Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/229

Rh to the territory in order to reduce the question to its simplest terms. This elimination, as we have seen, was effected try the conventions of 1819, of 1824, and of 1825, the last of which left Britain and America free to settle the question of sovereignty between themselves.

The conditions of the Oregon Question at the close of the period ending 1825 were, upon the whole, not unfavorable to America. It is true Great Britain was the party in possession at this time through the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company, but when it is remembered that these settlements were made even before the more important concessions of the conventions were made, these concessions are only the more strongly significant of the disposition of the government of Great Britain to treat fairly, at least, the claims of America. It is especially significant of this disposition that the settlement at Fort George was abandoned in the spring of 1825 by the British company in the expectation that the Americans would speedily occupy it, and, though the Americans failed at once to occupy it, it was left by the British unoccupied for five years, as if they were waiting for the Americans to come and claim their own. When we remember Britain's well known doctrine, of occupation within a reasonable time as necessary to establish full title to lands claimed on the ground of prior discovery and exploration, this can hardly be regarded as else than an invitation on the part of Britain to the United States to come and make good their title to at least that part of Oregon that lay south of the Columbia.

Occupation had been attempted, it will be remembered, in the case of the establishments of the Pacific Fur Company at Astoria and other points on the south and east of the Columbia. The whole conduct of England in regard to these establishments, made for the purposes of trade, goes to show that she regarded them as belonging to a