Earlx Relations hctivccn tJtc United States and China. 57 



ments which have ever in any one year been made to Canton 

 from the United States. . . . Were this trade cherished .... 

 we could purchase the whole supplies of the United States in 

 the Canton market without carrying one dollar out of the coun- 

 try. "^^ He went on to describe the value of the trade, and argued 

 that the grain fields of the Columbia valley could ultimately 

 supply the market of China. The importance of Oregon in the 

 Canton trade was, too, the argument used by the other supporters 

 of Oregon occupation. Baylies and Tucker used it.^- Colden 

 of New York prophesied that wathin twenty or fifty years the 

 nearest route to further Asia would be by way of rivers, canals, 

 and portages to Oregon, and thence across the Pacific. ^'^ 



In December, 1824, Floyd was again agitating the question, 

 backing his cause by the same arguments.^* His bill passed the 

 House, only to be tabled in the Senate, but four years later he 

 renewed the struggle, urging the old reasons. ^^ He was defeated 

 and the question was dropped in Congress for ten years. When 

 at last it came up again the advantages of Oregon in the Canton 

 market, although still used incidentally,^*^ were no longer the 

 prominent arguments. 



It can safely be said, however, that the Oregon Country was 

 preserved to the United States because of the importance it 

 was felt to have in the Canton commerce, and because of the 

 claims to it which the early fur trade had established. 



The sandal wood trade did not decline as early as the fur trade 

 or the sealing voyages. In 1817 Kotzebue found it still in full 

 progress on the Hawaiian Islands.^' The native government 



'^ Floyd of Va., Speech, Dec. 17, 1822. Annals of Congress, 17 Cong., 

 2 Sess., p. 398. 



'"Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., 2 Sess., Dec. 18, 1822, pp. 418, 423. 



" Ibid., pp. 583-586. Jan. 13, 1823. 



" Register of Debates, i : 18-22. 



" Ibid., 5 : 149. 



'° Woodbury of New Hampshire urged these advantages. Congressional 

 Globe, 3 Sess., 27 Cong., App., p. 93. Hunt foresaw the time when Oregon 

 would command the China trade and a railroad join the Northwest Coast 

 to New York. Hunt's Merc. Mag., 12: 80. 



" Otto von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery in the South Seas, and to 

 Behring's Straits in Search of a Northwest Passage .... in the 

 years 1815, 1816, 1817, 1818, etc., London, 1821, i : 189-192. 



