advance. He referred as in former speeches to the commercial advantages of the Columbia; and warned congress of the loss with which the country was threatened through the occupancy of Great Britain, citing a fact, as he believed, of much significance, that an act of parliament of 1821 had extended the civil jurisdiction of the courts of Upper Canada, "within the Indian territories and other parts of America, not within the limits of Upper or Lower Canada, or of any civil governments of the United States; "including in this description not only the territory west of Canada, and north of latitude 49°, but all of the territory of the United States not yet erected into territorial organizations. "This insolent and outrageous act," exclaimed Floyd, "we ought promptly and efficiently to resist and repel."[1] A citizen of the United States, west of Arkansas, he said, under this act might be taken to Upper Canada, and tried for his life. The country ought not for a moment to submit to it. "If England has not yet learned to respect the sovereignty and rights of the confederacy, she must be taught that lesson; and, sir, it must and shall be taught her; and that, too, at no distant day, in a way which she will not easily forget." The remainder of Floyd's speech was devoted to an exposition of the profits of the fur trade, and to strictures on the tariff regulations, which prevented the American from realizing the same benefits enjoyed by the British trader, who introduced his goods free of duty, and sold them at an advance of more than a hundred per cent, while the American trader, selling at the same price, made no profit at all;[2] and to the importance of the mouth of the Columbia as a naval station, either for the protection of commerce, or in case of war as a port from
- ↑ Congressional Debates, 1828-9, v. 193.
- ↑ This difference operated in two ways against the American traders, as they found to their cost. Either they must sell inferior goods at the price asked by the English traders, or they must consent to sell without profit, either course being ruinous to their business, as the natives soon learned to know good articles, and to carry their furs where they brought the most.
