in any unoccupied places on the islands or the coasts of the Pacific Ocean. The restrictions still left this clear, at least in respect to the Oregon region. In so far as Britain succeeded in maintaining in this convention this claim to the right of settlement, in so far was Spain's claim to absolute sovereignty to this region practically modified and limited. Unless Spain speedily made good her reserved right of sovereignty by actual occupation of the region in question, she must consent henceforth to hold her right of settlement as limited by a similar right now conceded to Britain. It is at this point in history, at the Nootka Convention, that the Oregon Question takes definite form: Whose shall the territory be? Shall it be Spain's? or shall it be Britain's? or shall it be divided between the two?
The story has already been told of the entrance of the United States into the question as a third claimant, through Gray's discovery, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Lewis and Clark expedition. The story of how the United States succeeded to the modified claim of Spain to the Oregon region belongs to the sequel of the Louisiana Purchase. The purchase of Louisiana left the United States with a group of intricate and delicate questions to settle with Spain, and with Spain in no mood for a speedy and amicable settlement. The transfer of Louisiana had not carried with it a clear definition of its boundaries. This was in part true of its boundary on the east, and especially true of its western boundary. Almost immediately on the transfer of the territory negotiations were begun with Spain on questions arising out of the transfer, or intimately connected with it. Two main objects of the negotiations on the part of the United States were, to secure from Spain, by purchase or otherwise, the cession of her remaining possessions east of the Mississippi, and the settlement of the boundary of Louisiana to the
