Thus it is that the order of the British government for the restitution of Astoria at the opening of the year 1818, taken in connection with all the circumstances of the case, and the convention of joint occupation made by the two governments at the close of the year, taken in connection with concessions in conferences made by both parties, make this year an era in the history of the Oregon Question. In particular, two important lines had been proposed and discussed, each proposal showing an important concession on the part of the party making it, and each line proposed practically setting a limit for the future, in its direction, to the territory that remained in question. For it may safely be said that from this time the extreme limits of the claims of the several parties were fixed; that henceforth the United States would not press their claim to territory north of latitude 49°, nor would Great Britain press hers to territory south of the Columbia. The territory longer in question lay between these two lines, and it is doubtful if ever after this year there was a time when the question might not have been settled by Great Britain’s consenting to the line of the forty-ninth parallel, or by the United States’ consenting to that of the Columbia. With these limits to their several claims practically agreed upon by Great Britain and the United States, and a plan of joint occupation adopted at the close of the year 1818, it remained only to eliminate claims of other nations to the territory in order to reduce the question to its simplest terms. This elimination, as we have seen, was effected by the conventions of 1819, of 1824, and of 1825, the last of which left Britain and America free to settle the question of sovereignty between themselves.
The conditions of the Oregon Question at the close of the period ending 1825 were, upon the whole, not unfavorable to America. It is true Great Britain was the party in possession at this time through the settlements of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but when it is remembered that these settlements were made even before the more important concessions of the conventions were made, these concessions are only the more strongly significant of the disposition of the government of Great Britain to treat fairly, at least, the claims of America. It is especially significant of this disposition that the settlement at Fort George was abandoned in the spring of 1825 by the British company in the expectation that the Americans would speedily occupy it, and, though the Americans failed at once to occupy it, it was left by the British unoccupied for five years, as if they were waiting for the Americans to come and claim their own. When we remember Britain’s well known doctrine, of occupation within a reasonable time as necessary to establish full title to lands claimed on the ground of prior discovery and exploration, this can hardly be regarded as else than an invitation on the part of Britain to the United States to come and make good their title to at least that part of Oregon that lay south of the Columbia.