in Barrington's Miscellanies,) of the varied and important information derived from Humboldt's New Spain, and of the voyage of the Sutil and Mexicano, the introduction to which contains a brief official account of the Spanish discoveries. The statement of the case was the best I was able to make with the materials on hand, and may be found defective in many respects. Since that time manuscript journals of several of the voyages have been obtained at Madrid. New facts have thus been added; others have been better analyzed, and some errors rectified. Arguments which had been only indicated have been enforced, and new views have been suggested. The subject, indeed, seems to be exhausted, and it would be difficult to add any thing to the able correspondence between the two Governments which has been lately published.

Ministers charged with diplomatic discussions are not, however, in those official papers intended for publication, to be considered as philosophers calmly investigating the questions, with no other object but to elicit truth. They are always, to a certain extent, advocates who use their best

endeavours to urge and even strain the reasons that may be alleged in favour of the claims set up by their Governments, and in the same manner to repel, if not to deny, all that may be adduced by the other party. Such official papers are in fact appeals to public opinion, and generally published when there remains no hope to conclude for the present an amicable arrangement.

But, though acting in that respect as advocates, diplomatists are essentially ministers of peace, whose constant and primary duty is mutually to devise conciliatory means for the adjustment of conflicting pretensions, for the continuance of friendly relations, for preventing war, or for the restoration of peace. It has unfortunately happened that, on this occasion, both Governments have assumed such absolute and exclusive grounds, as to have greatly increased, at least for the present, the obstacles to an amicable arrangement.

It is morally impossible for the bulk of the people of any country thoroughly to investigate a subject so complex as that of the respective claims to the Oregon territory; and, for obvious reasons, it is much less understood by the great

mass of the population in England than in the United States. Every where, when the question is between the country and a foreign nation, the people at large, impelled by natural and patriotic feelings, will rally around their Government. For the consequences that may ensue, those who are entrusted with the direction of the foreign relations are alone responsible. Whatever may be the cause, to whomsoever the result may be ascribed, it appears, from the general style of the periodical press, that, with few exceptions, the people, both in Great Britain and in the United States, are imbued with the belief that the contested territory belongs exclusively to themselves, and that any concession which might be made would be a boon to the other party. Such opinions, if sustained by either Government, and accompanied by corresponding measures, must necessarily lead to immediate collisions, and probably to war. Yet, a war so calamitous in itself, so fatal to the general interests of both countries, is almost universally deprecated, without distinction of parties, by all the rational men who are not carried away by the warmth of their feelings.

At the time when America was discovered the law of nations was altogether unsettled. More than a century elapsed before Grotius attempted to lay its foundations on Natural Law and the moral precepts of Christianity; and when sustaining it by precedents he was compelled to recur to Rome and Greece. It was in reality a new case, to which no ancient precedents could apply,* for which some new rules must be adopted. Gradually some general principles were admitted, never universally, in their nature vague and often conflicting. For instance, discovery varies from the simple ascertaining of the continuity of land, to to a minute exploration of its various harbours, rivers, &c. and the rights derived from it may vary accordingly, and may occasionally be claimed to the same district by different nations. There is no precise rule for regulating the time after which the neglect to occupy would nullify the right of prior discovery; nor for defining the extent of coast beyond the spot discovered to which the discoverer may be entitled, or how far

* Grotius, however, sustains the right of occupation by a maxim

of the Civil Roman Code.

inland his claim extends. The principle most generally admitted was, that, in case of a river, the right extended to the whole country drained by that river and its tributaries. Even this was not universally conceded. This right might be affected by a simultaneous or prior discovery and occupancy of some of the sources of such river by another party; or it might conflict with a general claim of contiguity. This last claim, when extending beyond the sources of rivers discovered and occupied, is vague and undefined; though it would seem that it cannot exceed in breadth that of the territory on the coast originally discovered and occupied. A few examples will show the uncertainty resulting from those various claims when they conflicted with each other.

The old British charters extending from sea to sea have already been mentioned. They were founded beyond the sources of the rivers emptying into the Atlantic on no other principle than that of contiguity or continuity. The grant, in 1621, of Nova Scotia, by James the First, is bounded on the north by the river St. Lawrence, though Cartier had more than eighty-five years before