Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/354

348 348 W. D. FENTON. resulting in a bill which was introduced and slept in some dusty pigeonhole until 1828. Thus ^matters rested until the friends of Oregon in Con- gress, notably Thomas H. Benton and Senator Linn of Missouri, many of whose kindred had already hurried into the disputed land, forced the great contending parties to action. From October 18, 1818, to June 15, 1846, the Oregon Country was jointly occupied by the United States and Great Britain, and this was British soil as to the sub- jects of that country and American soil as to those who had been and were born of American parentage or citi- zenship. In the preliminary correspondence between the United States and Great Britain, as conducted by John C. Calhoun as Secretary of State, in his letters to Right Hon. R. Packenham, the British plenipotentiary, dated Sep- tember 20, 1844, and September 3, 1844, the reply to the first, of date September 12, 1844, and as continued by James Buchanan, as Secretary of State, to Mr. Packenham, dated July 12, 1845, and August 30, 1845, and the reply to the first, of date July 29, 1845, the final claims of the two contestants are tersely and clearly stated. These state papers, with a map of the country by Robert Greenhow, compiled from the best known authorities at that time, were published in London at the time. The boundary line of 1818 of the Oregon Country is indicated upon this map, and it began where the present international bound- ary intersects the Rocky Mountains, thence running north- erly into British Columbia along this range of mountains to fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, thence west to the Pacific Ocean, near and north of Dixon chan- nel, thence south along the coast to forty-two degrees, thence east along the north boundary of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains, and thence northerly to the place of beginning. By this map Salt Lake is located in Mexico. The map was lithographed by Day & Haghe, lithogra-