Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/203

 FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 191 Emperor Paul, in 1799, granted to the Russian American Company only as far south as 55. As for making the North Pacific a closed sea, the idea was too absurd even for discus- sion. And the discussion closed, for de Poletica was not instructed to go further in his explanations. Nevertheless the pretentious claims of the Czar were received with more equanimity in America than elsewhere. 5 It would take more than a question of title to a little land to disturb the amicable relations between Russia and the United States, was the feeling which seemed uppermost, as witness Niles : ". . . Even if the emperor of Russia should make good his claims to the 51st degree, we guess that there will be a region of country large enough left for us;" and the editors of the National Intelligencer : 6 ". . . Should any difference finally appear to ex- ist between Russia and the United States, there can be no doubt of its being amicably settled. When Russia and the United States fall out, it will not be about anything so unimportant, we hope, as the nominal title to a degree or two of almost undiscovered land." ' But Alexander discovered that his government had taken a position which was untenable so far as it attempted to close the Pacific Ocean to traders of other nations, and both Great Britain and the United States contested the territorial claim to 51. It was not, therefore, a surprise for Adams when he received from Henry Middleton late in 1822 a confidential dis- patch relating to the affair and announcing that Baron de Tuyl was coming as minister to the United States, especially charged with a mission on this subject. 7 Nothing was done immediately, however; a certain respect for the unquestioned power of Russia entered into the motives which discouraged hasty action, and, since Great Britain was also interested, it would be well to enlist her co-operation. 8 Rush was invited to sound the 5 See quotation from Paris Journal des Debats as to the French attitude, in Niles' Register, 29 Dec., 1821, after which comes the comment of Niles quoted above. 6 Niles' Register, 29 Dec., 1821, quotes from the Intelligencer. 7 Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, VI, 93. 8 Adams, in his Memoirs, (Vl, 159) says, after commenting on the cabinet discussion of the instructions to Middleton in June, 1823: "I can find proof enough, to put down the Russian argument; but how shall we answer the Russian cannon."