380 DEBATE IN THE SENATE OF THE U. S. ON OREGON. [1842. 



of land to the settlers, after a certain period of occupancy. It was 

 defended, generally, on the grounds that its adoption would be the 

 exercise, by the United States, of rights which were unquestionable, 

 and had been long unjustly withheld from them by Great Britain ; 

 and that, taking this for granted, it afforded the best means, in all 

 respects, of making good those rights, and securing to the republic 

 the ultimate possession of the territories west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, which must otherwise fall, or rather remain, irretrievably, in 

 the hands of another power. The opponents to the bill differed in 

 their views of its various provisions : many were averse to any 

 action whatsoever on the subject at that time, while others con- 

 sidered the measures recommended as impolitic, expensive, and by 

 no means calculated to attain the end proposed ; but they were 

 unanimous in opinion that the cession of lands in Oregon to 

 American citizens would be an infraction of the convention of 

 1827 with Great Britain, and could not, therefore, be legally made 

 until that agreement had been rescinded in the manner therein 

 stipulated. In this, as in the other provisions of the bill, however, 

 its advocates were unwilling to make any material change, regarding 

 them all as essential to the objects in view. 



Mr. Linn, as the proposer of the bill, explained and defended 

 each of its provisions, on the grounds of their justice, of their com- 

 patibility with the existing diplomatic arrangements, and of their 

 efficiency for the attainment of the end in view, namely, the pos- 

 session of these extensive and valuable territories by the United 

 States, to which they belong of right. After recapitulating the 

 various grounds of that right, he contended that the United States 

 had been deprived of the privileges of the joint occupancy, secured 

 to them in the convention of 1827, by the encroachments of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, which, under the direct protection of the 

 British government, had taken actual possession of the whole terri- 

 tory beyond the Rocky Mountains. Great Britain, he insisted, was 

 there employing the same policy and mechanism, of a great trading 

 company, by means of which she had made her way to the domin- 

 ion of India ; she already practically occupied all that she ever 

 claimed south and north of the Columbia ; her agents had directly 

 avowed that she would not give up the establishments which she 

 had encouraged her subjects to form there ; and, as a further proof 

 of her intentions, the Hudson's Bay Company had, within a few 

 years, founded farming settlements on an extensive scale, from 

 which large exports of provisions are made to the Russian posts 



