ances. And upon the return journey to Oregon, and during the long rides, the General says, "Whitman told me over and over all that was said and done," in that notable conference at Washington. Along the same lines we have the testimony of a score of his associates and co-workers in Oregon, to whom he was in duty bound to make full report, for they were parties in interest. So from such sources we glean our facts, and in their true spirit and meaning can rest upon them with much confidence, even if not so satisfactory, as if written down at the time.
The characters are before us, they had met in consultation—Marcus Whitman, the man with frosted hands and feet, dressed in furs and buckskin, who had so loved his country that he had braved the winter storms, and over unknown ways, without pay or hoped-for honors or rewards, had come four thousand five hundred miles to plead for Oregon to be placed under the flag. There was the President, the nation's chief; John Tyler, dignified, clear-eyed, honest, earnest, and as he proved, sympathetic and anxious to do his whole duty to the nation; and there was Daniel Webster, known the nation over as "the Great Orator," and "the brainy, far-seeing statesman," who was in this case all out of sympathy with Oregon. He had repeatedly marked its "worthlessness"; he was in
