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 FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON stead of discussing the President's views as

ments,

73

shown

in the

docu-

Senators were "guessing- or conjecturing" what he

would do next. He urged Polk to examine Colquitt's amendment and speak to his friends about it if he approved it. But Benton could obtain no further satisfaction than the

oft-re-

peated statement about asking the advice of the Senate. While Polk continued to receive visits from Senators

who

were anxious to find out more about the Haywood matter another turn of affairs afforded an outlet for excitement. On March ninth Colquitt read and denounced an article in the Washington Times wherein it was stated that there was a conspiracy between the British minister on one side and the Whig Senators and the "anti-Oregon" Democrats, "with some Western members for an exception," on the other. They were a and substitute conditional notice to the House defeat plotting one leaving the time of giving

it

to the

discretion of the

to further negotiation which would The writer of the article was denounced

President and binding him

result in compromise. by Colquitt as a liar, and the

article

was framed

to drive

back

recreant Senators by coupling their names with that of the British minister. Three days later Jarnagin, into the ranks

all

a Whig from Tennessee, brought the matter up again and introduced a resolution for a committee of inquiry to report such

measures as should be "necessary to vindicate the character and honor of the Senate against the charges of corruption." On the sixteenth of March the committee, of which Benton was chairman, reported that they had found no truth in the charges that at a dinner at the British minister's some Whig Senators had discussed the Oregon Question that there had

a meeting of Whig Senators the day before the Cambria sailed, with Pakenham present, and a vote

been held

in the Capitol

had been taken to be sent to Great Britain that Senator J. M. Clayton had admitted that he had been at a dinner where "noses" had been counted. The two persons named by the editors of the Times as having knowledge of the affair admitted that they had none, and no one could be found who