United States squadron in the Pacific, including the commander of the Shark. No special communication was made to the government of Oregon, but a bundle of newspapers contained sufficient good tidings in the notice bill, and a bill requiring the president to establish military posts between the Missouri and the Columbia, at suitable distances, and authorizing the raising of a regiment of mounted riflemen for service along the line of travel and in Oregon; with the promise also of a mail route to the Pacific, and talk of a railroad to the Columbia River. A pamphlet by George Wilkes was received, containing a memorial to congress, praying for the construction of such a road, appended to which was a memorial to the speaker and representatives of the legislature of Oregon, asking for an expression from them to the congress of the United States on the subject of a national railroad to the Pacific Ocean, in the hope that their prayer, joined to his own, might procure the passage of a bill then before congress for this purpose.[1]
These subjects, so full of interest to the colonists, promising the fulfilment of their loftiest dreams, dulled their appreciation of the accompanying intelligence that the United States was actually at war with Mexico, and that, therefore, since England still maintained a belligerent tone, there was prospect of serious work for the government. Nor did the fact create any obvious dissatisfaction that Benton, Oregon's champion for more than two decades, as well as Webster, Calhoun, and other distinguished statesmen, now advocated the final settlement of the question on the 49th parallel instead of the popular 'fifty-four forty' boundary. A salute was fired, and the American flag hoisted, while a general expression of cheerfulness and
- ↑ This scheme was for a free national road to be supported by tolls sufficient to pay its expenses, and not a corporate monopoly. Wilkes was in advance of his times; but the principle he advocated is undoubtedly the correct one for developing the great interior of the continent. See Cong. Globe, 1845–6, 414, 445, 1171, 1206; Or. Spectator, Sept. 17, 1846.
