Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/350

Panama to Nootka Sound. In 1513 Balboa, her brave son, in the name of his country claimed the great Pacific. France, also, was not a mere idler in this conquest of new worlds. The French claimed up to the Louisiana boundary and to the St. Lawrence and farther towards the Arctic than any daring navigators or explorers had ventured at this early period. In one way or another the French encroached upon the Spanish soil, until the dividing line, somewhat vaguely defined, was recognized as beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, thence up this stream to latitude thirty-two, thence north to Red River, and thence up this to longitude twenty-three, thence north to Arkansas and up it to latitude forty -two. and thence to the Pacific. Notice this last call, for it is the south boundary of our State was always the boundary of what is called "The Oregon Country," and was at one time the northern boundary of Mexico. In the grant from France to Spain in 1762, and from Spain to France, in 1800, this untraced line was recognized. It is thus seen upon what grounds rest the claims made for Mr. Jefferson, that the Louisiana purchase of 1803 gave the United States title to the Oregon Country. Of so much importance was this section, even as early as 1819, that when the United States purchased Florida, an article was inserted in the treaty of purchase, restating this line. The Oregon of that day, as it existed in the minds of publicists, statesmen, and diplomats, embraced all the vast region between forty-two degrees north latitude and the. famous "Fifty-four Forty" of the Polk campaign of 1844, meaning there by fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and also extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. This vast region is now British Columbia, Washington, Oregon^ Idaho, and part of Montana and Wyoming. While Spain and France were thus parceling out empires, and professing in turn and at times concur-