The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-18 00:00:00

THE OREGON TERRITORY.

In an article on this subject in The Sun of the
28th of December, we remarked on the menda-
cious nature of the whole statements contained
in the President's Message relative to the pre-
tensions of the United States touching the terri-
tory in question. " The United States," said
Mr. President Tyler, " hare always contended
that their rights appertain to the entire re-
gion lying on the Pacific, and embraced
within the 42d deg. and 54th deg. 40 min. of N.
latitude." On that statement we then observed,
"This is not even true. The original and subse-
quent pretensions of the United States on the
territory were not at all to this extent." We
had not, at the time, immediate access to the
documents, but felt assured of our correct-
ness in impeaching the veracity of the
American State Paper. In the last pub-
lished (January) Number of the Quarterly
British and Foreign Review, we find not only'
a remarkable confirmation of our objection, but

of all the views which The Sun has announced
within the last two or three months on this very
" Oregon" question and so valuable a summary

of the past history of the whole case, that we
shall unhesitatingly avail ourselves of it in
reclaiming the reader's attention to the course

of transactions connected with it. The matter,
always one of extreme intrinsic importance,
has been so absurdly postponed, as to a final

and definitive adjustment, by the diploma-
tists of this country, in their negotiations
with Spain and Ivith Russia of half a cen-
tury ago, that it is not to be wondered at if the
United States have cunningly endeavoured to
found, on the very fact of this protracted unsettle-
ment between two or three great European
Pollers, a fictitious and extravagant claim, on the
usual Yankee principle of taking a large
margin to allow of future abatements. It

is not very likely that the absorbing interest
even of the Irish State Trials, and other domestic
questions which press for the immediate atten-
tion of Parliament, will induce the Legislature
to allow this affair to remain over, many weeks,
without placing it on a sound and becom-
ing footing. This footing we must rigor-
ously maintain and sternly enforce. In the
matter of the north-eastern boundary, we have
had enough of arbitrations, and. of the utter

worthlessness of • American undertakings, to
abide by the result of their own proposals for
such reference. On the Oregon question the
Reviewer remarks :—" Recent movements in
America now show that England has not a day
to lose in deciding upon her course of action with
respect to this unadjusted dispute, which is, in
fact, rather a question of territorial right, than of
undetermined boundary."
It may not be generally recollected, that, by
the Convention of the Escurial between the Mi-

nisters of Spain and England, in October, 1790,
neither of those Powers (which alone, of all the
Governments of the civilised world could, at that
time, affirm a right or title to the territory now
in dispute), affected any exclusive sovereignty
over it. The Convention stipulated that the res-
pective subjects of the two contracting parties
should not thereafter be disturbed or mo-
lested, " either in navigating or carrying
on their fisheries in the Pacific Ocean or the
South Seas, or in landing on the coasts of these
seas, in places not already occupied, for the pur-
pose of carrying on their commerce with the na-
tives of the country, or of making settlements
there." At the present moment the United
States, which, at the date of this Convention were
a recognised Government two gears old, and
which affect to claim through a derivative right
by treaty with Spain, have the effronteryeto claim
that " exclusive sovereignty" which neither
Spain nor Great Britain ever pretended the one
to set up against the other! It is moreover a
clear, distinct, and irrefragable fact, placed by
themselves on record in their public acts and
State Papers, and especially thus limited and
pressed on the part of the United States, in the
Convention between those States and his Bri-
tannic Majesty, relative to the territory on the
North-west coast of America, signed at London,
in August, 1827 ; and again in the' elaborate
" Memoir, Historical and Political, on the North-
west Coast of North America, and the adjacent ter-
ritories, by Robert Greenhow, translator and
librarian to the Department of State (New
York, 1840)"—that the country, so claimed by
the States, throughout the negotiations on the
subject up to the last message of the President,
was that territory lying between the Rocky
Mountains and the Sea (the Pacific), and com-
prised between the parallels of 42 deg. and 49
deg. North latitude. The claim of the United
States, as first agitated in Congress in 1806—the
subject of negotiations between America and
Great Britain in 1807; and again, at Ghent, in
1814 ; of the Convention with England in 1818 ;
of Lord Castlereagh's dispatch of February,
1818, expressly instructing our Minister at
Washington that, in fulfilling the present
stipulations of that Convention, he was on no ac-
count to concede the claim of Great Britain to

the territorial district of Oregon, on which Ame-
rican settlements had been made ; the dispatch
of Earl Bathurst to the North-West Company,
of January, 1818, emphatically refusing the con-
cession of that claim to the United States; the
subsequent negotiations between America and
Great Britain of 1824; and the whole correspon-
dence both of the British Commissioners (the
late Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Addington, now
one of our Under Secretaries of State, and of
Mr. Gallaton, the Plenipotentiary of the United
States, in 1827, related to the region comprised
between these parallels of 42 deg. and 49 deg.
North latitude. Even in the ridiculous proposal
of the American General, Jessup, to Congress, in
1823, to take up the military occupation of the
Oregon territory ; and the unprincipled recom-
mendation of the President, Mr. Munro, to adopt
that piratical scheme of outrage upon the pos-
sessions of an ally, at a time of profound peace ;
all these equally relate to the same specific geo-
graphical limits. In 1843, President Tyler has
the assurance to talk, as we have seen, of these
pretensions having always extended to 54 deg.
North latitude.

But the same want of honesty and decent pre-
cision of statement pervade that functionary's
description of the territory itself. It will be re-
membered that he spoke of its agricultural ca-
pabilities and healthfulness, ,and eligibility for
settlement, in terms of eulogy which Mr.
George Robins could hardly have heightened
for him, had he been at his elbow. Now, we
have the authority of the American Memorialist
for saying that it is divided into three regions :
the first from the sea to the California Range; the
second, from that chain to the Blue Mountains;
the third, from these to the great range of the
Rocky Mountains in which the Oregon, or Co-
lombia, and. its tributaries, have their sources.
The climate of the first region is not fertile; the
summer is immoderately dry, the winter ex-
tremely humid; no rain falls from April to Oc-
tober; it is excessive in the other months.
The yield of wheat does not average more
than fifteen bushels per acre, which is but

inconsiderable for a virgin soil in the new world.
The uplands are heavily timbered, and the forests
very fine. The California mountains rise to the
height of 16,000 feet above the level of the sea.
The superficies of the whole territory is " about
350,000 square utiles." It is drained by the
Oregon or Colombia and its tributaries, the
former being navigable as far inland as 125 miles
from the ocean, having a width, for about 25
miles from its mouth, varying from one to seven
miles. " The Colombia" (according to the Bri-
tish and Foreign Reviewer) " falls into the sea
between two headlands, Cape Disappointment
and Cape Adams, from each of which a sand bar
extends; and over these the waves of the ocean
break with terrific violence as they meet the
discharging torrent of the river. The entrance
is consequently hazardous at all times, and
scarcely passable when the winds are high."
The second region is more elevated and less fer-

tile than that near the coast; the land not fa-
vourable for agriculture, bu might a4lswer for

grazing and sheep, tie climate belt:, healthy.
The third region is a rude desert of steep rocky
mountains, intersected with very narrow valleys
called " holes," and of wide sand-covered
volcanic plains. Climate dry in the extreme ;
very little rain, no dew, and an extra-
(Unary difference of temperature between
the day and the night. It is a wilderness with
no means of supporting a population. As it is
only on the first region that these could be found,
the Reviewer justly infers " that, upon the whole,
the Oregon territory holds out no great promise
as an agricultural field; that its value seems to
consist chiefly in the possession of the Colombia,
and of the harbours of the Strait of Fuca." lie
shows that it is this last consideration which
really makes the exclusive proprietorship of the
Oregon an object of anxious desire to the Ame-
ricans. The territory contains no precious metals,
no valuable minerals ; and the climate is too cold
for the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, rice, or
coffee. Its 20,000 aboriginal natives are savages,
incapable of useful labour; so there is no pro-
mise of any productive article of export. " The
fur trade has hitherto been the only channel tbr
the advantageous investment of capital in these
regions; but that trade is incompatible with the
progress of settlement, and must gradually cease
as the occupation of the country proceeds."
This is a profbund and practical truth, and it
ably introduces what follows in the same article,
on the real objects of the United States' Govern-
ment in pressing its extravagant pretensions.
Leaving to a future opportunity, when the ques-
tion shall have been opened in Parliament, the
Reviewer's temperate but very forcible exposition
of the whole question of priority of discovery, of
possessory rights and of territorial rights, absolute
and derivative ; we close for the present with an
extract from his speculation on the ultimate de-
signs contemplated by America in her monstrous
claim to exclusive possession of a region in
which, except a few private settlements made by
permission of the British authorities on British
possessions, she has NO title, derivative, absolute,
or possessory. The claim she asserts under the
stipulations of her " Florida" Treaty with Spain,
of February, 1819, is clearly vitiated by the
specific concessions and covenants of the former
or "Escurial" Treaty of Spain with Great Bri-
tain in 1790, w hich, together with intervening
treaties between the same Powers, prior to 1818,
disabled Spain from making any grants to the
United States of the Oregon territory coming
within the construction sought to be put upon
them by American—diplomacy.
" It is easy, therefore, to understand that tne
main point with the United States in pressing for
exclusive sovereignty over this region must be to
secure the command of the outlets:to the Pacific,
the importance of which is sufficiently obvious
when we consider the rapid extension of steam
navigation, the probability of a regular passage
being effected across the Isthmus of Panama,
and above all the recent opening of new commer-
cial relations with the East. It is true that a
formidable obstacle exists to the colonisation of
the Oregon from overland, for the country east
of the Rocky Mountains is, for several hundred
miles, an inhospitable desert, incapable of sup-
plying food except in the vicinity of the rivers
which flow into the Mississippi. The Americans,
however, propose to establish a line of posts be-
tween the Missouri and the passes of the Rocky
Mountains ; and they anticipate that the Lewis
and the Colombia rivers may one day become the
channels of traffic between the Eastern and
Western coast. On the other hand, a passage
across Panama would bring this coast within a
few weekS' voyage from Europe; and so attract
emigration from the Old World, if the territory
had, in itself (which it has not), any remarkable
capacities for colonisation."

ENLISTMENT OF PAUPER CHIL-
DREN FOR THE ARMY,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUl''.

RESPECTED FRlEND—Permit me to invite thy attention to
the following statement of facts connected with the enlistment
of pauper children for the army, and to request thy powerful
aid in putting down a practice which must, I think, be regarded
by every humane man as dishonourable to the age and country
in which we live.

Having personally collected the facts on which the statement
is founded, with great care, I am prepared to give such detailed
information as may be necessary to justify its allegations.—l
am, respectfully, &c., PREDERIC WHEELER.
Rochester, Ist month 15th, 1844.
The public may not perhaps be generally aware, that a prac-
tice has grown up of late years, of supplying the army with
little boys for drummers, selected from the healthiest inmates
of the union workhouses round about the great military garrison
of Chatham. Facts of a painful nature relating ;o this subject
having been brought under the notice of the writer, it appeared
to be a duty to prosecute certain inquiries into the circum-
stances, and extent of the practice, from which investigation it
appears that the following eight unions have all furnished boys
for the army, namely, Chelmsford, Cranbrook, Dartford, East
Ashford, Ilollingbourne, Medway, Maidstone, and North
Aylesford, comprising in all 143 pariskes. To these may be
added the large metropolitan parish of St. Marylebone and the
establishment for pauper children at Brixton. Other unions
have been applied to for boys, and particulars, more or less
minute, of upwards of 60 cases have been collected.
It appears also that, in twenty cases, boys have been thus
disposed of before they have attained " the prescribed age of
fourteen years," one of them, indeed, having been sworn when
under eleven and a quarter years old ! It is melancholy to re.
fleet on the largo amount of false swearing that is involved in
this feature of the case. That the oath thus taken is consi-
dered to bind them to the military service for life, thus de-
priving them of the opportunity of choosing a profession on
attaining the age of 21, a protection which the Legislature
carefully secures to the apprenticing of any ordinary calling ;
recognising therein two very important considerations, first,
the incompetency of a child to decide on what shall be his em-
ployment through life ; and secondly, his natural right to choose
a trade for himself en arriving at manhood. That on attain-
ing the ago of about 18, they are trained in the dehumanising
art of administering the military cat, a punishment at which
the public mind revolts ; and many of them are quickly sent
to distant parts of the world. That the parochial funds have
in some instances been employed in effecting these arrange-
ments.

'I he above is an outline of the practice ; the following are
the heads of two individual cases, showing how the system
affects the fate of the children and the feelings of near rela-
tives. They are taken as being the first two cases which came
under notice, and which led to subsequent inquiry:—
Case I. James Potter, an orphan, inmate of the North
Aylesford Union, was enlisted in the summer of 1842, in the
3d Buffs, as having attained the " prescribed age of 14 years,"
required by the regulations of the Horse Guards, but appear-
ing by the register of baptism, as well as the union register,
as under that age. The relations state that they were not
consulted in the matter, that they knew nothing of the pro-
ceeding until it was completed; that they aro much dissatis-
fied therewith, and were, in fact, concerting measures for placing
him out in some situation on attaining a proper age. In a memo-
rial to the Commander.in-Chief, embodying the above allegations,
they ask for the discharge of the boy, stating it also to be his
wish to be released. The reply authorises his discharge on pay-
ment of 201., and "on no other condition." Application was
made to the Guardians of the Union, who replied that they can
render no assistance in the case ; and the boy consequently re-
mains in the military service.
Case 2. John Mitchel, an orphan, inmate of the Dartford
Union, was removed to the pauper school at Brixton, and in the
spring of 1843, was enlisted in the 2.5 th Regiment, being then,
as appears by the register of baptism, under twelve and a half
years old. After being at Chatham a few months, he was seen
by the writer, crying bitterly on Rochester bridge, and then
made known to him his ease. In less than a week from that
time, ho was observed by the same person, marching with five
other little boys, with a draft on their way to Cannanore, in the
East Indies. His step-father knew nothing of the enlistment
until completed, applied to the Commander-in-Chief for his
restoration to his family, alleging his tender age, &c. The
reply contains a copy of the schoolmaster's certificate, declaring
him to have " obtained the prescribed age of fourteen ;" and
states that the request cannot be complied with except on cer-
tain conditions, one of which is the payment of 401. On ap-
plication to the Guardians of Dartford Union, no explanation
can be given as to the certificate of age, but, on the contrary, a
reference to one of their books proves that the lad had not ob-
tained the age declared. No redress, however, could be obtained
from them, and the child must remain in India an exile from
Isis family.
, Here then we see two powerful bodies, the military authori-
ties and the executive of the poor-law, taking advantage of the
helplessness and ignorance of an orphan child, who has as yet
scarcely looked abroad into the world, whe is impatient of the
restraints of a Poor-law Union, and dazzled with the tinsel
prospect of a soldier's life ; and thus becomes the willing victim
of the bargain which binds him for the term of his natural life.
And, we ask, is it the intention of the Legislature or of the
public that our unions and workhouses should be made wholesale
recruiting establishments for the army, and their operations be
carried on at the expense of the rate-payers?

BRITISII MUSEUM.—By a Parliamentary return the
annual estimated charge for the British Museum to Lady-day
next is stated to be 34,975/. The return embraces nine divi-
sions, including the number of persons who have visited the
institution for the last six years. From Christmas, 1836, to
Christmas, 1837, the number was 321,151 ; from Christmas,
1837, to Christmas, 1838, the number was 266,008 ; to 1839,
280,850 ; to 1840, 247,929 ' • to 1841, 19,374 ; and to Christ-
mas, 1842, 547,718. No fewer than 5,627 visits by artists
were made in the year 1842 to the galleries of sculpture, and
8,781 to the print-room. It is stated in respect to the read-
ing-room, that " the number of books returned to the shelves
of the general library from the reading-room is 142,179; to
the Royal library, 22,408 ; to the closets where they are kept
for the use of readers from day to day, 78,470; to the shelves
of the reading rooms, about 116,400; altogether, 359,457 vo-
lumes—en an average 1,230 a day. The number of readers is
71,494."

The Law Times intimates that it is matter of con-
sideration with the Government, whether it would not be ex-
pedient to abolish all settlements of every kind ; to collect all
poor-rates into one general and central fund ; to reimburse
each parish for the maintenance of the poor who may happen
to become chargeable therein, without regard to where they
belong. We refrain from any further comment on this report
than to say, that if means are taken to render each parish as
scrupulous in spending the public money as they are of spend-
in their own, the plan presents solid adrantsges.—Brighton
f•

COURT CIRCULAR.

'

WEDNEsDAY.-11er Majesty and Prince
Albert tok their accustomed Walk to-day in the grounds
about the Castle.

The Royal Family were taken to-day for their usual
airings. The Earl and Countess of Jersey and Lady
Clementine Villiers arrived on a visit to her Majesty
and his Royal _Highness Prince Albert, and will have
the honour of joining the Royal dinner circle at the
Castle this evening.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, ac-
companied by the Princess Mary, and attended by
Baroness Ahlefeldt, left Frankfort on Thursday last, and
travelled by route to Coblentz, Bonn, and Cologne, to
Aix-la-Chapelle, where her Royal Highness arrived on
Saturday. The Royal Duchess and suite left Aix-la-
Chapelle for Ostend, at which port the Royal party
arrived on Sunday. Her Royal Highness proceeded to
Calais on the following day, and on Tuesday morning,
about eight o'clock, embarked for Dover, where the
Royal Duchess landed, and went from Dover to Folke-
stone, travelling thence to town by the South-Eastern
Railway, and immediately proceeding from the terminus
to Kew, where the Duchess and the Princess Mary, at-
tended by Baroness Ahlefeldt and Baron Knesebeek, ar-
rived at nine o'clock in the evening.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge left town
yesterday morning for his residence, at Kew.
A Cabinet Council was held at three o'clock yesterday
afternoon, at the Foreign-office. The Ministers present
were Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Wharncliffe, the Duke of I3uccleuch,
the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Earl of Haddington,
Earl-of Ripon, Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Harding., and
Sir Edward Knatchbull.
The Council broke up soon after five o'clock, when
Sir Robert Peel immediately took his departure for
Windsor Castle. Lady Peel also accompanied the High
Hon. Baronet, on a visit to her Majesty.
Mr. William Maury, deputed by the American
Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool to advocate a re-
duction in the duty on tobacco, had an interview with
Sir Robert Peel yesterday.
Mr. Dean, Chairman of the Customs, and the Hon.
Edward Stewart, Deputy Chairman, had an interview
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday, at his
official residence in Downing-street.
Dispatches for the Lord High Commissioner of the
lonian Islands, and also fOr the Governor of Malta, were
sent off last evening from the Colonial-office.
The Bishop of London had an interview yesterday
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Duke of Wcllingtoa had an interview with Sir
Robert Peel yesterday.

ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE.
THIS EVENING, JANUARY 15,
Will he performed an entirely New Domestic Drama, entitled
POVERTY ; or, Mary Graham. Leonard, Mr. Freer; Jemmy
Tacit, Mr. Manta ,• Squ;-^ Graham, Mr. Dale; Patty Parrot, bliss
Arden ; Mary Graham, Vincent.
After which will be laced THE FAIRY LADY; or, the
Cabinet of Bronze.
To conclude:with HARLEQUIN LINCOLN LUCKY OF LAM.
BETH; or, the Three Sisters of Witch Willow Dell. Harlequin,
Mr. Chapino ; Clown, Mr. Scarbrow ; Pantaloon, Mr. Morelli;
Columbine, Miss M. Schmidt.