declarations, denying all that she has asserted for more than sixty years, retracting her admission of the equal rights of the United States to trade, to occupy, and to make settlements in any part of the country, she should, without cause or pretext, assume, as is now threatened on the part of the United States, exclusive sovereignty over the whole or part of the territory. It may be permitted to believe that the British Government entertains no such intention. It may also be observed that England has heretofore evinced no disposition whatever to colonize the territory in question. She has, indeed, declared most explicitly her determination to protect the British interests that had been created by British enterprise and capital in that quarter. But, by giving a monopoly of the fur trade to the Hudson Bay Company, she has virtually arrested private efforts on the part of British subjects. Her Government has been in every other respect altogether inactive, and apparently careless about the ultimate fate of Oregon. The country has been open to her enterprise at least fifty years; and there are no other British settlements or interests within its limits than those vested in, or connected with the Hudson Bay Company. Whether the British Government will hereafter make any effort towards that object cannot be known; but as long as this right to colonize Oregon shall remain common to both Powers, the United States have nothing to apprehend from the competition. The negotiations on that subject between the two Governments have been carried on, on both sides, with perfect candor. The views and intentions of both parties were mutually communicated without reserve. The conviction on the part of America that the country must ultimately be occupied and settled by her agricultural emigrants, was used as an argument why, in case of a division of the territory, the greater share should be allotted to the United States. The following quotation, from the American statement of the case of December, 1826, proves that this expectation was fairly avowed at the time: