RESTORATION OF ASTORIA
327
The Treaty
of 1818, with one paragraph making the Oregon a But the country joint-occupancy country was the result. restoration of Astoria, as a post, had been secured a private
fur company's post, claimed after its sale, by the American government, as a national possession.
Under
the circumstances one
is
hardly surprised at what
happened a few years later. Something of the British view again, is shown in a letter from Lord Castlereagh to Stratford Canning, then British Minister at Washington, under date of August 7th, 1820, in response to a worried letter from Canning. It was marked "Confidential"
42
"The tendency
American government
of the
contentious discussion.
The
is
rather to
ancient relations of the British
and American nations, and the jealousies as yet imperfectly Govt of the United States to maintain their
allayed, incline the
pretensions in discussions with us, perhaps in deference to those prejudices, in a tone of greater harshness than towards any other Government whatever. The American people are more easily excited against us, and more disposed to strengthen the hands of their Ministers against this than against any other state. Time has done a good deal to soften these dispositions,
and the more we can permit them to subside by avoiding angry discussions, the less will the American Govt be capable of contesting unreasonably those various points which the reciprocal interests of the two countries may from time to time be expected to present themselves for adjustment." Castlereagh continued that he looked for an "abatement of
most unbecoming acrimony which has generally been prevalent between these two nations since the period of their that
separation."
Six months later came an example of this. On January 28th, Stratford Canning wrote an eighteen-page letter, on
1821,
heavy plate paper, but
it
was the
42 F. O. 43 F. O.
5, 5,
in "fair
round hand,"
to
Lord Castlereagh Having heard
letter of a startled statesman. 43
Vol. 150. Vol. 157.
