Page:The American Catholic Historical Researches, vols. 16 and 17.djvu/215

193 The United States government was always alive to the importance of Oregon, as without it the country would be shut out from the Pacific Ocean. The House of Representatives, during Monroe's last administration, passed a bill for the occupation of Oregon. Monroe recommended that a military post be established south of the Columbia, on what was practically undisputed territory, and the younger Adams renewed the recommendation. Van Buren paid part of the expenses of taking some eighty persons to Oregon, by Jason Lee, in 1839. Senator Linn, of Missouri, introduced a bill for the occupation of Oregon that passed the Senate in 1843, before Whitman arrived in Washington. Organizations were formed in Massachusetts, Illinois and Missouri and other western States, to send colonists there.

Daniel Webster, in 1846, stated correctly the idea of the government in regard to Oregon, saying "We have claimed up to forty- nine degrees and nothing beyond it. We have offered to yield everything north of it. The United States has never offered any line south of forty-nine and never will." England never expected the United States to yield any territory west of the Rocky Mountains east or south of the Columbia river. The Hudson Bay Company never claimed that British territory extended south or east of that river. The company carried on business in all parts of Oregon, but the occupation of the country south and east of the Columbia was in accordance with the treaty of 1818, and not of right. The Catholic missionaries from Quebec were to exercise jurisdiction only north and west of the Columbia. No settlement of the country south of the Columbia was ever attempted by the British. The territory that was in dispute lay north and west of that river. The Bed river settlers, who came out in 1841, and brought out the first wheeled vehicles to the Columbia, settled at first near Puget Sound, but on learning that the Willamette valley was a far better agricultural country, removed there against the wishes of the company oh at had induced them to emigrate. There never was any good reason to suppose the United States would not defend its title to Oregon up to the forty-ninth parallel, and had not the younger Adams made an offer of this line to Great Britain, it is probable that British Columbia would now belong to this Country.

In order to lay the foundation for the assertion that Whitman saved Oregon, many wild and foolish statements have been made. One of these was that the Hudson Bay Company had represented Oregon to he a sterile country, the climate being so cold and disagreeable that it was practically