THE FUR COMPANY'S RIGHTS.
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in some trouble with the president for his course in refusing to sanction the purchase.[1] That he became the object of Polk's dislike may be true; but that the president cared for his opinion is hardly probable.
With regard to the proposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, I learn from various sources that the senate had under consideration a proposal to purchase its possessory rights in Oregon, upon the representation that the anomalous condition of the company after the treaty would lead to trouble. Sir George Simpson and Mr Finlayson paid a visit to Washington[2] about this time, and the matter was in the hands
- ↑ The cause of the trouble was really not so much the fact that he disapproved of the purchase, which any one was at liberty to do, as the manner taken to show his disapproval. As the matter is stated by himself, he received a call at his lodgings, from Knox Walker, the private secretary of the president, who brought with him and introduced a Mr George N. Saunders, whom he left with Thornton when he took his leave. The latter, according to Thornton, proceeded to make an attempt to bribe him to advocate the justice of the Hudson's Bay Company's pretensions, and offered him $25,000 to write such letters as he should dictate, to two members of the cabinet. The pious plenipotentiary's reply, if we may believe him, was to threaten to kick Saunders down the stairs, when that person saved him the exertion by going of his own accord. Not satisfied with this, Thornton wrote a letter to the president, which brought him another visit from Walker, who urged him to withdraw the letter, intimating that it would be better for his private interests to do so, but that he still refused. The story soon after transpiring through a communication to the New York Herald, written by Thornton, and signed 'Achilles de Harley,' the president took umbrage, and not only refused to appoint him to the place of one of the judges for Oregon, but also to pay his expenses as a messenger from Oregon out of the $10,000 appropriation. According to S. A. Clarke in the Overland Monthly, May 1873, who wrote from Thornton's dictation, Robert Smith, from the congressional district of Alton, Illinois, went to the president for money for Thornton's expenses, and was refused. Benton was then solicited to interest himself for Thornton, but put the business off on Douglas, who being refused, threatened to furnish Thornton with money to stay over to the next session, when he would move for a committee of inquiry to investigate the matter, in which the president was concerned. This threat brought Mr Polk to terms, and the sum of $2,750 was paid to Thornton, though he was obliged to return to Oregon without an office either for himself or the coterie he represented. Such is the explanation furnished by Thornton of the failure of his mission to Washington, and which he has repeatedly made, in his History of Oregon, MS., 1–6; in his Autobiography, MS., 48–55; in the statement made to Mr Clarke, and on other occasions. The real reason of Thornton's returning empty-handed was not any quarrel of the kind here narrated, but the citizens' memorial and the Nesmith resolution of the Oregon legislature, before spoken of, which Meek carried to Washington along with other documents. While there was no malice in Meek, he would have been sure to have his own sport with the governor's private delegate, the more so that Thornton professed to be shocked at the giddy ways of the authorized messenger.
- ↑ Extract from Montreal Herald, in Niles' Reg., lxxiv. 296–7.
