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222 tinuance, or its abrogation by either power on due notice, the subject drops out of congress for a period of ten years, but only to return at the end of that time on the demand of that voice which, as we have just observed, the administration of Mr. Adams had already heard and attended to. This interval is an important period in the history of the Oregon Territory. The two governments stand stubbornly each on the boundary line of its own proposal, the United States for the line of latitude 49, Great Britain for the line of the Columbia, seemingly making no approach to an agreement. Other influences, however, were at work preparing the way for final settlement, and determining the lines on which that settlement should be made.

The ten years between the renewal, in 1827, of the convention of 1818, and the resumption of the discussion of the subject in congress in the year 1837, present a new phase of the Oregon Question, and may be termed the period of early American settlement. In thus designating this period, the settlement of Astoria in 1811 has not been forgotten. It has already been shown that, though projected and supported by an American capitalist, and made under letters from the American government and the protection of the American flag, that settlement was scarcely entitled to be called an American settlement; that whatever of American character it had in its inception it lost two years later in its transfer to a British company and to the protection of the British flag. The settlement of Astoria, even as a British settlement, was not of a permanent character. It contributed, it is true, a few settlers to later communities as they were established, but by far its greatest contributions to the settlement of the Oregon Question was in the diplomatic transfer which it was the occasion of under the terms of the treaty of Ghent. It did serve under the provisions of that treaty to secure to the United States the valuable concession