Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/122

 110 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE While undoubtedly one of the main reasons for this act was the feeling that it might help in securing the compliance of Spain, it is not going so far into the realm of speculation to surmise that Adams was also willing to ascertain what effect the agreement, as touching the. west coast of America, would have in Russia. Certain it is that about two years later came the edict of the Czar announcing that Russia's claims extended to 51 N. Lat., and declaring the North Pacific a closed sea. 29 Thus, when the end of the year 1819 was reached, all the essential features entering into the Oregon Question as a national matter were present. The decisive explorations had been made; from a terra incognita of the time of the Revolu- tion Oregon had come to be a region about which considerable information was available. While the settlements were con- fined to the posts of fur traders it may still be said that a be- ginning had been made in opening the country to civilization. Henceforth, so far as the United States was concerned, the Oregon Territory was to be a diplomatic issue, briefly and with- out serious portent with Russia, long, and toward the end, acrimonious with Great Britain. As a legislative, executive and administrative problem it entered upon its course in 1819 and continued to be a vexed issue until the admission of a portion of its area as the State of Oregon in 1859. 29 Am. S. P., For. Rel., IV, 857-61.