Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/212

196 and the deep interest manifested by the authors of them, there will be a very large and determined band of emigrants next spring to the shores of the Pacific.

About one of the most interesting subjects now engaging universal attention is the question about the Oregon country. The following chapter from the New York Evening Post we think worthy to place before the eye of our readers:

"The Committee of Ways and Means, in the House of Representatives, have charge of the resolution offered by Mr. Owen, requiring the President to give notice to Great Britain, in pursuance of the convention of 1827, that in twelve months from the date of the notice, her occupation of the Oregon territory, jointly with that of our government, must cease.

"It is understood that negotiations are now pending, relative to the great question of title to the region of Oregon, between our government and that of Great Britain. To what conclusion these negotiations are tending, or whether to any, or at what time a conclusion will be reached, are questions which it is not easy to answer; but this at least is clear, that Britain is not dissatisfied with the present condition of that question. It is her interest to keep things in their present state. Why should she desire a change? Her Hudson's Bay Company is the mistress of that mighty region that lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, the wild tribes which inhabit it are her friends and allies, and the furs gathered on that vast hunting ground form a lucrative branch of her commerce. The American adventurers, such, at least, is the boast of the Canada newspapers,—who engage in this trade as the rivals of that powerful association, perish, no man knows how or where, leaving their bones to be picked by birds of prey in the wilderness. The matter stands very well, therefore, for Great Britain, and doubtless she has no desire to disturb it. We must expect no alacrity on her part in closing the negotiations. We may expect, on the contrary, that they will be protracted, if possible, from year to year, by the ingenious delays of diplomacy, until some crisis arises which will make a final settlement necessary.

"Our interests, however, and the interest of the people, who are beginning to turn their attention to that settlement, requires that the disputes in regard to that territory should be adjusted, or, at least, we should assert and firmly maintain our just jurisdiction over it. Already—even while the Edinborough Review was uttering its predictions that no migration would ever take place from the United States to the country of the Oregon,—companies of men and women are