the United States claim, which were entirely favorable to it.
Mallary of Vermont did not wish for the establishment of a civil government on the Columbia, before there were people in that territory over whom it might be exercised; but approved of occupation by a military force only, with encouragement to settlers. As to the rest, he was decidedly in favor of occupying the country, and entertained no fear of consequences. The smallest nation of Europe would not hesitate to plant her colonies in any part of the world; and yet American enterprise, so often vaunted, dared not venture beyond the Rocky Mountains. The subject, he declared, occupied a large share of the public attention, and the action of congress was anxiously looked for. The only objection he found to the argument which had preceded him was the advocacy of the colonial system by Baylies, to which he could not agree, as being foreign to the principles of the American republic.
Then followed Tracy of New York, and overturned all the specious reasoning of his colleague, Mr Colden, by giving information of the real nature of the country which would be embraced in the thirty square miles of territory over which the United States, it was proposed, should extend its laws and protection. Tracy chanced to have made the acquaintance of several gentlemen who had been at the mouth of the Columbia, from whom he had learned that the imaginary Eden of the gentleman who had spoken in favor of the bill was an inhospitable wilderness, confined within a rugged and iron-bound coast. The entrance to the Columbia was dangerous, and only with a fair and free wind could be undertaken; the climate was bleak and inhospitable; so humid and with so feeble a sun that the grains could hardly be raised, though the soil was deep and good. For a long distance from the ocean the country was so broken and rugged that no place could be found for a
