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The bill to protect the rights of American settlers in the Oregon Territory beinij under considera- tion, and the pending question being to refer tlie bill to the Committee on the Judiciary, with in- structions — Mr. BENTON addre.s.sed the Senate. Mr. Pres- ident, (said he,) the bill before the Senate propo.ses to extend the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States over nil' our territories west of tlie Rocky Mountains, without saying what in the ex- tent and what are the limits of this territory. This 1.S wronj,^, in my opinion. We ought to define the limits within which our agents are to do such acts as this bill contemplates, otherwise we commit to them the solution of questions which we find too hard for ourselves. This indefinite cxtdnsion of authority, in a case which requires the utmost pre- cision, forces me to .speak, and to give my opinion of the true extent of our territories beyond the Rockv Mountains. I have delayed doing this du- ring the whole session, not from any desire to con- ceal my opinions, (which, in fact, were told to all that asked for them,) but because I thought it the business of negotiation, not of legislation, to settle these boundaries. I waited for negotiation: but negotiation lags while events go forward; and now we are in the process of acting upon measures, upon the adoption of which it may no longer be in the power either of negotiation or of legislation to control the events to which they may" give rise. The bill before us is without definition of the ter- ritory to be occufjied. And why this vagueness in a case requiring the utmost precision ? Why not define the boundaries of these territories .' Pre- cisely because we do not know them ! And this presents a case which requires me to wait no longer for negotiation, but to come forward with my own opinions, and to do what I can to prevent the evils of vague and indefinite legislation. My object will be to show, if 1 can, the true extent and nature of our territorial claims beyond the Rocky Mountains, ■with a view to just and wise decisions ; and in doin^)- 1=0, I shall endeavor to act upon the great maxim, "Ask nothing but what is right— submit to nothing that is wrong." It is my ungracious task, in attempting to act upon this maxim, to commence by exposing error at home, and endeavoring to clear up some great mistakes under which the public mind has labored. It has been assumed for two years, and the as- purnption has been made the cause of all the Oregon excitement in the country, that we have a dividing line with Russia, made so by the convention of 1824, along the parallel of 54° 40', from the sea to the Rocky Mountains, up to which our title is good. This is a great mistake. No such line was ever established; and so far as propo.sed and dis- cu.ssed, it was proposed and discussed as a north- ern British, and not as a northern American line. The public treaties will prove there is no such line; documents will prove that, so far as 54^ 40', from the sea to the mountains, was ever proposed as a northern boundary for any Power, it was proposed by us for the British, and not for ourselves. To make myself intelligible in what I shall say on this point, it is necessary to go back to the epoch of the Russian convention of 1824, and to recall the recollection of the circumstances out of which that convention grew. The circumstances were these: In the year 1821 the Emperor Alexan- der, acting upon a leading idea of Russian policy (in relation to the North Pacific ocean) from the time of Pete.r the Great, undertook to treat that ocean as a close sea, and to exercise municipal au- thority over a great extent of its shores and waters. In September of that year, the Emperor issued a decree, bottomed upon this pretension, assuming exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction over both shores of the North Pacific ocean, and over the high seas, in front of each coast, to the extent of one hundred Italian miles, Vom Bchring's Straits down to latitude fifty-one, on the American coast, and to forty-five on the Asiatic; and denouncing the penalties of confiscation upon all ships, of whatsoever nation, that should approach the coasts within the interdicted distances. This was a very startling decree. Coming from a feeble nation, it would have been smiled at: coming from Russia, it gave uneasiness to all nations. Great Britain and the United States, as having the largest commerce in the North Pacific ocean, and as having large territorial claims on the north- west coast of America, W( the first to take the alarm and to send remonsti,,nces to St. Petersburg against the formidable ukase. They found them- selves suddenly thrown together, and standing side i)y side in this new and portentous contest with Russia. They remonstrued in concert, and here the wise and pacific conduct of the Emperor Alex- ander displayed itself in the most prompt and hon- orable manner. He immediately suspended the ukase, (which, in fact, had remained without exe- cution,) and invited the United States and Great Britain to unite with Russia in a convention to set- tle amicably and in a spirit of mutual convenience all the questions between them, and especially their ' 'OQ .\/fiW..H^-|^ I respective territorial claims on the nortliwest coast of Anierica. This mngimiiiiiKtus proposition was immediately met by the two Powers in a corre- sponding spirit; nnd.thenkase being voluntarily relinqiiiahed by the Emperor, a convention waa quickly sifted by Russia with each Power, settling, so far as Ilussia was concerned, with each, all iheir territorial claims in Northwest America. The Em- peror Alexander had proposed that it should be a joint convention of the three Powers — a tripartite convention — settling the claims of each and of all at the same time; and if this wise suggestion had been followed, all the subsequent and all the pres- ent difficulties between the United States and Great Britain, with respect to this territory, would have been entirely avoided. But it was not followed: an act of our own prevented it. After Great Biit- ain had consented, the non-colonization princij)le — the principle of non-colonization in Americf> by any European Power — was promulgated by our Gov- ernment, and for that reason Great Britain chose to treat separately with each Power, and so it was done. Great Britain and the United Stales treated scpa- ftitely with Russia, and with each other; and each came to agreements with Russia, but to none among themselves. The agreements with Russia were contained in two conventions, signed nearly at the same time, and nearly in the same words, limiting the territorial claim of Russia to 54° 40', confining her to the coast and islands, and leaving the continent, out to the Racky Mountains, to be divided between the United States and Great Brit- ain, by an agreement between themselves. The Emperor finished up his own business, and quit the concern. In fact, it would seem, fVom the romptitude, moderation, and fairness with which e adjusted all differences both with the United States and Great Britain, that his only object in issuing the alarming ukase of 1821 was to" bring those Powers to a settlement; acting upon the homely, but wise maxim, that short settlements make long ft-iends. These are the circumstances out of which the British and American conventions grew with Rus- sia in the yeai-s 1824-'25. They are public treaties, open to all perusal, and eminently worthy of being read. I will read the third article of each — the one which applies to boundaries — and which will con- firm all that I have said. The article in the con- vention with the United States is in these words : " Art. 3. It is moreover agreed, that, liercafter, there phall not be formed, by the citizens of the United States, or under the authority of the said States, any egtitblisliment upon the northwest coast of Anieriea, nor in any of the iilaixls adja- cent, to the north of fifty-^oar dciirees and forty minulcs of north latitude ; and that, tn the same manner, tliere shall be none formed by Russian subjects', or under the authority of Russia, south of the same parallel." This is the article which governs th( American boundary with Russia, confined by ii.s precise terms to the islands and coasts, and having no man- tier of relation to tlie continent. The article in the British convention with Russia, governing her boundary, is in the same words, so far as the limit is concerned, and only more explicit with respect to the continent. Like our own, it is the third ar- ticle of the convention, and is in these worfls: " Art. 3. The line of demarcation between the posses- eiom or the hish coutiacting parties, upon the coast of Uie continent, and tbe islands of Auiuriva, to tUu uortliwust, shall be drnuii in the manner following : Commeueing from the HoiilheniiniHt jioint of the iflanif riilled' I'ri' c-e of \Va'e.< Island, which point lies in the parnllel ofr-;- 40' north lati- tude, and between i.'llst and iy;)d degree of west lonuilude (meridian of Greenwich,) the saiil line shall a-t longitude, will prcivi 'taneu ot tei marine leamies therefrom. And the line of demarca- tion shall follow the summit of the mountiiins situated par- allel to the coad as far as 'i.'' point of intersection of the Hist dejjree of west longitude, (of the same meridian ;) and, linally, irom the said point of intersection, the said meriilian line of the Hist degree, in its prolongation as far as th(' Fro- zen Oiean, shall form the limit between the lliissiaii and Hiitisli po.sscBsion3 on the coiUiiient of America to tlie north- west." These are the proofs, these the conventions which established liirits on the northwest coast of Amer- ica between the United States and Russia in 1824, and between Great Britain and Russia in 1825. They are identical in object and nearly in terms; they grow out of the same difficulties and terminate ill the same way. By each the Russian claim is confined to the coast and the islands; by each the same limit is given both to the United States and Great Britain; and that limit was fixed at the south end of an island, to the latitude of which (sup- PQged to be in 55°, but found to be in 54'^ 40') the Emperor Paul had granted the privileges of trade to the Russian American Fur Company. It was a limit wholly in the water, not at all on the land. The American line never touches land, the British only reaches it by going north throui^h Portland Canal to 56°, ana thence to pursue the coast at ten leagues from it northwardly to 61°, and thence due north to the Frozen Ocean : leaving to the Rus- sians only the projecting part of the continent which approaches Asia, ana narrows the ocean into the strait which Behring found, and which bears his name. This is the Russian line on the continent with Great Britain; the United States have no con- tinental line either with Russia or Great Britain. I have shown you the limits established with Russia in 1824; I have produced the treaties wliich established them; and here also is a map which illustrates them, and shows everything precisely as I have read it from the treaties, ft is a map of Mr. Greenhow, a clerk in the Department of State, who, so long as he confines himself to the business of copying maps and voyages, does very well; but when he goes to issuing opinions upon national subjects, and setting the world right abou: the execution or non-executic.i of a great treaty, as that tlie line of forty-nine was never estaolished under the treaty of Utrecht — when he goes at this work, the Lord deliver us from the Humbug ! But here is the map, with the lines all right upon it, drawn in the water and along the coast according to the treaties. First, a few dots in the water a>, the end of Prince of Wales Island, in latitude 54° 40'; then a dotted line up north, through the middle of Portland Canal, to latitude 56; then nortwestwardly along the coast, and ten leagues from it, to 61°; ajid then north to the Frozen Ocean. No line at all along 54° 40' to the Rocky Mountains; ai''d timt is right, for the treaties never put one there. ?\ I J »-"' 5 1 .J IR- And here is nnnthrr map which ilhistratea error, and ^*-iws you a hne on paper where there is none on and ot wl.i'-h the Senate has ordered ten •;iout extra copies to be printed for the instruc- tion o; tiu: people. Here it ^nes, rtinninj^ straij^ht throusrh ftom the sea to the mountains, rnrin"' for nothing in its course— cutting lakes in two, dividing ncigliboring posts from each other, and reckless of everything except to follow fifty-four forty. Thai It pursues with undevinting fidelity; and the en- graver Itis marked il strong on the map, that no one may overlook it. In all this there is but one fault, and that is, that there is no such thing— no such line upon earth! never was, and never can be, by ary prmciple recognised at the time that the KuRsian convention of 1824 was made. Well, there is no such line; and that would seem to be enough to quiet the excitement which has beeti got up about it. But there is more to - Tc-^^c I ««'»"' with saying, that although this fifty-four forty was never established as a northern boundary for the United States, yet it was pro- posed to be established as a north* rn boundary not for us, but for Great Britain— and that pro- posal was made to Great Britain by ourselves Ihis must sound like a strange statement in the ears of the fifty-four-forties, but it is no more strange than true; and after stating the facts, I mean to prove them. The plan of the United States at that time was this: That each of the three Powen. (Great Britain, Russia, and the Uni- ted States) haying claims on the northwest coast of America should divide the country between them, each taking a third. In this plan of par- tition, each was to receive a share of the continent from the sea to the Rocky Mountains, Russia taking the northern slice, the United Slates the southern, and Great Britain the centre, with fifty- four forty for her northern boundary, und forty- nine for her sou' hern. The document from which 1 now read will say fifty-one; but that was the first offer— forty-nme was the real one, as I will here- after show This was our plan. The moderation of Russia defeated it. That Power had no set tle- nrients on that part of the continent, and rejected the contiuental share which we oflcred her. She imited herself to the coasts and islands where she had settlements, and left Great Britain and the United States to share the continent between them- selves. But before this was known, we had pro- posed to her fifty-four forty for the Russian south "I at onec unfoldod to him (Mr. Cnnning) the propomU of my Oov('riuueiit, wliicli wor.,.; I. Tlmt, um ri'ujlnl.'d tlio ooiintry lying i»lw,'i;n tli<' Slcny Moiiiitaiiirt iiiul ili,. I'luillc no'nn, (.rent BHfiiin. 111.. UniU'.l Hi,,fi.N, niul ItiNsia, slioiil'l Jointly oriter info a convention, similar in itH nnturu to tlin Uiird articio of the convention of thi; SMJtIi of OctotxT, 18IH. n(|vv fxiHtiriKlictwocti llu- two former I'dwer;., by wliioh tliu wtiol,' ot tliat country wtstwiird of the Htony MountaiiiH. aiK all itM watftr--, woiilil l.c fVco and open to the riiizcns and sulij(.(tH of the three Powers as long m the joint con- vention rcinained in force. ThiH, my Oovernment proposed, Hliould be for tlio term of ten y.ars. 2. Tlmt the IJnit.d Hmte.s were vvilhn« to stipulate to irinke no nettlomontH north 01 the (iHy-|irHt degree of north latitude on that const, pro- vided (.rent Uritnin stipulated to make none «oulh of fifty- one, or north of .ifty-live, und Kudsiato make none suuth of fliiynvo." Here is the ofTer, in the most explicit terms, in 1823, to make fifty-five, which was in fact fifty- four forty, the northern boundary of Great Britain; and here is her answer to that proposition. It is the next paragraph in the same despatch from Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams: •' Mr. Canning expressed no opini(m on nny of these pointri; but hi.s inquiries and remarks, under that which proposes to eonlinethe British souli'inentB between filty-ono and fifty-hve, were evidently of a naUire to indicate strona ohieetions on his fide, though he professed to spenk only troni his first iinprcwions. Jt is more proper, I should Ray, that Ins objeeuons were direeted to our proposiU of not let- ting Groat liritain Ro aliove fifty-tive north with her s.'tUe- menfs, wliile we allowed Russia to come down to that line with hers. In treating of this coas., he had supposed -'at (.rent Britain had her northern question with Russia, as ner soutliern with tlie United Stat.'s. He could see a motive j for the IJiiitcil States desiriuK to stop the si'ttlemrnts of Grcnt Rritain southward ; hut he had not befiire known of llieir desire to stop them northward, and, above all, over hniits conceded to Russia. It was to tlijs elTect Uiat his sue- gcsuons wont." " This was her answer, refusing to take, in 1823, as a no. tliern boundary comina: south for quantity, what is now prescribed to her, at the peril of war, for a southern boundary, with nothing north !— for^ although the fact happens to be that Russia is not there, bounding us on the north, yet that makes no difference in the philosophy of our Fifty-Four- Forties, who believe it to be so; and, on that be- lief, are ready to fight. Their noticn is, Ithat we go jam up to 54° 40', and the Russians come jam down to the same, leaving no place for the British lion to put down a paw, although that paw should be no bigger than the sole of the dove's foot which sought a resting place from Noah's ark. This must seem a little strange to British statesmen, who do not grow so fast as to leave all knowledge behind them. They remember that Mr. Monroe em bonndnrv „n, f^ n ^ t> • • "''T'*'"" ''™"^' "•=",'•." ""^"'- -^"^7 remember tfiat Mr. Monro* he noSe.,f^fnl^ ■'"', S"'^'" the same for and h..sCabinet-the President and Cabinet Who ac- foi nk Inl ^Z \- ■ ^ r>^ ^^y^"''' forty; quired the Spanish title under which we now pro- fif;-five vftJti^"''^,'" "'" P'-,°P"^i""" was i pose 10 squeeze them out of the confinent-actu- ffvfour'^,wv n "' "'' '"'•""''■' ^^"=^ S^-''' '^'lyofi'ered them six degrees of latitude in that ;;]:rl3^!;!'Ay-'^;;^^'''>V ™""^ *■•""> the south | vc-y place; and they wilf certainly want reasons end of Prince of Wales' Island, supposed to be in mty-hve, but found to have a point to it runnino- down to fifty-four forty. We proposed this to Grea Britain. She refused it, saying she would establish her northern boundary wUh Russia, who was on her north, and not with the United States who was on her south. This seemed reasonable! tor this so much compression now, where we offer- ed them so much expansion then. These reasons cannot be given. There is no boundary at 54° 40'; and so .ar as we proposed to make it one, it was for the British, and not for ourselves; and so ends this redoubtable line, up to which all true patriots were to march ! and marching, fight ! and and \Uo TTnifo,! «t„V .i •';-<=o'>^>« »tM«uimijie; , (nuuuts were lo marcn i ana marching, tight am ami the United States then, and not until then, re- i fighting, die! if need be! singin- all the while hnquished the business of pressing fifty-four f^rty with Horace- sin^m, all tlie while upon Great Britain for her northern boundar/. Ifie proof is in the Executive documents. Here It iS--a despatch from Mr. Rush, our Minister in n'" ",'' ^",n '"o^o'^''""'' Secretary of State, dated December 19, 1823: \ " Dulre et decorum eat pro palriA mori." Sweet anil decent it is to die for one's country. And this is the end of that "rent lir," ! ,".!! o-nne vanished— evaporated into thai air— and the place where it was, not to be found. Oh ! mountain that ky^- ■»'v-'* 6 wnii delivered of r mouse, tliy name slmll hence- Cortli he fifty-four forty! Ami tliuH. Mr. PuNi- dint, I trust I liave cxpiodt'd oiiu of iJilr errors into wliich thf. puljliti mind Iihh Iiccu ltd, luid wliicli it in necesBory to get rid of before we can find the ri^ht pliiccfor our Oregon boundaries. 1 proceed to uiiother of the Hainu fiimilv — the dot'ina of the unity and indivisibility of the Oref^on title, i',nd its resultitiR corollary of all or none. It is n-ssumed by the "friindnnf Otv/foii " to be nil one title, all the way from 4^ up to 54° 40' — no break in it; and, consequently, " nil or nojie " is the only logical solution which our claim to it Can receive. Well, this may be brave and patriotic, but is it wise and true? And can we, with clear consciences, and without regard to con- sequences, pass a law upon that principle, and send our agents there to execute it ? These are the questions which present themselves to my mind, and in answering which I wish to keep before my eyes the first half of the great maxim — ask nothing but what is right. I answer, then, that it is not true that our title to what is called all Oregon is one, but si'seral; that it consists of parts, and is good for part, and bad for part; and that nothing just or wise can be determined in relation to it without separating these parts into their proper divisions, and giving to each division the separate considera- tion and judgment which belongs to it. Thus the title to the Columbia river and its valley was com- fdete before the claim to Frazer's river and its val ey began; and the claim to the islands and coasts rests upon a different state of facts, and a different principle of national law, from that which aj)plie3 to the continent. The title to the Columbia river and its valley rests upon discovery and settlement, and was com- plete before our acquisition of the Spanish title in 1819. The claim to Frazer's river and its val- ley, and to the noasts and islands in front of it, be- fan in 1319, and rests upon the discoveries of panish navigators ; and of these discoveries, the islands and the continent have very different de- grees of evidence to exhibit. I mention these dif- ferences of title as facts too well known to require documents to prove them ; and the bare statement of which should be sufficient to explode the dogma of the unity and indivisibiUty of the Oregon liile. It is not " all one title.'" It is not good "for all w none." It is not a unity. There are breaks in it ; and these breaks are sufficiently large to cover largo geographical divisions of the country, and re- quire separate consideration and judgment. That consideration will be given at the proper place; at present I limit myself to the correction of the error, so widely spread over the public mind, that the Oregon title is all one title, from 42° to 54° 40'. I come to the line of Utrecht, the existence of which is denied upon this floor by Senators whose fate it seems to be to assert the existence of a line that is not, and to deny the existence of one that is. A clerk in the Department of State has comjjiled a volume of voyages and of treaties, and, under- taking to set the world right, has denied that com- missaries ever met under the treaty of Utrecht and fixed boundaries between the British northern and French Canadiati possessions in North Amer- ica. That denial has been produced and accredit- ed <>n this flonr by a Sen.atnr in his place, [Mr. Cass ;] and this production of a blundering book, with this Senatorial end(»rsement of its nuscrtion, lays me under the necessity of correcting a third error which the " fifty-four forties" hug to tlicir bosom, and the conectinn of which becoini's ne- cessary for the vindication of history, the estalillHh- ment of a i)olitical right, and the protection of the Senate from the sn.i|)icion of igmirance. I affirm tliat the line was eslabli.shed; that the cominissarieH met and did their work; imd that what they did has been uci|uiesced in by all the Powers interested ftom the year 171.) down to the present time. This is my nffinnalion; and, in sup- port of it, and without repeating anything said heretofore, I .-ihall produce some new proofs, and take some new positions, the first of which xa, that this line was enforced by us (without anything else but the treaty of Utrecht to stand upoii^ for fifteen years— from IrfOa to 1818— as the nortliein boundary line of Louisiana, and submitted to as such by the British Government; and British traders therobj^ kept out of our territories west of the Mississippi, while our own trciuics let them into our territories on this side of the river. In a word, I will show that this treaty of Utrecht saved us from a caUiiuiiy for fifteen yeiuv, in our new territory of Louisiana, acquired from Franco, which the treaty of peace of 1783, and Mr. Jay's treaty of 1784, exposed us to in our old territories of the Ilnited States, conquered for us by our fathers in the war of the Ilovohuion. This is my first posi- Kion, and this is the case which sustains it. In the year 1803 the United States acquired Louisiana, and with it became a party to all the treaties whii'h concerned the boundaries of that province. The treaty of Utrecht was one of these, and the parallel of forty-nine one of the lines es- tablished by it, and governing its northern bound- ary. We soon had occasion for the protection of that boundary. Sjianish connivance and weak- ness had suffered British traders to invade the whole northern flank of Louisiana, from the Lake of the Woods to the head-waters of the Missouri i-iver; and on our n(;quiNition of that province, we found these tradeis in the actual possession of the Indian trade throughout all that extensive region. These traders were doing immense mischief among our Indians on this side of the Mississippi, by poisoning their minds and preparing v'.em for war against the United States. The treaty of peace and Mr. Jay's treaty, under the delusive idea of reciprocity, gave them this privilege of tnule in the old territories of the United States. Experience of its evil effects had taught a lesson of wisdom; and, while vainly striving to get rid of the treaty stipulations which admitted these Indians on this side of the Mississij)pi river, the treaty of Utrecht was eagerly seized upon to expel theia from the other. Mr. Greenhow's compilation was not pub- lished at that' time, and Mr. Jefferson and his Cabinet, proceeding according to the lights of their little farthing candles, in the absence of that vast luminary, just took the line of forty-nine as the ;iorthern boundary of L.^'iisiana, and drove all the British traders to the north of that line 'These traders com[)lained loudly, and appealed to their Government; but the British Ministry, just as much in the dark as Mr. Jefferson and his 'Cabinet, refused to take official notice of the com- plaint, onlv pvesi'ut.ed it unofficially to the United States Ministers in London, and asked us a favor^ k not an a riglit, tlic privilrgo of trading it Louiii- iana south of 49°. Of courso thiH fnvor tvnii not f,'rantrd; nnd tlnm Dritirth trndiTS wore exdiidrd from LouiNiatm by the treaty of Utrecht, wliili; ad- mitted into the old northwest territory of the Union by virtue of our treaties with Great Uritnin. The treaty of Utrecht did for us what our own treaties did not. And this was the case from the year 1803, the, year of the acn\iisition of Lnuiiiiana, until 1HI8, the year of concluding tlie convention with Great Hritain which adopted the line of Utrecht as far as the Rocky Mountains. Then, for the first time, the northern line of Louisiana was agreed upon in a treaty between the United States and Great Britain. Tiiat convention was an act of supererogation, ho far as it followed the line of Utrecht — an act of deep injury .so far us it stopped it. The line of 49° was junt as well cstablislicd, and just as well respected and observed, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, be- fore that convention as after it. Nay, more; it was the understood line beyond those mountains to the sea, and would itself have settled the Oregon question, and settled it wisely and beneficially if it had only been permitted to remain unmutilated. Tliis is the ca.sc. Now for the proofs. I read extracts from an unofficial communication made by the British Ministers, in 1806, to Messrs. Monroe and Pinckncy, our Ministers at that time in London, and by them communicated to our own Government. It is the substance of the complaints of the Canada merchants against the Governor of Louisiana for excluding them from that province, and their application to the British Government to be restored to it. The whole paper is in our State f)apers of that period, and may there be read at ength by any one who desires it: " Mitra ojjicial cnmmunicdtion with regard to the Canada trade." Dci cmAcr 31. 180fi. " A iiiniinrml lius been prescnttul to Lord [lollniul nnd Lord Auklnnd, on the iinrtot'itic Canada niercliants, setting forth a varii'ty of injiirii'8 which they complain of having su^taiucd Iroin the Government and servuntH of the tlnitcd Stalea, nnd prnyinK that their complaints may be attended to, and redress obtained for thorn in tlie discii'tiHioMs which are at present pending butween the American ami British Commissioners. " The injnries brnn(;ht forward in their memorial mav be reduced to the tliree following heads: 1. Their exdiision from Loiiisitina. " By the third article of the treaty of 1794, it is n^reed Ihat it shall -it all times be free to his Majesty's snlijeets nnd the citizens of the United States freely to pass by land or inland navisation into the respective territories and coun- tries of the two parties on tlie continent of America, and to navigate all the lakes nnd waters thereof, and freely to carry on trade with each other." " Hut, notwithstanding this express stipulation, which secures to his Majesty's sulijects, without limitation or res- ervation, the right of commercial intercourse by land or in- land navigation with all tlie territories of the rnited States on the continent of America, the Governor of Louisiana has thought projicr to exclude them from the commerce of that c:v- teiisire province, unless they abjure their allegiance to his Majesty, and take an oath of allegiance to the United States ; ami the same fJovernor has also taken it upon him to pro- hibit the introduction of any gooils or merchandise which are not the property of citizens of the United States." "This arbitrary proceeding, besides being a direct viola- tion Q\'i\w treaty of 179-1, is hi^'hly detrimental to the private interest of the Canada merchants, for it excludes them from ii country where tln^y liavc^ been carrying on trade success- fully for many years without interruption from the Spaniards, having latterly pushed their commercial posts even to the Itanks of the Misfouri, and augmented the s.ale of their goods in Louisiana to the amount of about forty or fifty thousand pounds annually." This is the compluinl — exclusioii from Louisiana by the United States Governor of that Province. We took possession of Upper Louisiana in March, 1804; the complaint was made in London in IriOG; conserpiently, the exclusion was enforced very soon after we took tiosseasion. The question now is, upon what authority did the Governor act in making this exclusion, and to what line did he ex- tend it? r)oubtlcs.H by order of his own Govern- ment; but it in K"od to be certain; and in the caae of Mr. Greennow's overshadowing authority, backed as it is by the Senator (Vom Michij^an, it becomes necessary to prove everything, even that a Governor of Upper Louisiana had the authority of his Government for the boundaries of his Prov- ince, fortunately, the first Governor of Upper Louisiana was a man of letters as well an or the sword, and employed his leisure hours in drawing up a history of the country which he waa sent to govern. It was Major Amos Stoddard, who after- wards lost Ilia life at Fort Meigs during the late war with Great Britain, (n his useful work, modestly termed " Skitehes of fjiuisiana," he thu« speaks of the northern boundary of his Prov- ince: " The eommerce of Cror.nt, by the terms of the patenl, extended to the utmost limit of Louisiana in that li'ni|M>()'iitinrlc'H the hoiiiiiliirli'M ItPlwrru 111!' provlnrn nl' l.oiilNiiiiin iiiiil thi^ llrltluli AiiH'rlcnti iliiiiilii- miiH, ( bi'ii li'iivii ti) ciill yiiiir ntti'iitiiiri to koiih' hiikkckiIdiim. * ' • 'I'o lli(! ii|i|M'r piut iil'MJNii(iiir(, IlriUiln liiw II (ircl- nrnblrt cliiiiii. AlMini IntlliiilM 47, thti llrltir'li trmliTH, cohiIiib hi (Vn.n 111. If!ii|.«)ii Hiiy t^rrltiirira, maliitiiltifi) ;i ir.Mr ulth (111! Miiiilnii IikJIiiiih, TIi'-hc! trniliTi witc tli>' flr-it KiiropcmiH who iihlniiK-il /iriy kiiowlrilKi' ol'lhi! xoiirniiorihi' MinMoiirl, ■ml thi!y hail laid down Ihc rourMc of llmt rlviT t'roiii Ihc Miiiiiliiiiii up to thi' Hoi ky Moiintnlim, with Hd-nl iiilimti)- iK'Mn, iimnv yi'nrn iHflbrr tlio Joiiriii'y of Mt'«"r«, r.i'WiH anil Clnrkfl. Till) t'laim olOnat llrluilii to thir IJpp.'r Ml^miurl country in uipially vullil, iiiiil ri'HiH on tin; Naiiii' Kroinnl an her I'lairn to IVooika Hoiiml ami tliii roimtry wihi of llif Roiiky MoiuilahiHj nn tlin IVIIlc oi-i'iiii. • * • TliiTr an- aliiinilani-i! ot Kroiinilit for iliMiyiiii( that thi'ri' nrr any rights in tliu AniiTiciiii aci! with iih uml in pinHiHHionol' Louisiana." Thus orgucs the Earl of Selkirk, mhiiitting the fact of boundariea fixed under (he treaty of Utreidit, nnd only arguiiijif a^'ainst the present exiHtenee and applicability of these boundaries. Lord Holland adopted none of these vicw.s; he presented the pa- per, without comment, to tlie American Ministers, ■who, in sending it home to their Government, characterized it as an ''hlle paper," am\ took no further notice of it. It wa.s, in fact, im i.ilc pa])er, but not quite idle enou^^h, in any sense of the word, to deny the work of tlic commissaries under the treaty of Utrecht. But to go on with the proofs. I In the year 1805, being the second year after the acquisition of Louisiana, President JeH'eison sent Ministers to Madrid , (Messrs. Monroe and Charles Pinckney,) to adjust the eastern and southwestern boundaries with Iter; and, in doing so, the princi- ples which had governed the sottlemcut J)f the northerii boundary of the same province became a proper illut'tration of their ideas. They quoted these principles, and gave the line of Utrecht as the example; and thisto Don Pedro Cevallos, one of the most accoinpliahed statesmen of Europe. They say to him: «'It is believed that this principle hat brcii admitted and acted on i;ivariably since tlin iliscoviTy of Anii'ricn, in re- spect to their pos.wssionH tlieri!, by all t'lc Kuropoan I'ower.i. It is particularly illiistrati:d by the stipulatio-is of tin.'ir most important treaties conccinini,' those possessions, and tin; practice under them, viz: the treaty of Utrecht in I7i;i, and that of Paris in 1763. In conforniity with the lOth artirle ol' the first-mentioned treaty, tlie boundary liet\K!en t'uni'.da nnd Louisiana on Of/i one side, and th.' Hudson li.xy and Northwestern Conifmnies on the other, was establislied by commissaries, by a line to coiiiinerice at n cape or pinnion- tory on the ocean, in .W 31' north latitude ; to run tlieiicc, southwestwardly, to latitude 49' north from the eipiatnr; and along that line indetinitely westward. Since that time, no attempt has been made to extend ttn; limits of Louisiana or Canada to the nortli of that line, or of those companies to the soulh of it, by purchase, conquest, or grants from the Indians." This is whatMea.^rs. Monroe and Charlcsi Pinck- ney said to Don Pedro Cevallos— a Minister who must be supposed to be as well acquainted with •the treaties which settled the boundaries of the late Spanish province of Louisiana as wc are with the timtirs which «ntile the boundaries of tho Unilml HtntcH. The line of Utrecht, nnd in the very wnrdi which carry if Crinii the Lake of the VVooiIh to the Pacific ocean, and whiih confine tin; Uritiwh to the north, and the rrench and Hpiinish to the Hoiitli of that line, are qunted to Mr. Cevallos as a fiict whii h he and all the world knew. lie received it ns Hiicli; and thii.H SpnniMh .lulhorily comes in nid of Hritish, French, nnd American, to vindicmo our lights nnd the tiuth of history. Mr. President, when a man is Hiruggling in a just cause, he pjiierally gets help, nnd often fVoin iinforcHeen and unexpected quarter.s. So it has hap- pened with nie in this alKiir of the Utrecht treaty. A great nriany hands have hastened to bear evi- dence of tho truth in this case; nnd, at the heati oi these o|)portMiie testimonies, I place the letter of a gentleman who, besides his own gn at niilhority, give.s a reference to another, who, from his long political position in our country, the powers of his mind, and the habits of his lift!, happens to be, of all living men, the one who can shed inost light upon the subject. I sjieak of Colonel Timothy Pickering — the friend and cnmpai.ion nf Washing- ton—his Cluartermaster-General during the war of the IlevoUilion — his Postmaster GenemI, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, during his Presi- dency, — a member of this body at tho time tho treaty was ratified which made us a party to the treaty of Utrecht — and always a man to con'-idcr and to understand what he was about. In /act, Washiniiton wanted no other sort of men about him. The writer of the letter, (Timothy Pitkin, author of the work on Statistics,) on reading some account of the talk hereabout the treaty of Utrecht, and seeing what lack of information was in the American Senate, wrote a letter to a member of this body [Mr. Webster] to give him his memo- randa of that treaty some forty j'cars ago. This letter i.s an hivaluablc testimony of the events to which it relates; it combines the testimony of two eminent men; and I send it to the Secretary's table to be read. It is dated Utica, New York, April 9, 184G: " I perceive, liy tho debates in the Senato on the Oregon question, that, in the di'eision of this iiiipurlaiit subject, no little stress is laid by some of its inembi;rs o.i thi! line set- tled between I'lanec and Kns;land, under the treaty of Utreelit, in 1713, and that by others it is lontended that no evidence actually exists that such a settloniunt was made under that treaty. " I was somewhat surprised that General Cass should have ventured, in a public speceli, to havi- plaeed himself amoiii? the latti'r, upon the statements of Mr. (.'iienhow, a clerk in the Department of State. I have, for a Ioiik time, considered that this line was adiusted by commisBaries ap- pointed under that treaty; and in reading tho speeches of Messrs. I'ass and llenton, and your own si->mfirnvt ipi-cytiona on the subject, f thought proper to examine my doeumonts and ini'iiioraiidiims for some proof of the opinion f had thus formed. On such e.vamiiiatiim, 1 found the follnwins; ex- tr.-iet on this subject, from Mr. Ilutohins's 'llislorieal ,\ar- ruti v(! and Topocraphical Ileseriptiou of Louisiana and W'csi Florida,' printed at Philadelphia in 1781. "After si.ntin;,' the uraiit to Crozat, of Louisiana, [Iiiteh- ins, who was then. I believe, i,'eoi>iopher to the ITnited States, proceeds to say : ' .Vs to Canada, or Now Fiaiiei , die ' French Court would scarcely admit it had any other nortli- ' ern boundary than the pole. Tlio avidity of Gri.'at Diit.ain < was cipial ; but Franci', h.iviuf.' been niifortimate in tho 'war of 1710, the northern boiindarv of Canada wils fixed ' by the trcjily of Ulnu.ht in 17i;). ft assigns Nem Jhilain 'ami Jiwhon's Say, on the Jior»«HtUwi'HiUrfit\i>thi- l.iilliiili' or |i>rty Mill)- ili gn cw. All 'Uf liiiiiN III III!' iinilt> of ilir hiiii|(liiiiry lll|i> li< liiu lurlv | 'to fir. lit llnliilii, iiikI all nunilHi ant oI' Hint llni', lii iifdir iih Mtlf rlviT HI. Iiiiwrfiii'i', Ik iIm' Kti'iirli. 'I'Iiimi. vviti', lit •Hint timi',' Ik'iiiIiIh, 'llic >rii<' lliiilii ■■'■• iiIhIiiiiii imil Cun •itilii, Crornt'M grunt not iiuMiilii|r long nltiir tliu dintli oC ■ J.oiiU \IV,' " 'I'lii' iilinvc I'xtrnct !■< trikrn Crdrn n |iini{ roiniiiiinlfiitinn riiiuli' to Mr, Ji'rtir ii.,, Iiy I'nloiii'l I'IckirliiK, on tin- 1hi|i .if Jiuiiiiirv, |f(M, whfn tln' tn-iily of Mr. Kliiu!, nnil of liminil nri<'«, wiw iinilir (■oiiNiili'riillon ; iinil of i'oiir That liv the treaty of I'tPMlit, in 171;), ' lirtwcrn tlic KiiBJIdi anil r'Vcnrli, tlic llni' lirtwnn I,onti.i •anil anil ilir i;n«li>li I'onntrv wa< Kclllnl in latitinl.' •!!»'; I •anil that iIiIn wax th«i nason wliv, in our tri'alv with tin- ' ' Kn«ll.>> su aiv^TT again, under better auspices, and with hopes of better results. The author is found, and found where he ought to be, among those who feared the effect of rejecting the fifth article of Mr. Rufus King's treaty of 180,3, That treaty settled our whole northern boundary with Great Britain, from Passainaquoddy Bay to the Lake of the Woods, and to the head of the Mississippi The fifth ar- ticle of it brought the line from the lake, by the .shortest course, to the Mississippi: it closed up the long-standing controversy about the course of that line. Now, it happened that the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana was negotiated in Paris aliout the same time that Mr, King's treaty was negotiated in London, and without his knowledge. The two treaties arrived in the United States to- gether—went to the Senate together, with a strong recommendation from Mr, Jetlerson to reject the fifth article of Mr. King's treaty, because the ac- quisition of Louisiana gave us u new hne from the Lake of the Woods which would run clear north of the head of the Mississippi, preventing the British from getting to the river, and thereby ren- dering nugatory the treaty stipulations of 1783 and 1794 whicligave them a right to its navigation. The maintenance of this new line, which was not only to protect the Mississippi river, but all Louisiana, from Britiah ingrossion, was a priuiaiy 10 ol;ject of Mr. JeffiTson; and for that purpose the rejection of thj fifth article of Mr. Khig's treaty became indispensable. The New England Sena'- tors dreaded the loss of the whole treaiy if the fifih artisle was expunged: nine of them voted again.^it the St iking out; and it was while this treaty was under consideration in the Senate that Mr. Picker- ing, one of the nine, communiciited this paper to Mr. Jefierson, not at all denying the 49th parallel as the line of Utrecht, but arguing ngain.«t the con- struction which would now make that line the • northern boundary of Louisiana. The tenor of his argument is not given; possibly the Earl of Selk'rk fell upon som^J parts of it in his memoricil to Lord Holland, wlien he supposed it to be abro- gated by war, and superseded by the connivance of the Spaniards, in permitting the British to oc- cupy thewhok teft flank of Lou'siana, as low down iii places as 45°. Mr. JelTerson adhered to his new hne. Tiie fifth article was struck out. The whole treaty was risked and lost, and it was forty years afterwards, and we a?' know with what angry dis- cussions, with what dangers of war, with what ex- pense of money in calling out troops, this long contested boundary was at last established. All ims was risked, all this was encountered to save the une of Utrecht ! Yet we now find that line de- nied, and ail the organs, great and small, blowing with might and main to sweil the loud note.': of denial, and to drawrx the voice which speaks up lor the truth. Several copies of Hutchins's geographical work have bean sent to me, all containing the words transcribed by Mr. Pickering. Other works also have been sent me. I have more material on hand than I can use, and must limit myself to a brief selection. Among these books sent me is one of special author=ty— the geographical work of Thom- as Jeffreys, Esq., Geographer to his Royal High- ness the Prin-e of Wales, printed at the corner of '^t- Maritm's Lane, near Chaiing Cross, London, A. D. 17oa. Tliis roya": gsrgrapher, who would naidly curtail the fair proportions of the dominions to whose heir apparent (afterwards George 111.) he was: addressing his work, thus speaks of the line which parts the British Hudson Bay and the French Canadian possessions; " Beginning at Davis's Inlet, on the east const of Labra- dor or New Britain, m l!.- laHtiido of about 5fi deerfips, and i'^^TA",? '.* ^''"' '^ '^"■'"- throuifli the Lalte Aliitibis. down to the 49th degree of latitude ; from thcnen to be eontiniud to the Nortluves* ocean, as it was settled by coi.imissioiic-s under the treaty of Utrecht." Mr. .Teffreys adds to this description of the line of Utrecht, remarks upon the same line as laid down by D'Anville, the Royal French Geographer, points out what he deems erroneaus in it. and takes credit to himself in making it more favorable to the French than the French haU made it to themselv(?s. The latitude of 49 to the Western Ocean Is his limit of the British possessions. I have said that more material has beei, furnish- ed to me than I can upe. Among these I must acKnowledge che kindness of Mr. Edmund J. Fors- tall^of New Orleansi, a man of letters, and who =enus me a reference tc Postiethwuyl's Couitner- cial Dictionary, whi<:h, in fact, is the dictionary of Savary, Inspector Generol of Vrench Manu- foctures and Commrrce in the time of Louis the Fifteenth, and whoso work was done into English, wiUiimproveaicnts.byM.-. Malachy Postl- thwayt, whose name it bears with English readeis. This dictionary of Savary contains, in the body of the worl^ the description of the Ufrecht line as shown on the maps, and thus gives authority for what appears there. Another contribution , rvhich I have pleasure to acknowledge, is from agentleman of Baltimore, for- merly of the House of Representatives, (Mr. Ken- ned v,) who gives me an extract from the Journal of the British House of Commons, March 5th, 1714, directing a writ to be issued for electing a burgess in the place of Frederick Heme, Esq., who, since his election, hath accepted, as the Journalsays, the office of one of his Majesty's commissaries for treating with commissaries on t!ie nart of France for settling the trade between Great Britain and France. The same entry occurs .t the same time with respect to James Murray, Esq., and Sir Joseph Martyn. The tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht apjilies to limits m North America, the eleventh and fifteenth to commerce; and these commissaries were ap- pointed under some or ali of these articles. Others might have been appointed by iiffi King, and not mentioned in the journals, as not being members of Parham^ent whose vacated seats were to be. filled. AH three of the articles of the treaty were equally obligatory for the appoiniment of commissaries; and here is proof that three were appointed under the commercial articles. One motv j)iece of testimony, and I have done. And, first, a little statement to introduce it. We all know that in one of the debates which took place in the British House of Commons on the Ashburton treaty, and after that treaty was ratified and past recall, mention was made of a certain map called the King's map, which had belonged to the late King, (George III.,) and hung in his library during his lifetime, and afterwards in the Foreign Office, from which said office the said map silently disappeared about the time of the Ashburton treaty, and which certainly was not before our Senate at the time of the ratificiition of that treaty. Well, the member who mentioned it in Parliament said there vms a stro-ig red line upon it, about the tenth of an inch wide, running all along where the Americans, said the true boundary was, with these words written along it in four places in King George's handwriting: " This is Osicald's line;" meaning, it is the line of the treaty of peace ne- gotiated by Mr. Oswald on the British side, and therefore called Oswald's line. Now, what I have to say is this: That when-' ever this roy-.l map shall emerge from its retreat I and resume its place in the Foreign Office* on it 1 will be found another strong red' line about the tenth of an inch wide, in another place, v.ith these words written on it: Boundaries between the Brit- ish and French pos.^essions in America " as fixed by the treaty of Utrctht." To complete this last and crowning piece cf testimony, I have to add that the evidence of it is in the Department of State, as !s nearly the whole of the evidence which I have used in crushing this fie-poudre insurrection— " this puddlelnnc rebellion"— as&mst the truth nod ninjesty of history, which, beginning with a clerk in the Department of State, spread to all the or- gana, big imd little; then reached the Senate of the United States, held divided empire in this cham- ber for four months, and now dies the death of the ridiculous. i II I have naw got to the end of the errors which I propose to correct at the present time. I have consumed the day in getting ready to speak — in clearing- away the rubbiah .vhich had been piled up in my path. On another day, if the Senate pleases, I will go to work on the Oregon question, and endeavor to show how far we shall be right,, and how far we may be wrong, in exercising the jurisdiction ^^^ sovereignty which this bill pro- poses (which is not a copy of the British act, but goes far beyond it) ever an undefined extent of territory, to which we know there are conflicting claims. Light upon this point, at this time, may be of service to our country; and I mean to di% charge my duty to her, regardless of all conse- quences to myself. Mr. B. then gave way to a motion for adjourn- ment. Monday, May 25, 1846. Mr. BENTON rose and addressed the Senate as follows: In resuming my speech on this subject, I wish to say, Mr. President, that the bill now before the Senate is not the one recommended by the Pres- ident of the United States. He recommended that the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States be extended to our Oregon territory to the same extent that Great Britain had extended her so\ereignty and jurisdiction to the same country. In this recommendation I fully concur; and I ven- ture to say that, if such a bill was brought in , it might pass the Senate (leaving out unnecessary speeches) in as little time as it would require to read it three times by its title. But the bill before the Senate is not of that character. It goes far be- yond the President's recommendation. It proposes many things not found in the British act of 1821 — things implying exclusive jurisdiction and sover- eignty in us, and that to an undefined extent of country, and under circumstances which must im- mediately produce hostile collisions between our agents and the British agents on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. I am opposed to all this; but I am not in favor of the indefinite postpone- ment of the bill. I wish to see it amended and made conformable to the President's recommenda- tion. If gentlemen who have the conduct of the measure here will bring iij such an amendment, and put it on its passage without speeches, I will stoi) my speech until it is passed. Twill now proceed to show, as well as I can, the degree and extent, of our just claims beyond the Rocky Mountains. To understand what I mean to ?ay, it is neces- sary to recollect the geography of the country in question, and see it prcsencing, as it does, three disiinct geographical divisions, to each of which a dilTcrent claim and a different degree of claim at- taches, and which cannot be confounded under any one general view, without a general mystifica- tion and total confusion of the whole subject. The Coiurni)ici river and its valley is one of these divis- ions; the islands along the coast is another; Fra- zer's river and its valley (called by the British New Caledonia) is the third. Under these three divisions I now propose to speak of the country. Under these divisions I have always spoken of it; and what I have said of one part had no applica- tion to another. When I spoke of the great river of the West and its valley, either by its American name of Columbia or its Indian name of Oregon, I never intended Frazer's river and its valley, or Vancouver's Island, or the Gulf of Georgia, or Desolation Sound, or Broughton's Arch. When I speak of the coast and the islands, I do not mean the continent and the mountains; and when I speak of Frazer's river or New Caledonia, I do not mean the Columbia river. I repudiate all such loose and slovenly verbiage; and, desiring to be understood according to my words, I go on to speak of the country beyond the Rocky Mountains under the three great geographical divisions into which Nature has formed it, and to which political events have so naturally adapted themselves. I begin with the islands. , From the Straits of Fuca (in fact from Puget'a Sound) to the peninsula of Alaska — a distance of one thousand miles — there is a net-work of islands — an archipelago — some large, some small, check- ered in together, and covering the coast to the extent o*" one, two, and even three hundred miles in front of the continent. They are most of them of volcanic impression, and separated from each other and the continent by deep bays, gulfs, and straits, and by long deep chasms, to which navi- gators have given the name of canals. This long checker-board of islands, and the waters which contain them, have been the theatre of maritime discovery to many n.itions, and especially Span- ish, British, and Russian; but, except the Rus- sians, no nation made permanent settlements on any of these islands; and they only as low down as latitude 55. The British and Spaniards both aban- doned Vancouver's Island after the Nootka Sound controversy; and from that time the Spaniards had no settlement of any kind on the coast, or islands, north of Cape Mendocino, latitude 41°; and the British had none anywhere. In this state of the case the question came on between Russia, Great Britain, and the United States, in which the dis- tinction between the islands and the continent was acknowledged by all the Powers, and Russia ex- cluded from the continent, and confined to the islandc, because her discoveries and settlements were not continental, but insular. The convention with Russia (British and American) of 1824-25 were framed upon that principle ; and now I proceed to read the^instn*ctions from our Govern- ment under which this distinction between the islands and the continent was asserted and main- tained. I read from Mr. Adams's despatch to Mr. Middleton, .Tuly 22d, 1823: " It never lias lieen tulmittod, by the various European nations wliioii Imve Cornicd settltmcntsi in tl)is lieinispliere, tliat llie occupation of an island gave any claim whatever to territorial possessions on the continent to which it was ad- joining. The recognised principle has rather been the re- verse; as, by the law of nuiure, istumls must rather be consiiiered as appurtenant to continents, than continents to islands." And again, in Mr. Middleton 's communications to the Russian Government: •■ Tiie Ku.->iaii» iiiix .■ an c.-trihii.4mirnt upon the i.si.md of Sitka, in latitude 57° 30'. This fort, built in 1799, was de- stroveil three years after by the natives of the country, and re-establlshod in 1804 by Mr. Lisiariki, who called it New Arc';iaiigel. Ru-sia cannot, however, avail herself of the fireuitisiince of that po.-^ae.ssion to form a foundation for ri«h' on the cuntinciit, the usage of nations never* having estalilished that the occupation of an island could give .ights upon a neighboring continent. The principle is, rattier, that 12 Die mWs ought to be considered as appendant to the conti nenl, tlian the inverse of the propositioli." These were the instructions to our Minister, under which we treated with Russia in 1824, and CJ -ti.'''' 'conventions of that period were fnZn^" f^^'y '''\^'"^' ^^^ ^"""^ 'hat these islands m front of the northwest coast were considered a separate geographical division of the country, Gov- erned by national law applicable to island^ "and tha discoveries among them, even perfected by set tlement, gave no claims upon the continent^ Ihis IS the way the two Powers settled witii Rus- sia. Applying the same principle to themselves and no discovery of Vancouver's Island, or any one of the thousand islajids along that coast, can give any territorial claims on tl'e continent 5 have considered it a cardinal error, in all the recent discussions on Oregon, to bottom continental claims upon these insular discoveries. The Snan mrds, as so well shown in the speech of the Sena- tor from New York, [Mr. D,x,] were the prede- cessors of the British in these discoveries; but I did not understand him as claiming the continent out to the Rocky Mountains, and up to 54° 40'. bv virtue of these maritime discoveries; and I am very sure that I Imiited my own sanction of his views to the tracks of the ships which made the discov- eries. I consider Spanish discoveries alon- that coast as dominant over the Briti.c^h, both for prior- ity of date and for the spirit of ownership in which tZ "^"'^i T'^''- ^h'^ Spaniards explored as masters of the country, looking after their own extended and contiguous possessions, and to which ro limit had ever been placed: the British explored in the character of adventurers, seeking new lands in a distant region. Neither made permanent set- tlements; both abandoned; and, now, I see noth- ing, either in the value or the title of these islands, for the two nations to fight about. The principle of convenience aud mutual good will, so magnani- mously proposed by the Emperor Alexander in ItiJS, seems to me to be properly applicable to these desolate islands, chiefly valuable for harbors, which are often nothing but volcanic chasms, too deep for anchorage and too abrupt for approach. In the discussions of 1824, so for as they were not sett cd, they were considered appurtenant to the contment, instead of the continent beitie held ap- purtenant to them; and the reversal of this princi- ple, 1 apprehend, has been the great error of the I 4 recent discussions, and has led to the great mistake n relation to Frazer's river. I dismiss the nues- tion, then, as to this geographical division of the country, with saying tJiat -i,r title to these islands IS better than that of the British, but that neither is perfect for want of settlement; and that now, as proposed in ;S24, they should follow the fote of the continental divisions in front of which they lie Frazer's river and its valley, known in north- western geography as New Caledonia, is the ne^t division of the disputed country to which I shall ask the attention of the Senate. It is a river of about a thousand miles in length, (following its windings,) rising in the Rocky'Mountaiiis, o]ipo- stte the ncud of the Unjigah, or Peace river, which flows into the Frozen ocean in latitude about 70 Ihe course of this river is nearly north and south rising in latitude 55, flowing south to ne.ir latitude 4J, and along that parallel, and just north of it, to the trulf of Georgia, into which it fails behind Van- couver's Island. The upper part of this river is good for navigation; the lower half, plungin- ^ u n^ volcanic chasms in mountains of rock, is wholly unnavigable for any species of craft. This rivev was discovered by Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, was «i uled by the Northwest Company in 180G, and soon covered by their establishments from head to mouth. No American or Spaniard had ever left a track upon this river q/ its valley. Our claim to it, as far as I can see, rested wholly upon the treaty with Spain of 1819; and her claim rested wholly upon those discoveries among the i£ands the value of which, as conferring cfaims apon the continent, it has been my province to show in our negotiations with Russia in 1824. At the time that we acquired this Spanish claim to iM-azers river, it had already been discovered twenty-six years by the British; had been settled by them for twelve years; was known by a British name; and no Spaniard had evA made a track on Us banks. New Caledonia, or Western Caledo- nia, was the name which it then bore; and it so happens that an American citizen, a native of Ver- mont, respectably known to the Senators now present from that State, and who had spent twen- ty years of his life in the hyperborean regions of Northwest America, in publishing an account of his travels and sojournings in that quarter, actually publKshed a description of this New Caledonia, as a British province, at the very moment that we were getting it from Spain, and without the least suspicion that it belonged to Spain ! I speak of Mr. Daniel Harmon, whose .Journal of Nineteen Years' Residence between latitudes 47 and 58 in Northwestern America, was published at Andover, in his native State, in the year 1820, the precise year after we had purchased this New Caledonia from the Spaniards. ' I read, not from the volume Itself, which is not in the library of Congress, but from the London Quarterly Review, January No., 1822, as reprinted at Boston; article. Western Caledonia. "The descent of the P.aee river tliroiicih a deep chavm in tlie Kocky Mountains (ir.n opened a pas:;a;;e to the adventur- ers above mentioned into tlic unexploroil coiintrv heliiiul tliem, to whieh tliey !.}», and descended a larfre river 'flowins; to the southward, named Taeontehe T(s?6, which lie conceived to be the Cohimlna ; hut it is now known to eniptv itself about Birch's Bay of Vancouver, in latitude -19^ ; whereas the inoiith of the Columbia Iie^■ in 4i5» 15'. Anoilier river called tlie Caledonia, (Frazer's river.) holdiiur a paia'lei course to the Tacnutrhe Tessfi. (Coluinbia.) falls info tli- sea near the Admiralty Inlet rre(!s of latitude between It and the Coluinliia. Its northern houndarv niav he taken in latitude ."iT', clos,; to the sontlienimost of tli,' Itnssian set- tleineiits. TIk! leniith, therefori!. will be about ,V..), and the breadth, from the mountains to tlie Pacific, from yiiO to 3J0 gec-Kraphical miles, '■ Tlic whole: of this vast country is in fact so inter-^pcted \A til rivers and lakes, tiiat Mr. Harmon i|iink< <.tip.«ixth part 01 Its „airai;e may h(! considered as water. 'J'he largest of the latter yet visited is named Stuart's lake, and is sun- posed to be about 400 miles in circiimfere.ee. A od-t his lieen established on its martfin in latitud. ' 30' north, lon- ffitude li)° west. Fitly miles to the \ ,vard of this ia I'razer's lake, about eighty or ninetv i. .es in cireumier- '■nce : here, too, a post w.is establisheil in 1806. A third , of sixty or seventy inilca in circumference, has been named I t ' f i 4 13 f ^,]:uuit l'^^ ' ° '■ "'■" "•'"'•c of which a fort has bcci. built ii K. n,n '.""■."' '""""""' 124» west. The waters of Uiw lake fall into th« Peace river; those flowing out of the other two are MJi)|iosee absence of his h>li Ironi McLiod'.s lake, makes it almost eoually cer- tain that its outlet H not into that ocean. The river flowii.jr ?ul M. f '*."f ■'"'*" ?'*'""'^ ""■""Bli the populous tribes o( ho N ite-ote-tains who say that white people come up i« ;I.';'w,..,"'h' '" '™f« «■■"' "'« A-tc-nn., a nation dwel ini between them and the sea,) which wn.s fully proved by the guns, iron pots, cloth, tar, a.-id other articles found in their wil'^r'S"*'"'.*' "'"""t'V'^":' of Western Caledonia are clothed with timber trees to their very summits, coiusi.stiiig princi- pally of spriice and other kinds of fir, birch, poplar, aspen, cypress, and, ijenerally speakinir, all those which are found on the opposite side of the Rocky MommUns. The large animals common tn North America, such as bulfalo, elk, moose, rein- deer, hears, &c., are not numerous in this new territory ; mnVolf'^ '-' "VrT'^y ?f f.^'" ''««^'""' o'te"-, wolverine m.trten, foxes o( diiierent kinds, and the rest of the fur ani- mals, any more than of wolves, badgers, and polecats ; fowls, ■■'"i'.f i" »"■' .''c«-'-iPt'o»s found in North America, are pleiltitui in V\ estern Caledonia,,; cranes visit them in pro- digious numbers, iis do swans, bustards, geese, and ducks." This is the account given by Mr. Harmon of JNew Caledonia, and given of it by him at the ex- act moment that we were purchasing the Spanish title to It ! Of this Spanish title, of which the Spaniards never heard, the narrator seems to have been as profoundly ignorant as the Spaniards were themselves ; and made his description of New Cal- edonia as of a British possession, withoutany more reference to an adverse title than if he had been speaking of Canada. So much for tlie written de- scription: now let us look at the map, and see how It stands there. Here is a map— a 54° 40' map— which will show us the features of ^he country, and the names of the settlements upon it. Here is Frazer's river, running from 53° to 49°, and here IS a line of British posts upon it, from Fort Mc- Leod, at its head, to Fort Langley, at its mouth, and from Thompson's Fork, on one side, to Stu- art s Fork on the other. And here are clusters of British names, imposed by the British, visible every- where—Forts George, St. James, Simpson, Thomp- son, Frazer, McLeod, Langley, and others: rivers and lakes with the same names, and others: and here is Deserter's Creek, so named by Mackenzie, because his guide deserted iiim there in July, 1793; and here is an Indian village which he named i'liendly, because the people were the most friend- ly to strangers that he had ever seen; and here an- other called Rascals' village, so named by Macken- zie fiftv-thrce years ago, because its inhabitants were the most rascally Indians he had ever seen; and here is the representation of that famous bound- ary line 54° 40', which is supposed to be the exact boundary of American territorial rights in that quarter, and which happens to include the whole ol New Caledonia, except McLeod 's fort, and the hall of Stuart's lake, and a .spring, which is left to the British, while we take the branch which flows from It. ThL. linn t^kes all in-rivcr, lakes, torts, villages. See how it goes! Starting at the sea, it gives us, by a quarter of an inch on the map, I'ort Simpson, so named after the British governor Simpson, r.i.d founded by the Hudson bay Coinpany Uj .o . i what principle we take this British fort I know uot— except it be on the as- sumption that our sacred right and title being ad- justed to a minute, by the aid of these 40 minutes, so appositely determined by the Emperor Paul's charter to a fur company in 1799, to be on thij straight line, tlie bud example of even a slight devi- ation from it at the start should not be allowed even to spare a British fort away up at Point Mclntyre, in Chatham Sound. On this principle we can un- derstand the inclusion, by a quarter of an inch on the map, of this remote and isolated British post. The cutting m two of Stuart's lake, which the line does as it runs, is quite intelligible: it must be on the principle stated in one of the fifty-four-forty papers, that Great Britain should not have one drop of our water; therefore we divide the lake, each taking their own share of its drops. The fate of the two forts, McLeod and St. James, so near to each other and sc far off from us, united all their lives, and now so unexpectedly divided from each other by this line, is less comprehensible; and I cannot account for the difference of their fates, un- less It IS upon the law of the day of judgment, when, of two men in the field, one shall be taken and the other left, and no man be able to 'tell the reason why. All the rest of the inclusions of Brit- ish establishments which the line makes, Vrom head to mouth of Frazer's river, are intelligible enough: they turn upon the principle of all or none !— upon the principle that every acre and every inch, every grain of sand, drop of water, and blade of grass in all Oregon, up to fifty -four forty, is ours ! and have it we will. This is the country which geography and history five-and-twenty years ago called New Caledonia, and treated as a British possession ; and it is the country which an organized party among ourselves of the present day call " the whole of Oregon or none," and every inch of which they say belongs to us. Well, let us proceed a little further with the documents of 1823, and see what the men of that day— President Monroe and his Cabinet— the men who had made the treaty witb Spain by which we became the masters of this large domain: let us proceed a little further, and see what they thought of our title up to fifty-four forty. I read from the same document of 1823: M: Mams to Mr. Middleton, July 22, 1823. "The right of the United States, from the forty-second to the forty-smth parallel of latitude on the Pacific ocean we consider as unquestionable, being founded, first, on the acquisition by the treaty of 92d February, 1819, of all the rights of Spain ; second, by the discovery of the Columbia river, first from the sea at its mouth, and then by land by Lewis and Clarke ; and, third, by the settlement at its mouth ill 1811. This territory is to the United States of an im- portance which no possession in North America can he of to any European nation, not only as it is but the continuity of their posfwsions from the Atlantic to the Pacific occaii, but as It offers their inhabitants the means of establishing Hereafter water communications from the one to the other." FoRTV-NiNE, Mr. President, forty-nine ! To THAT LINE, AND TliAT FOUR YEARS AFTER THE ACQUISITION OF THE SpANISH CLAIM, WAS OUR UN- questionable right held to extend; fifty-one was the highest df.natable line named a>;n that named on a principle known to be erro- neous, and ready to be given up. Again: Mr. Mam to Mr. Rush. Same date. " ny the treaty of amity, settlement, and limits, between the TTnited istates and Spain, of 22d February, 1819, tlie boundary line between Uieiu was fixed at the forty-second degree oi ialitudc, from tiio source of tiic iVrkansas river to 14 \ Die Sou'h sea. By which treaty the United States acquired nil the rights of Simiii uith ofthiit pariillel. "Tlic right of ihr l.nitcd Stales to the Columbia river, and to the interior territory washed hy its waters, rests upon its discovery from the eea and nomination l)y a citizen of the United States ; upon its exploration to the sea, made by Captains Lewis and Clarke ; upon tlie settlement of Astoria, made under tint protection of the United States, and thus restored to them in 1818; and upon this subsequent acqui- sition of all the riulits of Spain, the only European Power who, prior to the discovery of the river, had any pretensions to territorial rights on the northwest coast of America. " The w.iters of the Columbia river extend, by the Mult- nomah, to the 42d degree of latitude, where its source ap- proaches within a few miles of those of the Platte and Ar- kansas ; and by Clarke's river to the 50th or .'ilst degree of latitude ; thence descending, southward, till its sources almost inters^ect those of the Missouri." " To the territory thus watered, and immediately con- tiguous to the original possessions of the United States, as first bounded on the Mississippi, they consider their right to be now established by all the principles which have ever been applied to European settlements upon the American hemisphere." This is an extract of great value, and is an am- plification and development of the principle laid dov/n iji the extract just read. It recites the Span- ish treaty of 1819, and claims nothing under it be- yond the, Columbia and its valley. To this our title is alleged to be complete, on American grounds, independent of the treaty, namely, discovery, set- tlement, and colonization by Mr. Astor, untler the protection of the United States: Again: Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush. Same despatch. " If the British Northwest and Hudson Bay Companies have any posts on the roast, as stiggestid in tlie article in the Quarterly Review above cited, tli'^ tliiid article of the con- vention of the 2i)th of October, 1818, is applicable to tliem. Mr. Middletoii is authorized to propose an article of similar iniiiurt, 10 be inserted in a joint convention between the United States, Great Britain, and Eiissia, for a term of ten years from its signature. You are authorized t/( mi.ke tlie same proposal to the British Government ; and, with a view to draw a definite line of demarcation for the future, to stip- ulate that no settlement shall hereafter he made on the northwest coast, Qr on any of the islands thereto aJjoin- iiiij, by Russian subjects, south of latitude 55; by citizens of the United States north of latitude 51 ; or hy British subjects either south of 51 or north of 55. " I mention the latitude of 51, as tlie hound within which we are willing to limit the fulure settleiTiciit of the United States, because it is not to l)e doubted that the Coliiinhia river branclK-s .as far north as51,aItliougli it is most probably not the Taeoneschee Tessd of Alackeiizie. As, however, the line already runs in latitude 49 to the Stony Mountains, should it be earnestly insisted upon by Great Britaiii,*ve will eon- ser." to carry it in continuance, on the same parallel, to the sea. Copies of tills instruction will likewise bo forwarded to Mr. iMiddletim, willi whom you will freely but cautiout-ly correspond on this subject, as well as in regard to your ne- gotiation respecting the suppression of the slave trade." Four things must strike the attention in this ex- tract: 1. The offer of a partnership to the Emperor Alex-aiider, which he wisely refused. 2. The of- fer of the same to Great Britain, which she saga- ciously aicppted. 3. The offer of 55° to Great Britain as her permanent northern boundary. 4. Tite offer of 51° to her as a permanent southern boundary, and its offer on a principle not valid, vdth the aUernativo to fall back upon the line of 49'^. The British, who know all this, and a great deal more, must be astonished at our fifty-four- forty war fever of to-day ! Again: Mr. Rush to Mr. Mams. '< London, Dceemhcr 22, 1893. "In an interview I had with Mr. Canning last week, I made kucwu to him, as.preparatory to the negotiation, tlie views of our Government relative to the northwest coast of America. These, as you know, are : "First. That, as regards the country westward of thft Rocky Mountains, the three Powers, viz: Great Britain, the United States, and Russia, should jointly agroe to a conven- tion, to be in force ten years, similar hi its nature to the thira article of the convention of October, 1818, now sub- sisting between the two former Powers; and secondly, that the United States would stipulate not to make iny settle- ments on tliat coadt north of the fifty first degree of latitude, provided Great Britain would stiiiulate not to make any south of 51° or north of 55''; and Russia not to make any Houth of .55°. "Mr. Canning expressed no opinion on the above propo- sitions fuither than to hint, under his first impressions, strong objections to the one which foos to limit Great Brit- ain northwards to 55°. His object in wisliing to learn from me our propositions .at this point cf time, was, as I under- stood, that he might better write to Sir Charles Bagot on the whole subject to which tliey relate." Again: Same to same, December 19, 1823. " And secondly,, that the United Sftites were willing to stipulate to make no settlements north of the 51st degree of north latitude on that coiist, provided Great Britain stipulated to make none souih of .")1° or north of 35"; and Russia to make none south of 55°." ^ > • Again: Same to same, same date. "That they (the United States) were willing, however, waiviu!^ for tlu; pnvsont the full advantage of these claims, to forbear all settlements north of51,as that limit niisl't be suf- ficient to give lliein the benefit of nil the waters of the Co- lumbia river; hut that they would e.v|)ect Great Britain to abstain from coming soutli of that limit or going above .55 ; the latter parallel being taken as th.at iieyond wiiich it was not imagined that she had any actual settlements." On Friday, Mr. President, I read one passage from the documents of 1823, to let you see that fitly- four forty (for that is the true reading of fifty- five) had been offered to Great Britain tor her north- ern boundary: to-day I read you six passaoes from tlie same documents, to show the same thin?. And let me remark once more — the remark will bear eternal repetition — these offers were made by the men who had acquired the Spanish title to Ore- gon ! and who must be presumed to know as much about it as those wiiose acquaintance with Oregon dates from the epoch of the Baltimore Convention — whose love for it dates from the era of its pro- mulgation as a party watchword — whose knowl- edge of it extends to the luminous pages of Mr. Greenhow's book! Six times Mr. Monroe and his Cabinet renounced Frazer's river and its valley, and left it to tiie Brit- ish ! They did so on the intelligible principle that the British had discovered it, and settled it, and were in the actual possession of it when we got the Spanish claim; which claim Spain never made! Upon this principle. New Caledonia was left to the British in 1823. Upon what jirinciple is it clainned now ? This is what Mr. Monroe and his Cabinet thought of our title to the whole of Oregon or none, in the year 1823. They took neither branch of this prop- osition. They did not go for all or none, but for some ! They took some, and left some; and they divided by a line right in itself, and convenient in itself, and mutually Mutable to each party. This President and his Cabinet carry their " unquestiim- able right" to Oregon as far as 49, and no further. This is exactly what was done six years before. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush offered the same line, as being a continuation of the line of Utrecht, (de- scribing it by that name in their despatch of Octo- 4 1« 4 This ber 20th, 1818) and an covering the valley of the Columbia river, to which they alleged our title to be indisputable. Mr. Jefferson had offered the same line in 1807. All these offers leave Frazer's river and its valley to the British, because they dis- covered and settled it. All these offers hold on to the Columbia river and its valley, because we dis- covered and settled it; and all these offers let the principle of contiguity or continuity work equally on the British as on the American side of the line of Utrecht. This is what the statesmen did who made the acquisition of the Spanish claim to Oregon in 1819. In four years afterwards they had freely offered all north of 49 to Great Britain; and no one ever thought of arraigning them for it. Most of these statesmen have gone through fiery trials since, and been fiercely assailed on all the deeds of tiieir lives; but I never heard of one of them bejng called to account, much less lose an election, for the part he acted in otrering 49 to Great Britain in 1823, or at any other time. For my part, I thought they were right then, and I think so now; I was Sena- tor then, as I am now. I thought with them that New Caledonia belonged to the British; and think- ing so still, and acting upon the first half of the great maxim — Ask nothing but whdt is right— I shall not ask them for it, much less fight them for it now. I come now to the third geographical division of the contested country, purposely reserved for the last, because it furnishes the subject for the appli- cation of the second half of the great maxim: Sub- mit to nothing that is wrong. I come to the river Columbia, and its vast and magnificent valley. I once made a description of it, with an anathema .gainst its alienation. I described it by metes and bounds — by marks and features — and then wrote its name in its face. The fifty-four forties got hold of my description — rubbed out the name — oblit- erated the features — expanded the boundaries — took in New Caledonia, and all the rivers, lakes, bays, sounds, islands, valleys, forts, and settle- ments, all the way up to 54 40 ! and then turned my own anathema against myself, because tkeir minds could not apply words to things. Well ! I take no offence at this. There are some people too simple to get angry with. All we do with them in the West is, to have them " cut for the sim- ples;" after which they are cured. They can per- form this operation for themselves, or have it done. If by themselves, all they have to do is lub their eyes, and read again: if by others, the operator must read, and caution the listening patient to stick the word to the thing. The valley of the Columbia is ours: ours by discovery, by settlement, and by the treaty of Utrecht! and has too often been so admitted by TJreat Britain, to af'.rv' • t of her disputing it now. I do not plead our tii'^ , rhat greai country. I did tliat twenty years ago, .vhen there were few to re- peat or applaud what I said. I pass over the ground which I trod so long ago, and which has been .again so much trodden of late, and take up the question at a fresh place— the admissions of Great Britain ! and show that she is concluded by her own acts and words from ever setting up any claim to the river and valley of the Columbia, or to any part of the territory south of the 49th degree. I begin witli Mr. Astor's settlement on the Co- lumbia, and rest upon it as a corner-stone in this new edifice of argument against Great Britain. What was that settlement? Not a mere trading post, for temporary traffic, down in a corner, and without the knowtedge of nations or the sanc- tion of his own Government. On the contrary, it was the foundation of a colony, and the occupa- tion of the whole valley of the Columbia, and the establishment of a commercial emporium, of which the mouth of the i-iver was the seat, and the Rocky Mountains on one hand and Eastern Asia on the other were the outposts. Gre..£ Britain saw it without objection — the United States with appro- bation; and every circumstance which proclaimed and legitimated a national undertaking signalized and commemorated its commencement, existence, and overthrow. It was in the year 1810 — four years after the re- turn of Lewis and Clarke's expedition — that Mr. Astor, witli the enlarged and comprehensive views of a " merchant prince," projected from the western shore of the Atlantic this great establishment on the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean. A ship commanded by an officer of the United States navy, ft-eighted with everything necessary for the foundation of a colony, sailed from New York to double Cape Horn : an overland expedition of ninety men, led by a gentleman of New .Jersey, proceeded from St. Lovris to cross the Rocky Mountains. In the spring of 1811 the two expe- ditions met at the mouth of the Columbia, and im- mediately, proceeded to fulfil the intentions of the bold projector of the enterprise. Astoria was founded: its dependant post, the Okenakan, was established six hundred miles up the river: the Spokan, another dependant, was established two liundred miles higher up, and at the base of the rnountains: a third, the'Wahlamath, was estab- lished upon the river of that name, two hundred and fifty miles southeast of Astoria.. Parties of traders and hunters covered all the wate.s of the Columbia river from head to i-'outh; fleets of bat- teaus, carrying up merchandi; •• • Two years passed off in this way; Great britain made no objection; her agent, the Northwest Company agreed to our occupation of the whole valley; and acquiescence, v..ider these circum- stances, becomes an admission of American title which forever closes the mouth of Great »"tain. In this manner the Columbia was settled l)y Mr. Astor; in this manner it was held by him for two years. Now for the manner in which it fell into the hands of Great Britain. Two years had elapsed from the time of the foundation of Astoria, when intelligence arrived at that place with the news of war between the United States and Great Britain, and information of a departure of a ship ot war from London to join the souadron under Commodore Hillyar, in the Pacific Ocean, and proceed to capture Astoria as an important Amer- ican colony. At the same time several partners of the Northwest Company arrived at Astona, con- firmed the information of the British designs on the post, and offered to purchase all the stock on hanLgoods ajid furs, of Mr. Astor, as the only means of preventing them from becoming a prize to a British squadron. The agents of Mr. Astoi sold under this duress, receiving the fourth or fifth part of what the property was worth, boon after a ship of war from Commodore HiUyar s squadron arrived, took possession of the post with- out opposition, but with all the formahtici of a British conquest, and with great chagrin to the officers at the loss of their expected booty. 1 his ia the manner in which the British got possession of Astoria, and with it the whole valley o. the Columbia. As a British conquest they took i ; as such they agreed to restore it under the treaty ot Ghent. Aifd thus, at the settlement of Astona, and the occupation of! the whole valley of the Co- lumbia, the British Government, by us SI ent acquiescence, admitted our uncixmlwnuok right to it By seizing it as a British conquest, they ad- m'itted our right again. By agreeing to i^store it under the treaty of Ghent, they admit ed it a tl iid time-three times in five years; and this ought to be enou-h, in all conscience, to preclude present claims, founded on previous stale and vague pre- *^ Norfor the proof of all that I have said. I happen to have in my possession the bool , ot all others, which gives the fullest and most authen- ?k de a Is on all the points I have mentioned, and wriuen at a time and under circumstances when Te au"hor (himself a British «ub,<.<^t and fom^l a on the Columbia). had no more '<1<^^ 'J^^a^^h/g;'.. ish would lay claim to hat river fan Mr. Hai^^ Kgh'f^uSSiiliKwCaiedonia. Itisthe work of Mr. Franchere, a gentleman of Montreal, with whom I have the pleasure to be personally acquainted, and one of those employed by M^^ A^or in founding his colony. He was at tne founding of Astorfa; at the sale to the Northwest Company- saw the place seized as a British con- quXS remained three years afterwards in the country , in the service of the Northwest Company. He wrote in French: his work has not bc^n done into English, though it well deserves it, and I read from the French text. He first gives a bnef and true account of the discovery of the Columbia. He says: " In 1792, Cantnin Grny. cniiimnrding the ship Columhia, of Uo.t..n, di.srov«rea the .■iitranco of a lar^'o Lay in 46 de- cr.M's 19 ininruw of north latitiid.-. II«' <;»t'-'-'- !, ; " ^^I ins, hv the fri'sh water wliieii he found at a lillle ■"t™- ant, Brou.;htou, who ascended ti.e river 118 miles ; took possessiorfofitin the name of his B"t»"'"f,3«^iy,i. f,'";« nossession or ii in iiie iiuiui; "■ ■■><■ — •■- ----j •-.... t it the name of Columbia, and to the ba.v;^wherc (Japtain (, ay ad St pped the name of Gray's Bay. Since this period he country lm8 been much frequented, especially by Au.c/i- cans." „ This brief and plain account of the discovery ot the Columbia is valuable for showing— jirsf, that we discovered the river; se«on(Z/y, that we.showed it to British navigators; and, Mrdbj, that one ot those to v/hom we showed it immediately claimed it as British property. We shall soon see that tlie British Government, or its agents in these parts, the Northwest Company, gave no attention to this claim of Mr. Broughton, go little creditable to his candor and justice. Vancouver, like a man ot honor, never claimed Captain Gray's discovery, but assigned to hhn the entire credit of it, with thanks for his communication of it to himselt. The design of Mr. Astor 's establishment is thus spoken of: »Mr. John Jacob Astor, mc't'^^nt "f New York who carried on alone the trade in furs to the south of the great La'ies Huron and Superior, an.l wlio had aeqnircd by this eommerceaprodiKious fortune, believed he could >^!t au?- me t ttStune by formi..«,on the hanks of theColumb a, an establishment, of which *^''"t'-eif ,,f^'™'^„f^%f J,*^ mouth. He communicated Ins views to the agents ol Uie Northwest Company; he wished even to make this estab- Usl , ent n co^leert with them ; but after sonu. "<'?"'?,» the winterini; partners (le^ yrotrniUtircs twcrnmM liav ng refected his propositions, Mr Astor determined to make the attempt alone. It was essential to his »"<^''e^«/''at he sho Id have persons lorn,- accustomed to trade with the In- di^ sad he did not delay to find them. Mr. A exander McKav, (the same who had accompanied Sir Alexander M icken/ e in his voyages,) a man bold and enterprising, foined hi n a d, soonSif'ter, Messrs. Duncan McDm.ga , n na d Maeken/.i^e, (heretofore in the service of the No tli- west Cmitpan ', hkvid Stuart, and Robert Stuart, all of Canrta did the same. Finally, in the winter of 1810, mr. W son Price Hunt, of St. Louis', on the Mississippi, having aVoToi'ic'l themllb'ey determined toat the expediUon should take place the fbllowing spring." This shows a direct communication of Mr. As- tor's design to the Northwest Company, tor's uesign lo uic j.- Ax. Astor was about to trespass upon 17 llicm. This, then, was the time to speak: on the contrary, the comjmnion of Mackenzie goes on to assist in laying the foundation of the American colony on the Columbia! Mr. Franchere proceeds: " fl is well to state that, during our Hojoiirii in New York, and hilore leaviiis timt city, Mi. M-'Kaj h.lieved it would 1)6 prudent to sen Mr. Jackson, the Afinistcr Pleninotunliarv of Ins nntannic Majesty, in order to inform him ottlieohicct tor whicli he was about to embark, and to ask his advicij as ti> what he should do in case of a ru()ture between the two Powers, inlinintinj? to iiini that we were all British subjects and that we were goini? to trade under tlie American Ha-. After some momenis' reflection, Mr. Jackson said to him, ' .,"" -^"i!'' V" ?"'"8 '" '"'■'" " "i<-'rcaritile establishment at - the ri k of our lues ; that all he could promise U8 was, that, ' in case of a war between the two Powers, we should be re- <8[)ected as British subjects and traders.' Tiiis answer nn- peared .satisfactory, and Mr. McKay believed he had nothiiiij more to fear from that (juarter." ' This was in the year 1810— seventeen years after the discoveries of M.ickenzie, and eight years alter Mr. Broughton took possession of the Co- lumhia in the name of his Britannic Majesty; and at this time, the Minister of Great Britain, on a special communication made to liim of Mr. Astor's design to occupy the Columbia, has not a word to sity against it. Up to that time, it had not occur- red to the British Government that the Columbia river was then-a ! The ship Tonquin, carrying the maritime part ot the expedition, arrived at the mouth of the Co- lumbia March 25th, 1811. The approach t) the coast revealed nothing but lofty ranges of moun- tains, white with snow, through a gap of which the great river of the West entered the sea. The weather was bad— the night dark-two boats had been swamped— no pilots, lights, or buoys-yet tiie captain (a rash man, who afterwards blew up his ship at Nootka) entered safely, and anchored at mulnight in a commodious harbor. On the 12th of April, after examining both sides of the bay for the best situation, a site was chosen on the south aide about four or five leagues from the sea, and the foundation of Astoria began— a name in itself the badge of American title. On the liUh of July, the young Astoria received an important visit, Wiuch IS thus described: t„",lu}\^^iZ^^^ "} ""' •'"•■ »I'P"i"t<-'''. nor an expedition to the inteiior,) and we were prejiaring to load the canoe< when towards midday, we saw a lar?e canoe, carry °g a &/ Iv,' :r' n'»"'''"'!t>>« P'i»t called by US Ton.le not ook o inn™ l^""™'^ "■"" ""'J' '"*S'" ^^'- '■"' we did not look so soon for our pooide, who (as the reader may ri nt i,''Ve«7" '", 7r', "r T"""""^ ''V 'I'" '"•"« «l' id, (.aiUin.-, Lewis and Clarke had followed in 180.5, anrt iviiiter f..r this purpose on the banks of the Missouri. Ouruncer tamty was soon banislied by the nei.rins of the canoe, wliieli anded near a little quay which we had built to fi.cilitatc the unloading of our v^-ssel. The flag which this canoe earned was the British flag; aiidher crewamouiited foonlv nine persons in all. A man, .piite w.dl dressed, and who appeared to command, leaped first to the shore, and Mceost- jng us without ceremony, tc^ld us that he was named David cllnlll^uT' ^^r "'"•• °V^' "■•■'l"-'P'-"Pnctois of the Northwest Company. He invited him to ascend to our lodging, which IZIVZ ""' ?' tl"'^''"'!. our house not yet being rinished. ^a 1 er ''■,;'! ""^''""""e-S Mr. Thompson told Ss that he e f H^^Mn n , '■"";'"■ "t ^^'l^S the precediiig winter ; but ^i'„ r . r. "f"."' :• ',""■' """" "»"» had obliged him to winter at t!ie font ot the mountains near the head of the C(Mimbia river ; that in the spring he had built a canoe and had come to our establislm„,.nt. He added that the propr"- tors wintcrin. n them hud resolved toahand,)ndi the posts winch hey had west of the mountains, rathert la e tc n to competition with us, on condition that we would ponii^^ not to trouble tliem in tUc Uade ou the easiernside; imd S sustain what ho Raid he produced a letter to Mr. Wi'Mnm McOrtlivr-iy to the same efTeot. " Mr. Thompson kept, as it seemed to me, a regular jour- nal, and travelled ratfier as a geographer than a trader in furs : he had a good quadrant ; and during a sojourn of eioht days, which he made at our establishment, he liad occasion to make s-everal ustronomica: observations." This was a visit of great moment in the history of Astoria, and in the consideration of the British claim to the Columbia, which has lately been brought forward. Mr. Thompson was one of the Northwest Company, its astronomer, a gentleman of science and character, to whom we are greatly indebted for fixing important geographical posi- tions in the interior of North America. He had crossed the continent from Montreal simultaneously with Mr. Astor's land expedition from St. Louis, but in a higher latitude, and arrived a few days be- fore It. He came to the Columbia to give the in- formation to Mr. Astor's agents that the North- west Company, to avoid competition with them, would abandon all their establishments west of the Mountains, provided Mr. Astor would not in- terfere with them on the east. This proposal was agreed to. The valley of the Columbia was left to the free enjoyment of the Americans; and the ex- tension of posts to the mountains went on without question according to the original intention. The Northwest Company, at that time, no more than tlie hntish Government, had happened yet to take It into Its head that the Columbia river, or any part of It, was British property, Mr. Astor's agents proceeded to the establish- ment of interior posts, and the dispatch of parties to hunt and trade up the Columbia to the moun- tains. The Okanakan, about six hundred miles up, on the north side of the river, and at the mouth o the riyrr of that name, was the most consider- able, and was remark-able for being the nearest to the British establishments in New Caledonia; for by that name the valley and district of Frazer''=< river was then known; and that was ten years be- fore Mr. Harmon pubhshed his book. The Spo- kan, two hundred miles higher up, and on the south side, w^as established at the same time The post on the Wahlamath, two hundred and hfty miles southeast from Astoria, was estabHshed the next year; and of all these establishments Mr 1' ranchere gives a particular account, which it is not necessary to read here. The country was, at the same time, completely penetrated by parties of tradcns and hunters, up to the head-waters of Clark s river, and of Lewis's river, and into the Kocky Mountains. Two years everythino had gone on without interruption, when two events oc- curreo, in communicating which I will use Mr Franchero's own words ." Ti t- .)th of J.inuary, 1813, Mr. Mackenzie arrived from his estaldishment, whicli he had abandoned after having cacAWapar of his effects. He came to announce to uf Un t«7s ;;lt"' T. "'"''"'^ ""Tr" •■^«"' Britain Ld the vni, • f '^ "?''■* ''"'' ''^<='' '"'ought to his post by some gentlemen bidoiigimr to the Northwest Company, who lion mi!ut''rtbct "'''"''"'''"'' '"'-■ ^'^'^•^"""''« i'rwiWa- " On learning this news we strongly desired, that is, nil of T.C '^"^"n" "',"" \'"^'^ '^"S"^'' ""'• t^anadians, to see our- selves in Canada; but we could not even perm t ourselves to think ot it,atleastatpresent-we were 8eparM,.d from our country by an immense space, and the dilheuitiea of U-avel were insurmountable at this season. We held then a sort of council of war, and, after having thoroughly weigh ed Uie crisis m >,'liicU we found ourselves, after having con- 18 gidcreil BonouBly thnt nltliougli we were nlmoat nil BrltiHh HUlilects, wc n<;vi'rt!ic!i,'Hs trailed umliT th" Amorimin fliig, and timl wu could not expect a«sistiiiicc, all the ports ot llio United 8lntesliciiii,'pr'e to the English commerce, especially among the whalers which frequented these seas, he resolved to go and hiid hliii and give battle ; giving to Captain Black orders to go and destroy the American establishment of the Columbia river. Conseiniently, Mr. McDonald and his men had embarked on the Itackoon. Tliis gentleman told us tlint they had endured the most terrible weather in doubling Cape Horn. He thought that if the Isaac Todd bad not slackened at some spot it would arrive in the river within a fortnight. At tlio agreed signal. Mr. McTavish returned to Astoria with hw furs, and learned with much pleasure tlie arrival of Mr. iMc- Dnnald. " The fim of December, the barge of the corvette can.c to the fort Astoria with McDonald, and the first lieufenaiit, named Sheriff. As there were on the Rackoon goods for tiie Northwest Company, a boat was sent to Baker's Bay to brill" them to the fort; but the weather was so bad and the wind so violent, that she did not return till the 12tli with the goods, bringing also witii Captain Black five marines and four sailors. " We regaled our hosts with .as much splendor as was possible. Alter dinner the Captain had firearms given to the company's servants ; and we repaired, thus armed, to a plat- form by which had been erected a dag-stntf. There tlic Captain took a British flag, which he bad brought for the purpose, and bad it hoisted to the top of the stall ; and then taking a bottle full of Madeira, he broke il on the start', de- cl.ariii" in a loud voice that he took possession of the estab- lishiiient and the country in the name of his British Majesty ; and lie changed the name of Astoria to that of Fort George. The Indian chiefs had been assembled to witness tliis cere- iiioiiy, and I explained to them in their own language what it meant. They fired three discharges of artillery and niuske'. Phot, and the health of the King was drank according to the received customs in such cases. . « The vessel finding itself detained by contrary winds, the Captain had an exact survey made of the mouth of the river and the channel between Baker's Bay and ton George. The officers came frc(|iiently to see us, and ap- peared to mo generally to be very much discontented with ' their voyage; they had evpected to meet several American 19 Vi'-idftlg loiulcd Willi rich fiirfi, and had oulciil.it'id hpfnnlwind (MnirNhiirr in thi: tikini; (irAstorin. 'I'huy hnd iiint inithiiik, and tlii'ir u>t(iiii'ihiiiriil wax ill ilH liL'i).dil wlit/ii Miry siiw iiiir •■MtiililHhiiii'iit hiid been triiiiiCcrri'd to thn Nurthwoi-l Ooin- puiiy, iind wiL>i under tho nritiiih Hiu;> It will Ix; tmllicii'iit lu i|iiiiti! Ciiptiiiii itliirk'8 ex|ir(!i4Kloii tn hIiow how iiiiirh llicy \v«r(! iiiistski'ii Willi reniird to un, This ('Hiitiiiii laiiiliil III Ih*^ ii'Klit; wlioii wi! showed liiiii llii; iiiili-adcH ol' the Cftiililishinciit in tlu^ moriiinfi, he naked it' there was nut iinotlicr fort; nnd hir'liig leiimt there wiih nut, liu erieil oin, with nil air of the (jri-atest ii^tonisliineiit, ' VVlmt! i^ this the lort represented to me as foniiidnhle ? (JondtJod! I could liatt'r it down with ii tixir plunder in two hoiirri.' "The Krenler part (d' the I'aeidr Piir Ooinpaiiy's BPrvntifs rngagod theniHelvoH lo the Northwest (.'oiii))ariy. Home others pret'rrred retiiriiini? to their coiiiitry,Hnd I wasnrtioiiK the latter. Nevertheli-Hs, Mr. MeTavisli haviiii; intiiimted to mo that my sorvici's would he needed nt the establisli- iiieiit, I enifnyed myself for the npnee of five iiioiiths, tliul is tosay.nMtil the sottliiB out of the party wliirh was to nsoi-iid the river in the sprinu, to yo lo Canada, hy way of the ttocky Mountains luul the rivers of the interior. Messrs. John Stuart and Mackenzie lell at the end of the iiioiith, the last to deliver over to the first the tradiiii; i>o\Ih which had hecn estahli!!licd in the interior by the before-inciitioiied company." This is the way 'he British ^ot possession of the Columbia — as a con(|iie8t — accom|wnif'd by all the circumstances of a national act. The Lords of the Admiralty in London, charged with the naval operations of the war, plan the expedition, and plan it against the colony of Mr. Astor, and against It as an important American colony. They des- patch a ship of war from London to join a squad- ron in the Pacific to attack the colony. A ship from the squadron arrives; finds the goods and furs sold; is enraged at tiie loss of the booty, but finds the American sovereignty of the country re- maining in the form of a little fort; takes posses- .sion of it as a British conquest; runs up the Brit- ish flag; christens it in a bottle of rum; and agents are sent ofi" to the Okenakan, the Spokan, and Walilan'.ith, to deliver up the dependant posts, and with them the whole valley of the Columbia: as a conquest the British took it; as a conquest they held it; as a conquest they agreed to restore it under the Ghent treaty. And here I will answer a question which has been put to me: Does tlie right of restoration extend to the whole valley of the Columbia river, or only to the post at the mouth of the river.' I answer, the whole valley; and, to parley about anything less is to sufler our- >?elves to be bamboozled and disgraced. \ here cease my readings from Mr. Francherc, .-satisfied that, upon his testimony, I have made out the fullest and most authentic case of unqualified British admissions, by acts, of our title to the Columbia. To these admissions by acts I will now udd admis.sions by words. For it so happens that nt the Ume of the negotiations of 18:23, at the time we were offering fifty-five to the British foranorlh- t-rn boundary, and fifty-one for a southern, the ))arallel of forty-nine was the most southern one to which her claims extended. This was under.stood and agreed upon by both parties in 1818, 1820, and 1823; and here is the evidence of it in documents of unimpeachable authority. I read first from Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush, July 22d, 1823: '• Previous to the re^toration of the settlement nt the mouth of the Cohiiiibia river in 1818, and agRiii upon the lirst introduction in Congress of the plan for coiustitutin!; a terri- torial sovomnient there, some disposition was manifested by Sir Charles Ba^ot nnd Mr. '^annins; (Minister at VVash- jiiaton) to dispute the ri^h' lo United Stat(!3 to that <>-t.iWishinent,aiid some va;;;., .niaiiou wasgivcii of Biit- i>ih claims on tl;e northwest con-t. The lOiioration of t!in place, and the eonvenlion of 1818, vvcrrc(ii.,.idercd ns n flniil disposal of y.T. IliiKol's iibjeeii>>iis; and Mr. ('aiiiiiiif( de- clined coiiiiiiittiiig In paper Uiohc which he had intiiniued in conversation." Two dates and a great fact arc here mentioned, with l)otli of which 1 was contemporary, and, my writings of the time will prove, not an inattentive observer. The nominal restoration of the Colum- bia, which was, in fact, an empty ceremony, and the non-execution of the Ghent treaty, in favor of the west, as it had happened before in the non-ex- ecution of treaties, which required British western posts to be given un. That is one date. The in- troduction of Dr. Floyd's Oregon bill in the House of Representatives, in 1820- '21, is another of those dates, and of which i know something. The great fact is, and my speech of 1824 will show tnat I knew something of that, is the vi\gue intim«tion of British claims to the Columbia at that time, the re- fusal of the Minister to write them down, and their utter and entire abandonment ! This was done expressly by Mr. Canning, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to Mr. Rush, in London, in 1823, of which Mr. Rush's despatch of the I'Jth January, 1824, bears witness. Here it is: " rt was an omission in nie )int to liave stntcd in my com- munication of the 6th instant what are to be the claims of (Jicat Britain on the northwest coast of America, though as yet Mr. Canning has not made tlioni known lo me formally. She will claiii', [ under-taiid, to a point northwards ubovo .55, thoiu?h how much above it I am not now able to say, and southwards as low down as 49. Whether she designs to piifh ft claim to the whole of this space with earnestness, I am also unable as yet to say, but wait the more full and ac- eur.ite disclo^^re of her views." Thus, ov the 19th day of January, in the YEAR 1824, the parallel of forty-nine was the furthest south to which the British Minis- ter, Mr. Canning — a Minister of head, and of FORTY years' experience IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS PR0P0,r of settling upon ?iome line, I go on to give my reasons in favor of that of forty-nine. It is tlie line which parts, more suitably than a line following their high lands could do it, the val- leys of the Columbia and of Frnzcr's river, saving to us all our discoveries and settlements beyond the Rocky Mountains, and leoving to the British the wIioIp of ' -)ira. It is a continuation of the line on this side of the mountains— a line which happens to conform to the geographical features of the continent on this side of the mountains, and equally so on the other. On this side, it pnrts the two systems of waters, one of which belongs to the valley of the Mississippi, and the other to the basin of Hudson's Bay; on the other side, it parts the system of waters which belong to the valley of the Columbia from thost which belong to Frazer's river, cutting ofl' the heads of a few streams, of about equarvahie on each hand. It is the line of Utrecht— a line which will now be denied but by few— and to which few nothing more on this point will ever be said by me. It is the Hne of right, resulting from the treaty of Utrecht; and as such always looked to, in the early stages of this con- troversy, both by British and American statesmen,, as the ultimate line of settlement and boundary between the countries. It is the Hne of right, re- sulting from the said treaty of Utrecht, up to which Mr. Adams, in his despatch to Mr. Middle- ton, of July 19, 18-J3, alleged an " unquestionable title" to extend; for only upon that treaty could a lino of " unquestionable title" be averred. On any other basis, it could only be a line of convention — a conventioi5al line of mutual agreement; and Mr. Adams was not a man to confound two things so diirerent in their nature. It is the best line for us; for it gives ua nil the waters of Puget's Sound and Bellingham's Bay— I do not say the Straits of Fuca, (for those straits, Hke a:ll the other great straits in the world, are part of the high seas, and incapable of self-appropriation by any nation;) it gives us these waters, and with them the pictur- esque and fertile squr.re, of more than ti hundred miles every way, lying between the iStiails ol Fuca and the Columbia, and between the Pacific coast and the Cascade range of mountains, and of which Mount Olympus, near the centre, is the crowning ornament, and from which the whole district de- rives its classic name of Olympic. ^ 21 1 1 All thm the line of the treaty of Utrecht cfivcB UH, Wliic.h tlu; lino of tlic viiltuy of the Coluinliiu would not; for timt river has no vulley nt its mouth, and enters the seti through iv gap in tho iron-bound coiiNt. The viillny of that river is a fun expund- rd, the spreading part in the Rocky MounUiinN, the Imndlc in the sea. It la the best line for the iJriiish, for it gives thcni the upper part of the north fork of the Columbifi, where it heads oppo- site the Atiuibasca and Saskutcliiwine— Hrilish rivers, and covered by British posts — and from ull which the valiey of Frazer'n river would be cut off from cominuniciition if the head of the Columbia remained in our hatids, just as IIi«liftix was cut off from Q,uebrc by the northern waters of the St. John's. Thus, the line of right— the line of Utrecht — is the best for both parliea, giving to each what is convenient and necessary to it, (for the trian;;lc at the head of the Colum- bia is as necessary to them us the Olympic square is to us,) and taking from each a detached dis- trict, of little value except for annoyance. The British cuuld annoy us in the Olympic district; we could annoy them at the head of the Columbia ; but why do it, except upon the principle of laying eggs to hatch future disputes? upon the Maehiavcl- iiui principle of depositmg the seeds of a new con- testation while as.suming to settle the mischiefs of an old one? Forty-nine is the line which Mr. Jefferson proposed in 1807, us I have shown here- tofore to the Senate. It is the line of which Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush said in 1818: "The forly-niiilli [Mr. Cach ii'iddcd a.ssent.) I can tell him wiiat he iinH done amins: he lian taken the BritiHli fur-truderH* Hide of the line of Utrecht. And as for the editor of the Times, if he wishes lijSfht on the Buhject, I can refer him to aiuhentic sources of in- formation juNt at his hand, namely: the Kinj;'.s map, with the Utrecht line upon it, u.s well ns the Maine boundary line upon it, (all written in the old King's own hand,) whiih ho marvellou.sly dis- upjjeared from the Korei^jn Otfne at the time of the ABlihurton treaty; and ulso to the thin quarto, with rededge8,printed at theeornerof St. Martin's Lnne, CharingCro.sM, London, anno Domini MDCCLII I, prepared by Thomas Jeffreys, Esq., Geographer to the Prince of Wales, and nitended for the inslruc- tion of the hcir-npnarenl to the dominions whose boundaries he was defining to him. Upon Jenkin- son'B principle, the Times editor should confe.s.s, after seeing tliis map of George the Third, and this geography, in which that king studied the bound- aries of his dominions. This bit of rubbish being removed from my path, I now go on with my subject. "The value of the country— I mean the Columbia river and its valley — (1 must rejieat the limitation every time, lesc 1 be carried up to .')4'^ 40') — has been questioned on this Hoor and elsewhere. It has been supposed to be of little value—hardly worth the pos.session, much less the acquisition; and treated rather as a burden to I)e got rid of, than ns a benefit to be preserved. This is a great error, and one that only prevails on this side of the water: the British know better; and if they held the tithe of our title, they would fight the world for what we depreciate. It is not n worthless country, but one of immense value, and that under many aspects, and will be occupied by others, to our in- jury and annoyance, if not by ourselves for our own benefit and protection. Forty years ago it was written by HumljoUlt, that the banks of the Columbia presented the only situation on the north- west coast of America fit for the residence of a civ- ilized people. Experience has confirmed the truth of this wise remark. All tlie rest of the coast, from the Straits of Fuca out to New Archangel, (and nothing but a fur trading jiost there,) remains a va- cam waste, abandoned since the quarrel of Nootka Sound, and become the derelict of nations. The Columbia only invii .s a possessor; and for that possession, sagacious British diplomacy has been long weaving Its web. T* is not a worthless jtos- session; but valuubie uu .ei many and large as- pects; to the consideratic.:' f some; uf which I now proceed. , • , , . j It is vaUuiiik , botli as u r-untry to :>(: iriiutoitea, and as a jx)sition to b,; 'ield and defended. I speak of it, first, as a position, commanding the North Pacific ocean, and overlooking the eastern coast of Asia. The North Pacific is a rich sea, and is already the seat of a great > ommerce: British, French, American, Russian, and ships of other nations, frequent it. Our whaling ships cover it: our ships of war go there lo protect our ininrejl; and, great ns that interest now is, it is only the he ginning. Futurity will ilevelop nn immense, and various, commerce on that sea, of which the far greater part will he American. T!n\t commerce, neither ni the merchant «hi|>s which carry it on, nor in the military marine which proteclM it, can find a port, to call its own, within twenty thousaml miles of the field of its operations. The doul)le length of the two Amoncan has lo be run— a stormy and tempestuous cape to be doubled — to find it.scif in a jiort of its own country: whde lure lies one in the very edge of its field, ours by right, ready for use, and ttm|de for every jiurpose of re- fuge and repair, pn>tcction and domination. Can we turn our back upon it? and, in turning the back, deliver it up to the British? Insane, and suicidal would be the fatal act! To May nothing: of the daily want of such a port in time of pence, its want, in time of war, becomes ruinous. Commodore Porter has often told mc that, with protection from batteries in the mouth of the C<)!un>l)ia, he never would have put himself in a condition to be attacked under the weak, or collusive guns of a neutral port. He has told me that, with such a port for the nsception of his prizes, he would not have sunk in the ocean, or hid in islands where it was often found, the three millions of British property captured in his three years daring and dauntless crui.se. Often has he told me, that, with such a i)ort at his hand, he would never have been driven to spill upon the waters, that oil, for want of which, as a member of tlie British Parliament said, London had burnt diirkly— had been in the dark— for a whole year. What happened to Commodore Porter and his prizes— wiiat hapi)ened to all our merchant ships, driven from the North Pacific during the war— all this to happen again, and upon a far larger scale, is but half the evil of turning our backs now upon this commanding position; for, to do so, is to deli- ver it into the hands of a Power that knows the value of positions- the four quarters of the globe, and our own coasts attest that — and has her eye on this one. Tlie very year after the renewal of the delusive convention of 1818— in the year 18-29— a master ship-carpenter was despatched from Lon- don to Fort Vancouver, to begin there the repair of vessels, and even the ci'tistruction of small on' s; a id this work has been ;.■; .>inL:_ n ever since. She resists our possessio i now' It" ve abandoi . she will retain! And h • ,^o^,(!ca walls, bristling with cannon, and issuing' from the mouth of the Columbia, will give the law to the North Pacific, permitting our ships to sneak about in time of peace— sinking, seizing, or chasing them away, m time of war. As a position, then, and if nothing but a rock, or desert point, tlie possession of the Columbia is invaluable to us; and it becomes our duty to maintain it at all hazards. Agriculturally the value of the country is great; aVid,''tn uMilnstand it in all its extent, this large country should be contemplated under its difierent divisions— the threefold natural geographical divi- sions under which it presents itself: the mai-itnne, the middle, and the mountain districts. / The maritime region— the fertile part of it— is the long valley between the Cascade and the coast ranges of mountains, extending from the head of the i 1 8t i Wnh-ltth-av»tli,n«»r th« latitude of 4a StrnitM "f Piu-ii, n«nr laiimdu 4!». I»^ tlii» val- ley lU" 'hf iior— »nmcient of itufiU to cou «litntc a rcsiH-etiihl. ^tnle, anil now the sfiU of the , British coinmeniul nnd niiiiinry pout of Vancou- ver, and of tlioir great (Urniing ealul)li.slimeut of NiH'iually. . . ^ 1 T!ic middle distrirt, from tlie Cascade rnnp;e to nonr llic base of the KocUy Mountain«, is tlio re- gion called, desert, and which, in the inm^'iniUiona of many, has given character to the whole coun- try. In some respects it is a desert— barren ot wood— sprinkled with sandy plains— melancholy under the sombre nspcct of the gloom/ artemisia —and di'sohile from volcanic rocks, thi-oiigli the chasms of which plunge the headlong Htreams. But this desert has its redeeming points— much wa- ter— grass— many oases— mountains capped with snow" to refresh the air, the land, and the eye- blooming valleys— a clear sky, pure air, and a su- preme salubrity. It is the home of the horse ! found there wild in all the perfection of his first nature- beautiful and fleet— fiery and docile— patient, en- during, and affectionate. General Clark has told me that, of the one hundred and seventy horses which he ond Lewis obtained in this district, he lind never seen the match in any equal number; and he had seen the finest which the sporting course, or the warlike parade, had exhibited in Virginia. It is the home of that horse— the horse of Persia— which gallops his eighty miles a day-- swimming the rivers as he comes to them- finds his own food at night, the hoof scraping awny the snow when it hides the grass- gallojis his eighty miles again the next day; and so on through a long and healthy life; carrying his master in the chase, or the fight, circumventing the game, and pursuing the foe, with the intelligence of reason and the fidelity of friendship. General Clark has infornti- ed me that it was necessary to keep a scout ahead, to drive away the elk and buffalo, at the sight of which all their horses immediately formed for the chase, the loo.se ones dashing off to surround and circumvent the game. The old hunters also have told me their marvellous stories about these horses, nnd that in war and hunting they had more sense than people, and as mucir courage, and loved it as well. Tlie country that produces such horses, must also produce men, and cattle, and all the in- ferior animals; and must have many beneficent attributes to redeem it from the stigma of desola- tion. . . The mountain division has its own peculiar fea- tures, and many of them as useful as picturesque At the bose of the mountains, a long, broad, and lii^h bench is seen — three hundred miles long, fifty mHes wide — the deposite of abraded mouiUains of sn.iw iiitd verdure throuirh thousands of years. Lewis and Clark thus describe this great bencii ol land, which they twice crossed in their expedition to and from the Pacific ocean: cvere.l with » growth of tall, long I. nf.'.l pIno. Tl.i« pl»l U chlnly liitcrriiixeil iieiir the Nlrcniii« «l water, wilt r>- tli« |,ll|< nrciiw,. nml lolly; l.ui ih" -oil U k.mmI. ii'l.iu iinen- eiunlMirnd liy ni'ieli -ton.-, lunl \»,o*>'»,% m«ti' tiinl.rr H at Ui" lev.'l c.Minlrv. Itii.ler -hell-r of tliem. I.lllj tli- l«.ltom ! ,;iH .kirt ll.o marah. of t.ie riverj., rui.l U.ou.h »""mv »ml iMiiilliieil, lire Htm fertile nml rnrely l.iiiii.lut.'.l. N.-nrly lh« wl '..t'tt.l«wl.le.pren,l tru.t In .ovcre.l willn. proluj .m of Vii.- iiM.1 l-laiit-, wl.lcl. .ire M Ihf. lime (M;iy) ni hijti w ,|„. k„..... Ap u tlie-.' are ii vi.rl,.|ynf .«ei.lmit p i lU md „u) nciillr.,! without inuel, 'I""''" !>'' .""^i *'"''!'*„ r „„h ?> ..II rieioim, tmt a very m .liLHooil. 'lie "' »-""-, n liln.ll.e eliin.ite .|.llt« w inll.l. If not inll.l'r, lh« ' •< " ,v'p;r.ill.'l....f l.itilii.lei.i llie AtliiMil.' Ht|U.H,.n.l mii^t b„ «.,d..llv I.eiilthy, for .III ll.e .lUor.ler- which w„ »;«v« w i- .1 ■■.-.'.t ...;u fiilrlv .0 li.ipute.l iii'ir.' to Uie imture of the ilirt I, . .. ',iu^ nitenipermiee of .llomte. ThU «'•""'"' "b-^'': v,.ti..n Is .if eournt. to l,B(|HnlilleJt llrt > 'IHVH, will t the fliot ot he ;,„'intai,.. till. M.ow. ,.re Mill '-'''"y ' v*'' '' '';t''iiZl'o- within twenty niii.'x .)f o.ir eiinip w ..iwi.rve the riuorn ot w e ".l.l,tluM-ool,,ir..f sprinit,.m.l ll.e oppr.-.i ve h.jrtl of ni.Uiiiii. i.T. Kvei. on the pl.Un-. how-ver, where U.e "ii.Iw 11.1" mil,-.., it H,...|,.. to .10 hut little injury to the «ra.« null other pliiiiH, whieh. th..ii«h iipp.ir.-.itly ten.h'f "'"' f"^' c'l tihli^, ur.- Ht.ll t Mi.inu, lit the h.'lKht ot iieiuly .■IkM'.!. I,,'.. J hro««li the nnow. In nhort, thU .1 «triot altof.l. , V ».lv.iutu«es to netth'rH, nn.l If proper y cullivnted. woul.1 .vi.il.l every ol.j.„t luioesmiry for Uie HuhaiBtciic! and coinrirt of .'ivili/.e.l miin." '•The country along the Uoeky Mountains, for several hundred iiiile.s in length aii.l about fifty wid.-, is a Inah level plain ; in all its parU extromcly fertile, and in iiuuiy places Other, and smaller benches of the same character, are frequently s.'cn, inviting the farmer t.i make his healthy habitation and fertile field upon it. Entering the gorges of the mountains, and a suc- cession of everything is found which is seen m the ahiinc regions of Switzerland, glaciers only ex- cepted. Magnificent mountain scenery— lakes- gassy valleys— snow-.iapped mountains— clear streams and fountains— coves and parks— hot and warm springs— mineral waters of many varieties- salt in the solid and fiuid state- salt lakes, and even hot salt springs— wood, coal, and mm. bucli are the Rocky MounUiins in the Ion"; and broad section from the head of the Rio Grande del Norte, of the sunny S.)uth, to the head of the Athabasca, of the Frozen ocean. This ample, rich, and ele- vated mountain region is deemed, by those unac- quainted with the Farthest West, to be, and to be forever, the desolate and frozen dominion of the wild beast and the savage. On the contrary, I view it as the future seat of population anil power, where man is to appear in all the moral, intellect- ual, and physical endowments which ennoble the mountain race, and where liberty, independence, and love of virtue, are to make their last stand on earth. , , ■ , Thus, agriculturally, and as producing the means of human subsistence— as sustaiiiins); a ponulalion, and supnlying the elements of wealth and power, as derived from the surface and the bowels of the earth— I l.>ok upon the n^gion drained by the wa- ters of the Columbia as one of the valuable divis- ions of the North American continent. No reason to undervalue it on the score of com- merce. But this branch of her advantages are attacked through annthev channe!--in the sup- posed unfitness of the mouth of the Columbia for the purposes of a port, commercial or naval. An expedition of our own (Captain Wilkes) has fos- tered this opinion; but fortunately ^rnishes the correction to its own error. The narrative of the 24 expedition condnmns tlic port: the chart that ac- companies it, proves it to be good. Tliis chart was constructed upon the seventy days' labor of llircfi young gentlemen, midshipmen in the expe- dition, whose numerous soundings siiow the dili- gence r.nd the accuracy of their work — their names, Knox, Reynolds, and Blair. I read what was written in the narrative : it differed from all that I had read beiore. 1 examin ' the chart: it ap- peared to me to present a fine harbor. But, being no nautical man, I put n, faith in my own opin- ions, u:; 1 had recourse to others. AFr. James Blair, one of the three midshipmen who had sur- veyed the port, was in this city, son of my friend Francis P. Blair. I talked with him. His an- swers were satisfictory. I addressed him written queries. He ans\ cred them; and his answers, supported by facts and reasons, placed the harbor above that of New York. But a New York pilot was in the city — Mr. John Maginn — for eighteen years a pilot there, and that upon an apprentice- ship of ten years, and now tlie President of the New York Association of Pilots, and their agent to attend to the pilot bill before Congress; he was here, and made my acquaintance. I asked him to compare the charts of the two harbors. New York and the mouth of the Columbia, and give his opin- ion in writing, detailed and reasoned, of their re- spective merits. He did so: and these answers pldce the port of the Columbia far above that of New York in every particular, without exception, which constitutes a good harbor. In depth of water and in width of channel — in directness of channels, one being exactly straight, the other with an elbow only — in the form and character of the bar, which is narrow, with a hard sand bot- tom, and gently ivloping to the shores — in readi- ness of access to the sea, being in the very edge of the ocean — in freedom from ice in winter and great heats in summer — in steadiness of winds and cur- rents — in freedom from shelters outside of the har- bor, where enemies' shi[is or fleets in time of war, can hide, and lie in wait for returning or outgoing vessels — in number, ex'cut, and safety of anchor- ing places, sufficient for any number and any class of vessels, immediately within the harbor — in de- fensibility, bein'j, from the narrowness of the mouth and the high points wlii^h overlook it, sus- ceptible of aijsolute defence. And in this respect, tiie mouth of the Columbia stands out pre-emi- nently distinguished over all the rivers of the At- lantic, and most of those of the world. No seven mouths, like the Nile, or three like the Mississip- pi — no broad outlets thro'jgh lov/ .'ands and marshes — no wide expanse of water at its mouth, but a bay within, large eno\igh to hold ten thou- sand vessels, a narrow gate to enter the sea, and promontories on each side to receive batteries to defend it. In short, in a state of nature, witliout pilots, light-house?!, buoys, beacons, steam tow- boats, an excellent port: witli these advantages, superior to New York for every -rssnl, from the mcrc''aiH service to the ship-of-the-line. Such is the ha; oor at the mouth of the Columbia, which has been undervalued for several reasons; among others, to find an argument for going to 54° 40' to search for harbors in tiie depths of volcanic chasms, often too deep for anchorage, too abrupt for ap- firoacli, and alway.s sealed in stcril lands to wliich geography has attached the name of Desolation. Like the other disadvan ages attributed to the Co- lumbia, that of the harbor at the mouth of the river vanishes at the touch of examination ! not only vani'i'hes, but turns out to be one of its great and positive superiorities, i would read the statements of Midshipman Blair, and the pilot, Mr. Maginn, but find them too long fi)r a place in a speech: they will appear in an .-ippondix. All the capaci- ties of this harbor are well known to the British. Often have their Government vessels surveyed it — three times that I knciw of, and never with a dis- paraging report. But wh)' argue? While I speak, the work is going on. Vessels have been entering the port since 17i)2— a period of fifty-six years — without pilots, 1 ,-;hts, buoys, beacons, steam tow- boats: witliout any of the aids which the skill and power of civilization gives to a port. They are entering it now; and, counting from its first dis- covery, there is not a day in the year, nor an liour in the day, or in the night, in which they have not entered it, and entered it safely. A few have been wrecked, and very few; the great mass have en- tered safely, and this in a state of nature. What will it be, then, v/hen aided like the established ports of the civilized world.' The carrying trade between eastern Asia and western America will be another of the advantages belonging to the Columbia. It is the only position between the Isthmus of Darien and Behring's Straits on which a naval power can exist. Mexico has no timber, few ports, and none of the elements of ship building. The Lower California is the same. Northern California, with the Bay of San Francisco, and the magnificent timber of the Sierra Nevada, is now shown, by the discoveries of Cap- tain Fremont, to be geographically ai)|)urteimnt to the Columbia, J in time must obey its destiny. The Columbia river is the scat of a great naval pre- eminence: magnificent timber — the whole tidewater region of the Viver, ISO miles in length — fit for a continuous ship-yard — sup[)lied with everything from above — secure against the possibility of hostile approach from below. North of the Straits of Fuca, it is a continued volcanic desolation, where ships will hardly go, much less be built. During three hundred years, it has remained, and stu. re- mains, the derelict of naiions. Russian fur-traders alone have seated themselves upon some of its hyperborean islands. There is no seat for a naval power on the western coast of North America, ex- cept on the Columbia. The Asiatics have no taste for the sea; they never seek the great or^ m. The people on the Columbia, then, will be tlie carriers, almost exclusii'cly, between eastern Asia, and its myriad of islands, on one side, and all Mexico, Caiilornia, a)Kl jNiM-tliwcst America, on the other; and rich will be the profits of sucli carrying. I set it d(Avn as another of the great advantages of the Columbia. The grasses of the country, indigenous os they are, and in the wild stale, are named by Captain Frciuont as among its natural advantages, smtrces of national and individual wealth, and the means of changing the mode of military operations, by dispcnsiiig with the heavy C(nmni.ssuriat of Euro- pean armies. Horses for the men to ride on, and cattle for them to feed on, would both find their supjiort in these grasses, and pen\iit the most rapid 25 of i I nnd extended movements of mounted gun men, cavalry, and liorse artillery. He says: " RcCfrrinu tn my journal for jmrticiilar (Inscriptions, nnd for sectiotiiil lioundarles between ijockI and Imd distriets, I i-an only say, in general and comparative teriris, tliat, in ihat branch of aariculture wbicli implies the cultivation of grains and staple crops, it would be inferior to the Atlantic Slates, tliouiili many parts are superior tor wheat; while, in the rearing of flocks and herds, it would claim a lilch place. Its grazins; capabilities are great; and even in the indigenous grass now there, an element of national and individual wealth may be found. In fact, the valuable grasses begin within one hundred and fifly miles of the Missouri frontier, and extend to the Pacific ocean. East of the Itocky Moun- tains, it is the short curly grass, on which the bullalo delights to feed, (Whence its name of buftalo,) and which is still good when dry and apparently dead. West of those mountains, it is a lariier growth, in clusters, and lieiiei' called bunch grass, and which has a second or fall growth. Plains and mountains both exhibit them ; and I have seen good pas- turage at an elevation of ten thousand fet't. In this spon- taneous product, the trading or travelling caravans can find subsistence for their animals; and, in military operations, any number of cavalry maybe in 111 I If 28 to India will be 'established by the people, if not by the government. The rich commerce of the East will find a new route to the New World, fol- lowed by the wealth and power which has always attended it; and this will be another of the advan- tages resulting from the occupation of the Colum- bia. And now, Mr. President, this is the exact reason why the British want the Columbia. They want it a's the indispensable link in their own projected North American route to India. This is shown in McKenzie's history of his voyages of discov- ery in 1789 and 1793. On both occasions he was seeking a river line of communication between Hudsoli 's Bay and the Pacific. In the first voyage he followed the Unjigah, or Peace river, bearing northwest through the Great Slave Lake and the Great Bear Lake, and after two thousand miles of navigation, found himself at the Frozen Ocean, north, or rather east of Behring's Straits. That was too far north to answer any purpose. In the year 1793, he sat out again to find a more southern river to the Pacific. Oil both voyages he sat out from the same point — Fort Chipewyan, on the Athaba- ca Lake. Instead of descending the Unjigah, he now ascended it — went up to its head in the Rocky Mountains— passed through a low gap— found a stream flowing west, (Fvazcr's river,) and fol- lowed it from its source in 55° of north latitude, down to 52°. Finding it to bear south, and be- coming a large river, McKenzie believed it to be the Columbia, already discovered by Gray, and thereupon left it, and crossed over direct to the Pacific ocean, which he reached some distance north of Vancouver's Island. This voyage, like out law to guide them. So it has been already with this Columbia. In 1792, a private individual of Boston discovered this river: he revealed its ex- istence to the world: government took no notice of his splendid revelation. In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned from the Columbia : government sent no troop« there to oc( ; py and retain the do- main which they had na;ionalized. The seat of a future empire lay a derelict on the coast of its rich and tranquil sea. An individaal administered upon the vacant domain. A man of head — Mr. John Jacob Astor — sent a colony there. During two years his batteaux, carrying up goods, and bring- ing down furs, traversed cve.vy water of the Co- lumbia; his ships visited Canton, New Archangel, the coasts of California, the Sandwich and the Po- lynesian islands. Astoria was in communication with the commercial world. The name of the young TvuE — future queen of the New World — was known to nations. Then came the acts of government to baulk, delay, defer the great com- mencement. I do not mean the war — that was a brief and necessary event — but I speaK of the acts of government after the war. The commissioners did their duty at Ghent: all posts, places, territo- ries, taken from the United States during the war, were, by the first article of that treaty, to be re- stored. The posts or places of Astoria, the Oka- nag-an, the Spo-kan, the Wah-lah-math, and the wjiole territory of the Columbia river and its valley, came under the terms of the treaty, and were bound to be restored. The fate of the restoration of all western posts attended the posts on the Columbia. After the peace of 1783, the northwestern posts were retained: British traders, backed by their, . . ,. • ^ -■ - government, retained them: the Indian wars of 1 the other, had failed in its object: it found no navi- 1791-3-4, were the fruit of that retention; and the | gable British river leading to the Pacific. And tlien war of 1812 found one of its roots in the same j a new idea struck the disappointed explorer, which o^use. This was the fate of western posts after | he gave to the country, and impressed upon the the war of the Revolution. After the war of 1812, i British government, eight years afterwards, m his a far worse flite awaited the western posts on the 1 History of the Fur Trade. That work, pubhshea Columbia. A fictitious restoration of one post was j in Loudon in the year 1801, after lamenting that transacted— to be a-.-ompaiiied, inthe very moment a Northwest Passage could "ot '\e io>'"'^/\li;^V'f^ of the transaction, by the surrender of the whole country to the British. I say the surrender of the whole; for nothing less was, or could be, the effei-t of a joint-use possession between the weak and the strong; between the scattered and dispersed Amer- ican traders, abandoned by their government, aiid the organized British companies, su theirs ! A quarter of a century the B held the Columbia, the government doing nothing. Four vcaivs ago the people began to move. They j , ^ , at t.- • ! crossed the Rocky Mountains; they have gone ernment. Here is the extract from McKenzie s down into the tidewater region of the Columbia. ' History, whmh very coolly i-ccommends all this Without the aid of government, they are recover- ' policy, as if the taking an Amcncan river, and ino- what government lost, and renewing the phe- ! making the Americans disappear from it, was as nomenon of mere iudivi.luals exploring the bounds ' justifialile an operation as that of catchmg a beaver, of distant lands, and laying the foundation of dis- , and killing him for his skin. Here is the propo- tant empires. Thequestion of American coloniza- ; sitiou of McKenzie, earnestly pressed upon his tion of the Columbia is settled ! The people have ' government: settled it; thev are now there, and will stay there. | " Tlu- Russians, who fim disoovored that, alongtl- ; coasts fcKuieu 11, iiicy «■<-"'. " , -^ r " i „(• A-^ia. no u-i'tu! nr rpniilnr !i;ivi!r!ition cxisli'd. nponod !in The trade with India will begin. It no mure Ju.ui ;;;t;:;j,7„,„„„u„i,,aion 1.^ Ion:,- Jacob Astors shall arise to commence the trai'c | .„„j wiilj-extondod cdntmuiit, to tlie stniii thai separatijs upon a great scale, it will proceed upon a small i Asm from America, over vvlii(;ll they passed t.) the Ameri- daring that the Columbia was the only line of interior communication with the Pacific ocean, i)oldly proposed to take it ! on no other ground than that it was indispensable to the commercial communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pa- cific, and no obstacle in the way, but American pporle'd by ' adventurers, who would instantly disappear from Irilish have ' before a well-regulated trade ! that is to say, be- fore the power of the British fur-trading com- panies, backed by the power of the British gov- 'V- 29 ample nrnportion, fliis natmmil nilvantiigB, and secure the , triule or that eimutry to iU ur< •ndiirioa west of tlie Rocky Mountuiiif, upon tln^ liiusis of a joint oeenpatioa hy the citixeiiB of lliu United Stntes nnd suliJectJi of Great Kritaiii, of Uie conntrv eliiiined byeneh Power. " Risolncd, That it is expedient for the Government of the Uniti'd Hmtes to treat with his liritannie Majesty in refer- ence to said claims andlioiindaries, upon the basis of a sejn aration of interests, and the establishment of the 49th degree of north lalitudt; us a perinaaent boundary between them, in tlie shortest possible time." These resolutions were offered in secret session, as it was proper to offer them, but have long since been made public, with other proceedings on the ratification of the renewed joint-occupation convention in 1828. They are known to the lead- ers, if not to the followers of the fifty-four-forties, and would be appealed to by all who would wish to rejiresent my opinions as they are, and not aa they are not ! I have no personal interest in this matter. After long delay I have spoken publicly (for my opin- ions were never a secret) what my duty to my country required at my hands, and according to the knowledge which thirty years' study of the suliject has given to me. I have been fighting the battle of Oregon for thirty years, and when it had but few friends, though now entirely eclipsed by the new converts. 1 am where I always have been, and rejoice to see thequQSlion coming to the conclusion which I have always tleemed the right one. For my justification in making head against so much error,! throw myself upon the equity and intelligence of my countrymen; and, never having had any fear for myself, I now have none for my country. Mr. BENTON then moved to recommit the bill to the Committee on Territories, amended on the motion of- his colleague, [Mr. Atchison,] to recommit to the Judiciary Committee, with in- structions to report as follows: That the bill be rcenmmiUed to the Committee on the Ju- diiiary, with in^triietion;?— First. Ti bring in an amendment extending the jurisdic- tion and laws of the United States, civil and eriniinal, over the citizens of the United S.ates in Oregon, to the siune ex- tent lliat Great Britain extended her jurisdiction and laws over her citizens in the same territory by the act of Farlia- ineiit of July 9, 1821, and supplemental act. Secondly. To report a biit lor the fuii and perfect govern- ment of the territory, to take effect after the abrogation of the joint-usj convention, providing for the appointment of a governor, to be the militarx and civil chief of the territory, and, ex officio, superintendent of Indian afiairs ; providiug aI)JO % ; I I I 84 for ft torritorliil logi^lnruri-, nw\ for thr iidininiHtrntion of ju»- f ini th.^ ninullM.I flip C.li.iiil.iii riv.T,Hii(l (.lli.r |K.tiilH, nn.l bv "slu ' Wiii'K u < olhiclinn distfi.t unci (•UHt..iii Imun., ii. <7r..^ n n". t.M.r"Vi.l. Cnr ll... .e-..rity of ""viK;';';;';; 'V «... Tl.H l.r ndvantauLS i.. r.n.d.'ri..s tl.n c(.n....froo ol t ..> r.M ...bli" ind. p.'i.d,M.t of ICuropc ; in K.v.n» to t ..; re,mb.o t.o"om.n.i..doftho North Pacific ocj.in; >.. b.v...« o tl„ n'mihlk" 1..' .......opoly of tl..! Ka.st l..d.a trad.-hll..a o I . " onopoly 01. tl...- wealth a..d pow.-r of tl.« re|...bl.n thewealthand pow.^r of lOnglan.l; on tl..; wealth a.i.l novvc! of U..ssia; o.. th.' roli^-iouHmid pol.t.cal con.l.t.oi, ol CTeonlc of A^la-Ktfoel of thn ...ilitary .>xpfd.tio.. to th. 1 ■» r MiH°o..riin layini? op.M. the new ront.^-Rlh-ot o an X .'proaTuX.panyinlur..i..3theI.:a.f ! ' V the Russians; by the A.nericans-C.uta.n eBtal.lisl....c.;t of U e "Te™^^ i..„uediately, with the a.d of the A.ner.- cL. Go" m,ine..t, eve..tually, l.y the force of clrcuinstanccs ond the natural proj^ress of events. I Commerce xnth .^stn.— Spices, aynitiatics, pre- cious stones, porcelains, cottons, silks, and teas, are the articles of Asiatic comir.erce. Silver and eold are the articles with which they are purchased. Prom the earliest ages of the world, the precious metals have flowed into Asia; and this drain, which has been incessant for several thousantl years, hjis become still more enormous in later limes Ihe Americans alone have carried twelve mi ions to eastern Asia within the last year, eight millions of which were carried to Canton, and exchanged for tea, silk, porcelain, and cottons. This course of trade has occasioned a prodigious accumulation of the precious metals in eastern Asia; for what is car- ried there remains there, there being nothing in the commercial or political relationsof the.countnes to create a counter current, and brins it back in o Europe or America. To stop this Jrain , and sub- stitute for it a trade in barter, would be an object of the first interest with any country, especially with the United States, wluch have no mines to supply a drain so incessentand so enormous lo TLther, to create a chimge which would draw back a part of the gold and silver which has accii- mulatetf in Asia, would be a commercial operation which no nation has yd accomplished, a.id ^v hic . would open a vein of unrivallet richness Both Jf these operations arc practicable, not by the Eu- ropeans, 4ho hive nothing which they cou d sub- sSute for silver, pr by the Amencaus whdc they follow the track of the rfiople of Europe. \ ct there ai-e articlca for which the Asiatics would not only Kive llio rich productions of their country, but freely exchange their gold and silver, if brou^'hl into their market by any nation. These urlicleH are rtms and iibkad. Of the former, Lur.mo haa none to send, of the latter but little; and il she had any to spare, her geographical position, the vast distance which intervenes, would prevent its ex- portation. America, on the contrary, abounds iii both these articles— tl.e fast has been blindly aban- doned to our enemies; tiie second has not been carried to Asia, because the Americans servilely follow the track of the Europeans, and are still more remote than they from the seat of commerce. The American navigator sails to the east.ti-averses 30,000 miles of sea, doubles ii stormy and tcmiiest- uous cape, in order to arrive in what is called the East Indies. In the meantime, what was the Kast Indies to the ancients are the West Indies to the Americans; for they lie to the west of us. and but a few days' sail from our own coast. The western shore of North America and the eastern shore ot Asia front each other— the mild and tranouil waves of the Pacific ocean alone intervene— in the broad- est part as narrow as the Atlantic, and in the nar- rowest, at Behring's Straits, only thirty miles apart. Instead of going to the east, Americans ahould therefore go to the west, to arrive m Asia; and taking that route, they would mimedia cly be able to carry furs and bread into the markets of Asia, the first of which is iiow.pillaged from them by Englishmen and Russians, the latter would have to' be raised from the fertile banks of the Co- lumbia river. ^ . ,, . . II. Sowrlit after .y all naaons,--During thirty centuries the nations of the earth have flocked to Asia in search of its rich commerce. Sacred and profane history exhibit the same picture, of mer- chants loaded with gold and silver, tnxversing the deserts on camels, or the trackless sea in shms in search of the rich productions of the cast I'rom the time of theThanicians to the English of the present day, the" countries of eastern Asia have Leen the chief theatres of commercial cnterju-ise; and the nation which shared this commerce m the hi-hest degree, has acquired in all ages the hrst rank in the arts, the sciences, in national power and individual >.4alth. And such vn" F"baWy be the case to the end of the world i^a ure h.^s madebut one Asia.but one country abounding with the rich t.roductions which are found in tlic Kast Indies; and while mankind continue to love spices and aromatics, precious stones, poj-celains, fine cottons, silks tmi teas, the trade with Asia mus continue to be sought after as the brightest jewel in the diaiem of commerce. III. Jincient channels of this commerce.— I hese may be traced by the ruins of the great cities which grew up with the possession of this trade, and perished with its loss. Tyre. "Quern o/Cito." was its first emporium Tl^VommlrcT'of UiTe'ast "centered there before ,lie ..,^.ivirv of the Jews in Babylon, upwards of six hdndre'd years before the coming fj^^'^^'' (Rollin.) She traded to Arabia, Persia .and India. Her route was by the Mediterranean Sea to t e coast of Egypt, over land to the Red Sea by the 35 Isthmus of Suez, down the lied Son, nnd tlirnrc oftst l)y conHting voynfi^VM to the countries about the Gulf of Pfrsiii nnd mouths of the river Indus. The poNSPssion of this comnirrce miuhs Tyre the ricli- CHl luid the proudest rity in the universe; s;nve her the commiuid of the sens; "maik her trajfkkerii the honnrahles nf the tarlh" {Isaiah,) nnd cnal)led her iiicrciiantH to dispute with kings in the splendor of their livina; nnd the vastncos of their expenses. Nehuchudnczznr, king of Unbylon, conquered Tyre, nnd razed it to its foundations; but he did not found « rival city, and the continuance of the Indin trade imnicdiutely nistored the **(luecn of Cities" to all her former degrees of power and pre- eminence. Alexander conquered her again, found- ed a rival city on the const of Egypt, nnd Tyre became "a p'.i'.e for fishermen to dry their net«," (Ezekid.) The .Tews, in the time of David and Solomon, succeeded to the Indin trade. Their route wnsthe same whi(di the Phmnicians followed from Tyre, nnd their country became the theatre of wealth, and their kings the arbiters of surrounding nations. In the reign of Darius Hystaspes, King of Per- sia, a new route was opened with India. It lay from the borders of Persia through the Caspiiui Sen, up the river Oxus to the mountains which di- vide it from the river Indus, across thone motm- tains with the aid of the Bactrinn camel, and thence down the river Indus to the countries about its mouth, then the chief .seat of the India trnde, nnd the limit of the nncient.s in their trade to the cast. This route covered a distance of three thousand miles: six hundred on the Caspian Sea, nine hun- dred on the Oxus, two or three hundred overland crossing the mountains, and about twelve hundred on the river Indus. The foundation of Alexandria created a new em- porium, and opened a new route for the commerce of the east, chosen with so much judgment, that it continued to be followed from the time of Alexan- der the Great, upwards of 300 years before Christ, 'ill the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in the fifteenth century. This channel was along the ca- nal of Alexandria to the Nile, up the Nile to Cop- tus, thence across the desert with camels to the Red Sea, nnd thence a coasting voyage to the mouths of the Indus. The Romans, in the flour- ishing times of the republic and of the empire, derived their supplies of India goods through this channel. In the same age another channel was opened with India. It lay overland, across the desert, from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea to the river Eu- phrates, down that river to the Gulf of Persia, and thence by the usual coasting voyage to the mouths of the Indus. The distance between the sea and the Euphrates (two hundred miles) required a sta- tion between them. It was found in a grove of palm trees; a fertile spot, well watered, in the midst of sands, about midway between the sea and the river. Its mhahitants entered with ardor intc the trade of conveying comntodities from the river to the sea. As the most valuable productions of In- dia, brought up the Euphrates from the Persian Gulf, were of such small bulk as to bear the ex- pense of a long land carriage, this trade soon be- came so considerable that the opulence and power of Palmyra increaied rnpidly. (Roherlson.) It« government was best .suited to thegeniuaof a com- mercial city— REprBLicAN. {Pliny the Elder.) This spot thei '>egnn to exhibit the wonders of which commerce is cnpable. From a trading station, it l)ecnme an opulent city, the capital of a great em- pire, the seat of science and the arts, the rival of llome. Rome would bear no rival. One of the most powerful of the emperors (Aurelinn) carried the arms of the empire against the " City of Com- merce.'''' Palmyra was subdued; its trnde diverted to other channels; and the rtiins of temples arrest the admiration of the traveller on the spot which was once the seat of so much power and magnifi- cence. ( y'olney.) After the conquest of Egypt by the Mahome- dans, the people of the Roman empire were shut out tVom the port of Alexnndrin. This gave rise to tile opening of A new chnnnel for the Iruiia trade. Con.stnntinonle became its emporium. This route lay through the Black Sea to the mouth of the river Phasis; up that river and by a land car- riage of five days to the river Cyrus, down it to the Caspian Sea; acro.=;s this sen three hundred miles, to the mouth of the river Oxus; up that river nine hundied miles, to the city of Marcanda, now Samarcnnd; thence across the mountains to the countries upon the river Indus, or eastward by a journey of eighty or a hundred days, with the Bactrinn camel, through desert countries and wart- dering nations which considered the merchant ns their prey, to the western provinces of the Chinese empire, {Pliny the Elder.) This route, though long and perilous, made Constantinople the empfirium of the India trade for all Christian na- tions for several centuries after the conquest of Egypt by tlie Mahomedans, and made it the seat of 'wealth and power for many ages afler the downfall of the Roman empire., IV. .Modern c/iaurif/s.— Constantinople contin- ued 'o be the emporium of the India trade till the fifteenth century. The Venetians and Genoese engatred in it. They established trading houses in Constantinople, and rose to power nnd pre-emi- nence from the profits of this trade. Their fleets commanded the seas, nt a time when fleets were yet unknown to the rest of Europe, and the citi- zen.^ of these republics displayed a magnificence in their living which surf)assed the state of the great- est monarchs beyond the Alps, {Robertson.) From Venice and Genoa the commerce of Asia spread into the north of Europe. Bruges and Antwerp became its cmporin, and retain to thi? day evident signs of the wealth and splondor to which they attained. This was the longest and most perilous route over which the commerce of India has been conducted. It is truly astonishing to think of it. From Bruges and Antwerp to Genoa and Venice, thence to Constantinople, across the Black Sea, across the Ctispian Sea, u|i the river Oxus to Sam- arcand, the limit of Alexander's march towards the northeast of Asa: and at Samarcand it seemed tlmt the journey was only beginning, as there com- menced the voyage overland with the Bactrian camel, through desert regions and nations of rob- bers, to be continued from eighty to a hundred days to arrive in the western provinces of China, where the most valuable productions of the East 36 were llicii found. Yot an erent were the profitg of tho tnidr, ih«t, und.Tull tluiso diHiuKuiit'iL'M. tlic Cilitics of Coii«t«„ii„o|,lt., of Veniru, .uid Urn,,,, or Urugesnijd Antwerp, l.econn; llio hviUh of Itarii- JnK uiul refinom.'iit, of luxury and nm-nifi.i.n.r of inuritim,; and niilitury power, wUvn all otlirr pans of huropc wero Munk in poverty und ijjno- ranoo, darkiu'Hs and liarharisni. Towanrs the end of the l.^th eentury, the Cnpe of Good Hope was doubled. A new route w'im then opened nito India. Tiie Portn-tie.se, wii.. made :iiis discovery, hecnnio the ninstcrH of tiie liidui trade, destroyed the (lects of the Turks and Venetians which were launched upon the Red Sea to keep open the ancient channel thronirh K-ynt nnd cstahh.shed ii .•.oniniercial empire in Imlli' i'ortuga then became one of tiiu most powerful* nations by sea and land, and Lisbon the centre of iiiuropean vv<;alth and r.ommrrcc. The passage by the Cujie of Good Hope (some- times by Cai)e Horn) has since continued to be tlic route of India. The Portuguese did not Ions retain llieir monop- olies. Ihe Dutcli bucmue their competitors, and soon after their successor in the India trade. Poi- tuf,'al declined to its orii,'iiial insi:,'nificance Hoi arrive m a comury wliich is only a few dayn' sail from th.jr „wn continent. They do thin becauso the people ..( ICnrope, who can do no better, have done NO before them. In the meunli|ne the elforU or the I'.n^:hNh to discover rt northwi-st pasNa-,'o to A.sia, should convince ihcm that even the I'3uro- lirans would not submit to circumnavi-ate the KloI.e 111 their vovusje to India, if a western route could be fuiiiid throu-h, or Mn.iiifd, the northern pans ol tlie American continent. .Siill, with all Ihe daiifrcrs added to the length of the voyai,'e, IIiq La.n India trade is the richest vein of American commerce, and soonest leads to the most Hi.lendid lortunes; convincing proof of what it would be if a new route was opened, exclusively American, short, safe, cheap, and direct, and .subistitutinK u trade m barter fur the present ruinous drain of "old und silver. V. Mw route proposed, fhr the people of the United Stdten by Ihe Cotumbiu and JMissonri rhers Colum- bus was the first who conceived the idea of "oiii" Jand rose to wealth and power by sea and land «uid Amsterdam became tho imncipal mart of liurope. The English followed tho Dutch, and have sur- rassed all their predecessors in the successful pros- ecution of the India trade. A company of their merclutiits have erected an empire in India, main- teincd fleets and armies, subjugated vast empires, dethroned powerful moimrchs, disposed of kiii"-- donis and principalities as other merchants dis- pose of bales of merchandise; and with the riches thence derived, England (a spot no larger than one of odr States) has been able to contend sin"-|e- handed OMinst the combined powers of Europe to triumph over them, and to impress her policy! more or less, upon every quarter of tho globe. One other route, among the modern channels of India commerce, remains to be mentioned. It is the line followed by the Russians from the city of Moscow to the frontiers of China. By this route the Russians carry on a trade with China worth three or four millions of dollars per annum, in which the ])roductions of the respective countries are bartered against each other, almost the only instance of trade by barter which any nation has carried on with the people of tho East, but sulfi- cient to show that there are articles for which the Chinese will barter the rich productions of their country. This route is often made entirely over land, and is then upwards of six thousaiul miles in length; sometimes by the river Wolga, the Cas- pian Sea, and the river Oxus.and thence over land by the ancient route from Coiistahtino]>le, which increases the distance but relieves in some decree the labor of the voyage by substituting for a part of the way water for land carriage. Servilely following the Europeans in almost everything, t'xu people of the United States also follow them in their route to India. Tlioy quit Asia as it wrre, leave it behind them, to sail thirty thousand miles, doubling a formidable cape and braving ihc dangers of a tempestuous sea, to west to arrive at the East Indies. Hi» disccTvery of America wos owing to that idea. He was in search of a western passage to the eastern coast of Asia when he was arrested by the unexpected in- tervention of the American continent. Nor had he any idea that he had found a new world. He believed himself on the coast of India, and under that belief gave the name of Indians to the inhabi- tants; a name which they have retained ever since, although the error on which it was founded has been h)ng since exploded. (Robertson.) La Salle, founder of the French colony in the valley of the Mississip|.i--a man pronounced by Jylr. Adams to be second only to C(dumbus in the list of great discoverers— was the next who cher- ished the idea of going west to India. The French were tlien masters of the Caimdas, and were, daily extending their discoveries to the interior of North Anieri(;a. The existence of a chain of great lakes stretching westward being ascertained, he believed that an inland passage to China might be discov- ered by means of these lakes and the rivers flow- ing .Vom them to the Pacific ocean. (Sloddart.) I'ull of this idea, he left Moiuroal about the year 1()8(), in the hope of immortali/ing himself by opening to his country a new and direct rf)uto to the commerce of the East Indies. Parting from his friends eight miles above Montreal, the last word he said to them was China, and the spot re- tains tho name (La Chine) ever since. But death arrested him in the valley of the Arkansas, the fate which Columbus had so narrowly escaped, that of being assassinated by his own followers, who had not courage to follow him any further. The English, of all others the most avaricious of the India trade, also turned their views to the discovery of u western passage to Asia. A ])a3- sage round the American continent above Hud- son's Bay, was for a long time a favorite object with the Englisl) government, and still occujjies Its attention. Numerous squadrons have been ♦.tied out, and repeateilly nttcmpfed the pa-ssugc, sometimes from the northwest by Behring's Straits, sometimes by the northeast through Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits. The multiplied cflorts to discover this passage show the value which tlie English place on the discovery of a direct route to 87 Aoia. nut tliry linvo not /onfined ilifimm'lvcs to BL'ii V()ya<,'cH. Takih),' up llic iilci\ of Lu HnWv, tli(!y have ni)u;,'IiI an inland |)aHJias;(; \iy nicann of rivtr>< and lakt's. TIhn projtict wu.s t-'iitiuNtrd to Mt;Kt'nzio. Ciyifiutd to tlic northern parts of our continent, lio could otdy prosecute U\n diNcoveries nonii of the heads of the MiHsixMippinnd Miwiouri rivers, lie was confined to high luuthern lati- tudes, l)Ut Nuciu'cded in nhowinj; theexinicnce of n water connnunication, with a lew porta;;eN, from Hudson 'h Bay, ninth latituih) 5.'> to the Pacific ocean ni tlu; tn)rth latitude 4C,. The MissiNsippi, the IVii* river, the Colunil)ia, and Honie lakes, formed the means of this comnuinication, and little iisefid as it would seem to us in a latitude so hi;;h. It was deemed a discovery of f^reat moment hyThe Kn;;liMh. McKen/.ie receiveci the honor of kni^lit- ln)od for hisenterpriHc; the Urilish fur traders im- mediately began to export their furs to China by tho direct route of the Columbia, and the privilege of iiavigatin- that river for ten years has been se- cured to them by treaty. Tlie Mis.souri nljove upon the Maiulan villa"-es was yet unknown. From the niouih of tlie i\fis- sissip[)i a man of genius projected its discovery. In 17!)li the Karon de Carondelel, governor gener- al of Louisiana, planned un expedition to the source.^ of the Missouri and tiien.e to the Pacific ocean. Ile^ obtained the approbaliou of Charles n-' 1 "^' "'' ^l"^'"- ^ liljcral compensati(m was olTered by the King, and the Baron announced an additional reward of three thousand (h)llars to the persons who sliouhl first .see the great ocean. Tlie expedition was undertaken by Don Jaetiues Cla- rnorgan, an enterprising citizen of St. Louis, who prosecuted it some di.slance up the Mi.ssouri at great oxpcnse, but without accomplishing the Views of the Spanish Government. A few years after, Louisiana changed its master. The eyes of Mr. Jed'ertion, taking the direction of so many eminent men, were turned upon the Po citic ocean, and under lii.^^ auspices the labors of Lewis and Clark have deinonsirated the existence of a water eonnnunication, with a ft;w portafcs, through the heai't and centre of the Ptcpublic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The rivers Columbia, Missouri, and Ohio, form tliis line, and open a channel to Asia, short, direct, safe, cheap, and cx- clu.sively American, which invites tiie eiiteri)ri.se 01 American citizens, and promises to them a splen- did participation in thecoinnu'rceof the East. yi. I'raclimhUUy of this ruvte.—T\\o new route will consist of four j)arts: — 1. A sea voya"c across the North Pacific ocean. 2. A river iiav"i- gation 11]) the Columbia. .•}. A land carriage across the Rocky Mountains. 4. A river navigation de- scending the Missouri. 11. — HARBOR AT THE MOUTH OF THE CO- « LUMBIA. Iftti-r from f^enator nentm l„ Jama; Blair, Esq., United Slates J\'avy. Washinoton City, Mirch 30, 1846. DnAR Siii: I have understood that you were one of ihc otticers of the late Ex])loring Expedition under Captain "Wilkes, who made the survey of ihii mouth of tlic Columbia rivor; Mcisrs. Knox and Ueynolds, who are not now in thin city, lieinjj the other two; and that ymi were upwards of two monlho engaged in that work. If ho, I should BUftpone that yourself, and the two gentlemen named, inu.m winds — its defensibility against eniuuies — its prox- imity to the sea— the points, if any, outside of tho harbor to shelter, or hide an enemy's fleet block- ading the port, or waylaying its commerce — with all other information necessary to a complete knowledge of the place as n good or bad port, and as being capable or not capable of being made safer and better. I wish you to give me, if pos- sible, the full result of your experience and ol)ser- yations during the whole time you were employed in the survey, with the facts and circumstances which justify your opinions, and which I may rely on in any use which I may choose to make ot your statements. Very respectfully, sir, your friend, THOMAS H. BENTON. James Dlaih, Esq., U. S. N. James Blair lo Thomas H. Benton. WAsiiiKGTON,.'?7)n7 2, 184G. Sir: I answer your inijuiries of the 30th ultimo. I regret that neither Lieutenants Knox or Reynolds are in the cily, for information from them would be more satisfactiny to you. They are both se- nior to myself; and the first being directly cliai-ired with, and responsible for, the service, in which I cooperated, a statement from liim particularly would have been much greater authority than any- thing from me. Yet I venture to say that it would be precisely the same in import, howevei in other respects more satisfactory. Lieutenant Knox, commander of tho Flying Fish, conducted and comf.lcted tho survey witli great ability, slinring equally with Lieutenant Rey- nolds and myself the drudgery of sounding out the hnrboc, clmnnels, and !,uir. The accompanying chart will show you how fiiithfully the work wag performed — every spot in the bed of the river having its depth ascertained. The diagram will explain how easily the river may be entered by ranges of landmarks, and without the compass. The oijly difficulty in entering the J ife,. 86 harbor of the Cohimbia, is the strength of the cur- rents. They vary from five to three miles an hour, according to »he time of the tide, and differ- ing in several parts of the channel. When the water is low, and confined to the channels, the cur- rents are very strong; but as the river rises the tide sweeps in over the middle sands, and are much moderated. During the two months and a half we were en- gaged m the Flying Fish upon this survey, from Augj.ist to November, we had ample opportunity to observe the effect of all weathers upon the bar and channels. In heavy weather the bar is dan- gerous, but not more so than anv other bar, with the same depth of water and "in like situation. J <="a""els are very much protected by the north and south breakers, upon which the sea breaks, ieavmg the channels comparatively smooth, and when the sea is running highest, the more com- pletely is it broken upon these breakwaters. If the bar and channels were buoyed out, there would be no necessity for pilots. Four-and-a-half fathoms IS the least water found on the bar at any time. 1 his IS sufficient water for frigates and the larn-est merchantmen, even with a large swell runnin<'? There is as much water on this bar as through the famous Gedney Channel into the harbor of JMew York. In a state as it is now, it is far pref- erable to that on many accounts— especially on the proximity of safe anchorage to the sea, w-hich the bold shores of the river, the high land, and the heavy timber, cover from the storm. Lieutenant Knox discovered the south channel, (which renders the entrance into the river much more direct and easy,) when, upon a reconnoissance 1 J j^^?'"^ ^^ ^^ performed, he observed and con- cluded that such a vast body of water as swept between the great middle sands and the southern shore must create a deep channel. He pulled through it in a boat, and followed shortly after- wards with the schooner drawing nine feet" water. 1 his channel is a straight chute, and, takin'^ the direct course of the dead tree landmark with the remoter one on Young's Point, [Cockscomb Hill,! you enter the river on a straight line; never having Jess than four and a half fathoms water, and a width of from three-quarters to one-third of a mile. There is no difficulty in entering even against the ebb tide. If the ship has a six-knot breeze. Three knots are sufficient to keep the range on with the flood tide. 1 he wind is free for this channel to enter, when from any point of the compass west of north and south. Through the channel the tide is so strong that a small vessel can beat through it with the tide against the wind, and a large one dan back and hll through when the sea is not high. I passed in and out of the river, in the schooner and boats, from thirty to forty times, and was never in any danger, except when venturing upon the breakers or the middle sands. Lieutenant Knox would sometimes club through the south channel in a ca m, merely using his anchor to sheer from one side of (he channel to the nthrr, as the occasion required. If Sir Edward Belcher, of the English navy, knew this channel, he kept it to himself, as he did all the information he had obtained while here. This was ingratitude, unless the result of obedience to positive orders from the Admiralty; for the Peacock assisted him, when unfortunate, in the Fejee Islands, and Captain Hudson's want of information was the immediate cause of the loss of his ship; yet this disaster might have been avoii'- ed, if the precaution of feeling our way in had been adopted. , While the Peacock was going to pieces on the north breaker. Lieutenant Knox, in the schooner Flying Fish, felt his way with the lead over the bar, and was about to anchor near Cape Disap- pointment, and would easily thence have entered the river, but was ordered to sea again by signal from the Peacock. After the discoveH^ of the south channel, we used it or the north as served best for the occasion. You can see, by inspecting the accompanying chart, that the north channel (which seems to have been the only channel known, or at least used, until Knox's discovery of the south channel) has two elbows, and it is, besides, subject to strong cross t-Jes. It is, however, deeper and wider than the south channel. All things considered, I think the south channel preferable for entering, and the north for leaving the river, with the prevailing northwest sea breeze. This sea breeze generally prevails throughout the year, in all clear weather, from about eleven o'clock A. M. until sunset. There was, during the season we were on the Northwest coast, much more clear weather th^n I have ever experienced on the East coast of the United States at the same season of the year, and a milder climate at all seasons. You will perceive, by inspecting the diagram, that the Norilp.vfst sea-breeze is a leading wind in through the south, and a leading wind out through the north channel. In answer to your Inquiries of the depth of water on the bar, I reply that the mean depth is about five fathoms: in and outside of it, six and a half fathoms: distance across it, half a mile. When the current of the river combines witli the tide, the water flows out of the river five miles an hour; the current against the flood tide nearly neutralize each other. Mean rise of the tide, about six feet. The winds prevail from the north, northwest, and west, ana moderate during the summer; du- ring the win*er, f\'om west to southeast, and stormy. Temperature of the air, as mild as that of Europe, in the same latitudes, during the same seasons Security from winds as good as any harbor that I have ever been in of the same size. Its defensibility perfectly easy by those in pos- session of both the Cape and Ponit Adams. From the cape you can command the North and the Chinook channels, by a raking fire for two and a half miles, whether in approaching or receding from the cape, after passing it. Every ship is obliged to pass at the nearest point within musket shot. You have the same command of the South and Clatsop channels from Point Adams; and here ships are obliged to pass within a half to three- quarters of a mile, and may be stibjected to a raking fire in the approach and in receding, after passing. Even the tempomiy occupation of the middle sands with heavy ordnance hohts perfect control of the passage up the river. A secure har- bor may be reached in Baker's Bay, or near the ! N m Clatsop shore, within Point Adams, within three and a half miles of the open sea. Frequently, in !'*»!»«- !ti: -jusjaati. , 89 :i if twenty minutes after wcis^liing the anchor, we have been out at sea. We'" were about this time coming out wlien the squadron (the Porpoise, Ore- gon, and Flying Fish) left the river. Slioal Water Bay, to tlie northward, is the only shelter near the Columbia river, and tliat only for small vessels; for the entrance to it is shoal and intricate. The harbor of the Columbia river, as a seaport, IS inferior to none, except Newport, on the east coast of the United States, in point of security from winds, defensibility, proximity to the sea, or capa- city as a harbor for vessels of war or commerce. In the hands of a maritime Power, with all the advantages of pilots, buoys, lights, and steam tow- boats, It will be found one of the best harbors in the world. In addition to'my own experience and observa- tion, (the results of which are found in the notes of the survey, and marked on t'-e chart,) I obtained much information, confirming my opinion, from Mr. Birney, commanding at Fort George, former- ly called Astoria. I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, JAMES BLAIR, Passed Midshipman U. S. X. Hon. Thomas H. Benton, United States Senate. Mr. Maginn's statement and opinion. Mr. John M-.ginn, of the city of New York, and, since the year 1828, a regular licensed pilot in the harbor of that city, now President of the Asso- ciation of Pilots in New York, and at present in the city of Washington as the agent of the State pilots in their application to Congress, being re- quested by Senator Benton to examine the chart of the mouth of the Columbia, in the Library of Congress, as made upon surveys and soundings by officers under Captain Wilkes, and to compare the same with a chart of the harbor of New York, and to give my opinion of the comparative merits of the two harbors, do hereby state and declare — That I have made such comparison accordingly, and find that the mouth of the Columbia is the Tjet- ter harbor, and has manifest advantages over the harbor of New York, in all the essential points which constitute a good harbor. It has deeper water on the bar, having four and a half fathoms, without the addition of tide, which is tliere said to be eight feet, while the New York harbor has on the bar but four fothoms, without the addition of the tide, whicl- is six feet. The bar in the Colum- bia is half a mile across, while that of Netv York is about three quarters of a mile. The channel on the l)ar, in the mouth of the Columbia, is about six thousand feet wide at the narrowest, and twelve thousand feet at the widest, and then shoals grad- ually on each side; while the channel on the bar off Sandy Hook is but about six hundred feet and shoals rapidly. The channel across the bar is straight at the Columbia; that of New York is crooked. As soon as the bar is crossed in the Columbia two channels present themselves, one the south, or new channel, discovered by Captain Wilkes's officers, who made the soun'dings, en- tirely straight, and deep enough for ships of the Une: the other, the north, or old channel, beino- crooked, or rather forming an elbow, and deep enough for any ships after crossing the bar. Both these channels are from six to twelve thousand feet wide or more, and free from shoals; while the New York channels, after crossing the bar, are narrow and crooked, and beset with shoals, which require many changes of courses in the ship. In accessibility to the sea the Columbia is far the best, as it is immediately at the sea, and ships can get out of the sea into the harbor at once, and also get out at once into the high sea, and thus more easily elude cruisers in time of war. A great num- ber of good and safe anchorages are found in the Columbia as soon as the ship enters, and room enough for thousands of vessels, and deep enough for ships of the line. The bar and banks of the mouth of the Colum- liia are all of hard sand, and therefore not liable to shift, and being free from rocks are less danger- ous. The land on each side of the mouth of the Columbia, is high, and makes a marked opening into the sea, and confines all the water of the river to one outlet, and, therefore, would seem to be easy of defence. There seem to be no points, islands, or bays off the mouth of the Columbia to shelter enemies' cruisers while lying in wait to capture vessels going in, or coming out; while the New York harljor presents such shelter for an enemy. The winds at the mouth of the Columbia are marked regular and steady, blowing six months one way, and six months another; while the winds at New York are entirely variable, and cannot be calculated upon by the mariner for any time. The mouth of the Columbia is free from ice, and also from great heat, the temperature never falling be- low the freezing point, nor rising above the sum- mer warmth. The current of the river is said to be strong, but I cannot see that it offers any serious obstacle. The breakers on each side of the chan- nel are also represented to be very great; but with a channel so wide, and a bar so narrow, and free from rocks and shoals, these would be nothing to experienced mariners. Taking the mouth of the Columbia as it now is, in a state of nature, with- out the aid of pilots, buoys, beacons, light houses, and steam tow-boats, l" deem it a good harbor: with the aid of these advantages, I would deem it a far better harbor than New York, and capable of containing an unlimited number of ships. In fact, I have never seen so large a river, with its water ail so well enclosed by bold shores at its mouth, and making so commodious a bay, large enou"-h to hold any number of ships, and at the same time small enough to be easily defended, and where there were more anchoring and sheltering places for ships, and where they could be close up to bold shores, and be better under the protection of forts and batteries. JNO. MAGINN. Washington City, ^jml 26, 1846.