The American commissioners were therefore informed as to the determined attitude of the United States as to Oregon and Adams declares that the British understood that Oregon was included in the provisions of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent. He says that Anthony St. John Baker, Secretary of the British Commission, was to go to America with the ratification of the treaty and, later, he says that Baker showed in a letter to Secretary of State Monroe that the British understood that Astoria was included in he terms of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent.[223] Subsequently (21 February, 1822) it was revealed by the publication of the report of the American commissioners, dated at Ghent, 25 December, 1814, the day after the treaty was signed, that an attempt had been made to settle the boundary from the Lake of the Woods westward along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. That would have settled the Oregon controversy then. It was rejected because it was involved with "a formal abandonment on our part, of our claim to the liberty as to the fisheries, recognized by the treaty of 1783."[224] That Oregon was included in the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent was recognized in 1818 by the formal transfer of Astoria (Fort George of the British) to J. B. Prevost, representing the United States for the purpose of that transfer. In the same year, 1818, was signed by Great Britain and the United States an agreement that has since been known in the Oregon country as the Treaty or Convention of Joint Occupancy. The official title is Convention Respecting Fisheries, Boundary and the Restoration of Slaves. Article III of this convention provided that "any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains" should for the term of ten years be free and open to "the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two Powers."[225] There were no American settlers in Oregon then. The Northwest Company of Montreal had a number of trading posts. The convention was a mutual confession that the future would have to solve the question of actual sovereignty. When that convention was signed, John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State, Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was United States Minister to France. But he was directed to go from Paris to London to join United States Minister Richard Rush in the negotiations and Gallatin's name is the first signature on the completed document.