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 THE FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON

IV

By LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

CHAPTER THE

VII

NEGOTIATIONS OF 1842-1845

Beginning in 1839 Congress was deep in the discussion of Dr. Linn's various resolutions and bills the Oregon issue was already showing a tendency to leave the realm of questions of fact to be settled between two governments, and was assum;

ing that political guise which was to characterize it until the The British government, apparently long forfinal decision. the Northwest of Coast, was stirred to inquiry if not getful

The channel through which information was that which served, as almost the only be derived might the disputed region and the governlink between connecting Hudson's the that is, ment; Bay Company. Sir John Pelly, to immediate action.

head of the organization, was requested by Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston to furnish the government with such information as might be deemed useful to it, especially in view of the fact that Sir George Simpson, in 1841, was 'just departing for the Columbia River. Sir George, therefore, gave the British government the material facts about the actual situation in

Oregon. His dispatch to the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, l written in November, 1841, gave an account of the settlements made by the Americans, the number of people in each, He their condition and the influence exerted in the land. noted that the missionaries, who formed almost the whole number of Americans, seemed to be making more rapid progress with the extension of their settlements than in the ostensible objects of their residence in the country; he could not learn that they were successful or making much progress in

moral and religious instruction of the natives.

Inferences

i Letter printed by Schafer, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, 73-82, from F. O., Am. Domestic and Various Papers, Jan. to Mar. 1843.