Such proceedings on the part of the Executive of the United States were not calculated to facilitate the settlement of the points likely to become subjects of controversy in the approaching negotiations, either at St. Petersburgh or at London. The instructions which were to guide the commissioners of the United States were set forth by Mr. Adams, in a letter to Mr. Rush, the Minister Plenipotentiary at London, of the date of July 22, 1823, which may be referred to in the British and Foreign State Papers, 1825-26, p. 498. In the previous negotiations of 1818, as already observed, Messrs. Gallatin and Rush "_did not assert a perfect right_" to the country westward of the Stony Mountains, but insisted that their claim was "_at least good against Great Britain_." The 49th degree of north latitude had, in pursuance of the Treaty of Utrecht, been fixed indefinitely as the line between the northern British possessions and those of France, including Louisiana, now a part of our territories. There was no reason why, if the two countries extended their claims westward, the same line should not be continued to the Pacific Ocean. So far as discovery gave a claim, ours to the whole country on the waters of the Columbia River was indisputable. Subsequently, however, to these negotiations, His Catholic Majesty had ceded to the United States, by the Treaty of Washington, of February 22, 1819, commonly called the Florida Treaty, "all his rights, claims, and pretensions to any territory" north of the 42d parallel of north latitude; and Mr. Rush opened the negotiations by stating, that "the rights thus acquired from Spain were regarded by the government of the United States as surpassing the rights of all other European Powers on that coast." Apart, however, from this right, "the United States claimed in their own right, and as their absolute and exclusive sovereignty and dominion, the whole of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, from the 42d to at least as far up as the 51st degree of north latitude." This claim they rested upon their first discovery of the river Columbia, followed up by an effective settlement at its mouth: a settlement which was reduced by the arms of Britain during the late war, but formally surrendered up to the United States at the return of peace.