The danger of waiting for Great Britain to strengthen her claim was illustrated by Mr. Linn, by what had happened in Maine. In 1814 she proposed to purchase the part she wanted. She afterwards endeavored to negotiate for a right of way across the State. Failing in that attempted negotiation, as in the offer to purchase, she boldly set up a claim to all she wanted—demanded it as matter of right—and obtained it by the Ashburton treaty—the United States paying Massachusetts and Maine for the dismembered part. Deprecating a like result from temporizing measures with respect to Oregon, Mr. Linn said:
"So little before 1813 or 1814 did Great Britain ever doubt your claim to the lately contested territory in Maine, that in 1814 she proposed to purchase that part of it which she desired. She next treated for a right of way. It was refused; and she then set up a claim to the soil. This method has sped no ill with her; for she has got what she wanted, AND MADE YOU PAY FOR IT. Her Oregon game is the same. She has set her heart upon a strip of territory north of the Oregon, and seems determined to pluck it from us, either by circumvention or force. Aware of the political as well as legal advantages of possession, she is strengthening hers in every way not too directly responsible. She is selecting and occupying the best lands, the most favorable sites. These she secures to the settlers under contracts. For any counteraction of yours, she may take, and is taking, possession of the whole territory. She has appropriated sites for mills, manufactories, and farms. If one of these has been abandoned for a better, she reverts to it, if a citizen of yours occupies it, and ejects him. She tells her people she will protect them in whatever they have laid, or may lay, their hands upon. If she can legitimately do this, why may not we? Is this a joint occupation of which she is to have the sole benefit? Had you as many citizens there as she, you would be compelled to protect them; and if you have not, why is it but because she keeps them off, and you refuse to offer them the inducements which she holds out? Give them a prospective grant of lands, and insure them the shelter of your laws, and they will soon congregate there in force enough to secure your rights and their own."
The losses already sustained by our citizens from the ravages of Indians, incited against them by the British Hudson Bay company, were stated by Mr. Linn upon good authority, to be five hundred men in lives taken in the first ten years of the joint occupation treaty, and half a million of dollars in property robbed or destroyed, besides getting exclusive possession of our soil, and the command of our own Indians within our own limits: and he then contrasted this backwardness to protect our own citizens on their own soil with the readiness to expend untold amounts on the protection of our citizens engaged in foreign commerce; and even in going to the coast of Africa to guard the freedom of the negro race.
"Wherever your sails whiten the sea, in no matter what clime, against no matter whom, the national arm stretches out its protection. Every where but in this unhappy territory, the persons and the pursuits of your citizens are watched over. You count no cost when other interests are concerned, when other rights are assailed; but you recoil here from a trifling appropriation to an object of the highest national importance, because it enlists no sectional influence. Contrast, for instance, your supineness about the Oregon Territory, with your alacrity to establish, for guarding the slave coast and Liberia, a squadron costing $600,000 annually, and which you have bound yourself by treaty to keep up for five years, with great exposure of lives and vessels. By stipulation, eighty guns (one-twelfth of your force afloat) is kept upon this service; and, as your naval expenditure amounts to about seven millions a year, this (its twelfth part) will make, in five years, three millions bestowed in watching the coast of Africa, and guarding the freedom of the negro race! For this you lavish millions; and you grudge $100,000 to the great American and national object of asserting your territorial rights and settling your soil. You grant at once what furthers the slave policy of a rival power, and deny the means of rescuing from its grasp your own property and soil."
This African squadron has now been kept up more than twice five years, and promises to be perpetual; for there was that delusive clause in the article, so tempting to all temporizing spirits, that after the lapse of the five years, the squadron was still to be kept up until the United States should give notice to terminate the article. This idea of notice to terminate a treaty, so easy to put in it, and so difficult to be given when entanglement and use combine to keep things as they are, was shown to be almost impossible in this treaty of joint occupation of the Columbia. Mr. Calhoun had demanded of Mr. Linn, why not give the notice to terminate the treaty before proceeding to settle the country? to which he answered:
"The senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], has urged that we should, first of all, give the twelve months' notice of our renunciation of the treaty. He [Mr. Linn] could only answer that he had repeatedly, by resolutions, urged that course in former years; but always in vain. He had ever been met with the answer: 'This is not the proper time—wait.' Meanwhile, the adverse possession was going on, fortifying from year to year the British claim and the British resources, to make it good. Mr. Madison had encouraged the bold and well-arranged scheme of Astor to fortify and colonize. He was dispossessed; and the nucleus of empire which his establishments formed, passed into the hands of the Hudson Bay Company, now the great instrument of English aggrandizement in that quarter. The senator insists that, by the treaty, there should be a joint possession. Be it so, if you will. But where is our part of this joint possession? In what does it consist, or has it consisted? We have no posts there, no agent, no military power to protect traders. Nay, indeed, no traders! For they have disappeared before foreign competition; or fallen a sacrifice to the rifle, the tomahawk, or the scalping knife of those savages whom the Hudson Bay Company can always make the instruments of systematic massacre of adventurous rivals."
Mr. Benton spoke at large in defence of the bill, and first of the clause in it allotting land to the settlers, saying:
"The objections to this bill grew out of the clause granting land to the settlers, not so much on account of the grants themselves, as on account of the exclusive jurisdiction over the country, which the grants would seem to imply. This was the objection; for no one defended the title of the British to one inch square of the valley of Oregon. The senator from Arkansas [Mr. Sevier], who has just spoken, had well said that this was an objection to the whole bill; for the rest would be worth nothing, without these grants to the settlers. Nobody would go there without the inducement of land. The British had planted a power there—the Hudson Bay Fur Company—in which the old Northwest Company was merged; and this power was to them in the New World what the East India company was to them in the Old World: it was an arm of the government, and did every thing for the government which policy, or treaties prevented it from doing for itself. This company was settling and colonizing the Columbia for the British government, and we wish American citizens to settle and colonize it for us. The British government gives inducement to this company. It gives them trade, commerce, an exclusive charter, laws, and national protection. We must give inducement also; and our inducement must be land and protection. Grants of land will carry settlers there; and the senator from Ohio [Mr. Tappan] was treading in the tracks of Mr. Jefferson (perhaps without having read his recommendation, although he has read much) when he proposed, in his speech of yesterday, to plant 50,000 settlers, with their 50,000 rifles, on the banks of the Oregon. Mr. Jefferson had proposed the same thing in regard to Louisiana. He proposed that we should settle that vast domain when we acquired it; and for that purpose, that donations of land should be made to the first 30,000 settlers who should go there. This was the right doctrine, and the old doctrine. The white race were a land-loving people, and had a right to possess it, because they used it according to the intentions of the Creator. The white race went for land, and they will continue to go for it, and will go where they can get it. Europe, Asia, and America, have been settled by them in this way. All the States of this Union have been so settled. The principle is founded in their nature and in God's command; and it will continue to be obeyed. The valley of the Columbia is a vast field open to the settler. It is ours, and our people are beginning to go upon it. They go under the expectation of getting land; and that expectation must be confirmed to them. This bill proposes to confirm it; and if it fails in this particular, it fails in all. There is nothing left to induce emigration; and emigration is the only thing which can save the country from the British, acting through their powerful agent—the Hudson Bay Company."
Mr. Benton then showed from a report of Major Pilcher, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and who had visited the Columbia River, that actual colonization was going on there, attended by every circumstance that indicated ownership and the design of a permanent settlement. Fort Vancouver, the principal of these British establishments, for there are many of them within our boundaries, is thus described by Major Pilcher:
"This fort is on the north side of the Columbia, nearly opposite the mouth of the Multnomah, in the region of tide-water, and near the head of ship navigation. It is a grand position, both in a military and commercial point of view, and formed to command the whole region watered by the Columbia and its tributaries. The surrounding country, both in climate and soil, is capable of sustaining a large population; and its resources in timber give ample facilities for ship-building. This post is fortified with cannon; and, having been selected as the principal or master position, no pains have been spared to strengthen or improve it. For this purpose, the old post near the mouth of the river has been abandoned. About one hundred and twenty acres of ground are in cultivation; and the product in wheat, barley, oats, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, is equal to what is known in the best parts of the United States. Domestic animals are numerous—the horned cattle having been stated to me at three hundred; hogs, horses, sheep, and goats, in proportion; also, the usual domestic fowls: every thing, in fact, indicating a permanent establishment. Ship-building has commenced at this place. One vessel has been built and rigged, sent to sea, and employed in the trade of the Pacific Ocean. I also met a gentleman, on my way to Lake Winnipec, at the portage between the Columbia and Athabasca, who was on his way from Hudson's Bay to Fort Colville, with a master ship-carpenter, and who was destined for Fort Vancouver, for the purpose of building a ship of considerable burden. Both grist and saw-mills have been built at Fort Vancouver: with the latter, they saw the timber which is needed for their own use, and also for exportation to the Sandwich Islands; upon the former, their wheat is manufactured into flour. And, from all that I could learn, this important post is silently growing up into a colony; and is, perhaps, intended as a future military and naval station, which was not expected to be delivered up at the expiration of the treaty which granted them a temporary and joint possession."