Note 2 — Group II. BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN IDEA.

The Columbia and its Basin. England claimed that Drake and Cook had first discovered and taken possession of Oregon, which then included the present Oregon, Idaho, Washington and part of Montana. In 1671 Saint Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, had taken possession of all the country west to the South Sea for France. (See preceding chapters.) Whatever rights France acquired became ours by purchase from her. But Spain had the better title on the Pacific. She, however, relinquished to us, on the cession of the Floridas, in 1819, all north of 42°, the present north line of California. We thus became possessed of all rights either power had laid claim to north of that parallel. The north boundary, between Louisiana and the British Possessions, was supposed to be fixed by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) at the forty-ninth degree.