FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 113 while staying at Brown's Hotel where both Benton and Floyd lived. Benton says: "It (the proposition to occupy and settle the region of the Columbia River) was made by Dr. Floyd, representative from Virginia, an ardent man, of great ability, and decision of char- acter, and, from an early residence in Kentucky, strongly im- bued with western feelings. He took up the subject with the energy which belonged to him, and it required not only energy, but courage, to embrace a subject which, at the time seemed more likely to bring ridicule than credit to its advocate. I had written and published essays on the subject the year before, which he had read." 2 Taking Benton's testimony, then, three factors actuated Floyd; his general attitude as a westerner, the immediate in- centive from Crooks and Farnham, and Benton's own interest in Oregon and his writings thereon. But Floyd had been brought in contact with the findings of the Lewis and Clark Ex- pedition at an earlier date, for his cousin, Charles Floyd, was a sergeant in that expedition ; moreover Dr. Floyd was an early friend and great admirer of George Rogers Clark, whom he had known in Kentucky. 3 Looking to another contemporary we receive a different im- pression as to why Dr. Floyd so long led the futile fight for occupying Oregon. Commenting upon Floyd's report (of January, 1821) Adams, then Secretary of State, says that Floyd was party to a systematic attack upon Calhoun by the supporters of Crawford, De Witt Clinton and Clay; furthermore, about half the members of Congress were seeking some government position, a portion being the cringing can- vass and the rest the "flouting canvass ;" "this Dr. Floyd is one 2 Thirty Years' View, I, 13. It is interesting, in connection with this moJ cst remark, to read in Marshall, Acquisition of Oregon, I, 175-6: It is doubtful if any other politician of our history ever succeeded in acquiring so widespread a reputation as a chief factor in accomplishing a great national work, upon which his real influence was never decisive, as Benton acquired in connection with the Oregon acquisition, by merely writing newspaper articles and incessantly making speeches about it, though of the. real constructive work which secured us Oregon ot only did absolutely nothing, but bitterly opposed what such statesmen as ison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, Albert Gallatin, Richard Rush and Henry Clay do, which secured us Oregon without war and without expense." 3 Bourne, Aspects of Oregon History before 1840, Quar. Ore. Soc., VI, 262-3.
