Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/218

206 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE question came in April, 1826. 34 The Foreign Office desired to know whether Mr. King was provided with instructions which would allow him to take up the Oregon Boundary matter, alleging that it was particularly induced so to inquire since it had received a copy of a communication to the House of Representatives giving a portion of Rush's correspondence relating thereto. In order that there might be no delay Canning informed King that Messrs. Huskisson and Addington were prepared to enter into conferences and either renew the pro- posal of July, 1824, bring forward others, or discuss some new proposition to be made by the American government. It is obvious that Mr. Canning found himself with more of a complicated problem to solve than he had been aware of or at least willing to admit in 1823-4. The crucial point respected the surrender of Fort George in 1818. According to the Memorandum drawn up for Canning by Mr. Addington 35 the transfer of Astoria to the North- West Company had been "by regular bill of sale," and after the close of the war, when Lord Castlereagh ordered its restoration to the United States, Bagot, the minister in Washington, was instructed "to reserve to Great Britain the Territorial Claim to the Tract of Country in which the Fort was situated. This had been done verbally, but no record of the transaction was procurable. Equally fatal had been the omission of the same detail in the public act passed on the occasion by the parties involved, which con- tained a reference to Lord Bathurst's dispatch, but "no tangible and nominatum reservation of the Claim by Great Britain." Canning's view of this phase is summed up in his words to Lord Liverpool : 36 . . . "The absence of any producible document on our part respecting the reservation under which Fort George was restored is the principal difficulty in main- taining our claim in the argument." 34 Am. S. P. For. Rel VI, 645-6. 35 10 May, 1826; Stapleton, Some official correspondence of George Canning, II, 110-5. 36 Canning to Liverpool, 17 May, Ibid. II, 55. Evidently Liverpool shared Canning's apprehensions, and considered the case weaker than did Canning. Vid. Canning to Liverpool, 11 June, Ibid., 58: "Unluckily you said before Harrowby and others that the printed papers gave an imperfect view of the case, without the additional information. I protest I do not think so." This refers, indeed, also to papers which the government did possess.