sub-company for general trade, denominated the Pugit's Sound Company.

The Hudson's Bay Company, therefore, that legal monster, a commercial corporation with powers of sovereignty, plays in America the same double part, which has devolved on the East India Company in Asia; and like that, will, if not arrested in its progress, add new empires to the sway of Great Britain; for Oregon alone is of thrice the extent of surface of the British Islands.

To all this, counter suggestions may be made, of the inferior actual power of the Hudson's Bay Company, as compared with the East India Company, and, of course, its inferior dangerous

ness.

We reply, first, that the principles of action are the same in both cases, and the ambiguous relation of each to the British Government, and to foreign countries, is the same; and their tendency and operation are the same; which, if nothing else, would demand the attention of the Federal Govern

ment.

Secondly, it is the future, as well as the present, which we are discussing in this matter. It concerns, not the lifetime of a man, but that of a nation, in which centuries are but as a day. The destiny of vast regions of this Continent is involved, of regions which, destitute though they now be, of population and intrinsic power, are one day to become the abode of millions of men. And how long is it since the East India Company was no more powerful in actuality, than is the Hudson's Bay Company now? A very, very short period on the page of history.

Thirdly, there is identity of character (if not equality of degree) in the danger to be apprehended from the Hudson's Bay Company. This company enters into Oregon a foreign intruder, as the East India Company did into the territories of the Great Mogul. Though professing to be nothing but a commercial association, organized for purposes of gain, yet, according to the published reports of its agents, addressed to the Colonial Office, it acts (in Oregon) for the acquisition of power alone, neglecting, nay, deliberately sacrificing, all considerations of pecuniary profit, in the execution of the plan of acquiring and establishing for itself (that is, for England) the control of the

navigation of the river Columbia; in other words, of the as yet unappropriated mastery of the commercial capabilities of the Pacific Ocean. And if the company lose money in this operation, Parliament can assume its debts (and its acquisitions,) as it has done those of the East India Company, in similar circumstances.

For, indeed, a very imperfect idea of the thing in controversy between the United States and Great Britain have they, who imagine that it is nothing but a certain number of acres of wild land in North America. If it were so, why should the English Government perseveringly refuse the offer, more than once made, so honorably, and in an amicable spirit of compromise, by our Government, to divide the disputed territory into two (nearly) equal parts, by a line, which, being the continuation of our boundary up to the Rocky Mountains, has reasons in its behalf, amply sufficient to justify the English Ministers at least, in agreeing to its extension to the Pacific? We repeat, her refusal to do this indicates a sinister, and a most iniquitous purpose, and one which we are bound to withstand unyieldingly,— which is, the purpose of obtaining the monopoly of the Pacific Ocean, instead of a fair participation of this with the United States. And much as we deprecate war with Great Britain, (or any other power,) we avow a perfect readiness to meet England in arms on this question, if she choose, upon it, to invade America; for a war of aggression and invasion on her part it will be, in which we entertain the most undoubting confidence of our ultimate triumph, as in past times, and of her ignominious and utter expulsion from this Continent.

Alexander Von Humboldt saw, long ago, what would be the effect of piercing the Isthmus of Panama, or, which is the same thing, establishing either Anglo-Britannic or Anglo-American power on the west coast of North America:

"Quand un canal de communication sera établi entre les deux océans, les productions de Nootka Sund et de la Chine seront de plus de 2000 lieues. Ce n'est qu'alors rapprochés de l'Europe et des Etats Unis dans l'etat politique de l'Asie orientale; que de grand changemens s'effectueront car cette langue de terre, contre laquelle

se brisent les flots de l'Océan Atlantique, est depuis des siécles, le boulevard de l'indépendance de la Chine et du Japon."

True as this was, when the Essai sur la Nouvelle Espagne was written, it is yet more true now, when the steamengine has come, to defy the resistance of winds and of waves, whilst, indeed, the ever-placid water of the tropical Pacific, with its lovely islands, seems to invite the voyager smilingly to its bosom, to be wafted by the easterly trade winds from America to Asia, and in the variable latitudes, the prevailing westerly gales and currents carry him spontaneously, as it were, along from Asia to America.

Newspapers, literary journals, pamphlets, parliamentary speeches, books, even, in England, are busy at the present time, in producing, or pretending to produce, the grounds of the British title to Oregon. All the patriotic sophistry of so many writers is lost labor. The British Government knows well the nature of its own claims in Oregon, from long and elaborate discussion of the subject with the American Government. We state those claims in the deliberate official language of the British Government itself:

"Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of that territory. Her present claim, not in respect to any part, but to the whole, is limited to a right of joint occupancy, in common with other states, leaving the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance."

And the "qualified rights," thus claimed by Great Britain, are afterwards defined, in the same well known document, to be the rights of navigation, settlement, and trade, "recorded and defined in the convention of Nootka."

And, on analysing the Nootka Convention, it appears that these alleged rights of navigation, settlement, and trade, stand on one of two foundations, namely, either, first, grant from Spain as the first explorer or discoverer of, and the first settler on, the Northwest Coast; or, secondly, the idea of Oregon being vacant territory, to which no christian power has title, in the same sense that St. Domingo or Cuba was before the voyages of Columbus.

And, in discussing the subject with the United States, the British Government settled down into this view of its

claims, after conclusive demonstration, and on full conviction of the utter untenableness, nay, of the mere absurdity, of any pretence of its having rights in Oregon by prior discovery, prior settlement, treaty, extension of contiguity, prescription, conquest, or any other (if there be other) means of acquiring territorial sovereignty.

Of the validity of those, the only pretended claims of Great Britain, we have nothing to say at present: we simply state the case, fully and fairly, in order to come at the consideration of the relations of the Hudson's Bay Company to the ultimate question of the British title in Oregon.

The Edinburgh Review, in an article on this subject ascribed to a gentleman much respected on both sides of the Atlantic, concludes an eminently able investigation of the whole question, with the declaration that the only tenable or even plausible ground of title in Oregon possessed by Great Britain is that of extension by contiguity in common with the United States, that is, continuing our already established boundary along the forty ninth parallel of latitude to the Pacific Ocean."

Some portion of the British Press, in its lamentable ignorance of the whole question, consequent on the fact that the official correspondence between the two governments has never been published in England, has accused the author of the article in the Edinburgh Review, of unpatriotic abandonment of British rights, in thus placing the British title on a ground, which at once shuts Great Britain out of the whole of that part of Oregon south of the forty ninth parallel of latitude. If this accusation of unpatriotic sentiment were true, there would be gravity in it; for while we concede to every man the right of changing his allegiance, yet we hold that, in the country of his allegiance, every man is morally bound to patriotism of sentiment, as he is legally bound to patriotism in act. But this writer, far from narrowing in this way, or yielding up, British title, does in fact bring forward, and give a plausible form, to a ground of title, which had not occurred to the members of the British Government, or at least was not deemed reliable by them, and which, if it be tenable, is the only ground of title on which Great Britain can stand.

True, as the writer avows: "This is, without doubt, the weakest of all titles; so weak that, when expressed in words it seems almost to disappear; for what can be less substantial than a claim to territory which is not yours, merely because it is bounded by that which is?" Still it may, as we agree, be a source of title, however slight, where there is no other; which, upon the admission of the British Government, is the present case.

Now, there is one obvious reason why the British Government, instead of relying upon this its only possible ground of title, disowned all claim of title whatever; and it is, the desire of England to possess the whole of the right bank of the river Columbia, which this ground of title does not cover. But there was probably another reason, namely, the untenableness of even this the sole assignable ground of title.

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For, who occupies the region north of the forty ninth parallel of latitude, or adjoining the Rocky Mountains on the east? Does England? She might answer, Yes, or No, according as her interests inclined. In concluding Jay's Treaty, where a negative answer stricted the United States, she said No; for, in that treaty, she excuses herself from communicating mutuality to certain relative rights along the southern frontier, any further than to the boundary of the Hudson's Bay Company; the country within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company only excepted.' So, in the Convention of 1818, she said, No: for, by that convention, our fisheries are terminated in the northeastern seas at a certain point, where commence 'the exclusive rights of the Hudson's Bay Company.' On the other hand, she answers, Yes, by the act of George IV., and whenever commerce or jurisdiction is to be transmitted into Oregon.

However this may be, the British Provinces, commonly so called, cannot, by any extension of contiguity, carry the British title beyond the Rocky Mountains; because the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company intervenes over a space of twenty degrees of longitude. And there only remains the question, whether the Hudson's Bay Company can, by extension of contiguity, carry its territory west to the shores of the Pacific. And to this the negative

answer is complete. In the first place, the company is not a naturalized or colonial government. Such a naturalized government might have intrinsic rights of independent and spontaneous political action as against other governments; but the company cannot. It is not a Power,' to dispute boundaries, and set up competing territorial titles, as against the United States. It is a commercial corporation, existing only by charter; and it must be held to the limitations of that charter. In the East Indies such a company may go on by sufferance to usurp kingdoms and dominate over disorganized nations, and perform other such acts, in which its own sovereign dares not personally appear; but these things cannot be permitted in America. In the second place, looking to the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, we find the question, whether the territory of the company can extend by contiguity to the coast of the Pacific, or even beyond the Rocky Mountains at all, settled so conclusively as to leave not a shadow of any such British title in Oregon. What is the domain of the company? The lands on the coasts and confines of the seas, lakes and rivers within the Hudson's Straits.' Thus far may the company go, but no farther. Seas, lakes, and rivers within the Hudson's Straits, and their coast and confines. It is stretching this privilege quite enough, to consider it as embracing the whole of the great plain between Hudson's Bay and the Rocky Mountains, including that slope of it, which inclines, not towards Hudson's Bay, but towards the Arctic Sea; and if the land on the shores of the Arctic Sea were worth having, we apprehend men might be produced, willing to take a charter of the Coppermine and of McKenzie's rivers, and able to maintain such a charter against the company's. But to regard Pugit's Sound, on the Pacific side of America, as a coast or sea within the Hudson's Straits, is so preposterous, that the Edinburgh Review cannot fail on reflection to see that its admittedly slight source of title, is less than an evanescent, that it is a vanished quantity. The company has a grant of the waters flowing into or dependant on Hudson's Bay. The Rocky Mountains constitute, on the west, the outer wall and eternal barrier of all those waters. Clearly,

Great Britain could, if she had title herself, establish another empire company on Pugit's Sound, without touching in the remotest degree the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company. Preparation to do this, indeed, has already been made. It would be no more absurd to stretch India (or its company) across the ocean to the west coast of America, than it is to attempt to extend the Hudson's Bay (or its company) across the continent to that same coast. And, as the consideration of extension by contiguity avails nothing, unless it be strong enough to carry the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Pacific, of course there is the end of the argument.

We have thus accomplished the assigned duty of laying before the readers of the Democratic Review, the parallel and the contrast of the East India Company in Asia, and the Hudson's Bay Company in America; and we have been glad to do this, because it is an important element of the great question, which now most immediately

concerns the United States. And our Government has, in this emergency, a high and noble task before it, which, we confidently assume, it will discharge with equal dignity and spirit, come what may. In the first place, it has to maintain the rights of the United States in Oregon, to the extent, whatever that is, which the honor and interests of the country require. In the second place, it has to preserve to us the blessings of peace, and to save the country, if it be possible, (as we doubt not it is,) from the calamities of a war with England especially, which would truly be a fratricidal war. Finally, if (which God forbid) we should be driven into such a war by England's invading America,-for thus, only, can war come, our Government has to organize and guide the courage and strength and patriotism of the people, in that, wherein it will be gallantly supported by them, namely, the defence of the soil against foreign aggression, and the upholding of the good name of the United States.

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