This was the only proposition of compromise offered by the
British plenipotentiary. The proposition on the part of Great Britain
having been rejected, the British plenipotentiary requested that a
proposal should be made by the United States for "an equitable
adjustment of the question." When I came into office I found this to be
the state of the negotiation. Though entertaining the settled conviction
that the British pretensions of title could not be maintained to any
portion of the Oregon Territory upon any principle of public law
recognized by nations, yet in deference to what had been done by my
predecessors, and especially in consideration that propositions of
compromise had been thrice made by two preceding Administrations to
adjust the question on the parallel of 49 deg., and in two of them yielding
to Great Britain the free navigation of the Columbia, and that the
pending negotiation had been commenced on the basis of compromise, I
deemed it to be my duty not abruptly to break it off. In consideration,
too, that under the conventions of 1818 and 1827 the citizens and
subjects of the two powers held a joint occupancy of the country, I was
induced to make another effort to settle this long-pending controversy
in the spirit of moderation which had given birth to the renewed
discussion.
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