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106 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE but most people were more occupied in the economic questions coming from the financial crisis developing from the War of 1812 than they were with anything connected with a far-off wilderness. 22 In referring to the negotiations of 1818 Presi- dent Monroe in his annual Message to Congress passed the matter over with a general statement, and in December, 1819, when commenting upon the completed treaty, did not notice the Northwest Coast. Nor was Congress curious about the matter, a fact testified to by absence of comment in its debates. However, one of the plenipotentiaries who negotiated the convention, Richard Rush, deemed the subject of sufficient im- port to comment upon it in his Memoirs in this fashion : "I cannot leave this part of the negotiation without remark- ing, that the important question of the rights which it involves between the two nations, is still an open one ; and I do not fear to record the prediction that it will be found a question full of difficulty, under whatever administration either of Great Brit- ain or the United States, it may hereafter be approached. It is not in the genius of either nation readily to yield what it be- lieves itself entitled to ; and however strong our convictions of the just foundations of the whole of our claim on that coast and its interior, the conviction of Great Britain in the stable nature of her right, that interferes so materially with ours, is not less decided and unequivocal. Nor will she push it with less zeal; not more on the general ground of her maritime and commercial enterprise which are only stopped by the limits of the globe, than on her special desire to foster the growing interests of her colonial settlements all over this continent, and those trading companies that issue from them." 2 ^ While Gallatin and Rush were adjusting, temporarily to be sure, one phase of the Northwest question, John Quincy Adams was engaged in settling definitely this issue so far as it con- cerned the United States and Spain. The negotiations of 1818- 22 The National Intelligencer (quoted in Nile's Register of 17 July, 1819), contains a news item about the approaching return of Judge Prevost from the mouth of the Columbia, and expresses the hope that he will give a full account of the region. 23 Rush, Memoirs, (editon of 1833) 374.