privileges to the Russian American Fur Company chartered in 1799, was likewise indefinite and had at times a tendency to advance in a menacing manner. However, soon after the conclusion of the Florida treaty, the American government began negotiations with Russia and after some delays, in 1824, a treaty of limits was secured. By this instrument it was agreed that Russian subjects would not push their activities, in trade and settlement, below the line of the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, and that American citizens should not operate to the north of that line. The next year a similar agreement was entered into between Great Britain and Russia, the boundary between the northern territories of the two nations being fixed at the same time.[1]
On many accounts it seems most unfortunate that Great Britain and the United States failed in 1818 to dispose of the Oregon Question by agreeing on the forty-ninth parallel. Had they done so, no other power would have entered to disturb the arrangement, and it would have saved the two interested nations a long and acrimonious contest. Possibly a more strenuous attitude on our part might have brought about a satisfactory solution. But our government was not prepared to act with vigour, and was unwilling also to risk a
- ↑ It was the treaty of 1825 between Russia and Great Britain which defined the boundary of Alaska on the land side, as it is today. Russia held the great peninsula west to the 141st meridian of longitude, and a coast strip thirty miles wide extending to latitude 54°40".
