tageous peace. Santa Anna, who was thought to be a peacemaker, proved to be a war-maker.

On April 15, 1845, Mr. Nicholas P. Trist was appointed by President Polk as Commissioner to Mexico. He was sent to Mexico to negotiate a treaty and to effect a purchase of territory. On November 10 of the same year, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, instructed the United States Minister, Mr. Slidell, to offer the Mexican Government $5,000,000 for the cession of New Mexico; and for the cession of California, $25,000,000; and for the Bay and Harbor of San Francisco, $20,000,000;1 together with the assumption by the United States of all claims against Mexico. Nothing resulted from this offer. As we have already seen, war was declared in May, 1846. General Taylor took the field. He captured Matamoras and Monterey. The battle at Buena Vista was fought and Santa Anna was compelled to retreat. On March 9, 1847, General Scott reached Vera Cruz. He marched inland and defeated Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo. The city of Mexico was at the mercy of the Americans. The downfall of Santa Anna followed the capture of the Mexican capital, and a new administration under the republican party, which abhorred Santa Anna, was inaugurated in Mexico.

Mr. Trist was still at his post, although recalled a long time before. He negotiated for a treaty with the new administration, and it was concluded at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. The United States Senate adopted the treaty with some amendments on March 10, 1848, by a vote of 38 to 14. The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged in the following May at the city of Mexico, when the United States paid over $3,000,000 cash, according to a provision made in the seventh article of the treaty.

Through this treaty New Mexico and Upper California were ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio Grande, from its

mouth to the town El Paso, was made the boundary of Texas. In consideration of the acquisition made by the United States, it was agreed that she should pay to Mexico $15,000,000, and assume the claims of American citizens against Mexico to an amount not exceeding three and one-quarter millions of dollars. The area of territory obtained by this treaty was estimated at 522,568 square miles.1

GADSDEN PURCHASE.

On December 30, 1853, another cession of territory was made by Mexico to the United States. This is known as the "Gadsden Purchase." It was secured in order to define more definitely the boundary between the two republics. The area of territory acquired through this purchase was estimated at 45,535 square miles, and the purchase cost the United States $10,000,000.

THE PURCHASE OF ALASKA.

We have now come to the last acquisition of territory by the United States-viz.: the purchase of Alaska. In this purchase there are two noteworthy features of difference from all former territorial acquisitions. They are 1. Isolation of territory; and 2. The mode of the purchase. The territories hitherto acquired formed contiguous parts of the national domain. But this was not the case with Russian America. It is separated from the United States by British America. It forms a territorial outpost in the extreme northwest of the North American Continent, and lies so close to Asia that it looks "as if America were extending a friendly hand." Again, in former acquisitions, negotiations succeeded only after years of labor by such American diplomats as Livingstone and Pinckney and Trist. In the Alaska purchase, the American Minister at St. Petersburg had little to do. Even

1 Public Domain, 134.

Ibid. 138.

statesmen at home like Mr. Sumner, who was then Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, knew of it only a few hours previous to the signing of the treaty by Mr. Seward and Baron Stoeckel. The negotiation was concluded very summarily, and in a business-like manner, by the two parties concerned. Mr. Clay, the American Minister to Russia, spoke of this transaction "as a brilliant achievement which adds so vast a territory to our Union, whose ports, whose mines, whose timber, whose furs, whose fisheries, are of untold value, and whose soil will produce many grains, even wheat, and will become hereafter the seat of a hardy white population.""

Perhaps the acquisition of Alaska has not yet been duly appreciated by the American people, except by residents along the Pacific Coast. It may some day prove good policy for the United States to form a continuous coast-line along the upper Pacific, and to extend their national domain, if not over the entire North American continent, at least to that new and extreme "Northwestern Territory" near the "Frozen Sea."

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF ALASKA.

Let us briefly review the history of Alaska. Alaska was first discovered by Captain Behring in 1728. Its discovery was due to the enterprising spirit of Peter the Great, who desired to know whether or not Asia and America were one continuous continent. He ordered out an expedition, but died before seeing its results. Behring was sent out by the Empress Catharine, and sighted land as far north as 67° 30'. He fulfilled the primary purpose of his expedition in discovering that the two continents are separated by a narrow body of water, which now bears the name of Behring's Strait. A second expedition was sent out in 1741. On this voyage Behring discovered many of the Aleutian Islands. Thus the Russian title to the peninsula of Alaska was founded as early as 1728 by discovery and exploration. Subsequent expedi

'Seward's Works, V, 25.

tions and settlements under the Russian Government confirmed the title. While France and Spain had to give way to the United States in Eastern America, the aggressive policy of Russia, inaugurated by the great Czar, planted her colonies in Northwestern America, but only to follow the same inevitable course as other colonizing powers in North America.

On the Atlantic side no single European power had made exclusive exploration or settlement of any part of the country. Spain, England, France, Portugal, Holland, and Sweden had each its representative discoverers and explorers. Their claims were often so conflicting that appeal to arms was sometimes necessary to settle disputes. On the Pacific side, also, Russia was not the only nation to send out exploring parties to the Northern Seas. Not to speak of exploration in the sixteenth century by Drake, and of his christening the country "New Albion" between 38° and 42° north, the Northern Pacific coasts were explored in the latter part of the eighteenth century by the Spaniards, the French, the English, and even by the Americans. The Spanish expedition went out in 1775, and it reached the land as far as 58° north. The French expedition sailed in 1786, and reached 36′ farther north than the Spanish. La Pérouse, who was at the head of the expedition, remarked of Sitka that "Nature seemed to have created at the extremity of America a port like that of Toulon, but vaster in plan and accommodations.""1 France, after losing her great colonies of Louisiana and Canada, still seemed not to have abandoned the colonial project in North America; but La Pérouse's expedition came to naught.

In 1790, the coast of British Columbia was discovered by Vancouver. Thus the entire Pacific Coast was made known. In the following year, the Oregon coast was explored in detail by the United States captain, Gray. The United States, on the ground of Gray's discovery, raised a claim to the coast as

'Sumner's Works, XI, 197.

far north as the Russian discovery, which claim was finally settled as 54° 40′ north, in the treaty of 1824 between Russia and the United States. In the following year, Great Britain made a treaty with Russia and recognized the southern boundary of Russian Alaska as 54° 40′ north; but she claimed the territory south of that parallel by virtue of Vancouver's discovery in 1790.

Thus the United States and Great Britain came in conflict on the Pacific Coast. The claim of the United States to the Oregon territory was based, first, upon the cession of Louisiana; second, upon the waiving of Spanish claims to it by the treaty of 1819; and third, upon the discovery of the territory by Captain Gray in May, 1791. After much dispute, a treaty was finally concluded between the two nations. It was known as the "Oregon Treaty," and was concluded at Washington in 1846. By this treaty the northern boundary of the United States was fixed as the parallel 49° north latitude, and they waived the claim to the territory between 49° and 54° 40′ north. The territory beyond 54° 40' north was never disputed, and Russia remained in absolute possession of the same.

NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE PURCHASE OF ALASKA.

In 1859, Mr. Gwin, Senator from California, opened an unofficial correspondence for the cession of Alaska with the Russian Envoy at Washington. The equivalent for the proposed cession Mr. Gwin placed at $5,000,000. Prince Gortschakoff, when informed of the price, said that it was "an unequitable equivalent," but wanted to think more of the matter. Meanwhile, civil war broke out in the United States, and the subject of the Alaska purchase was dropped.

In 1866, the Legislature of Washington Territory sent a memorial to the President entitled "In Reference to the Cod and Other Fisheries." In this memorial that body argued the necessity of the United States acquiring the Russian territories in North America. In June of the following year,