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248, to withdraw this proposition to the British government, which was made under his direction; and it is hereby accordingly withdrawn."

We have it on the authority of Mr. Folk's diary that the concluding paragraph is of the President's own wording; that Mr. Buchanan urged the President so to coucli his answer as to encourage the British government to make an offer on their part; that this the President positively declined to do, saying that if the British government wished to make an offer they must do so on their own responsibility. It was a matter of regret on the part of Lord Aberdeen, on hearing of the matter, that this proposition of our government had not been referred by Mr. Packenham to his government. Later, Mr. Packenham, on receipt of a communication from Lord Aberdeen, approached Mr. Buchanan with a view of getting from the President encouragement to present another proposition on behalf of Great Britain. This, though repeatedly urged to do so by Mr. Buchanan, the President firmly refused to give. And thus the question stood at the convening of congress in December.

The President's message had, on the question of the Oregon Territory, been prepared with special care. The several paragraphs bearing on this subject were read and discussed in cabinet, and amended, until they embodied the President's policy in its maturest form. Again Mr. Polk was besought by the Secretary of State to soften the tone of his message on this point, but he refused, preferring, as he said, "his own bold stand.' After reviewing briefly the history of negotiations on the question under his predecessors, and noting that these had uniformly been maintained on the part of the United States on the compromise line of the forty-ninth parallel; and after stating somewhat particularly the reasons that had induced him to take up the negotiations as he found them