THE OREGON QUESTION 1818-1828 201
possible aggression on the west coast. 15 He made the Bering a closed sea as well as the Pacific north of 51 de- grees which he fixed as the southern limit of Russian possessions. In addition to this, however, he declared the existence of a buffer zone one hundred miles in extent (north and south) which likewise was to be closed to settlement and exploitation. The National Intelligencer, the semi-official government organ of that day, comments as follows :
"If that decree . . . has no other effect, it gives interest to the proceedings in Congress relative to a set- tlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. It will not be a matter of surprise to us that it will have the effect to procure the passage in Congress of an act to authorize the establishment of a post at the mouth of the Columbia, which however earnestly proposed by the mover has hitherto hardly been seriously entertained by the House whose attention has been called to it."
Whether or not the Russian ukase had been called forth by American action, it was assuredly the cause of immediate action on the part of Floyd. 16 While its ex- istence was still a matter of unofficial rumor, he intro- duced a resolution on February 15th, demanding to know "what the claims of any country were to the territory of the United States on the Pacific Coast." The next day the House accepted his resolution without opposition. With this much done, however, the House seemed content and there let the affair rest. The Secretary of the Navy had reported prior to the bill of January 18th that the cost of the expedition proposed would be $25,000. 17 With this much data in hand, the Oregon question was allowed to rest for almost ten months.
The short session of the seventeenth Congress opened and on December 11, 1822, Floyd's bill of the previous session was found to be next in order. Floyd announced
15 Niles Register, XXI, p. 279; (quotes also extensively from National Intelligencer.}
16 Niles Register, XXI, 400; 415.
17 Ibid., p. 302.
