FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 127 ident's message relating to the Pacific Coast. 31 This commit- tee had had the benefit of some portion of the diplomatic cor- respondence of 1823-4 between Great Britain and the United States which had been transmitted to the House as a result of a resolution in January. The report went over the various claims to title and came to the conclusion that the possession of the mouth of the Columbia was a matter of vital importance, and that "the indifference of America stimulates the cupidity of Great Britain. Our neglect daily weakens our own claim, and strengthens hers; and the day will soon arrive when her title to this Territory will be better than ours, unless ours is earnestly and speedily enforced" It was the spirit of this re- port which Gallatin declared was one of the causes of his fail- ure to settle the boundary question in 1826-7. The President, whose influence had been powerful in whatever had been done with this question, saw in the report another of the numerous attacks upon himself in order to weaken him with the western- ers. Writing to Gallatin in March of 1827 he said : M " . . . . The origin, rise and progress of this Oregon Territory Committee, of which Mr. Balies became at last the chairman, is perhaps not known even to you ; but you remem- ber it was the engine by means of which Mr. Jonathan Rus- sell's famous duplicate letter was brought before the House of Representatives and nation, and) that incident will give you a clue to the real purpose for which that committee was raised, and the spirit manifested in the report of Mr. Balies." This reference to the earlier controversy with Floyd in which the western vote was appealed to, and the charge that forces were at work to undermine the President's chances for re-election, give a hint that already the Oregon Question was coming to be looked upon in some slight measure as a dis- tinctly western issue. Adams, it appeared, would be shown to have been neglectful of the interests of the West if it could 31 H. Rep. No. 213, igth Cong, ist Ses. A preliminary report bad appeared earlier, No. 35 H. Rep. Com. Vol. I. 32 Writings of Gallatin, II, 367.
