FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON

or menace."

The

were withdrawn.

49

conciliatory instructions of a year before delay of the mail had the additional

The

result of allowing the proceedings in Parliament to be America at an early date. 34

known

in

When Aberdeen's gloomiest expectations were not met. 35 in arbitration late to March, Buchanan, proposed Pakenham, the new Secreary of State told him that he would take an early opportunity to discuss the matter with the President. "He did not seem taken with the notion of arbitration," re-

ported Pakenham, but he said the matter ought to be settled by negotiation on the principle of give and take. In May,

Pakenham was informed

that arbitration did not meet the

approval of the President and his Cabinet; they all objected When Buchanan gave this to it and preferred negotiation. information he took occasion to say that the British minister might assure Lord Aberdeen of the friendly disposition of the

American government. 36 The negotiation was resumed in July by Buchanan who took it up at the point where it had been dropped by Calhoun, i. e., by making a counter-proposal prefaced by another discussion of American claims which went over the same ground so 37 The offer was 49 often traversed by former negotiators. as the boundary together with ?ny port or ports on Vancouver's Island south of 49 which might be desired by the British.

was accompanied by the statement that the of the strength of the American title, view President, would never have made the offer but for the fact that it had been made by his predecessors and that negotiations were on foot when he entered office. To McLane, in London, Buchanan explained in more detail the president doubted if the civilized world would judge in favor of the United States if a war

The

proposition in

should be waged for a "comparatively worthless territory north but if this offer

" arbitration was out of the question

of 49

should be

made and be

rejected he

would

feel himself free to

34 See Chapter XI, below. 35 Pakenham to Aberdeen, 29 Mar., St. Papers, 34:91,2. 36 Same to same, 13 May, Ibid., 92. 37 Buchanan to Pakenham, la July, Sen. Doc. No. 489, 29th Cong.

ist.

Sea.