Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/418

 which the vessels of the United States could annoy the East India trade of Great Britain.

In the course of the debate which followed, the result of the former agitation was strongly brought out in the fact that three several companies of emigrants were petitioning congress for land grants in Oregon, one of which in Massachusetts numbered three thousand persons, farmers, artisans, and others. Neither of the three obtained a grant, because it was objected that two schemes of settlement, one by the government and another by private individuals, were incompatible; and because the plan of granting exclusive privileges to one class of citizens was not republican in spirit.

The question was again discussed at length, occupying the greater portion of the time of the house for more than two weeks, from December 23d to January 9th, New men took up the discussion; but new arguments were difficult to find. The expediency, and not the right of making settlements, was the subject of doubt, as it had been in 1821 and 1825. Yet it was acknowledged that delay, by strengthening the number of British posts, increased the difficulty. The question of the conflicting sovereignty claims was referred to oftener than in former debates; but only added to the more easily understood obstacles of expense, and the objections to making land grants before the boundary should be settled. At length, after amending the bill several times, it stood as follows, in four sections: First, authorizing the president to erect a fort or forts west of the Rocky Mountains, between latitudes 42° and 54° 40', and to garrison them; second, authorizing