Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/217

 FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 205 ment would not press a claim to any territory south of the Columbia, so thereafter the chief factor was directed to cease activities in that region and confine the Company's operations to the area northward. Furthermore, the notes written in the course of the negotia- tion of 1823-4 afford practically all the light to be obtained upon the claims which were urged whenever the topic rose to the surface. The notes of 1826-7 and those of 1842-6 con- tain only a wearisome repetition of the arguments used by Rush, Huskisson and Addington (or Canning) in 1824. In fact the earlier notes have the virtue of being less prolix than those which came later. Rush was not surprised when his proposal of April second was rejected and the British counter-proposal submitted. He rejected the proffer at the same conference when it was tendered and offered the utmost his instructions allowed him ; namely, 49 as the boundary from the Rockies to the sea. This was promptly refused of course. The British commissioners made no new counter-proposal, stating that their proposition was one from which the United States need not expect their government to depart, just as Rush had, in offering 49 de- clared it to be the extreme limit to which his government could be hoped to yield since it considerably reduced what were looked upon as well-founded and legitimate claims. At this point the affair rested. 32 When Floyd's bill, which passed the House in 1825, was tabled in the Senate, and when the election of 1824 had been finally settled, the immediate political value of the Oregon Question, such as it was, vanished. Nevertheless, the time for the expiration of the Convention of 1818 was approaching, and the British government had not viewed with absolute equanimity the continuing agitation of the topic in Congress, especially when Baylies' Resolution (16 Dec. 1825 ) 33 had called forth such a report. Accordingly it was from the British government that the invitation to resume consideration of the 32 The protocols are given in Am. S. P., V, 559-65. Rush summarizes the conferences and his views, Rush to Adams, 12 Aug., 1824, Ibid., 553-8. 33 Debatts in Congrtss, II, 813 (1825-6).