Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/38

32 the wants of this infant settlement of his countrymen." (Cf. Gray's History of Oregon, p. 204.)

"'Dr. McLoughlin's wine has affected his judgment,' said the men of the mission."

Then representing Wilkes as conversing with George Abernethy, the steward of the Methodist Mission (who had then been in Oregon less than a year and a half), Mrs. Dye continues: "'Tell me, what do you Americans think of the Hudson's Bay Company?'"

"The Hudson's Bay Company is Great Britain's instrumentality for securing Oregon,' was the answer."

"'But,' urged the commodore, 'the missionaries have received untold favors from the Hudson's Bay Company, and if they are gentlemen it is their duty to return them.'"

"The missionary faced about in the commodore's path. 'Return them? Certainly. I will exchange favors with Dr. McLoughlin or any other man or set of men, but I will not sell country for it.'"

"Wilkes was almost angry with this blunt missionary." (Cf. McLoughlin and Old Oregon, pp. 176-7.)

There is not the remotest probability that any part of this dialogue ever was spoken, or that there is a shadow of foundation for it, except in Mrs. Dye's unrestrained imagination.

(4) In April, 1842, Lord Ashburton arrived in Washington, and (after various informal conferences) on June 13, 1842, (the very day Wilkes filed his Special Report on Oregon in the Navy Department), began the formal negotiations which ended August 9, with the signing of the Webster-Ashburton treaty.

As it was generally understood that he was to treat on all points in dispute, there was much disappointment that Oregon was not included in the treaty, but though Benton on this account assailed it most bitterly in the Senate, he could only rally 9 votes against it to 39 for it.

In December, 1842, Benton returned to the subject, and asserted that Webster had proposed to accept of the line of the Columbia instead of standing firmly for 49 degrees to the Pacific. To this partisan accusation Webster could not in person reply in the Senate Chamber, but, fortunately for the vindication of the truth of history, his life-long friend, Rufus Choate, had succeeded him in the Senate, and twice, on January 18 and February 3, 1843, while Whitman (of whose existence even there is no evidence that either Tyler or Webster was then aware) was riding east across what is now Kansas, Choate, replying to Benton's accusations, said (on January 18), as summarized by the official reporter in Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, 3d Session, pp. 171-2): "In commenting upon the speech of the Senator from Missouri, (Mr. Benton), who