202 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE coast which were outside the admitted boundaries of other nations. 29 Rush might have put the case much more strongly had he been able to examine the instructions which George Canning gave the British commissioners on 31 May, which outlined what was to be the policy of his country on this point for the next twenty-two years. Rush had at this time again brought up the Oregon question, after it had rested some months, and had formally submitted a proposition containing the extreme demands of his government. 30 He proposed that the terms of the Convention of 1818 should be continued in force for a period longer than ten years, with the understand- ing that "no settlement (should) be made on the Northwest Coast of America, or any of the islands thereunto adjoining, by the citizens of the United States, north of the fifty-first degree of north latitude, or by British subjects either south of the fifty-first or north of the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude." To this proposition the British commissioners, Huskisson and Addington (Stratford Canning later took Addington's place in the conference) were directed to present the strongest opposition of His Majesty's Government. While the British cabinet was willing to take up the question, although the Con- vention still had four years to run, the terms offered were "little calculated to satisfy the claims of Great Britain, even when those are reduced within the narrowest compass pre- scribed by the honour and just Interests of the Country." 31 The claims of the United States were as extravagant as those of Russia, and, although the article purported to be temporary, it would in reality be determinative of the region to be held by each. "By engaging to abstain from making settlements to the south of the 51st Degree of Latitude, while the United States remain unfettered by any such engagement, it is clear that Great Britain would virtually surrender her title to the whole extent of the Coast between that Parallel 29 Rush to Adams, 19 Jan. 1823. Am. S. P., For. Rel., V, 470- i. 30 American proposal submitted 2 Apr., Paper F. Ibid., 582. 31 Canning's Instructions to the British Commissioners, in Stapleton, Some Official Correspondence of George Canning, II, 76-85.
