USA > Louisiana > Documentary history of the cession of Louisiana to the United States till it became an American province; with an appendix; > Part 3
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Immediately after the ratification of the present treaty by the President of the United States, and in case that of the First Consul shall have been previously obtained, the commissary of the French Republic shall remit all the military posts of New Orleans, and other parts of the ceded territory, to the commissary or commissaries named by the President to take possession ; the troops, whether of France or Spain, who may be there, shall cease to occupy any military post from the time of taking possession, and shall be embarked as soon as possible, in the course of three months after the ratification of this treaty.
ARTICLE VI.
The United States promise to execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, until, by mutual consent of the United States and the said tribes or nations, other suitable articles shall have been agreed upon.
ARTICLE VII.
As it is reciprocally advantageous to the commerce of France and the United States to encourage the communication of both nations for a limited time in the country ceded by the present treaty, until general arrangements relative to the com- merce of both nations may be agreed on, it has been agreed between the contracting parties, that the French ships coming directly from France or any of her colonies, loaded only with the produce or manufactures of France or her said colonies ; and the ships of Spain coming directly from Spain or any of her colonies, loaded only with the produce or manufactures of Spain or her colonies, shall be admitted during the space of `twelve years in the ports of New Orleans, and in all other legal ports of entry within the ceded territory, in the same manner as the ships of the United States coming directly from
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France or Spain or any of their colonies, without being sub- ject to any other or greater duty on merchandise, or other or greater tonnage than those paid by the citizens of the United States.
During the space of time above mentioned, no other na- tion shall have a right to the same privileges in the ports of the ceded territory : the twelve years shall commence three months after the exchange of ratifications, if it shall take place in France, or three months after it shall have been notified at Paris to the French Government, if it shall take place in the United States : it is, however, well understood that the object of the above article is to favor the manufactures, commerce, freight, and navigation of France and of Spain, so far as re- lates to the importations that the French and Spanish shall make into the said ports of the United States, without in any sort affecting the regulations that the United States may make concerning the exportation of the produce and merchandise of the United States, or any right they may have to make such regulations.
ARTICLE VIII.
In future, and for ever after the expiration of the twelve years, the ships of France shall be treated upon the footing of the most favored nations in the ports above mentioned.
ARTICLE IX.
The particular convention signed this day by the respect- ive ministers, having for its object to provide for the pay- ment of debts due to the citizens of the United States by the French Republic, prior to the 30th of September, 1800 (8th Vendemiaire, an 9), is approved, and to have its execution in the same manner as if it had been inserted in the present treaty ; and it shall be ratified in the same form, and in the same time, so that the one shall not be ratified distinct from the other.
Another particular convention, signed at the same date
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as the present treaty, relative to the definite rule between the contracting parties, is in the like manner approved, and will be ratified in the same form, and in the same time, and jointly.
ARTICLE X.
The present treaty shall be ratified in good and due form, and the ratifications shall be exchanged in the space of six months after the date of the signature by the ministers pleni- potentiary, or sooner if possible.
In faith whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed these articles in the French and English languages ; declaring, nevertheless, that the present treaty was originally agreed to in the French language; and have thereunto put their seals.
Done at Paris, the tenth day of Floreal, in the eleventh year of the French Republic, and the 30th of April, 1803.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. JAMES MONROE. BARBÉ MARBOIS.
CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, OF THE SAME DATE WITH THE PRECEDING TREATY.
The President of the United States of America and the First Consul of the French Republic, in the name of the French people, in consequence of the Treaty of Cession of Louisiana. which has been signed this day, wishing to regulate definitively everything which has relation to the said cession, have author- ized to this effect the plenipotentiaries, that is to say: the President of the United States has, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the said States, nominated for their plenipotentiaries, Robert R. Livingston, minister plenipotenti- ary of the United States, and James Monroe, minister pleni- potentiary and envoy extraordinary of the said United States, near the Government of the French Republic; and the First
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Consul of the French Republic, in the name of the French people, has named as plenipotentiary of the said Republic, the French citizen, Barbé Marbois, who, in virtue of their full powers, which have been exchanged this day, have agreed to the following articles :
ARTICLE I.
The Government of the United States engages to pay to the French Government, in the manner specified in the follow- ing articles, the sum of sixty millions of francs, independent ; of the sum which shall be fixed by another convention for the payment of debts due by France to citizens of the United States.
ARTICLE II.
For the payment of sixty millions of francs, mentioned in the preceding article, the United States shall create a stock of eleven millions two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, : bearing an interest of six per cent. per annum, payable half yearly in London, Amsterdam, or Paris, amounting by the half year to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hun- dred dollars, according to the proportions which shall be de- termined by the French Government, to be paid at either place, the principal of the said stock to be reimbursed at the treasury of the United States, in annual payments of not less than three millions of dollars each ; of which the first payment shall com- mence fifteen years after the date of the exchange of ratifica- tions; this stock shall be transferred to the Government of France, or to such person or persons as shall be authorized to receive it, in three months at most after the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, and after Louisiana shall be taken possession of in the name of the Government of the United States.
It is further agreed, that if the French Government should be desirous of disposing of the said stock to receive the said
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capital in Europe, at shorter terms, that its measures for that purpose shall be taken so as to favour, in the greatest degree possible, the credit of the United States, and to raise to the highest price the said stock.
ARTICLE III.
It is agreed that the dollar of the United States, specified in the present convention, shall be fixed at five francs 3333- 10000, or five livres eight sous tournois. The present con- vention shall be ratified in good and due form, and the ratifica- tions shall be exchanged in the space of six months, to date from this day, or sooner if possible.
In faith of which the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the above articles both in the French and English lan- guages; declaring, nevertheless, that the present treaty has been originally agreed on and written in the French language; to which they have hereunto affixed their seals.
Done at Paris, the tenth of Florcal, eleventh year of the French Republic (30th April, 1803).
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON (L. S.). JAMES MONROE (L. S.). BARBÉ MARBOIS (L. S.).
CONVENTION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, ALSO OF THE SAME DATE WITHI THIE LOUISIANA TREATY.
The President of the United States of America and the First Consul of the French people, having by a treaty of this date terminated all difficulties relative to Louisiana, and estab- lished on a solid foundation the friendship which unites the two nations, and being desirous, in compliance with the sec- ond and fifth articles of the convention of the 8th Vendemiaire. ninth year of the French Republic (30th September, 1800). to secure the payment of the sum due by France to the citizens
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of the United States, have respectively nominated as pleni- potentiaries, that is to say : the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, Robert R. Livingston, minister plenipotentiary and envoy ex- traordinary of the said States, near the Government of the French Republic, and the First Consul, in the name of the French people, the French citizen Barbé Marbois, minister of the public treasury ; who, after having exchanged their full powers, have agreed to the following articles :
ARTICLE I.
The debts due by France to the citizens of the United States, contracted before the 8th Vendemiaire, ninth year of the French Republic (30th September, 1800), shall be paid according to the following regulations, with interest at six per cent., to commence from the period when the accounts and ' vouchers were presented to the French government.
ARTICLE II.
The debts provided for by the preceding article are those whose result is comprised in the conjectural note annexed to the present convention, and which, with the interest, cannot . exceed the sum of twenty millions of francs. The claims com- prised in the said note, which fall within the exceptions of the following articles, shall not be admitted to the benefit of this provision.
ARTICLE III.
The principal and interests of the said debts shall be dis- charged by the United States by orders drawn by their min- isters plenipotentiary on their treasury; these orders shall be payable sixty days after the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty and the conventions signed this day, and after pos -. session shall be given of Louisiana by the commissioners of France to those of the United States.
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ARTICLE IV.
It is expressly agreed that the preceding articles shall comprehend no debts but such. as are due to citizens of the United States, who have been and are yet creditors of France for supplies, embargoes, and for prizes made at sea, in which the appeal has been properly lodged within the time men- tioned in the said convention of the 8th Vendemiaire, ninth year (30th September, 1800).
ARTICLE V.
The preceding articles shall apply only, first, to captures ' of which the council of prizes shall have ordered restitution; it being well understood that the claimant cannot have recourse to the United States otherwise than he might have had to the Government of the French Republic, and only in case of the insufficiency of the captors; second, the debts mentioned in the said fifth article of the convention, contracted before the 8th Vendemiaire, an 9 (30th September, 1800), the pay- ment of which has been heretofore claimed of the actual gov- ernment of France, and for which the creditors have a right to the protection of the United States; the said fifth article does not comprehend prizes whose condemnation has been or shall be confirmed. It is the express intention of the contract- ing parties not to extend the benefit of the present conven- tion to reclamations of American citizens who shall have estab- lished houses of commerce in France, England or other coun- tries than the United States, in partnership with foreigners, and who by that reason and the nature of their commerce ought to be regarded as domiciliated in the places where such houses exist. All agreements and bargains concerning mer- chandise which shall not be the property of American citizens are equally excepted from the benefit of the said convention. swing, however, to such persons their claims in like manner as if this treaty had not been made.
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ARTICLE VI.
And that the different questions which may arise under the preceding article may be fairly investigated the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the United States shall name three persons, , who shall act from the present and provisionally, and who shall have full power to examine, without removing the docu- ments, all the accounts of the different claims already liqui- dated by the bureau established for this purpose by the French Republic ; and to ascertain whether they belong to the classes designated by the present convention and the principles estab- lished in it, or if they are not in one of its exceptions, and on their certificate declaring that the debt is due to an American citizen or his representative, and that it existed before the 8th Vendemiaire, ninth year (30th September, 1800), the creditor shall be entitled to an order on the treasury of the United States in the manner prescribed by the third article.
ARTICLE VII.
The same agents shall likewise have power, without re- moving the documents, to examine the claims which are pre- pared for verification and to certify those which ought to be admitted by uniting the necessary qualifications, and not being comprised in the exceptions contained in the present convention.
ARTICLE VIII.
The same agents shall likewise examine the claims which are not prepared for liquidation and certify in writing those which, in their judgments, ought to be admitted to liquida- tion.
ARTICLE IX.
In proportion as the debts mentioned in these articles shall be admitted, they shall be discharged with interest at 6 per cent by the treasury of the United States.
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ARTICLE X.
And that no debt which shall not have the qualifications above mentioned, and that no unjust or exorbitant demand may be admitted, the commercial agent of the United States at Paris, or such other agent as the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States shall think proper to nominate, shall assist at the operations of the bureau and co-operate in the examination of the claims; and if this agent shall be of opinion that any debt is not completely proved, or if he shall judge that it is not comprised in the principles of the fifth Article 'above mentioned; and if, notwithstanding his opinion, the bureau established by the French Government should think that it ought to be liquidated, he shall transmit his observa- tions to the board established by the United States, who, with- out removing the documents, shall make a complete examina- tion of the debt and vouchers which support it and report the result to the Minister of the United States. The Minister of the United States shall transmit his observations, in all such cases, to the Minister of the Treasury of the French Republic, on whose report the French Government shall decide definitive- ly in every case.
The rejection of any claini shall have no other effect than to exempt the United States from the payment of it, the French Government reserving to itself the right to decide definitively on such claim so far as it concerns itself.
ARTICLE XI.
Every necessary decision shall be made in the course of a year, to commence from the exchange of ratifications, and no reclamation shall be admitted afterwards.
ARTICLE XII.
In case of claims for debts contracted by the Govern- ment of France with citizens of the United States since the
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Sth Vendemiaire, ninth year (30th September, 1800), not be- ing comprised in this convention, they may be pursued, and the payment demanded in the same manner as if it had not been made.
ARTICLE XIII.
The present convention shall be ratified in good and due form, and the ratifications shall be exchanged in six months from the date of the signature of the Ministers Plenipotentiary, or sooner if possible.
In faith of which, the respective Ministers Plenipotentiary have signed the above articles, both in the French and English languages, declaring, nevertheless, that the present treaty had been originally agreed on and written in the French language. to which they have hereunto affixed their seals.
Done at Paris the 10th day of Floreal, eleventh year of the French Republic (30th April, 1803).
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON (L. S.). JAMES MONROE (L. S.). BARBÉ MARBOIS (L. S.).
APPENDIX
GIVING A BRIEF HISTORY OF OREGON AND ACQUISITIONS OF TERRITORY TO THE UNITED STATES
WITH A MAP
Capt MEI
VAV'DO ANVITTIMA HIV).
COPIED FROM THE PORTLAND OREGONIAN.
OREGON
American ownership of Oregon is the most important re- sult that came from the cession of Louisiana to the United States, and the history of how this result came about forms an interesting sequel to the record of that cession. Three nations have laid claim to the Oregon country, as it was first called, which embraced the territory along the Pacific Coast from the forty-second parallel northward to the parallel of 54° 40'; being the southern limits of the Russian possessions, which that power owned by virtue of priority of discovery by Behring, the celebrated Russian navigator, after whom Behring Straits were named. Spain claimed this country on the ground that Juan de Fuca, in 1592, discovered and entered the straits which bear his name, and that Bruno Heccta sailed along this coast in 1775. The English claims rested on the voyages of Meares in 1786, and later, on those of Vancouver in 1789, along the coasts and into the Straits of Fuca. The claims of the United States, which came in last, transcended all these in the principles of national rights, especially as to priority of interior exploration as against England.
At St. Petersburg, April 5, 1824, Russia having relin- quished any right which might accrue to her south of 54° 40', the question of ownership to the coast south of that parallel was left open to negotiation to the other powers just named.
After Spain, in 1819, had sold Florida and all her claims on the Pacific to the United States, as told in previous pages of this work, then came a contest between Great Britain and the United States for this immense empire, slumbering in ob- scurity, inhabited by savage tribes of Indians, some of them hitherto unknown to civilization. The claims of the United
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States rested, first, on the explorations of Robert Gray, who sailed from Boston on September 30, 1787, with two vessels, the "Washington" and the "Columbia," under the patronage of J. Barrell, S. Brown, C. Bulfinch, J. Darley, C. Hatch and J. M. Pintard. Their destination was the northwest coast of America, by doubling Cape Horn. The object of the expedi- tion was to establish trade relations, which it did to the entire satisfaction of the proprietors; but these objects were insig- nificant compared to the national character destined to grow out of it. The expedition arrived at the mouth of the Co- lumbia River in 1792, up which stream Captain Gray with difficulty sailed over the sandbar at its mouth and made his way along its meanders till the snowcapped peak of Mount Hood became visible. He named this river the "Columbia." after the vessel which he had the honor of commanding in the service of its proprietors; but in the sublimer service of America, as history shows it to have been. He returned to Boston by a western passage around the world. No Amer- ican vessel had circumnavigated the world before, and to him belongs the distinguished honor of first carrying the stars and stripes on such a voyage.
Thomas Jefferson, when Secretary of State under Wash- ington, in 1792, had proposed to send an expedition up the Missouri for the purpose of securing the fur trade with the Indians ; and when he became President of the United States, even before Louisiana had been purchased, he took measures to send an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast. For this purpose the services of Meriwether Lewis, a captain in the regular army, and afterward private secretary to President Jefferson, and Capt. William Clark, were secured by Jeffer- son to explore the Missouri River to its sources, thence to cross the divide of its watershed and find some stream that led to the Pacific. They had a command of forty-four men, a few
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of whom were to accompany the expedition no farther than the headwaters of the Missouri. A few days after President Jefferson had given Captain Lewis his instructions as com- mander of the expedition news of the conclusion of the treaty for the cession of Louisiana reached the United States, and without further delay the expedition started. Their route lay up the Missouri river as far as they could go with their boats, thence across the divide to the headwaters of the Co- lumbia River with horses purchased from the Indians. From the headwaters of boat navigation on the Columbia River they navigated this stream to its mouth, arriving at Cape Disap- pointment, situated on its north bank, November 15, 1805, where they remained till March 26, 1806. Previous to their departure from St. Louis, President Jefferson had given Lewis and Clark authority to purchase necessary supplies for the re- turn of the expedition, either across the country or for passage in vessel around Cape Horn for the whole company ; but, thanks to the good management of the commanders of the expedition. there was no necessity for using this authority, and they commenced their return up the Columbia River to its sources : thence across the divide to the headwaters of the Missouri River; thence down that stream to St. Louis, arriving there September 23 same year, their return thus having been by the same route on which they had advanced into the unknown two years. before.
In 1811 John Jacob Astor established a fort, which he named Astoria, on the south bank of the Columbia River. ten miles above its mouth. This fort was captured by the British and named Fort George during the War of 1812. but was restored at the treaty of Ghent, in ISI44, after which it became a permanent point of American occupation under its original name, and as such an evidence of American ownership.
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Much has been said and written on international law, the binding force of which is a resort to arms if diplomacy fails ; there is an unwritten law of nations that priority of discovery, exploration and occupation is an acknowledged national title to lands thus discovered, explored and occupied. On this basis rested the title to the Pacific Coast between the parallel of 42° on the south to the parallel 54° 40' on the north. Both England and America based their claims on this priority, as above stated, controlling which was a boundary line between the two nations on the north, which was established in a pre- liminary way when Astoria was restored to the Americans by the treaty of Ghent.
At this time the forty-ninth parallel was first mentioned between the American and British commissioners, but at the treaty of Utrecht, negotiated in 1713, between Great Britain on one side and Spain and France on the other, the forty-ninth parallel was assumed to be the dividing line between the French Province of Louisiana and the British possessions to the north. Some historians have denied the binding force of that treaty in establishing the line of the forty-ninth parallel, but that this demarkation began here no one who studies the intricate meshes of this question can doubt. In the debates at the rati- fication in the British House of Commons on the Ashburton treaty mention was made of a map which had belonged to the late King George III, made by Mr. Faden, the King's geogra- pher, after the peace of 1783. This map had hung in the King's library during his lifetime, and subsequently in the foreign office; but it had disappeared about the time of the Ashburton treaty. On it was written, in the handwriting of King George III, "This is Oswald's line," referring to a red line on the forty-ninth parallel, immediately above these words. Mr. Richard Oswald was one of the British Commis- sioners who negotiated the provisional treaty of peace of 1782 between England and America. In 1843 Sir Robert Peel and
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Lord Aberdeen showed this map to Edward Everett, United States Minister to the Court of St. James. On it was the red line as fixed at the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.
Mr. Rush and Mr. Gallatin acted on the part of the United States and Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Robinson on the part of Great Britain at the first English and American negotiations on the forty-ninth parallel. The American plenipotentiaries proposed that a line should be drawn from the northwestern extremity of the Lake of the Woods, thence to the forty-ninth parallel, which might be to the north or the south of that point, and that a dividing line between the two nations should be on this parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, in run- ning a line from this point on the Lake of the Woods to the forty-ninth parallel, it was found that this parallel was about a degree to the southward; hence that tangent point running into the Lake of the Woods on all accurate maps of the United States showing its northern boundary. This line ran sub- stantially along the ridge dividing the northern watershed from the Mississippi watershed. It was a natural boundary, never questioned by either nation, as far as the Rocky Mountains.
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