Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/50

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER

42

He had

a long conversation 18 with Aberdeen in which he pointed out the advantages of 49 as a boundary, for it had been only where this line had been adopted, no matter what the topography of the country might have been, that there

Everett thought Aberdeen was imwith the pressed general import of his remarks; expressing the hope that Congress would do nothing at its next session to

had been no controversy.

embarrass the negotiations "he (Aberdeen) avoided, 'I do not think we shall have much

said, if this

can be

"

Such would mean that Pakenham America instructed to offer 49 with some sort of difficulty.'

a remark Everett interpreted to

go

to

recognizing the necessity of his own government's making some sort of a modification of its previous offers, he suggested that it was possible that all of Vancouver's

modification



Island might be yielded, although he added that he had no instructions on the point. 19 He felt that this had been a

happy suggestion for at a later conference Lord Aberdeen told him that as 49 had long ago been offered and rejected the question was different than if it were coming up for the first time; each party must be expected to yield something from its original demands. "I regard this observation, now

made

to

since

my

me

for the first time, although the Oregon boundary England has been the subject of very

residence in

frequent conversation between Lord Aberdeen and myself, as 20 Then Everett added to Upshur, in re-

very important."

porting the conversation, that Aberdeen had asked if he was confident of his statement and also wished it to be remembered that Great Britain had offered to cede certain territory north of the Columbia. Taking this as an indication that the British

government was preparing to abandon its stand for the Columbia, Everett was in high hopes of an agreement; "I may be in error in this view of the subject; but it is the result of the closest consideration I have been able to give it, that the present government, though of course determined not to 18 Everett to Upshur (private and confidential) 19 Everett to Aberdeen, 30 Nov., Ibid., 32. 20 Everett to Upshur, 2 Dec., Ibid., 30-2.

Ibid.,

29-30,

make

14 Nov.