Excerpt from The United States and Mexico, Vol. 2: A History of the Relations Between the Two Countries, From the Independence of Mexico, to the Close of the War, With the United States The extremely interesting details of the controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the ownership of what was once called the Oregon country - now the States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and the province of British Columbia - find no place in the present narrative. But the possibility that a war between the two countries might grow out of the controversy had a material influence in determining the course of successive Mexican governments toward the United States, and, to a less extent, the policy of President Polk's administration in reference to Mexico, so that the main outlines of the dispute must necessarily be sketched. The first discoverers of the Pacific coast of America, north of the present limits of California, appear to have been the Spaniards - although Sir Francis Drake, in 1579, visited the coast and spent some time in a harbor which appears to have been that which is now known as Drake's Bay, a little north of San Francisco. But it was not until almost the end of the eighteenth century that the Spanish government made any serious efforts to explore the northwest coast. At about the same time the Russians, starting from the Asiatic coasts, were exploring toward the south and east, and seem to have examined the shores of the American continent to a point south of Sitka, overlapping the Spanish discoveries; and Captain Cook, who sailed on his third and last voyage of discovery from England in July, 1776, also visited the coast between California and Alaska. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.