127th degree, whieh is nearly four degrees east of the head of Port- land Channel.
He speaks of trade carried on with all those Indian tribes inhabit- ing that country and of the “rivers whieh fall inte the Pacilic Ocean on this extent of coast.”
It is nanifest from his letter that he understood that ‘this extent of coast” included all those waters into which tall the considerable rivers debouched.” suchas Taku Inlet and Lyin Canal. and that he regarded these waters as part of the Pacitie Ocean,
On the basis of this letter the Duke of Wellington in the memo- randtim enclosed with lis letter of November Zs, 1822, to Mr, Canning, said:
Now we can prove that the English Northiyest Company and the Hudsows Bay Conjpany have for many years established forts and otber trading stations in a country called New Caledonia, situate to the west of a range of mountains called Rocky Mountains, and extending along the eliores of the Pacific Oeean from latitude 49° to latitude 0°,
He adds:
Thus, in opposition to the clains foumted on discovery, the priority of which, however, we conceive we might fairly dispute, we lave the iidisputable clainy of eeenpaney and tse for a series of years, which all the best writers on the laws of Nations admit is the best founded cltim to a territory of this deseription.
UObjecting aw we de to this elaim of exclusive <overvignty on the pact of Russia, fomight <ave myself the trouble of discussing the particular mode of its exercise as set forth in this Ukase, bat we object to the meade in which the sovereignty is proposed to be exercised vader this Ukasc, not less thin we do the claim of it.[1]
CLAIM OF THE UNITED STATES TO NORTHWEST COAST.
The United States likewise preferred a cliim ‘to the whole coast aus high as the ist degree.” Sir Charles Bayot, in a letter to Mr. G, Canning, of October 17. 1825. wrote:
Although Mr. Middleton has net communicated to me the instraection= which he hal received, To have collected from him, with certainty what To had long had reason to suspect, that the Cuited States, so fur frou admitting that they have no territorial pretensions so high as the fifty-first degree of north latitule and no territorial interest in the demarcation of Iamindary between THis Majesty and the Emperor of Russia to the north of that deuree, are fully prepared to assert that they have at least an equal pretension with those powers to the whole coast as high as the sixty-tirst degree, and an absolute right to be parties to any subdivision of it whieh may now be nid.[2]
