Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/66

58 DOCUMENTS. considered the property of the nation so discovering it; or discovering the interior, the unoccupied coasts become a part. Great Britain, as was her interest, maintained for a long time the old notion of a right to grant by charter all the countries from sea to sea, where it did not interfere with the territory of any Christian Prince or people; and her ob- stinate adherence to that system is considered as largely con- tributing to the production of the war of 1755, when she was opposed by France and Spain, as granting away almost all Mexico and the French possessions, both claiming much of the intermediate country, and the coast of the Pacific. Great Britain, at the close of that war, abandoned her pre- tensions, and gave manifestation of her sincerity, by revoking the first charter granted to Georgia, and in the second, in 1764, limited it to the Mississippi, and agreed, in 1763, to limit her whole territory to that river in the west. Where territory has been acquired, as already shown, upon any coast, and the same coast actually settled, or occupied by another Power, at such a distance as not manifestly f o encroach upon the first, the point equidistant from either is considered as the utmost limits of each; this principle, it is believed, was fixed and settled by all the most important treaties which have engaged the Powers of Europe in affairs appertaining, in any way, to possessions in this country, and, it is believed, was acted upon and sanctioned, not only by the treaty of 1763, but, in some measure, by that of Utrecht, in 1713. Spain, by virtue of her original discovery, and actual set- tlement in Mexico, together with her title to Louisiana, claimed the Pacific coast of North America, as hierh up as the sixtieth degree of north latitude; and, to enforce her claim, in the year 1789, sent a ship of war up the coast 10 capture, or drive from those waters, several English ves>sels fitted out in the East Indies by English merchants, upon their own authority, and at their own risk, to trade with the nativos in that quarter. This service was performed by Martine/, of his Catholic Majesty's navy: and, in the year 1790, be-