of Marcus Whitman in Washington, or any time during the conference 188 upon the Ashburton Treaty, had the English diplomats proposed to run the boundary line upon forty-nine degrees until it struck the Columbia River, and down that river to the ocean, there is multiplied evidence that the United States would have accepted it at once.
But England did not want a part, she wanted all. During the negotiations in 1827 as to the renewal of the Treaty of 1818, her commissioners stated the case diplomatically, thus: "Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of that territory. Her present claim is not in respect to any part, but to the whole and is limited to a right of joint occupancy in common with other States, leaving the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance."
Some have urged that this was a give-away and a quit claim on the part of England, but at most, it is only the language of diplomacy, to be interpreted by the acts of the party in contest. Those who met and know the men in power in Oregon in those pioneer days, can fully attest the assertion of the Edinburgh Review in an article published in 1843, after Whitman's visit to Washington. It says: "They are chiefly Scotchmen, and a greater proportion of shrewdness, daring and commercial activity is probably not to be found in the same number of heads in the
