No. 26.
Mr. Bates to Mr. Sturgis.
My Dear Sir: I wrote you some weeks since to thank you for the pamphlets you were so kind as to send me on the Oregon question. Since the date of my letter the few copies of your address sent over have circulated pretty rapidly, and have been read by all the ministers, I have no doubt. I now inclose you an article cut from the Examiner of last week. It was written by my friend Senior, the political economist, as you will see, with your paper before [Page 38] him. He showed it to me before it was printed, as he frequently does his articles for reviews, (I suppose for the purpose of getting a commonsense opinion,) and I advised him to send it to Lord Aberdeen, with a note to say, if he found anything amiss in it that it should not be published. Lord Aberdeen answered that it was all right, except an unimportant omission in regard to the negotiations of 1818–’19. A few days since Lord Aberdeen, among others, dined with Mr. Van der Weyer. After dinner Lord Aberdeen came to me, and talking on various matters, got to America and the Oregon *question. I carefully avoided leading the conversation, but he seemed desirous to talk Oregon. The sum of what he said was this: he complimented your paper as a clear and sensible view of the matter; that the declaration [of] the President required to be met by a declaration of some sort from this government; that what had been said he hoped would be taken in the sense it was given as meaning simply that the British government do not admit that the United States have a right to the whole of Oregon. I told him that the declaration of the President appeared to have excited very little attention in the United States. He seemed anxious to impress on my mind that this country was disposed for peace and an amicable settlement of the question. * * * * *Lord Aberdeen pronounces Mr. Sturgis’s pamphlet clear and sensible.[30]
The Hon. Wm. Sturgis.