In respect to the title derived by the United States from Spain, Mr. Rush contended that, "if Great Britain had put forth no claims on the north-west coast, founded _on prior occupation_, still less could she ever have established any, at any period, founded _on prior discovery_. The superior title of Spain on this ground, as well as others, was indeed capable of demonstration." _Russia had acknowledged it in 1790_, as the State Papers of the Nootka Sound controversy would show. The memorial of the Spanish Court to the British minister on that occasion expressly asserted, that notwithstanding all the attempted encroachments upon the Spanish coasts of the Pacific Ocean, Spain had preserved her possessions there entire,--possessions which she had constantly, and before all Europe, on that and other occasions, declared to extend to as high at least as the 60th degree of north latitude. The very first article of the Nootka Sound Convention attested, I said, the superiority of her title; for whilst by it the nations of Europe generally were allowed to make settlements on that coast, it was only for the purposes of trade with the natives, thereby excluding the right of any exclusive or colonial establishments for other purposes. As to any claim on the part of Britain under the voyage of Captain Cook, I remarked that this was sufficiently superseded (passing by every thing else) by the Journal of the Spanish expedition from San Blas in 1775, kept by Don Antonio Maurelle, for an account of which I referred the British plenipotentiaries to the work of Daines Barrington, a British author. In that expedition, consisting of a frigate and a schooner, fitted out by the Viceroy of Mexico, the north-west coast was visited in latitude 45, 47, 49, 53, 55, 56, 57, and 58 degrees, not one of which points there was good reason for believing had ever been explored, or as much as seen, up to that day, by any navigator of Great Britain. There was, too, I said, the voyage of Juan Perez, prior to 1775; that of Aguilar, in 1601, who explored that coast in latitude 45°; that of De Fuca in 1592, who explored it in latitude 48°, _giving the name_, which _they still bore_, to the straits in that latitude, without going through a much longer list of other early Spanish navigators in that sea, whose discoveries were confessedly of a nature to put out of view those of all other nations. I finished by saying, that in the opinion of my government, the title to the United States to the whole of that coast, from latitude 42° to as far north as latitude 60°, was therefore superior to that of Great Britain or any other Power; first, through the proper claim of the United States by discovery and settlement, and secondly, as now standing in the place of Spain, and holding in their hands all her title."