The Oregon Territory, Its History and Discovery. Travers Twiss

The object which the author had in view, in instituting the accompanying inquiry into the historical facts and the negotiations connected with the Oregon Territory, was to contribute, as far as his individual services might avail, to the peaceful solution of the question at issue between the United States of America and Great Britain. He could not resist the conviction, on reading several able treatises on the subject, that the case of the United States had been overstated by her writers and negotiators; and the perusal of Mr. Greenhow’s Official Memoir, and subsequent History of Oregon and California, confirmed him in this impression, as they sought to establish more than was consistent with the acknowledged difficulty of a question, which has now been the subject of four fruitless negotiations. He determined, in consequence of this conviction, to investigate carefully the records of ancient discoveries and other matters of history connected with the North-west coast of America, concerning which much contradictory statement is to be met with in writers of acknowledged reputation. The result is, the present work, which has unavoidably assumed a much larger bulk than was anticipated by the author when he commenced the inquiry: it is hoped, however, that the arrangement of the chapters will enable the reader to select, without difficulty, those portions of the subject which he may deem to be most deserving of his attention.

The expeditions of Drake and of Gali have thus necessarily come under consideration; and the views of the author will be found to differ, in respect to both these navigators, from those advanced by Mr. Greenhow, more especially in respect to Drake. Had the author noticed at an earlier period Mr. Greenhow’s remark in the Preface to the second edition of his History, that he has “never deviated from the rule of not citing authorities at second-hand,” he would have thought it right to apologise for attributing the incorrectness of Mr. Greenhow’s statements as to the respective accounts of Drake’s expedition, to his having been misled by the authority of the article “Drake,” in the Biographie Universelle. He would even now apologise, were not any other supposition under the circumstances less respectful to Mr. Greenhow himself.

In regard to Juan de Fuca, if the author could have supposed that in the course of the last negotiations at Washington, Mr. Buchanan would have pronounced that De Fuca’s Voyage “no longer admits of reasonable doubt,” he would have entered into a more careful analysis of Michael Lock’s tale, to show that it is utterly irreconcileable with ascertained facts. As it is, however, the author trusts that enough has been said in the chapter on the Pretended Discoveries of the North-west Coast, to convince the reader that both the stories of Juan de Fuca and Maldonado[1], to the latter of whom, Mr. Calhoun, at an earlier stage of the same negotiations, refers by name as the pioneer of Spanish enterprise, are to be ranked with Admiral Fonte’s account, in the class of Mythical discoveries.

In regard to Vancouver, the author, it is hoped, will be pardoned for expressing an opinion, that Mr. Greenhow has permitted his admitted jealousy for the fame of his fellow-citizens to lead him to do injustice to Vancouver’s character, and to assail it with arguments founded in one or two instances upon incorrect views of Vancouver’s own statements. Mr. Gallatin expressed a very different opinion of this officer, in his Counter-statement, during the negotiation of 1826, when he observes that Vancouver “had too much probity to alter his statement, when, on the ensuing day, he was informed by Captain Gray of the existence of the river, at the mouth of which he had been for several days without being able to enter it.”

The chapter on the Convention of the Escurial is intended to give an outline of the facts and negotiations connected with the controversy between Spain and Great Britain in respect to Nootka Sound, and the subsequent settlement of the points in dispute. The arguments which the author conceived them to furnish against the positions of the Commissioners of the United States, have been inserted, as the opportunity offered itself, in the chapters on the several negotiations. The author, however, has introduced in this chapter, what appears to him to be a conclusive refutation of Mr. Buchanan’s statement, “that no sufficient evidence has been adduced that either Nootka Sound, or any other spot on the coast, was ever actually surrendered by Spain to Great Britain.”

The chapter on the Columbia River attempts to adjust the respective claims of Heceta, Gray, and Broughton, to the discovery and exploration of that river.

A few chapters have been next inserted on points of international law connected with territorial title, which, it was thought, might facilitate the examination of the questions raised in the course of the negotiations by the Commissioners of Great Britain and the United States. They do not profess to be complete, but they embrace, it is believed, nearly all that is of importance for the reader to be familiar with.

The chapters on the Limits of Louisiana, and the Treaty of Washington, were required to elucidate the “derivative title” of the United States.

If the author could have

Скачать книгу