EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF MR. HANNEGAN,

ON THE OREGON QUESTION.

Delivered in the Senate of the United States. February 16, 1846.

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Oh, what a picture would the secret history of English diplomacy present! I speak not in censure of the master spirits who for centuries have controlled her councils, leading her step by step to the mastery of the world. Their far sightedness and their devotion to her interests is worthy of commendation and emulation. Perhaps no stronger instance of forecast was ever given than that which sixty years ago saw the vast importance that the desert coast of the Pacific was ultimately to attain in the scale of empire.

The Nootka Sound convention gave to England the right "to land on the coasts in places not already occupied, for the purpose of carrying on their commerce with the natives of the country, or of making settlements there," with the sole intention of affording her facilities in such inter

course with the natives, and to enable her to repair her vessels. These secondary and permissive rights, in no manner involving the sovereignty, were all she acquired by that convention; all that her statesmen then claimed; all that Spain conceded. And yet she has at this hour the effrontery to assert, in the face of history, that she thus acquired the right of paramount occupation and settlement. I say all that her statesmen claimed; for Mr. Fox, in the British Parliament, whilst the convention was under discussion, denounced it as a treaty of concessions and not of acquisitions." In another passage he asserts, that "we had given up all right to settle, except for temporary purposes, to the south of the Spanish settlements or in the intervals between them, where they happened to be distant."-Par. His. vol. 28, p. 995.

And in confirmation of this language, Mr. Pitt, under whose auspices as Prime Minister the convention had been negotiated, replied by saying that England "had gained no new rights, but that she had gained new advantages." These new advantages, in the language of Mr. Pitt, consisted simply in the acknowledgment by Spain "of the

right of England to carry on fisheries in the Pacific ocean, and to trade on the coast of any part of it northwest of America."

Immediately after the execution of this convention, England fitted out one or two ships, and intrusted the command to Captain Vancouver, to proceed on a voyage of discovery; yes, of discovery to the Pacific ocean, and, as is alleged, to procure restitution of English property in compliance with the convention. What were the occurrences of that voyage? If Spain had intended, by this convention, to deliver Nootka Sound to England, or if England had understood it as thus acquired, would it not have been promptly enforced by the one if refused by the other? Most assuredly. But what is the fact? When Vancouver reached Nootka Sound, did he make any demand for restoration? None that I ever heard of. And if so, it was not complied with; for so far from delivering to him possession of Nootka Sound, which is between the parallels of 49° and 50°, the Spanish commandant refused to allow him to proceed around the island of Quadra or Vancouver, by the straits of Fuca, the gulf of Georgia, and

Queen Charlotte's Sound, which all combine to separate it from the main land, until he could get vessels ready to accompany him, and he did accompany him.

And here let me pause to mark a point in English diplomatic artifice. Upon the arrival of Vancouver at Nootka Sound, the island which forms the Sound was called Quadra, and had been for years; the Spaniards were in possession; a Spanish commandant, he whose name the island bore, held possession in the name of Spain, and a flourishing Spanish settlement, with the consent and approbation of the natives, was established. Without a word on the subject of restoration, or of sovereignty, or right to the island, but silently and without the knowledge of any one, but doubtless with the secret sanction of the English ministry, Vancouver in his journal and chart christens the island by his own name, in order that England, half a century afterwards, might have another point on which to rest her random and vagrant claim. The flagrancy of this act is more striking when it is recollected that Spain held possession, not only at Nootka Sound, but of the entire island

of Vancouver, undisturbed, undisputed possession, from that period until the year 1795, when she voluntarily abandoned it, because the disturbed condition of Europe was such as to prevent her or any other European power from extending or protecting such remote settlements during the succeeding twenty years.

But did England after this abandonment by Spain come forward with her claim? Did she attempt a settlement? Certainly not. No senator can show, for England herself cannot, that between the parallels of 42° and 54° 40′ she never made a settlement or asserted a "claim" to a single inch of ground until it had been previously owned and occupied by others.

Notwithstanding her uniform course all over the world of claiming and holding by discovery as her own right, she requires something more in others, whenever it suits her purposes, than mere discovery.

Shall the mailed hand of England dictate to us another Nootka Sound convention? Shall it do more?-shall it force us to surrender that for which Spain prepared to struggle? Shall the