Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/336

 318 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE ords Adams, "was very warmly for it, with Gushing and myself. But Everett and Granger, peremptorily, Merri- weather, bitterly, and Caruthers, with his bland and courteous smile, all opposed it." When the committee voted on the rec- ommtendation the next day six of the nine members opposed it, and all six were Whigs, while Adams was the only Whig in the three who approved it. Adams' position was difficult in 1843 and 1844. He was convinced of the good title of the United States even to 54 40', and considered the surrender of anything south of 49 as little less than treasonable. Yet he was a Whig and his party not only would not press the issue but used its power in Con- gress to prevent positive action. Furthermore Adams sus- pected some Whigs as well as the pseudo-Whig, President Tyler, of being willing to surrender a great deal to Great Britain in order to lessen tension in other directions, notably with Texas and the Mexican territory west of that republic. In March, 1843, he had been told by David Lee Child that Webster had proposed to Almonte, the Mexican minister, "a cession of a portion of territory on the Pacific ocean, includ- ing the port of San Francisco, so to allow the British Gov- ernment to stretch their territory down to the mouth of the Columbia River." 13 A few days later Adams told Webster that "all the questions about the right of search, the bill for the occupation of the Oregon Territory, Captain Jones's movement on California, and all the movements for the annex- ation of Texas, were parts of one great system!, looking to a war for conquest and plunder from Mexico, and a war with England and alliance with France." He said that Henry A. Wise, a Tyler Democrat, of Virginia, in his speech in Con- gress about a year before (14 April, 1842,) "had blabbed the whole project;" while the taking of Monterey had corroborated his suspicions. Webster assured Adams that the action of Ap Catesby Jones in seizing Monterey had been a freak o>f his own brain, and that Wise's speech had been vain and senseless bravado. 13 Ibid., 340.