Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/102

 In the legendary accounts of Whitman's visit to Washington and his interviews with Webster and Tyler the essential features are his arrival just in time to frustrate the effort of Sir George Simpson, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, to secure the cession of Oregon in exchange for the cod-fisheries, and it was upon this achievement that the claim that he saved Oregon to the United States was originally based. The incident is purely imaginary, and wherever it recurs it is the stamp or hall-mark, so to speak, of Spalding's invention. The fisheries were not the subject of negotiation in 1842, nor were they proposed for the expected negotiation of 1843. Consequently Webster could not have told Whitman what Spalding attributes to him. It is in the highest degree improbable that either Tyler or Webster told