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 Whitman anything about their plans, for the President refused to give the Senate that information in December, 1842, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that John Quincy Adams wormed it out of Webster on March 25, in the course of a three-hour interview. Equally fictitious is the story of Sir George Simpson's presence in Washington to negotiate or to influence negotiations in regard to Oregon and the fisheries. How Mr. Spalding came to fabricate these particular features of his account of Whitman in Washington and how they came to be accepted, destitute as they are of any foundation in fact, naturally piques one's curiosity, and the following explanation is offered not merely