." Great Britain contends that, with the rights of Spain on the northwest coast, the United States necessarily succeeded to the limitations by which those rights were defined, and the obligations under which they were ex- ercised ; and that, by the above convention, all parts of the northwestern coast of America, not already occupied at that time by either of the con- tracting parties, should thenceforward be equally open to the subjects of both, for all purposes of commerce and settlement, the sovereignty remain- ing in abeyance ; and that the convention, establishing a new state of things by compact, abrogates the pre existing rights (if any) appertaining to Spain. The United States have constantly denied all this. They say that, even if the British construction of the Nootka convention and of its eflfects were correct, it would avail nothing ; because, though the United States might not in other respects have a good title as against Spain, they have as against Great Britain; which title cannot be weakened in the hands of the United States by the Florida treaty, which quiets that of Spain. But they deny the correctness of the British construction. The Nootka convention is, on the face of it, a commercial treaty merely, wholly aside from the question of sovereignty and distinct jurisdiction. 'It has a definite general object — the regulation of the fisheries in the Pacific and the South seas, so as neither to exclude England nor injure Spain. That was the point in controversy between the two Governments. " The enemies of peace have industriously circulated," says the Count of Florida Blanca, " that Spain extends pretensions and rights of sovereignty over the whole of the South sea, as far as China ;" whereas, on the contrary, her sole aim was to vindicate her sovereignty on parts of the coast to which, by the law of nations and the recognition of all Europe, she had the established pos- session, or right of possession. (Dec. of June 4th, An. Reg: 1790.) Accord- ingly, in the debates upon this treaty in Parliament, it was strenuously objected that, being a treaty of commerce, navigation, and fishery, Eng- land had gained nothing by it ; but had, on the contrary, submitted to re- strictions of sea-rights, which existed before unrestricted. " In answer to this, Mr. Pitt maintained {Pari. Hist. vol. xxviii, p. 1001) that though what this country had gamed consisted not of new rights, it certainly did of new advantages. We had before a right to the southern whale fishery, and a right to navigate and carry on fisheries in the Pacific ocean, Bep. No. 308. 15 pos- cord- ously Eng- to re- veT to ongh tainly whale cean, and to trade on the coasts of any part of it northwest of America ; but that right not only had not been acknowledged, but disputed and resisted ; whereas by the convention it was secured "to us— a circumstance which, though no new right, was a new advantage." Not a word of a "new right" to estabhsh colonies in America, or of a " new advantage" in the exclusion of territorial sovereignty previously claimed by Spain. On the contrary, Mr. (now Earl) Grey well argued, that the " settlements" of the third article amounted to nothing, since access was everywhere left to both the parties ; and if England made a settlement in a valley, Spain might erect a fort on the hill overlooking it ; which conclusively shows that the right of colonization was never in the contemplation of the treaty. And Mr. Fox argued the same point at great length, and with great force ; demonstniting that, before the treaty, England might colonize in the Pa- cific; but that now she could only settle, (as the phrase is in the third article,) or build huts, (as restricted in the sixth,) for the sole purpose of the fisheries, excluding colonization. (Pari. Hist. vol. xxviii.) Add to which, it is only as a commercial treaty that this convention can, upon the principles con- tended for by Great Britain in other great controversies, be considered in force ; for such treaties only were renewed by the treaty between Spain and Great Britain of July, 1814. In fact, the Nootka convention is obviously impossible to execute, if the word " settlements" is to include colonies, or carry after it any title of do- minion ; because the express language permits promiscuous and intermixed settlements everywhere, and over the whole face of the country, to the subjects of both parties ; and even declares every such settlement, made by either party, common to the other. Or if, as England contends, the convention is but a recognition of the general rights of all nations, then it admits of such promiscuous settlements by all nations ; which is wholly incompatible with any idea of sovereignty, but applies well enough to " huts and other temporary buildings" for the fisheries. In this view of the subject, the United States further say, that, under the convention, the sovereignty is not in abeyance ; it remains unchanged ; it is left untouched ; temporary commercial rights only are, for the time being, regulated ; that the question of sovereignty stands upon its former footing ; "that, when it comes up, the parties are remitted to their pre-exist- ing rights ; and that before the convention, and notwithstanding its pro- visions, the right of sovereignly appertained to Spain as against Great Britain ; or, in the words of the Count of Fernan Nunez, " By the trea- ties, demarcations, takings of possession, and the most decided acts of sove- reignty exercised by the Spaniards, * * * all the coast to the north of western America, on the side of the South sea, as far as beyond what is called Prince William's sound, * * is acknowledged to belong exclu- sively to Spain." {Letter of June 16, 1790.) And the United States will not be debarred from the exercise of the just rights she derives from Spain, when there is nothing set up against her but new and monstrous construc- tions of a treaty extorted from Spain by what Lord Porchester justly called " unprovoked bullying," and founded not in right, but in power. {North Am, Rev., vol. xxvii.) The committee proceed to the French title: When Louisiana was acquired by the United States, it was well known, as already suggested, that the limits were not well defined. Indeed, they were defined on neither side, except along the Mississippi. The northern 16 Rep. No. 308. line, by the British possessions, was fixed in 1818. The southeastern and southwestern was fixed by the Florida treaty; and the question remains, how far does it extend west ? This was at the time considered a question with Spain alone. Don Pedro Cevallos says : " From this point, (the in- tersection of the Red river,) the limits which ought to be establisljed on the northern side are doubtful and little known." {Letter of April 13, 18(15.) And, in the negotiation of the Florida treaty, Don Luis de Onis udmiited the same thing, though he affirmed the Spanish title on the Pacific. But, as between France and Great Britain, or Great Britain and the United States, the successor o'f all the rights of France, the question would seem to be concluded by the treaty of Versailles, already cited, in which Great Britain relinquishes irrevocably all pretensions west of the Mississippi. On the footing of the treaty of Utrecht, ratified by our convention of 1818, England mciy, possibly, by extension of contiguity, carry her possessions from Hudson's bay across to the Pacific, north of latitude 49°; but, by the treaty of Versailles, we possess the same right, and an exclusive one, to carry our territory across the continent south of that line, in the right of France. It has been objected, that, in the grant of Louisiana to Crozat by Louis XIV, that province is confined to the country drained by the waters emp- tying in the Mississippi — excluding, by implication, any other country. But Crozut's grant did not cover the whole of Louisiana as it was when ceded to the United States. Crozat's grant was understood as extending no farther north than latitude 42°; the French possessions north of that paral- lel being a part of New France, or Canada. And New Prance, as pro- jected in the most authentic maps, did extend to territory drained, or sup- posed to be drained, by rivers flowing into the Pacific. In 1717 Louis enlarged Louisiana, by adding thereto the country in the latitude of the Illinois. And this extended dimension of Louisiana has been tacitly ad- mitted by Great Britain, who, while herself possessed of Canada, obtained from France, and of the Hudson's bay country, has, by treaty with us, ad- mitted that the northern limit of Louisiana goes up to latitude 49° ; she having already, by the treaty of Versailles, debarred herself of all claim #outh of that line, and west of the Mississippi. The American title remains to be considered on its particular merits. Anterior to the Louisiana treaty, our claim rested on Gray's explora- tion of the river Columbia, the permanent record of which subsists in the name itself; it being one of the applications of the rule of prior discovery, that the exploration of a river gave rights to the country watered by that river, — as exemplified in the claim of the Mississippi valley by France, on the ground of the original exploration of the river by her subjects ; and some such principle being necessary to give integrity and unity of posses- sion to any one power, and to prevent the intermixture of possessions in a territory having a natural completeness of its own. The defects of this claim consisted of the counter-pretensions of France as the possessor of Louisiana, and of Spain as the possessor of Mexico, and as the first vis- iter of the Columbia and the coast generally. By the conclusion of the Louisiana treaty and the Florida treaty, these defects were cured. To which had then been added the further claims of the United Slates in their own rivht, or their title proper, by reason of Lewis and Clark's expedition, and Mr, Astor's establishment of Astoria, recognised by Great Britain as constituting posse^^sion, and also right of continued possession, until the Rep. No. 308. 17 to she title should be definitively adjusted. Though these several claims con- flicted with each other originally, they acquired mutual stfength in the same hands; as if three persons claim the same estote — one by deed or devise, another by inheritance, and a third by possession — the union of all in one person, by purchase or otherwise, would result in the best of titles. Thus much, trecting it as a dominion founded on discovery and exploration, and partial occupation. But, in another point of view, this combination of titles becomes yet more important. Having planted her foot on the shore of Hudson's bay, Great Britain claims, against all the world, that she may stretch the other to the Rocky mountains ; and the claim is admitted by the rest of the world. Nay, It is from Hudson's bay that her establishments have extended across the continent. Sir Alexander Mackenzie led the way in 1793, and the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company followed in it, until they had gradually intruded themselves into tlie valley of the Columbia — not from the Pacific, but proceeding from the Atlantic; and the civil juris- diction of the British subjects dwelling beyond the Rocky mountains de- pends tni. day in the courts of Upper Canada, by the acts of Parliament of 43 Geo. HI, eh. 131; and 1 and 2 Geo. IV, eh. 60. Which is in conformity with the fact hereinbefore stated, that, prior to the treaty of Versailles', the English Government claimed and granted to the Pacific, by virtue of her possessions in New England and Virginia. And a pretension of this'nature, however extravagant it may seem at the first blush, grows out of the necessities of self-preservation. Great Britain, when she gained a lodgment on the coast of the Atlantic, readily saw, and her colonies soon learned by disastrous experience, how dangerous it would bo to them to have a hostile foreign power establish itself behind them. For the same reason that it was important to the British colonies to exclude, if they might, any power from taking possession in their rear, it was im- portant to the French colonies on the Mississippi to prevent any other power from establishing itself in their own rear. Hence they claimed (and rightfully, according to the received law of nations) to have the exclusive dominion, and the right of excludnig the entrance of any foreign coloniza- tion westward of them, until they shonid reach some other European power having a better title than theirs ; and west of them there was none such, except Spain. And the precise extent of prolongation by contiguity, to which an actual settlement gives right, must have some relation to the magnitude and popu- lation of that settlement, and to the facility with which adjoining vacant lands may promise to be occupied and cultivated by such a population, as compared with any to come from elsewhere ; and this, in addition to the considerations of national security. Important as these principles were to the infant colonies of France and Britain, and strong as are the claims of this nature we derive from the treaties of those two powers, those principles are yet more important, and those claims stronger, in reference to the existing state of North America, and our own position as the leading power of this continent. Who shall undertake to define the limits of the expansibility of the population of the United States? Does it not now flow westward with the never ceasing advance of a rising tide of the sea I Along a line of more than a thousand miles from the Ltikes to the Gulf of Mexico, perpetually moves forward the western frontier of the United States. Here, stretched along the whole 2 18 Rep. No. 308. length of this line, is the vongiinrd, ns it were, of the onward marcli of the Anglo-American race, advancing, it has been calculated, at the average rate of abont huU a degree of longitude each succei ding year. Occnsion- ally, an obstacle presents itself in some nnproductive region of" country, or some Indian tribe ; the column is checK'f;d ; its wings incline towards each other; it breaks; but it speedily reunites again beyond tlie obstacle, and resumes its forward |)rogress, ever facing, Jind anproat-liiiig iit-nrer nnd nearer to, the remotest regions of the west. This movement goes on with the predestined certainty and the unerring precision Oi' the great works of eternal Providence, rather tlian as an act of (eel)lo man. Anoilier genera- tion may see the settlements of our people diflused over the Pacihe slope of the Rocky mnuntains. It is idle to suppose any new colony to i.e sent out from Great Britain will or can establish itself in the far we.st, niiinjutely to stand in competition with this j;reat movement of the populiition nnd power of the United States. Nor should any attempt at such competition be countenanced by ns. For if the .safely of tlje I', vr lliunsnnds of British settlers on the Atlantic, or of French settlers on the Mis^issi; pi, required the extension of their exxlnsive sovereignly to a cerlaiu (Ji;gree west, how far shall that extension not be demanded lor the Si.fs^iy of the millions of the United States, who already occupy ni hill and liiidisputed sovereignty^ and overspread with their teeming jjopulatinn, and unite in the bonds of one grea! and glorious jiolitical society, the whole of tne vast valley of tho Mississippi and the Missouri .' At a contingency the most delicate in the affairs of this continent, Mr, Monroe issued his celebrated declaration, that while the United States con- tinued neutral and impartial in the contests of the European powers among themselves, it was otherwise in regard to their iuov(niu'Ut.s in tins hemi- sphere; that the United States would conssider an aitenipt on their part to extend their peculiar political systems to any part of the Mew World as dangerous to our peace and safety ; and that wo conid not view a voluntary interposition of theirs in the affairs of the new npnl'lios of America with indifierence, or in any other light than as the nianilet>iation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. {M(iss(t;jc, Diaiitbir 2, Ib'i^.) This declaration, it is well known, had the most imporlunt immediate effects at the time of its uttertmce, when certain of tiie liHropeaij powers contemplated a forcible interference in the affairs of tiie Siianish colonies in, America. It has deservedly come to be regarded as an essential compo- nent part of the international law of the New World. ( ]V/ica(ou.s Jntcr. LaWfP. SS.j And great as the force of it is, wlsen api'Hcd to the precise case which called for it, still greater is it when considi.Med in its appliration to the case of an attempt on the part of any l:^nrf'i;e,!n power to found new colonies in North America in parts not yet occnpi(-d. It has been the happy fortune of the United States to free itselt, by the piuchase of Loui- siana and Florida, from the presence of Enropenn coloiiics on our southern .and western frontiers. The possessions of Great Britain now ovcriiang the -Udjited States along their vast northern frontier from tlie Atlantic to the Pacific. South of that line, the whole continent, from the great lakes to the Isthmus of Darien, is occupied by Americnns, by diildron of the soil, by governments independent of Europe. And it is d;io iilikc to our high- est interests and to our honor to have it universally understood, that neither Great Brilaih;, nor any other Eluropean power, is any longer to consider the unsettled parts of the continent, adjoining the settlements of tlie United States, jar^-' Rep. No. 308. It diale )\vers oiii(.'S oinpo- Jnlcr. H'coisn at ion now n the l.oni- thorii res to e soil, hijjh- utlier n- the tales, in the nature of unoccupied lands for the reception of European colonies. If Great Britain had any pretext to claim the Territory of Oregon as a part of her possessions on the hvkes, of her existing colonies, it would be otherwise. But she does not. She distinctly puts her claim to Oregon on the ground that it is unoccupied territory, just like Virginia or Massachusetts before she colonized thorn ; and that, ns unoccupied savage territory, she may now col- onize the Columbia river ; — not that it is part of a colony now possessed by her, but country in which she has the right at this day to found a nevr colony. "Qreat Britain considered the whole of the unoccupied parts of America as being open U> her luiure scttlenierits, as heretofore. They included within these parts, as well that portion of the northwest coast lying between the 4'2d and 51st degrees of latitude, as any other parts. The principle of coloni/aiion on that coast, or elsewhere, on any portions of those continents not yet occupied, Great Britain was not prepared to relinquish."— A^r. Rush's letter, August 19, This pretension the committee deem to be inadmissible, and prejudicial to the rights, the security, and the peace of the United States. There is a class of reasons applicable to this point, which is everyday ac- quiring more and more force. It is the situation of the Indians in the inte- rior of the continent. It has at all times been the policy of Great Britain — a policy litrie in keeping with her ostentation of humanity in regard to the black race — to keep the red men under subsidy to her, so as to have them always ready to bring into the field against the United States. At the epoch of the Uevoliition,we proposed that the Indians should besuflfered to remain neutral ; but England refused. She has kept them under arms, or in a semi-hostile state, against us, more or less constantly, from that day to this. Our commissioners at Ghent proposed an agreemnnt for the per- petual neutrality of the Indians ; but England again refused it. The per- severance of Great Britain in this policy has been deplorably injurious to us; and its effects are written with the scalping knife and the brand of the Indian, in letters of blood and fire, in the history of the southern and west- ern States. And this, the unholy policy of Great Britain in regard to the Indians, has done more than any tind every other ca'ise united, to waste, de- grade, and Darbarizc tlieni, so as to render them a curse alike to us and to themselves. By the acquisition of Florida, the influence of the British over the Indians of the United States was shut out from the south ; but it still o|)eratcs unclieclved, and is fostered and kept alive, by regular Gov- ernment subsidies in the northwest ; and is e.xerted without any counter- action among the Inriiuns of the remote west, and will continue to be ex- erted, in all rt;si)^;cts to our loss and injiny, until the Hudson's Bay Company is expelled from the territory of Oregon, and it is possessed in full and indis- puted sovercMgiity by the Uniied States. In conclusion of this branch of their instructions, it only remains for, the committee to advert to certain particular facts in the present political re- lations of the territory of Oregon, confirmatory of, and connected with, the general considerations they have suggested. Great Britain had very much distinguished herself at an early period, by voyages of discovery in the seas to the northeast of this continent. Thus it happened that she acquired territorial rights on the shores of Hud- son's bay, which at the congres f Utrecht were formally acknowledged by France, as before stated. "The extent of this territory was not then, nor' until long afterwards, definitively settled. Meanwhile, among the corrupt monopolies of the reign of Charles II, was the grant of a charter to the a 20 Rep. No. 308. »! '■ "Adventurers of the Hudson's B:iy Company." Their declared and prop- er objects were, of course, naviuatioii, and trade in the furs, fish, or other producti.)7]s of Hudson's bay. L\i'plorution was, indeed, one of the bene- fits anticipated from the company ; but the company itself proved, for more than a century, to bo the great obstacle to exploration ; or. In the emphatic language of ihe London Quarterly Review, (a competent witness on such a point,) "From the moment this budy of 'adventurers' was instituted, the spirit of 'adventure' died away; and every succeedinff clfurl was palsied by the baneful influpnce of a monopoly, of which the discovery of a north- west passage wos deemed the forerunner of destruction." This company is to America, precisely what the East India Company is to Asia. It has been sullercd to extend its power from Labrador 5outhwestwardly to Lake Superior, thence along the lii^ne dts versants of the Mississippi and the Missouri, and so sweeping around by the base of tlie Rocky mountains to the Slave Lake, and thence back to the extreme northeastern shores of the Atlantic. A gbinco at the map will show the vast extent of these imperial dominions. (Jjouchc/tc'a lir. Dom. vol.. \, p. '32.) When, by the aid of the Anglo- American provinces. Great Britain had subdued Canada, this did not become incf»rporated with the possessions of the Hudson's Ray (>om- pany. On the contrary, when the independence of the United .States gave rise to new relations m the northwest, the Hudson's Bay Company was placed by Britain on the footing of an independent power; and in regula- ting the rights of mutual transit in that quarter. Jay's treaty contains this clause: "the country within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company only excepted." That is to say, when the territorial or commercial rights of the United Slates are to be restricted, the Hudson's Bay company is put for- ward as an independent foreign state. So also is it when there is opportu- nity or occasion to extend British rights in competition with ours ; as in dealings with the Indians it has repeatedly happened, where the acts of the company have at all times been greatly injurious to the United States. Bnt, on the contrary, if the United Slates, or any other power, seeks to repress the pretensions of the company, it is no longer left by Great Britain to stand on its own bottom as a political community, but is taken under the wing of the British Government. This, indeed, we know is the precise mode in which the East India (company has been made the instrument of conquering the hundred millions of Hindostan. After the Hudson's Bay Company had, for a length of time, lorded if in sole supremacy over the Indians of the extensive region claimed by it, there sprung up a competitor of its profitable fur trade, in the Northwest Company of Montreal. These two companies did not scruple to engage in continual feuds, growing out of jealousies of trade, and mutual complaints of violated privileges; nay, they actually waged hostilities one against the other, in the guise of sovereign States — rendering the interior of the conti- nent a scene of rapine, outrage, and bloodshed. {Earl of Selkirk, Claims^ These empire-companies, and their traders, trappers, and agents, have been the immediate instruments of much of that perpetual intermeddling of Great Britain with the Indians of the United States, which, from 1775 to the present day, has never ceased to be practised to our injury ; and the fruits of which were seen in every one of the disasters of the west and northwest, from the massacres of Wyooaing andK^herry Valley, and the de- Rep. No. 308. 21 feats of Hnrmar and St. Clair, to the later enterprises of Tecumseli mid of Black Hawk. This hitter company (the Northwest Company, so called) it was, which fraudulently obtained pos><«ession of Astoria in 1812, and hoisted the IJritish flag on the Columbia. {Irving^ s Astoria.) Its difl'eronccs with the Hud- son's Hay Company were at length adjusted. In 1821 the two companies became one— continuing to act under the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company; and, by act of Parliament, the company received a grant of civil jurisdiction, which it now exercisps at all its establishments. That is, the Hudson's Bay Company is the medium through which Great Britain exer- cises exclusive civil jurisdiction over all the territory of Oregon, in which it is conceded, on all hnnds, our rights are at least eci'ual to hers. Nor civil jurisdiction only. It is known by the official report of Mr. Slacum, who recently visited the territory in behalf' of the United States, that the com- pany has, in addition to a number of minor factories, one at Vancouver, on the Columbia, which is in all respects a military post, though, like the so. poys and other troops of Hindostun, the garrison consists of the. servants of the company — not of oITicers and men bearing the Queen's commission. Of other establishments of thecompany, (which are in name, as in fact, forts,) there are known to be Fort Uniqua, on the Umqua ; Fort George, Fort Nez Percys, Fort Okanagan, Fort Colville, and Koolante fort; besides Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia, or its- branches ; and Fort Nasqually, south of the strait of Juan de Fuca. To prove these general facts, and also to show the effect of them, a few authentic statements follow, from persons of approved authority. The President's message, of the 23d of December, 1837, contains this information : "The Hudson's Bay Company have also several depots, situated on water-courses, in the in- terio' of the country; the principal one is atFoit Vancouver, on the northern bank of the Co- lumbia river, about eighty or one hundred miles from its mouth. It is known, by information recently obtained, that the English company have a steamboat on this river, and that they have a »aw-mill, and are cutting timl)er on the territory claimed by the United States, and are ship- ping ii inconsiderable quantities to the Sandwich islands." Mr. Cambreleng, in a letter to Mr. Bentca of the 12th January, 1829, says: " I have in my possession the actual returns of the furs collected by the Hudson's Bay Com- f>any for the year 1828, which, according to a valuation made by one who has a thorough know- edge of the trade, amount to $891,879 85. The shares of thai company have increased from £60, or 40 per cent, below par, to £240 .>^terling, or 140 per cent, above par. The business ot the company has continued to increase at the rate of from StiO.OOJ to Sl00,000 annually. The pros, perous condition of the Hudson's Bay Company may be attributed, in some measure, to the ad- vantages enjoyed by the British traders, who procure their manufactures without duty, while the Am rican traders pay 40 per cent, and upwards ; and who can send their furs to the Amer- ican market, while our traders pay a di;ty in the British market. But the most important ad- vantage enjoyed by the Hudson s Bay Company, is the admirable harbor at the mouth of the Columbia, which we virtually and unfortunately granted them by our treaty of 1818. That settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river is now the centre of an immense trade in furs, and, unless we take some steps to place our traders on an equal footing with the British, and se- cure to the former the privilege of trading in safety within our own dominions at least, our Indian trade must decline, and we must make up our minds to surrender the whole Indian country to Great Britain."— Sen. Doc. l828-'29, No. 67. Mr. Irving says : "ThoBgh the [Hudson'. lion, by securing all i\\e .strong points of the countiy. " Nor is it lilcelyihe latter [\he >\merican traders] will ever be able toniaintain any foollDgia the land, until the qiit-stion ot terriloriHl right is adjusted between the two countries. The soon- er that takes place, the better. It is a question loo serious to nationnl pride, it' not to national interest, to be slurred over; and every year is lidding to the difllculiics which environ it. " I he resources of the country • ♦ in the hunJs of America, oitioying a direct trade with the East Indies, would be brought into quickening activity, and might soon realize the dream ol Mr. Astor, in giving rise to a flourishing commercial empire."— /foely AJountains,vol 2. The plntis of Grcnt Britain in respect to this country are shadowed forth by Sir Alexander Mackenzie as follows: " But, whatever course may be taken from the Atlantic, the Columbia is the line of commo- nicaticm from the Pacific ocean pointed out by natuie, as it is the only navigable river in the whole extent of Vancouver's minute survey of that coast. Its banks, also, form the first level country in all the southern extent of continental coast (rum Cook's entry, and, consequently, the must northern situation fit ibr colonization, and suitable for the residence of a civilized peo* pie. By opening this intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and forming reg- ular esiiiblishiu^iiis through the interior, and at both extremes, as well as alon;; the coasts and islands, the entirecuminand of the fur trade of North America might be obiained from latitude 48 degiees north to the pole— except tlmi portion of it which the Russians have in the Pacific. To this may be added the fishery in both sCiis, and the markets of the four quarters ol the globe. Such would be the field for commercial enterprise; and incalculable would be the produce of it, when supported by the operations of that credit and capital which Great Biitain so pre-emi- nently possesses." — Travels, vol. 2. To which the same writer adds, that the effect of the development of those plans would be the complete exclusion of Americans from the conn- try, and the most important political as well us commerciol advantages to llie United Kingdom. The committee .will have occasion to submit to the House additional in- formation on these points, when they dispose of that part of their instruc- tions which refers to the statistical condition and political value of the country of Oregon. It is suflicient for the immediate purpose to have de- monstrated that the plan of the British to put an end to American enter- prise in the valley of the Columbia has succeeded. Still, this object has been accomplished under the shelterof a convention, which provides that the country of Oregon, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, shall, for the time being, be free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects o{ the two powers ; and which thus professes to give equal present advantages to the peo- ple of each nation, and to prejudge the ultimate rights of neither. But the practical effect of the convention is the reverse, in that nearly all the pres- ent advantages arc enjoyed by England, and the ultimate rights ol the United Stales are seriously etidangered. This arises from the peculiar oroanizution of the Hudson's Bay Company, which now in fact rules over the whole country, and has exclusive posses- sion of its trade — just as completely as the East India Company in Hin- dostan at the period of its early conquests there, wlien it was a close corpo- ration, and independent of the control of the King's ministers. Individual traders, and ordinary commercial companies, caimot stand against it. They cannot compete in resources with this great empire-corporation. Besides which, a powerful incorporated company like this, having exclusive priv- ileges of trade by charter, and those privileges conveying territory its ap- purtenant to trade — a monster and an anomaly in its nature as it is, — such B company is in itself, to all intents and purposes, a territorial government. It has all the civil and all the military machinery of government. Nay^ more. The acts oi Parliament already referred to give to the courts of Rep. No. 308. 23 Upper Canudn tlic simio civil jurisdiction, in nil rcspccls, within tho pnrta of Amorica not within thn hrnils of I.nwer or Upptir ('anad«, nor of nny civil govorntnentol'lhc United Stales, as tlu-y havi; widiin Ihu litniis of Up- per Canada. Mnglund may appoint justices oC thn poace, or constiintL' other inferior courts in those purls. Tlicrn is no provision in tljt? act to except citizens of the United States, or country cluimed hy the UiiitinJ Slates, from this jiiribdiction. Aiu! these provisions arc precisely applicable to the conn- try beyond the Kocky moiiiifains, and to thnl only; and there is no other part of America to winch llii'y do apply. This, indeed, is well niidersiood by Aineiican ciliyns in ()ri';(f)n to he tlie fact, us tlie coinmiltre have been expressly informed. Si) thnl the Hudson's Hay Company not only monop- olizes the trade of Orej^on, but may conirol the iiihabilaiilcf, and uvfiu send ihcm to Upper (.'unada to be tried lor iuiputed oHiMices, The privileges of the llud.'-on's Hay Company operate injuriously in an- other respect. Ils'ii^'rieMfn has shown iho neces.^ity ot military fiosls among the Indians. 'J'he <'oinpany accordiii;,Iy his its trreat post, and its lesser forts -all of them nri'i>li niilitiry posts in fact, but with tlie p(rii!iiiiity, that its ll ig not being the Uiiccn's ilng, the (iovernmuiit is (Mifibled to pursue the disingenuous course of claiming rights and l<,;rritoiy in virino of acts performed by it, wliile in th(! same breath di.'-avowing nil (Government re- sponsibility iltr tlio.se acts. IJnt the United .States has no militiry post there. It has no giitaiitic company, like that of Hudson's Hay, to be put forward to act tite ambiguous and insidious part of a government, or of private indi- viduals, as the policy of state may rc;iid"r most conveniiUt. U it establishes u post, it must do so openly and aboveboard, in its own name. Hut (his Great Hritaiu objects to, so that still the mnnop»ly of trade and of civil and niilitniy power shall bo field by her iiuiircctli/, through the means ol the Hudson s Hay Company. The committee ar-: of (Opinion that this ground of distinction ought to be no longer admil'ed by the United States. So long as Great j?iitain talces to h(!rself the fruits of the operations of ihc::(; efiipire-corporatioiis, and so long as the millions ol sulijccis tliey conquer, and the vast, realms they sub- due, are governed and held for her advaiitngo, she ought not to bo permit- ted to set up nny distinction, in her dealings with a foreign state, between their acts and hers. So far as regards the rights or tlu* safety «.f that for- eign state, a military J'ost e,';ta(;!isii.d liy the lOasf India Company, or the Hudson's Hay Company, is a military post establisiied by (.Jreat Hritain. Not to pnceivo this, is to shut our ey<'S to the system of operations, by means of which Great Hritain has built up the stupendous iabric of her poW(>r in the east and th and lSi'7. The Hritish mi'iisters were not insensible to the force of his objections. And the followinir passage of Mr. Gallatin's letter of nocem- ber 20, 1825, is important in its bearing upon the question of what legisla- tion Congress may adopt, without infringement of the treaty relations of the two powers : "Tl>c cstr.lilishinent of aOi>tiiicl Territorial Givcrnment on the west side of ilic Stony moun- tains wiuiKl alMi ir; nljocicJ I) as an attempt t') exercise exclusive .s()Vereic;niy. I observed tl\at, alt'.uMi^li tiie Nonlw/c^t Coinpaoy nii^^lit, i'loiu its boinj? incorpuraieil, IVuin ih- li.il>iis of ttje men they enijiloyeJ, and fioiu having a moaopoly with ivKptct to trade, sj f. r as BritisU 24 Rep. No. 308. subjects \yere concerne.l, cnrry on a species of government, without the assistance of that of Great Briiam, it was otherwise with us. Our population there would consist of several inde- pendent conapanies and individuals. We had always been in the habit, in ourinost remote seitleinenis, of carryingr laws, courts, and justices of the peace with us. There was an absolute necessity, on our pnrf, to have some species of government. Without it, the kind ol sovereignty or rather juiisdiciion, which it was intended to admit, could not be exercised on our part It was siiirsested, and seemed to be acquiesceil in, that the diliicultv might be obviated, provided the ereciion oJ a new Territory was not confined exclusively to the teiriiory west ol the moun- tains; that it should be denned as embracing all the possessions of the United States west of a Jint- that should be at some distance Irom, and east ot, the Stony mountains." The committee have reported their bill in precise accordance with these suggestions of Mr. Gallatin, acquiesced in, as he informs us, by the Brit- ish ministers in 1826. They have accompanied it only with such sug^cs- tions and arguments as seemed indispensably necessary to its support— re- taining the right hereafter to present, if they should think it necessary, a more full and satisfactdry report on all the facts and considerations bearing on this great and important subject. : c \ Rep. No. oife. 25 lat o( inde- emote ?oluie n. It vided nouQ- tot a hesc Brit- rgCS- — re- ry,a iring Yf A BILL to extend the civil and crinunal jurisdiction of the several courts of the Territory of Iowa over the Territoiy of Oregon, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the Uni- ted States is hereby authorized and required to cause to be erected, at suit- able places and distances, a line ofstoclcade and blockhouse forts, not ex- ceeding five in number, from some point on the Missouri and Arkansas rivers, into the best pass for enternig the valley of the Oregon ; and, also, at or near the mouth of the Columbia river. That provisions shall hereafter be made by law to secure and grant six hundred and forty acres, or one section of land, to each white male inhabitant of the Territory of Oregon, of the age of eighteen years and upwards, who may have heretofore or shall hereafter move from any State or Territory of the United States, and have settled in said Territory of Oregon, and who shall cultivate and use the same for five consecutive years, or to his heir or heirs-at-law, if such there be, in case of his de- cease ; and to the wife of every such inl^abitant or cultivator, and to each of his children wlio may have been removed to said Territory, or be born therein, there shall be granted one hundred and sixty acres, and to their heirs respectively, in case of their decease. That no sale, alienation, or contract of any kind shall be valid, of such lands, before the patent is issued therefor ; nor shall the same be liable to be taken in execution, or bound by any judgment, mortgage, or lien of any kind, before the patent is so issued ; and all pretended alienations or contracts for alienating such lands, made before the issuing of the patents, shall be null and void against the settler himself, his wife, or widow, or against his heirs-at-law, or against purchasers, after the issuing of the patent. Sec. 2. And be if further enacted, That the civil and criminal juris- diction of the supreme court and district courts of the Territory of Iowa be, and the same is hereby, extended over that part of the Indian territo- ries lying west of the present limits of the said Territory of Iowa, and south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the boundary-line between the United States and the republic of Texas, not included within the limits of any State; and, also, over the Indian territories, comprising the Rocky Mountains and the 3 26 Rep. No. 308. country between them and the Pacific ocean, south of fifty four de- grees and forty minutes of north latitude, and north of the forty - second degree of north latitude; and justices of the peaco maybe ap- pointed for the said Territory, in the same manner, and with the same pow- ers, as now provided by law in relation to the Territory of Iowa : Pro- vided^ That any subject of the Government of Great Britain, who shall have been arrested under the provisions of this act for any crime alleged to have been committed within the territory westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains, while the same remains free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the United States and of Great Britain, pursuant to stipulations between the two powers, shall be delivered up, on proof of his being such British subject, to the nearest or most convenient author- ities having cognizance of such offence by the laws of Great Britain, for the purpose of being prosecuted and tried according to such laws. Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That one associate judge of the su- preme court of the Territory of Iowa, in addition to the number now au- thorized by law, may, in the discretion of the President, be appointed, to hold his office by the same tenure and for the same time, receive the same compensation, and possess all the powers and authority conferred by law upon the associate judges of the said Territory; and one judicial district shall be organized by the said supreme court, in addition to the existing number, in reference to the jurisdiction conferred by this act; and a dis- trict court shall be held in the said district by the judge of the supreme court, at such times and places as the said court shall direct ; and the said district court shall possess, all the powers and authority vested in the pres- ent district courts of the said Territory, and may, in like manner, ap- point its own clerk. Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That any justice of the peace, ap- pointed in and for the Territories described in the second section of this act, shall have power to cause all offenders against the laws of the United States to be arrested by such persons as they shall appoint for that pur- pose, and to commit such offenders to safe custody for trial, in the same cases and in the manner provided by law in relation to the Territory of Iowa, and to cause the offenders so committed to be conveyed to the place appointed for the holding of a district court for the said Territory of Iowa, nearest and most convenient to the place of such commitment, there to be detained for trial, by such persons as shall *be authorized for that purpose by any judge of the supreme court, or any justice of the peace of the said Territory; or where such offenders are British subjects, to cause them I I Rep. No. 308 27 to be delivered to the nearest or most convenient British authorities as and detention shall be pa,d in the same manner as provided by law in respect to the fees of the marshal of the said Territory Sec. 5. l„rf «« i, /«„/„, ,„„„,,,y_ ^hat the sum of one hundred thousand dollars be appropriated, out of any money in the treasZ ,?„' otherwise appropriated, to carry into effect the provis ons of this act