Early Misconceptions 255 
“The ridge of the Rocky mountains may be named as a convenient, 
natural and everlasting boundary. Along this ridge the western limits 
of the Republic should be drawn and the statue of the fabled god Termi- 
nus should be erected on its highest peak, never to be thrown down.” 
Thanks to Dr Whitman and other pioneer heroes whose names 
and memories are rightfully forever embalmed in the affections 
of every true American, the western limits of the Republic were 
not drawn on the ridge of the Rocky mountains. The fabled 
god “Terminus” was never stationed there. Providence had 
willed it otherwise, and a brave and courageous people executed 
that will. Though those mountains are high and rocky and 
seemingly insurmountable, they were neither high enough nor 
rocky enough to impress discouragement on the minds or hearts 
of such dauntless men and women as Whitman and his wife and 
their followers, or to stem the irresistible tide of the pioneer 
emigration of these resolute and determined men and women 
who, by their incomparable courage and untold sufferings, set- 
tled the Oregon question forever. 
The great historic fact is that prior to Whitman’s visit to 
Washington (to which I shall presently allude) the sentiment 
among public men was almost universal that Oregon was a 
worthless waste, not worth contending for. Some in fact never 
did learn or comprehend its great value. As late as 1846 Sena- 
tor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, quoted what Benton had said 
in 1825, and then remarked: ‘This country will not be strait- 
ened for elbow-room in the west for a thousand years, and neither 
the west nor the country at large has any real interest in retain- 
ing Oregon.” 
The Influence of the Hudson Bay Company. 
The Hudson Bay company, through whose active influence 
this false sentiment was mainly created, was in every essential 
sense the direct, active and all powerful agent of the British 
government. It held its charter and its licenses from that goy- 
ernment; its officers were superintended by a governor and 
deputy governor and a committee of directors resident in Lon- 
don, while a resident governor superintended and directed its 
vast operations in America. 
The officers and members of the Hudson Bay company were, 
as a rule, under the domination of the home government. One 
grand exception, however, stands out in history: Dr John Mc- 
34 —Nar. Geog, Maa., vor. VI, 1894. 
