Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/368

362 362 W. D. FENTON. of the country had not been agreed upon when our latest advices left the United States, and as far as we can learn, the question now stands in the same position as before the convention in London in 1818." After stating that ne- gotiations had thus far failed of agreement between the two countries, the message proceeds : "And we find that after all the negotiations that have been carried on be- tween the United States and Great Britain, relative to settling their claims to this country from October, 1818, up to May, 1844, a period of nearly twenty-six years, the question remains in the following unsettled condition, namely, neither of the parties in question claim exclusive right to the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains between the parallels of forty-two degrees and fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and bordering on the Pacific Ocean, but one claims as much right as the other, and both claim the right of joint occupancy of the whole without prejudice to the claims of any other state or power of any part of said country." In another part it reads: u We are informed that the number of emi- grants who have come from the United States to this country during the present year amounts to upwards of 750 persons." The message concludes : "As descendants of the United States and of Great Britain we should honor and respect the countries which gave us birth ; and as citizens of Oregon we should, by a uniform course of pro- ceeding and a strict observance of the rules of justice, equity, and republican principles, without party distinc- tions, use our best endeavors to cultivate the kind feeling, not only of our native countries, but of all of the powers or states with whom we may have intercourse." This remarkable document was listened to at the time by Peter H. Burnett, David Hill, M. M. McCarver, Mr. Gil- more from Tuality district, A. L. Lovejoy from Clackamas, Daniel Waldo, Thomas D. Keizer, and Robert Newell of