Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/288

278 tions to determine the relative right of possession were carried on languidly and without result. In 1818 and 1820 the United States offered, as a compromise, the forty-ninth parallel as the dividing line, the British insisting on the line of the Columbia River down from the point where the forty-ninth parallel intersected its northeastern branch. But they agreed on nothing except to extend the joint occupation indefinitely, subject to notice of termination. In 1832 a small agricultural settlement was established by Americans on the Willamette, an affluent of the Columbia. In 1836 President Jackson ordered an exploration of that region, which attracted much interest. In 1838 the settlers on the Willamette petitioned Congress for the establishment of a territorial government, but without success. New petitions came, together with the report that the Hudson Bay Company, too, were introducing settlers. Oregon grew more important in the eyes of the people and the politicians. Tyler mentioned the subject in his messages, but in the negotiations between Webster and Lord Ashburton it was ignored. Six months after the conclusion of the Ashburton Treaty, a missionary, Dr. Marcus Whitman, coming directly from Oregon, gave valuable information about the magnificent resources of that country. He soon led a caravan of two hundred wagons from the Missouri to the Columbia, demonstrating its accessibility by land. Fremont at the same period made his discoveries of practicable passes through