OREGON TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT: BOUNDARIES AND HISTORY OF THE
COUNTRY: FRAZER'S RIVER: TREATY OF UTRECHT: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH:
EXTRACTS.
Mr. Benton then addressed the Senate. Mr. President, the bill before
the Senate proposes to extend the sovereignty and jurisdiction
of the United States over all our territories west of the Rocky
Mountains, without saying what is the extent and what are the limits
of this territory. This is wrong, in my opinion. We ought to define
the limits within which our agents are to do such acts as this bill
contemplates, otherwise we commit to them the solution of questions
which we find too hard for ourselves. This indefinite extension of
authority, in a case which requires the utmost precision, forces
me to speak, and to give my opinion of the true extent of our
territories beyond the Rocky Mountains. I have delayed doing this
during the whole session, not from any desire to conceal my opinions
(which, in fact, were told to all that asked for them), but because
I thought it the business of negotiation, not of legislation, to
settle these boundaries. I waited for negotiation: but negotiation
lags, while events go forward; and now we are in the process of
acting upon measures, upon the adoption of which it may no longer
be in the power either of negotiation or of legislation to control
the events to which they may give rise. The bill before us is
without definition of the territory to be occupied. And why this
vagueness in a case requiring the utmost precision? Why not define
the boundaries of these territories? Precisely because we do not
know them! And this presents a case which requires me to wait no
longer for negotiation, but to come forward with my own opinions,
and to do what I can to prevent the evils of vague and indefinite
legislation. My object will be to show, if I can, the true extent
and nature of our territorial claims beyond the Rocky Mountains,
with a view to just and wise decisions; and, in doing so, I shall
endeavor to act upon the great maxim, "Ask nothing but what is
right--submit to nothing that is wrong."
It is my ungracious task, in attempting to act upon this maxim, to
commence by exposing error at home, and endeavoring to clear up some
great mistakes under which the public mind has labored.
It has been assumed for two years, and the assumption has been made
the cause of all the Oregon excitement of the country, that we have
a dividing line with Russia, made so by the convention of 1824,
along the parallel of 54° 40', from the sea to the Rocky Mountains,
up to which our title is good. This is a great mistake. No such line
was ever established; and so far as proposed and discussed, it was
proposed and discussed as a northern British, and not as a northern
American line. The public treaties will prove there is no such line;
documents will prove that, so far as 54° 40', from the sea to the
mountains, was ever proposed as a northern boundary for any power,
it was proposed by us for the British, and not for ourselves.
To make myself intelligible in what I shall say on this point, it is
necessary to go back to the epoch of the Russian convention of 1824,
and to recall the recollection of the circumstances out of which
that convention grew. The circumstances were these: In the year 1821
the Emperor Alexander, acting upon a leading idea of Russian policy
(in relation to the North Pacific Ocean) from the time of Peter the
Great, undertook to treat that ocean as a close sea, and to exercise
municipal authority over a great extent of its shores and waters. In
September of that year, the emperor issued a decree, bottomed upon
this pretension, assuming exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction
over both shores of the North Pacific Ocean, and over the high
seas, in front of each coast, to the extent of one hundred Italian
miles, from Behring's Straits down to latitude fifty-one, on the
American coast, and to forty-five on the Asiatic; and denouncing the
penalties of confiscation upon all ships, of whatsoever nation that
should approach the coasts within the interdicted distances. This
was a very startling decree. Coming from a feeble nation, it would
have been smiled at; coming from Russia, it gave uneasiness to all
nations.
Great Britain and the United States, as having the largest commerce
in the North Pacific Ocean, and as having large territorial claims
on the north-west coast of America, were the first to take the
alarm, and to send remonstrances to St. Petersburg against the
formidable ukase. They found themselves suddenly thrown together,
and standing side by side in this new and portentous contest with
Russia. They remonstrated in concert, and here the wise and pacific
conduct of the Emperor Alexander displayed itself in the most prompt
and honorable manner. He immediately suspended the ukase (which, in
fact, had remained without execution), and invited the United States
and Great Britain to unite with Russia in a convention to settle
amicably, and in a spirit of mutual convenience, all the questions
between them, and especially their respective territorial claims
on the north-west coast of America. This magnanimous proposition
was immediately met by the two powers in a corresponding spirit;
and, the ukase being voluntarily relinquished by the emperor, a
convention was quickly signed by Russia with each power, settling,
so far as Russia was concerned, with each, all their territorial
claims in North-west America. The Emperor Alexander had proposed
that it should be a joint convention of the three powers--a
tripartite convention--settling the claims of each and of all at
the same time; and if this wise suggestion had been followed,
all the subsequent and all the present difficulties between the
United States and Great Britain, with respect to this territory,
would have been entirely avoided. But it was not followed: an act
of our own prevented it. After Great Britain had consented, the
non-colonization principle--the principle of non-colonization in
America by any European power--was promulgated by our government,
and for that reason Great Britain chose to treat separately with
each power, and so it was done.
Great Britain and the United States treated separately with Russia,
and with each other; and each came to agreements with Russia, but to
none among themselves. The agreements with Russia were contained in
two conventions signed nearly at the same time, and nearly in the
same words, limiting the territorial claim of Russia to 54° 40',
confining her to the coasts and islands, and leaving the continent,
out to the Rocky Mountains, to be divided between the United States
and Great Britain, by an agreement between themselves. The emperor
finished up his own business and quit the concern. In fact, it would
seem, from the promptitude, moderation, and fairness with which
he adjusted all differences both with the United States and Great
Britain, that his only object of issuing the alarming ukase of 1821
was to bring those powers to a settlement; acting upon the homely,
but wise maxim, that short settlements make long friends.
Well, there is no such line as 54° 40'; and that would seem to be
enough to quiet the excitement which has been got up about it.
But there is more to come. I set out with saying, that although
this fifty-four forty was never established as a northern boundary
for the United States, yet it was proposed to be established as
a northern boundary, not for us, but for Great Britain--and that
proposal was made to Great Britain by ourselves. This must sound
like a strange statement in the ears of the fifty-four forties; but
it is no more strange than true; and after stating the facts, I mean
to prove them. The plan of the United States at that time was this:
That each of the three powers (Great Britain, Russia, and the United
States) having claims on the north-west coast of America, should
divide the country between them, each taking a third. In this plan
of partition, each was to receive a share of the continent from
the sea to the Rocky Mountains, Russia taking the northern slice,
the United States the southern, and Great Britain the centre, with
fifty-four forty for her northern boundary, and forty-nine for her
southern. The document from which I now read will say fifty-one; but
that was the first offer--forty-nine was the real one, as I will
hereafter show. This was our plan. The moderation of Russia defeated
it. That power had no settlements on that part of the continent, and
rejected the continental share which we offered her. She limited
herself to the coasts and islands where she had settlements, and
left Great Britain and the United States to share the continent
between themselves. But before this was known, we had proposed
to her fifty-four forty for the Russian southern boundary, and to
Great Britain the same for her northern boundary. I say fifty-four
forty; for, although the word in the proposition was fifty-five,
yet it was on the principle which gave fifty-four forty--namely,
running from the south end of Prince of Wales' Island, supposed to
be in fifty-five, but found to have a point to it running down to
fifty-four forty. We proposed this to Great Britain. She refused
it, saying she would establish her northern boundary with Russia,
who was on her north, and not with the United States, who was on
her south. This seemed reasonable; and the United States then, and
not until then, relinquished the business of pressing fifty-four
forty upon Great Britain for her northern boundary. The proof is in
the executive documents. Here it is--a despatch from Mr. Rush, our
minister in London, to Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, dated December
19, 1823.
(The despatch read.)
Here is the offer, in the most explicit terms, in 1823, to make
fifty-five, which was in fact fifty-four forty, the northern
boundary of Great Britain; and here is her answer to that
proposition. It is the next paragraph in the same despatch from
Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams.
(The answer read.)
This was her answer, refusing to take, in 1823, as a northern
boundary coming south for quantity, what is now prescribed to
her, at the peril of war, for a southern boundary, with nothing
north!--for, although the fact happens to be that Russia is not
there, bounding us on the north, yet that makes no difference in
the philosophy of our Fifty-four-Forties, who believe it to be
so; and, on that belief, are ready to fight. Their notion is,
that we go jam up to 54° 40', and the Russians come jam down to
the same, leaving no place for the British lion to put down a
paw, although that paw should be no bigger than the sole of the
dove's foot which sought a resting-place from Noah's ark. This
must seem a little strange to British statesmen, who do not grow
so fast as to leave all knowledge behind them. They remember
that Mr. Monroe and his cabinet--the President and cabinet who
acquired the Spanish title under which we now propose to squeeze
them out of the continent--actually offered them six degrees
of latitude in that very place; and they will certainly want
reasons for this so much compression now, where we offered them
so much expansion then. These reasons cannot be given. There
is no boundary at 54° 40'; and so far as we proposed to make
it one, it was for the British and not for ourselves; and so
ends this redoubtable line, up to which all true patriots were
to march! and marching, fight! and fighting, die! if need be!
singing all the while, with Horace--
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."
I come to the line of Utrecht, the existence of which is denied
upon this floor by senators whose fate it seems to be to assert
the existence of a line that is not, and to deny the existence
of one that is. A clerk in the Department of State has compiled
a volume of voyages and of treaties, and, undertaking to set the
world right, has denied that commissioners ever met under the treaty
of Utrecht, and fixed boundaries between the British northern and
French Canadian possessions in North America. That denial has been
produced and accredited on this floor by a senator in his place
(Mr. Cass); and this production of a blundering book, with this
senatorial endorsement of its blunder, lays me under the necessity
of correcting a third error which the "fifty-four-forties" hug to
their bosom, and the correction of which becomes necessary for the
vindication of history, the establishment of a political right, and
the protection of the Senate from the suspicion of ignorance. I
affirm that the line was established; that the commissioners met and
did their work; and that what they did has been acquiesced in by all
the powers interested from the year 1713 down to the present time.
In the year 1805, being the second year after the acquisition of
Louisiana, President Jefferson sent ministers to Madrid (Messrs.
Monroe and Charles Pinckney) to adjust the southern and southwestern
boundaries with her; and, in doing so, the principles which had
governed the settlement of the northern boundary of the same
province became a proper illustration of their ideas. They quoted
these principles, and gave the line of Utrecht as the example; and
this to Don Pedro Cevallos, one of the most accomplished statesmen
of Europe. They say to him:
"It is believed that this principle has been admitted and
acted on invariably since the discovery of America, in respect
to their possessions there, by all the European powers. It
is particularly illustrated by the stipulations of their
most important treaties concerning those possessions and the
practice under them, viz., the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and
that of Paris in 1763. In conformity with the 10th article of
the first-mentioned treaty, the boundary between Canada and
Louisiana on the one side, and the Hudson Bay and Northwestern
Companies on the other, was established by commissioners, by a
line to commence at a cape or promontory on the ocean, in 58°
31' north latitude; to run thence, southwestwardly, to latitude
49° north from the equator; and along that line indefinitely
westward. Since that time, no attempt has been made to extend
the limits of Louisiana or Canada to the _north_ of that line,
or of those companies to the _south_ of it, by purchase,
conquest, or grants from the Indians."
This is what Messrs. Monroe and Charles Pinckney said to Don Pedro
Cevallos--a minister who must be supposed to be as well acquainted
with the treaties which settled the boundaries of the late Spanish
province of Louisiana as we are with the treaties which settle the
boundaries of the United States. The line of Utrecht, and in the
very words which carry it from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific
Ocean, and which confine the British to the north, and the French
and Spanish to the south of that line, are quoted to Mr. Cevallos
as a fact which he and all the world knew. He received it as such;
and thus Spanish authority comes in aid of British, French, and
American, to vindicate our rights and the truth of history.
(The letter was read.)
Another contribution, which I have pleasure to acknowledge, is from
a gentleman of Baltimore, formerly of the House of Representatives
(Mr. Kennedy), who gives me an extract from the Journal of the
British House of Commons, March 5th, 1714, directing a writ to be
issued for electing a burgess in the place of Frederick Herne,
Esq., who, since his election, hath accepted, as the Journal says,
the office of one of his Majesty's commissioners for treating with
commissioners on the part of France for settling the trade between
Great Britain and France. The same entry occurs at the same time
with respect to James Murray, Esq., and Sir Joseph Martyn. The tenth
article of the treaty of Utrecht applies to limits in North America,
the eleventh and fifteenth to commerce; and these commissioners
were appointed under some or all of these articles. Others might
have been appointed by the king, and not mentioned in the journals,
as not being members of Parliament whose vacated seats were to
be filled. All three of the articles of the treaty were equally
obligatory for the appointment of commissioners; and here is proof
that three were appointed under the commercial articles.
One more piece of testimony, and I have done. And, first, a little
statement to introduce it. We all know that in one of the debates
which took place in the British House of Commons on the Ashburton
treaty, and after that treaty was ratified and past recall, mention
was made of a certain map called the King's map, which had belonged
to the late King (George III.), and hung in his library during his
lifetime, and afterwards in the Foreign Office, from which said
office the said map silently disappeared about the time of the
Ashburton treaty, and which certainly was not before our Senate at
the time of the ratification of that treaty. Well, the member who
mentioned it in Parliament said there was a strong red line upon
it, about the tenth of an inch wide, running all along where the
Americans said the true boundary was, with these words written along
it in four places in King George's handwriting: "_This is Oswald's
line_;" meaning, it is the line of the treaty of peace negotiated by
Mr. Oswald on the British side, and therefore called _Oswald's line_.
Now, what I have to say is this: That whenever this royal map
shall emerge from its retreat and resume its place in the Foreign
Office, on it will be found another strong red line about the
tenth of an inch wide, in another place, with these words written
on it: Boundaries between the British and French possessions in
America "_as fixed by the treaty of Utrecht_." To complete this
last and crowning piece of testimony, I have to add that the
evidence of it is in the Department of State, as is nearly the whole
of the evidence which I have used in crushing this _pie-poudre_
insurrection--"_this puddle-lane rebellion_"--against the truth and
majesty of history, which, beginning with a clerk in the Department
of State, spread to all the organs, big and little; then reached the
Senate of the United States, held divided empire in this chamber
for four months, and now dies the death of the ridiculous.[9]
[9] Since the delivery of this speech a copy of a paragraph of a
despatch from Mr. Edward Everett, United States minister in London,
dated 31st March, 1843, has been obtained, giving an account of this
map as shown to him by Lord Aberdeen, containing the two red lines
upon it, one for our northeast boundary, called "Oswald's line," the
other for the northwest, called the line of the "treaty of Utrecht."
The paragraph is in these words:
"The above was chiefly written before I had seen Mr. Oswald's
map, which I have since by the kindness of Sir Robert Peel and
Lord Aberdeen, been permitted to do. It is a copy of Mitchell in
fine preservation. The boundaries between the British and French
possessions in America, 'as fixed by the treaty of Utrecht,'
are marked upon it in a very full distinct line, at least a
tenth of an inch broad, and those words written in several
places. In like manner the line giving our boundary as we have
always claimed it, that is, carrying the northeastern angle of
Nova Scotia far to the north of the St. Johns, is drawn very
carefully in a bold red line, full a tenth of an inch broad: and
in four different places along the line distinctly written 'the
boundary described by Mr. Oswald.' What is very noticeable is,
that a line narrower, but drawn with care with an instrument,
from the lower end of Lake Nipissing to the source of the
Mississippi, as far as the map permits such a line to run, had
once been drawn on the map, and has since been partially erased,
though still distinctly visible."
We must now introduce the gentlemen of 54-40 to Frazer's River,
an acquaintance which they will be obliged to make before they
arrive at their inexorable line; for it lies in their course,
and must be crossed--both itself and the British province of New
Caledonia, which it waters. This, then, is the introduction to
that inevitable acquaintance, hitherto ignored. It is a river of
about a thousand miles in length (following its windings), rising
in the Rocky Mountains, opposite the head of the Unjigah, or Peace
River, which flows into the Frozen Ocean in latitude about 70. The
course of this river is nearly north and south, rising in latitude
55, flowing south to near latitude 49, and along that parallel,
and just north of it, to the Gulf of Georgia, into which it falls
behind Vancouver's Island. The upper part of this river is good for
navigation; the lower half, plunging through volcanic chasms in
mountains of rock, is wholly unnavigable for any species of craft.
This river was discovered by Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, was
settled by the Northwest Company in 1806, and soon covered by their
establishments from head to mouth. No American or Spaniard had ever
left a track upon this river or its valley. Our claim to it, as far
as I can see, rested wholly upon the treaty with Spain of 1819; and
her claim rested wholly upon those discoveries among the islands,
the value of which, as conferring claims upon the continent, it has
been my province to show in our negotiations with Russia in 1824.
At the time that we acquired this Spanish claim to Frazer's River,
it had already been discovered twenty-six years by the British;
had been settled by them for twelve years; was known by a British
name; and no Spaniard had ever made a track on its banks. New
Caledonia, or Western Caledonia, was the name which it then bore;
and it so happens that an American citizen, a native of Vermont,
respectably known to the senators now present from that State, and
who had spent twenty years of his life in the hyperborean regions
of Northwest America, in publishing an account of his travels and
sojournings in that quarter, actually published a description of
this New Caledonia, as a British province, at the very moment that
we were getting it from Spain, and without the least suspicion
that it belonged to Spain! I speak of Mr. David Harmon, whose
Journal of Nineteen Years' Residence between latitudes 47 and 58
in Northwestern America, was published at Andover, in his native
State, in the year 1820, the precise year after we had purchased
this New Caledonia from the Spaniards. I read, not from the volume
itself, which is not in the library of Congress, but from the London
Quarterly Review January No., 1822, as reprinted in Boston; article,
WESTERN CALEDONIA.
(The extract.)
This is the account given by Mr. Harmon of New Caledonia, and
given of it by him at the exact moment that we were purchasing the
Spanish title to it! Of this Spanish title, of which the Spaniards
never heard, the narrator seems to have been as profoundly ignorant
as the Spaniards were themselves; and made his description of New
Caledonia as of a British possession, without any more reference to
an adverse title than if he had been speaking of Canada. So much
for the written description: now let us look at the map, and see
how it stands there. Here is a map--a 54° 40' map--which will show
us the features of the country, and the names of the settlements
upon it. Here is Frazer's River, running from 55° to 49° and here
is a line of British posts upon it, from Fort McLeod, at its head,
to Fort Langley, at its mouth, and from Thompson's Fork, on one
side, to Stuart's Fork on the other. And here are clusters of
British names, imposed by the British, visible every where--Forts
George, St. James, Simpson, Thompson, Frazer, McLeod, Langley,
and others: rivers and lakes with the same names, and others: and
here is Deserter's Creek, so named by Mackenzie, because his guide
deserted him there in July, 1793; and here is an Indian village
which he named Friendly, because the people were the most friendly
to strangers that he had ever seen; and here another called Rascals'
village, so named by Mackenzie fifty-three years ago, because its
inhabitants were the most rascally Indians he had ever seen; and
here is the representation of that famous boundary line 54° 40',
which is supposed to be the exact boundary of American territorial
rights in that quarter, and which happens to include the whole of
New Caledonia, except McLeod's fort, and the whole of Stuart's
lake, and a spring, which is left to the British, while we take
the branch which flows from it. This line takes all in--river,
lakes, forts, villages. See how it goes! Starting at the sea, it
gives us, by a quarter of an inch on the map, Fort Simpson, so
named after the British Governor Simpson, and founded by the Hudson
Bay Company. Upon what principle we take this British fort I know
not--except it be on the assumption that our sacred right and title
being adjusted to a minute, by the aid of these 40 minutes, so
appositely determined by the Emperor Paul's charter to a fur company
in 1799, to be on this straight line, the bad example of even a
slight deviation from it at the start should not be allowed even to
spare a British fort away up at Point McIntyre, in Chatham Sound.
On this principle we can understand the inclusion, by a quarter of
an inch on the map, of this remote and isolated British post. The
cutting in two of Stuart's lake, which the line does as it runs, is
quite intelligible: it must be on the principle stated in one of
the fifty-four-forty papers, that Great Britain should not have one
drop of our water; therefore we divide the lake, each taking their
own share of its drops. The fate of the two forts, McLeod and St.
James, so near each other and so far off from us, united all their
lives, and now so unexpectedly divided from each other by this line,
is less comprehensible; and I cannot account for the difference of
their fates, unless it is upon the law of the day of judgment, when,
of two men in the field, one shall be taken and the other left,
and no man be able to tell the reason why. All the rest of the
inclusions of British establishments which the line makes, from head
to mouth of Frazer's River, are intelligible enough: they turn upon
the principle of all or none!--upon the principle that every acre
and every inch, every grain of sand, drop of water, and blade of
grass in all Oregon, up to fifty-four forty, is ours! and have it we
will.
This is the country which geography and history five-and-twenty
years ago called New Caledonia, and treated as a British possession;
and it is the country which an _organized_ party among ourselves
of the present day call "_the whole of Oregon or none_," and every
inch of which they say belongs to us. Well, let us proceed a little
further with the documents of 1823, and see what the men of that
day--President Monroe and his cabinet--the men who made the treaty
with Spain by which we became the masters of this large domain: let
us proceed a little further, and see what they thought of our title
up to fifty-four forty. I read from the same document of 1823:
_Mr. Adams to Mr. Middleton, July, 22, 1823._
"The right of the United States, from the forty-second to
the forty-ninth parallel of latitude on the Pacific Ocean
we consider as unquestionable, being founded, first, on the
acquisition by the treaty of 22d February, 1819, of all the
rights of Spain; second, by the discovery of the Columbia River,
first from the sea at its mouth, and then by land, by Lewis and
Clarke; and, third, by the settlement at its mouth in 1811. This
territory is to the United States of an importance which no
possession in North America can be of to any European nation,
not only as it is but the continuity of their possessions
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, but as it offers
their inhabitants the means of establishing hereafter water
communications from the one to the other."
From 42° to 49° is here laid down by Mr. Monroe and his cabinet as
the extent of our unquestionable title, and on these boundaries
they were ready to settle the question. Five other despatches the
same year from Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush, our minister in London, offer
the same thing. They all claim the valley of the Columbia River,
and nothing more. They claim the land drained by its waters, and no
more; but as the Columbia had a northern prong, drawing water just
under the mountains from as far north as 51°--yes! 51--not 54-40,
they offered to cut off the head of that prong, and take the line
of 49, which included all that was worth having of the waters of the
Columbia, and left out, but barely left out, Frazer's River--coming
within three miles of it at its mouth.
On Friday, Mr. President, I read one passage from the documents of
1823, to let you see that fifty-four forty (for that is the true
reading of fifty-five) had been offered to Great Britain for her
northern boundary: to-day I read you six PASSAGES from the same
documents, to show the same thing. And let me remark once more--the
remark will bear eternal repetition--these offers were made by the
men who had acquired the Spanish title to Oregon! and who must be
presumed to know as much about it as those whose acquaintance with
Oregon dates from the epoch of the Baltimore convention--whose
love for it dates from the era of its promulgation as a party
watchword--whose knowledge of it extends to the luminous pages of
Mr. Greenhow's horn-book!
Six times Mr. Monroe and his cabinet renounced Frazer's River
and its valley, and left it to the British! They did so on the
intelligible principle that the British had discovered it, and
settled it, and were in the actual possession of it when we got the
Spanish claim; which claim Spain never made! Upon this principle,
New Caledonia was left to the British in 1823. Upon what _principle_
is it claimed now?
This is what Mr. Monroe and his cabinet thought of our title to the
whole of Oregon or none, in the year 1823. They took neither branch
of this proposition. They did not go for all or none, but for some!
They took some, and left some; and they divided by a line right in
itself, and convenient in itself, and mutually suitable to each
party. That President and his cabinet carry their "unquestionable
right" to Oregon as far as 49°, and no further. This is exactly
what was done six years before. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush offered
the same line, as being a continuation of the line of Utrecht
(describing it by that name in their despatch of October 20th,
1818), and as covering the valley of the Columbia River, to which
they alleged our title to be indisputable. Mr. Jefferson had offered
the same line in 1807. All these offers leave Frazer's River and
its valley to the British, because they discovered and settled it.
All these offers hold on to the Columbia River and its valley,
because we discovered and settled it; and all these offers let the
principle of contiguity or continuity work equally on the British as
on the American side of the line of Utrecht.
This is what the statesmen did who made the acquisition of the
Spanish claim to Oregon in 1819. In four years afterwards they had
freely offered all north of 49 to Great Britain; and no one ever
thought of arraigning them for it. Most of these statesmen have
gone through fiery trials since, and been fiercely assailed on all
the deeds of their lives; but I never heard of one of them being
called to account, much less lose an election, for the part he acted
in offering 49 to Great Britain in 1823, or at any other time. For
my part, I thought they were right then, and I think so now; I was
senator then, as I am now. I thought with them that New Caledonia
belonged to the British; and thinking so still, and acting upon the
first half of the great maxim--Ask nothing but what is right--I
shall not ask them for it, much less fight them for it now.