Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/345

 RESTORATION OF ASTORIA

327

The Treaty

of 1818, with one paragraph making the Oregon a But the country joint-occupancy country was the result. restoration of Astoria, as a post, had been secured a private

fur company's post, claimed after its sale, by the American government, as a national possession.

Under

the circumstances one

is

hardly surprised at what

happened a few years later. Something of the British view again, is shown in a letter from Lord Castlereagh to Stratford Canning, then British Minister at Washington, under date of August 7th, 1820, in response to a worried letter from Canning. It was marked "Confidential"

42

"The tendency

American government

of the

contentious discussion.

The

is

rather to

ancient relations of the British

and American nations, and the jealousies as yet imperfectly Govt of the United States to maintain their

allayed, incline the

pretensions in discussions with us, perhaps in deference to those prejudices, in a tone of greater harshness than towards any other Government whatever. The American people are more easily excited against us, and more disposed to strengthen the hands of their Ministers against this than against any other state. Time has done a good deal to soften these dispositions,

and the more we can permit them to subside by avoiding angry discussions, the less will the American Govt be capable of contesting unreasonably those various points which the reciprocal interests of the two countries may from time to time be expected to present themselves for adjustment." Castlereagh continued that he looked for an "abatement of

most unbecoming acrimony which has generally been prevalent between these two nations since the period of their that

separation."

Six months later came an example of this. On January 28th, Stratford Canning wrote an eighteen-page letter, on

1821,

heavy plate paper, but

it

was the

42 F. O. 43 F. O.

5, 5,

in "fair

round hand,"

to

Lord Castlereagh Having heard

letter of a startled statesman. 43

Vol. 150. Vol. 157.