The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-02 00:00:00

TAR SUN, LONDON, WDN'iliticir

" That this House expresses its regret Lat letters
aaTiess,d to a foreigner residing in this country
should have been opened without his knowledge, and
that information in reference to disturbances in the
Papal States, obtained by such means, should have
been communicated to a foreign Power."
Sir J. GRAHAM opposed the motion, and defended
the conduct of the Government.
The House was subsequently addressed by Mr. T.
DUNCOMBE, and ultimately the motion was negatived
by a majority of 14.
The House then went into Committee on the
Excise duties, and the CHANCELLOR of the Ex-
CHEQUER moved a resolution for the remission of the
duties on glass, which, after a short discussion, was
agreed to.
The other orders of the day were disposed of, and
the House adjourned at a Quarter past Nine o'Clock.

The experience of American—that is, of United
States'—good faith and political probity ; of their
moderation, equity, and magnanimity in dealing
with the political rights and relations of feeble and
disorganised States such as Mexico ;—of their inflexi-
bility in adhering to the spirit and letter of their
own Constitution, which especially disavows and dis-
courages a policy of territorial aggrandisement;—this
experience has been wonderfully enlightened by the
recent vote of the Senate for the annexation of Texas.
But we are much inclined to suspect that this is but
the first act of a serious drama, the combinations of
which having been long rehearsed, will be speedily
produced for the edification of the world. The tone
which the leading organ of the new President's party
assumes, in respect of the Oregon question, has been
on former occasions, as it now is, sufficiently me-
nacing towards this country, and arrogant and ridi-
culous. But the Texas affair imparts to it a point
and emphasis which should fix the attention of every
Englishman whe is alive to the necessity for promptly
anticipating, if possible, an attempt upon the interests
and honour of this country, which may be meditated
by the vane party on some other question. Now, it
would be idle to affect, after the language used in
Mr. POLK'S inaugural address, to doubt the intention
of the United States to carry their pretensions upon
the Oregon Territory, after their usual fashion, by
hard swearing and big words—if they can. It would
be still more absurd to argue at this time of day
the duty as well as the right of every independent
State to withstand, at the earliest available oppor-
tunity, any meditated aggression upon its dominion,
its honour, or its authority. But a State of the
paramount rank and grandeur of Great Britain. has
no option in the matter. If it could be once
base enough to permit such aggressions to be made
NI ith impunity, it would, ipso facto, fall from its
pride of place, and out of its rank in the majestic
career of those nations with whose welfare are bound
up the destinies of civilisation. We have great
doubts, indeed, whether all the vaunting of the land
of stripes and stars will not evaporate before the
consideration of dollars to be' spent and taxes to be
raised—by a Government of bankrupt credit. But
as democracies are always liable to the uncontrol-
lable action of popular feeling and passion, in defiance
of palpable danger, and inevitably disastrous re-
sults, we shall do well to accustom ourselves to a
consideration of the extreme probability that the
attempt at the Oregon occupation may be forced
upon that Government, which, not having had virtue
enough to discourage the agitation of the project,
will not have strength enough to restrain the po-
litical fanaticism that may rashly endeavour to faci-
litate so iniquitous an enterprise. In the meanwhile,
as the " Oregon question" is one of many details, the
succession and connection of which it is necessary for
those to bear in mind who would master its elements,
we propose to consider it under three heads. 1. What
the question at issue between the two Governments (of
the United States and Great Britain) really is? 2. What
are the known received principles of national law which
apply to the territorial rights of discovery and occu-
pation of lands, as regards the authority of the Parent
State, through whose subjects the discovery and
occupation have been effected? 3. What are the de-
rivative and possessory rights to the territory of
Oregon, now respectively vested in Great Britain and
in the United States, through France or through
Spain ?
We are confident that we shall demonstrate, in an
ensuing article, and upon a recapitulation of the facts
and details, and evidence of treaties and public acts
which we shall have to submit to the considera-
tion of the reader, that the claim of the United States
to the Oregon cannot be maintained upon any of the
principles above adverted to.
That the United States cannot establish any such
derivative and possessory rights to that territory,
through any title either from France or from Spain,
or under treaty with Great Britain :
That in all respects, and on all the principles as to
which the United States cannot establish their pre-
tensions to the Oregon, the title of Great Britain is
continuous, corroborated, valid, and inexpugnable.
1. The Oregon question is the validity or invalidity
of the claim of the United States Government to the
whole of the Oregon territory, or full and sovereign
possession, and to the exclusion altogether of British
occupancy. The Oregon territory is a vast track
of North Western America, extending from about
42 deg. to 49 deg. N. lat., including the course of the
Columbia River (whose embouchure is about
46 deg. N.), which waters a country moderately
fertile, 'but especially valuable for its supply of the
fur animals, whose peltry supplies one of the
most valuable of all staples for the markets
of China. It has other natural and geo-
graphical advantages, into which we shall not now
enter. The question of right must be traced through
a chain of many links in the composition of legiti-
mate title. First of all, and as the shortest method
of propounding the question, it may be said that the
foundation of the United States' claim to the Oregon
territory rests on the recognised geographical extent
and boundaries of Louisiana, when that vast trail
of country was purchased by the American Govern-
ment in 1803, and the effect of a treaty made by
that Government with Spain in 1819. For this
claim is derived from three titles--purchase from
France, purchase from Spain, and discovery and
prior occupation of the Colombia by citizens of the
United States. Such are the pretensions that a very
ridiculous partisan, a Mr. FARNHAM, has ventured to
print and publish. Such are the visionary assump-
tions which Congress and the Senate affect to recog-
nise, and gravely call on Americans to uphold. Let
us see, then, in what mode France acquired the ori-
ginal territorial sovereignty of Louisiana—how this
was ceded by France to Spain as to part, and as to
the other part to Great Britain ; and subsequently
by Great Britain to Spain, which by the treaty of
819 confirmed the sale of the Floridas to the Re-

public.
• The first French colony in Louisiana having been
established by Dr. IBERVILLE, a Canadian, under a
commission for that express purpose, granted to him
by Louis XIV., remained subject to the dominion of
France until 1762, when, by the treaty of Paris
in November of that year, and signed
1763), which ceded to England the
file gFr eeehdruu upon n
several French possessions of Nova Scotia, Canada,
andvre
nCeahp
see
tt Briton,le m eh ttshien
NeasternAltni me
ni t.sc
ao fw
erthee rfiexme
fixed
i nig
w inth
extreme precision by a line drawn along the middle
\
of the Mississippi, from its source to the Iberville
River; and from thence, by a line drawn along the
moiddelbearttoraitnh, tois river, and the lakes Maurapas and
pn
the same treaty,
Florida, with Fort St. cededtugutsoten
the sea. Under the 20th article of
'
Englandotrht eh .the American
o wholefp ens ofPensa-
cola, cola, and all its possessions on theN
con-
tinent to the east or south-east of theh river Missis-
sippi. On November 3, 1762,
were
ee same day
on which the preliminaries of
s pe treaty
. be•
tween France, England, and
Government of France ceded to that ofsred- the
all
the country ;known under the name of Louisiana,
as also New Orleans, and the island on which it •t
situated ; by a secret treaty between Spain and France,
that is to say,France gave up to Spain, thereby, so much
of Louisiana as France had not previously contracted
to transfer to Great Britain. The treaty of September
1783, between Great Britain and Spain, ceded East
and West Florida to Spain, which thus became again
possessed of its ancient colonies. We now come
under Mr. FALCONER'S guidance to the Treaty of In-
dependence of the same year, between Great Britain
and the United States, whereby the independence of
the latter was recognised, and their South Western,
Western, and Southern boundaries were defined in a

manner sl dearly described and with their necessary
connection, as recogni,ed by the champions of the
United States' present claim, so forcibly set out by
Mr. Falconer in his recent pamphlet, entitled the
" Oregon Question," that we have quoted his own
words.*

In our next paper we shall pursue the course of
these transactions, treaties, &c., from the retrocession
of Louisiana by Spain to France, in 1800, down to
the present time.
4' The treaty says, "By a line through the middle of
Lake Erie, until it arrives at the water communication
between that Lake and Lake Huron; thence along the
middle of the said water communication into the Iluron,
thence through the middle of the Huron to the water
communication between it and Lake Superior ; through
the Superior, northward of the Isles Royal and Phili-
peaux to the Long Lake ; thence through the middle of
Long Lake and the water between it and the Lake of
the Woods to the Lake of the Woods; and through the
same to the N.W. point thereof ; from thence in a due
west course to the river Mississippi, until it shall enter
the northernmost part of the 31st deg. of N. lat. ; south,
by a line to be drawn E. from the determination of the
line last mentioned in lat. 31 deg. N. of the Equator
to the middle of the River Apalachicola or
Catahouche ; thence along the middle thereof to
the junction with the Flint River ; thence straight
to the he ad of the St. Mary's River, and thence, along the
middle of the St. Mary's River, to the Atlantic Ocean."
Mr. Falconer observes, on this part of the treaty,
" There was one error in this otherwise clearly defined
boundary : the head waters of the Mississippi river are
south of the Lake of the Woods ; and consequently a line
carried due west from the lake would not touch the river.
The clear intention of both parties was, to terminate the
boundary where this junction was expected to take place
—where, if the Mississippi had continued in a course
noyth, it would have intersected the line running due
west from the Lake of the Woods. This obvious cor-
rection of the mistake is adopted in the map lately pub-
lished in America by Mr. Greenhow, in which a dotted
line from the head waters of the Mississippi to the line
running due west of the Lake of the Woods completes
this boundary. But nothing west or north of this line was
granted by xreat Britain to the United States in 1783,
and nothing north of the head waters of the Mississippi
was retained by France under the treaty of 1763.

Swiss journals of the 27th ult. have been received. 1
Affairs continue in a very unsettled state, and one of the
papers, the Federal Gaulle, announces that Austria
proposes a blockade of Switzerland by occupying the
principalities of Lietenstein and the frontiers of the Gri-
sons. At Schwytz two battalions of contingents had
been called ; General SONNEBERG, appointed to the com-
mand of the Lucerne troops, had withdrawn his resigna-
tion, and on the 27th the Executive Council of Zurich
had assembled, in order to make preparations for antici-
pated contingencies. The meeting of the Council hull
been summoned chiefly on the receipt of dispatches from
Lucerne, but the result of their deliberations had not
transpired.

The accounts from Madrid are to the 24th ult. The I
marriage of the QUEEN with the Count TRAPANI causes
much excitement among the Carlists, who, it is said, are
organising themselves in Catalonia and the Basque pro-
vinces, to prevent a result which would destroy all their
hopes. No doubt however remains that the marriage
has been arranged, and that the King of NAPLES has
gone to Rome to give his sanction to it. The KING,
accompanied by the QUEEN, arrived there on the 17th.
On the 24th, being Easter Monday, the Madrid Bourse
was closed.