Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/77

Rh As usual, Dr. Eells is incorrect in his criticism. He quotes from Webster's Works issued in 1851-2. But turning to the Cong. Globe, 1st Sess., 29th Cong., March 30, 1846, we find on page 569, 1st column, that, in replying to Senator Allen of Ohio (who had accused him of offering England the river Columbia as the boundary), Webster said precisely what Mr. Evans quoted from him, as follows: "But the gentleman from Ohio and the Senate will do me the justice to allow that I said as plainly as I could speak, or put down words in writing, that England must not expect anything south of 49 degrees. I said so in so many words." The first two sentences quoted by Evans are on p. 568 of the Globe of same date, in Webster's reply to Senator J. M. Clayton of Delaware, and are also a verbatin quotation.

"Reply" (pp. 57-8): "Prof. Marshall also says in regard to Rev. C. Eells, 'that as late as April, 1865, he denied to Hon. Elwood Evans, the historian of Oregon, any knowledge of anything but missionary business, as impelling Whitman to make that ride.' (Trans. Am. Hist. Asscn., 1900, pp. 235-6.) The writer has questioned Prof. Marshall in regard to his authority for this statement, and in his reply the Professor says that Elwood Evans wrote the same to him some seventeen years ago, and that he at or about that time printed the same statement in one of his newspaper articles. In reply the writer declares that he will not believe this statement until some better proof is given than this: for (1) the writer has every newspaper article that he ever heard of that Mr. Evans wrote on the subject, especially between 1881 and 1885, and there is not a hint of such a statement in any of these articles. Dr. Eells was then alive, and the writer does not think Mr. Evans would have dared then to have made the statement. (2) The writer will not accept Mr. Evans' statement on the subject, even if he did make it to Professor Marshall, for as has already been shown, Mr. Evans made Mr. Eells say something in regard to the destruction of the records of the meeting of September, 1842, which he did not say, and also made Mr. Webster say something he did not say. (See above, p. 23.) The writer calls for the letter, and feels sure that if his father had ever written such a letter he would have heard of it before the year 1902, and also that in newspaper articles which he has by Mr. Evans, when he fully discussed Dr. Eells' evidence, Mr. Evans would have printed this letter."

But neither Mr. Evans nor I ever claimed that Rev. Cushing Eells wrote this in a letter to either of us, which fact is