American possessions. But to this convention Great Britain had not been a party, and she justly declared that her rights could not be concluded by any negotiation in which she had not participated, or in whose results she had not promised acquiescence. The question, therefore, was still open between Great Britain and the United States. Both countries had undoubted claims. Great Britain, by retrocession of Astoria to the United States, after the War of 1812, had acknowledged our right in the country, and still was acknowledging it; though she was occupying the country, and we were not—down to the arrival of the American traders and missionaries in 1832—34. Yet Great Britain, through her channels of diplomatic intercourse—whatever her people here may have said or claimed—never made any serious pretension to the territory south of the Columbia River, but had insisted on that stream as the boundary line. But we had, through Gray's discovery, the exploration of Lewis and Clark, and the settlement of Astoria—even though Astoria had capitulated—a chain of title that made it impossible for us to consider this claim. Still, there could be no termination of the dispute till the slow migration of our people to the Oregon Country gradually established American influence here; and finally the large migration of 1843 gave the Americans decided preponderance, especially in the country south of the Columbia. Into this competition our missionary people were plunged. Indeed, they led the way in it, and to their efforts, mainly, was due the agitation that led to increase of American immigration from our states and gave our people the ascendency. That there were no collisions here of serious character between the representatives of the different countries was due to good common sense on both sides, to mutual forbearance, and to common language and kinship. The reception accorded to our people by the English was uniformly considerate. We have seen how
