935. BOUNDARIES, Louisiana.—[further continued] .
By the charter of Louis
XIV. all the country comprehending the
waters which flow into the Mississippi, was
made a part of Louisiana. Consequently its
northern boundary was the summit of the highlands
in which its northern waters rise. But
by the Xth Art. of the Treaty of Utrecht,
France and England agreed to appoint commissioners
to settle the boundary between their
possessions in that quarter, and those commissioners
settled it at the 49th degree of
latitude. (See Hutchinson's Topographical
Description of Louisiana, p. 7.) This it
was which induced the British Commissioners,
in settling the boundary with us, to follow the
northern water line to the Lake of the Woods,
at the latitude of 49°, and then go off on that
parallel. This, then, is the true northern
boundary of Louisiana. The western boundary
of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo (its
main stream), from its mouth to its source,
and thence along the highlands and mountains
dividing the waters of the Mississippi from
those of the Pacific. The usurpations of
Spain on the east side of that river, have induced
geographers to suppose the Puerco or
Salado to be the boundary. The line along
the highlands stands on the charter of Louis
XIV., that of the Rio Bravo on the circumstance
that, when La Salle took possession
of the Bay of St. Bernard, Panuco was the
nearest possession of Spain, and the Rio
Bravo the natural half-way boundary between
them. On the waters of the Pacific, we can
found no claims in right of Louisiana.—
To John Mellish. Washington ed. vii, 51.
(M.
1816)
