stitution, even a limited term of exclusive right to their discoveries?

On the 24th of December, 1799, it was resolved by congress that a marble monument should be erected by the United States, in the capitol at the city of Washington: that the family of general Washington should be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it; and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life. In reminding congress of this resolution, and that the monument contemplated by it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks, that the works in the capitol are approaching to completion: That the consent of the family desired by the resolution, was requested and obtained: That a monument has been recently erected in this city, at the expense of the nation, over the remains of another distinguished patriot of the revolution; and that a spot has been reserved within the walls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and future ages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose spirit hovers over you, and listens with delight, to every act of the representatives of his nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his and their country.

The constitution under which you are assembled is a charter of limited after full and sopowers; lemn deliberation upon all or any of the objects which, urged by an irresistible sense of my own duty, I have recommended to your attention, should you come to the conclusion, that, however desirable, in themselves, the enactment of laws for effecting them, would transcend

the powers committed to you by that venerable instrument which we are all bound to support, let no consideration induce you to as sume the exercise of powers not granted to you by the people. But if the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the district of Columbia; if the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; if the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes ; to fix the standard of weights and measures; to establish post-offices and post roads; to declare war ; to raise and support armies; to provide and maintain a navy; to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying these powers into execution: If these powers, and others enumerated in the constitution, may be effectually brought into action by laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the pcople themselves, would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our charge-would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.

The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the heart, and sharpens the faculties, not of our fellow-citizens

alone, but of the nations of Europe, and of their rulers. While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty, must, in proportion to its numbers, be the most powerful nation upon earth; and that the tenure of power by man, is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow-men. While foreign nations, less blessed with that freedom which is power, than ourselves, are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence, or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence, and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now drawing to its close, we have beheld, under the auspices, and at the expense of one state of this union, a new university unfolding its portals to the sons of science, and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes that seek the light. We have seen, under the persevering and enlightened enterprise of another

state, the waters of our western lakes mingled with those of the ocean. If undertakings like these have been accomplished in the compass of a few years, by the authority of single members of our confederation, can we, the representative authorities of the whole union, fall behind our fellow-servants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of our common sovereign, by the accomplishment of works important to the whole, and to which neither the authority nor the resources of any one state can be adequate?

Finally, fellow-citizens, I shall await -with cheering hope, and faithful co-operation, the result of your deliberations; assured that, without encroaching upon the powers reserved to the authorities of the respective states, or to the people, you will, with a due sense of your obligations to your country, and of the high responsibilities weighing upon yourselves, give efficacy to the means committed to you for the common good. And may He who searches the hearts of the children of men prosper your exertions to secure the blessings of peace, and promote the highest welfare of our country.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Washington, Dec. 6, 1825.

Department of State,

Washington, July 22d, 1823. Sir-Among the subjects of negotiation with Great Britain which are pressing upon the attention of this government, is the present condition of the Northwest Coast

of this continent. This interest is connected, in a manner becoming, from day to day, more important, with our territorial rights; with the whole system of our intercourse with the Indian tribes; with the boundary relations be

tween us and the British North American dominions; with the fur trade; the fisheries in the Pacific Ocean; the commerce with the Sandwich Islands and China ; with our boundary upon Mexico; and lastly, with our political standing and intercourse with the Russian Empire.

By the third article of the convention between the United States and Great Britain, of 20th October, 1818, it is agreed, that," any country that may be claimed by either party, on the Northwest Coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the term of ten years, from the date of the signature of the convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects, of the two powers: it being well understood, that this agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of the said country; nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other power or state, to any part of the said country: the only object of the high contracting parties, in that respect, being to prevent disputes and differences amongst themselves."

On the 6th of October, 1818, fourteen days before the signature of this convention, the settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river had been formally restored to the United States, by order of the British government. (Message P. U. S, to H. R. 15th April, 1822, p. 13. Letter of Mr. Letter of Mr. Prevost to the secretary of state, of 11th Nov. 1818.)

By the treaty of amity, settle

ment, and limits, between the United States and Spain, of 22d February, 1819, the boundary line between them was fixed at the 42° of lat. from the source of the Arkansas river to the South sea. By which treaty, the United States acquired all the rights of Spain north of that parallel.

The right of the United States to the Columbia river, and to the interior territory washed by its waters, rests upon its discovery from the sea, and nomination, by a citizen of the United States; upon its exploration to the sea by captains Lewis and Clarke; upon the settlement of Astoria, made under the protection of the United States, and thus restored to them in 1818; and upon the subsequent acquision of all the rights of Spain, the only European power who, prior to the discovery of the river, had any pretensions to territorial rights on the Northwest Coast of America.

The waters of the Columbia river extend, by the Multnomah, to the 42° of lat. where its source approaches within a few miles of those of Platte and Arkansas, and by Clarke's river, to the 50th or 51st degree of lat.; thence descending southward till its sources almost intersect those of the Mis

an exclusive territorial right, on the Northwest Coast of America, is asserted as belonging to Russia, and as extending from the northern extremity of the continent to latitude 51, and the navigation and fishery of all other nations are interdicted by the same Ukase, to the extent of 100 Italian miles from the coast.

When Mr. Poletica, the late Russian minister here, was called upon to set forth the grounds of right, conformable to the laws of nations, which authorised the issuing of this decree, he answered, in his letters of 28th February and 2d April, 1822, by alleging, first, discovery, occupancy, and uninterrupted possession.

It appears, upon examination, that these claims have no foundation in fact. The right of discovery, on this continent, claimed by Russia, is reduced to the probability that, in 1741, captain Tchirikoff saw, from the sea, the mountain called St. Elias, in about the 59th degree of north latitude. The Spanish navigators, as early as 1582, had discovered, as far north as 57° 30'.

As to occupancy, captain Cook, in 1779, had the express declaration of Mr. Ismaloff, the chief of the Russian settlement at Oonalaska, that they knew nothing of the continent in America; and in the Nootka Sound controvery, between Spain and Great Britain, it is explicitly stated, in the Spanish documents, that Russia had disclaimed all pretension to interfere with the Spanish exclusive rights to beyond Prince William's Sound, lat. 61. No evidence has been exhibited of any Russian settlement on this continent, south and east of Prince William's Sound, to this day, with

the exception of that in California, made in 1816.

It never has been admitted, by the various European nations which have formed settlements in this hemisphere, that the occupation of an island gave any claim whatever to territorial possessions on the continent to which it was adjoining. The recognised principle has rather been the reverse; as, by the law of nature, islands must be rather considered as appendages to continents, than continents to islands.

The only color of claim alleged by Mr. Poletica, which has an appearance of plausibility, is that which he asserts as an authentic fact, that, in 1789, the Spanish packet St. Charles, commanded by captain Haro, found, in the latitude 48 and 49, Russian settlements to the number of eight, consisting, in the whole, of twenty families, and 462 individuals." But, more than twenty years since, Flurieu had shown, in his introduction to the voyage of Marchand, that, in this statement there was a mistake of, at least, ten degrees of latitude; and that, instead of 48 and 49, it should read, 58 and 59. This is, probably, not the only mistake in the account. It rests, altogether, upon the credit of two private letters; one written from St. Blas, and the other from the city of Mexico to Spain, there communicated to a French consul in one of the Spanish ports and by him to the French minister of marine. They were written in October, 1788, and August, 1789. We have seen that, in 1790, Russia explicitly disclaimed interfering with the exclusive rights of Spain to beyond Prince William's Sound, in latitude 61; and Vancouver, in

1794, was informed by the Russians on the spot, that their most Eastern settlement there, was on Hinchinbrook Island at Port Etches, which had been established in the course of the preceding summer, and that the adjacent continent was a sterile and uninhabited country. Until the Nootka Sound contest, Great Britain had never advanced any claim to territory upon the Northwest coast of America, by right of occupation. Under the treaties of 1763, her territorial rights were bounded by the Mississippi.

On the 22d July, 1793, Mackenzie reached the shores of the Pacific, by land, from Car da, in latitude 52° 21' north, longitude 128°.2' west of Greenwich

It is stated in the 52d number of the Quarterly Review, in the article upon Kotzebue's voyage, "that the whole country, from latitude 56° 30' to the United States, in latitude 48, or thereabouts, is now, and has long been, in the actual possession of the British northwest company"-that this company have a post on the borders of a river in latitude 54° 30' north, longitude 125 west, and that in latitude 55° 15' north, longitude 129° 44' west, "by this time, (March, 1822,) the united company of the northwest and Hudson's bay, have, in all probability, formed an establishment."

It is not imaginable that, in the present condition of the world, any European nation should entertain the project of settling a colony on the Northwest Coast of America; that the United States should form establishments there, with views of absolute territorial right, and inland communication, is not only to be expected, but is pointed out

by the finger of nature, and has been for years a subject of serious deliberation in congress. A plan has, for several sessions, been before them, for establishing a territorial government on the borders of the Columbia river. It will, undoubtedly, be resumed at their next session, and even if then again postponed, there cannot be a doubt that, in the course of a very few years, it must be carried into effect. As yet, however, the only useful purpose to which the Northwest Coast of America has been, or can be made subservient to the settlements of civilised men, are the fisheries on its adjoining seas, and trade with the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. These have, hitherto, been enjoyed in common by the people of the United States, and by the British and Russian nations. The Spanish, Portuguese, and French nations, have, also, participated in them, hitherto, without other annoyance than that which resulted from the exclusive territorial claims of Spain, so long as they were insisted on by her.

The United States and Great Britain, have both protested against the Russian imperial Ukase, of September, 1821.

Previous to the restoration of the settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river, in 1818, and again, upon the first introduction in congress of the plan for constituting a territorial government there, some disposition was manifested by Sir Charles Bagot and Mr. Canning to dispute the right of the United States to that establishment; and some' vague intimation was given of British claims on the Northwest Coast. The restoration of the place, and the convention of 1818,