wayward child. And in this they were right; for had England been as unreasonable, overbearing, and insulting as the people of the United States, there assuredly would have been war. Yet, after all, in regard to the opposing views of the British and American inhabitants of Oregon, I would not say that either was wrong. Both were educated to a belief in the views they professed, and to see in every circumstance confirmation of their belief. That which in the eyes of a disinterested spectator might appear as an exhibition of the crudest selfishness was in their estimation only insisting in a manly spirit on their rights. That the Americans were most demonstrative in this display of feeling was natural. England in her dealings with the American colonies, and her behavior toward the young United States, had been far from reputable. The greed and selfishness of that nation has ever grown with its increasing strength. This the people of Oregon knew; and they would gladly have prevented Great Britain from occupying a rood of territory on the American continent, and esteemed it a privilege as well as a duty to defend from her grasp any portion of it that by the most liberal construction might be claimed as territory of the United States. Maintaining this position, they felt that they were not only doing their duty to themselves, but serving posterity and enlarging free institutions.[1]
But while, as I have elsewhere shown, many statesman were as opposed as ever to the division of the Northwest Coast with Great Britain, the time had come when a settlement must be made. It had come, too, at a juncture when the hands of the government were filled by the acquisition of new territory south of the southern limits of Oregon, extending to
- ↑ Even the most temperate Americans in Oregon felt sore over the relinquishment of so much territory. Mr Applegate, who labored so wisely and well to keep the peace, remarked later: 'If we had then as now a railroad across the continent, and had taken possession with an army of 100,000 men months before a British fleet could reach the coast, British arrogance would have taken a much lower key, and Mr Polk's administration would not have dared to yield an inch of Oregon.' Views of History, MS., 48.
