joined the others at the site chosen for the mission on the Willamette, a few miles below the present city of Salem. It was not till after much deliberation that the mission was established at that place, for we are told that the merits of different portions of the country were considered—the Flatheads, the Nez Perces, the Cayuse and other tribes were carefully reviewed, but to the exclusion of all others the Willamette Valley was selected, chiefly because it was "strongly recommended by Doctor McLoughlin and the rest of the gentlemen at Vancouver." How, in the face of the testimony like this, delivered by the American missionaries themselves, it could have been supposed or told later, that the British people in the country were enemies of our people, passes comprehension.
Yet there was sharp competition between the subjects of Great Britain and the American newcomers in Oregon, for ascendency in the country. The claims of both countries extended to the entire area, from the 42d parallel to 54-40. In truth, however, neither party could hope to maintain its claim entire. Such was the situation that compromise was inevitable. Our claim to the country north of the 49th parallel was weak. As weak was the British claim to the Columbia and especially weak to the territory south of the Columbia River. Neither party therefore was able wholly to exclude the other, though for a time each bravely made an exclusive claim. The talk on our side of "fifty-four forty or fight" was merely the cry of a party among our own people. Say rather, it was the insolence of partisanship, for Great Britain's claims, through discovery, exploration and occupation, to a standing below "fifty-four forty" rested on a basis too solid to be disposed of in this way; and besides our claim to "fifty-four forty" rested merely on a convention between the United States and Russia, through which the latter had named "fifty-four forty" as the southern boundary of her
