BY THOMAS J. FARNHAM, Esq.

AUTHOR OF TRAVELS IN THE GREAT WESTERN PRAIRIES, THE ANAHUAC, AND THE ROCKY
MOUNTAINS, AND THE OREGON TERRITORY," "TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS,"

AND "SCENES IN THE PACIFIC," ETC. ETC. ETC.

New-York:

J. WINCHESTER, NEW WORLD PRESS, 30 ANN-STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844,

BY. THOMAS J. FARNHAM.

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New-York.

Checked May 1913

PREFACE.

THE following pages are devoted to an examination of the American Title to the Oregon Territory. The course taken in the investigation is that of giving a plain and intelligible history of the discovery and occupation of that country, and the right of sovereignty, which has arisen under these acts. The conclusions at which I have arrived are these: That we own Oregon by purchase from Spain, the sole discoverer and first occupant of its Coast; by purchase from France, to whom England, by the Treaty of Versailles, relinquished her claim to it; and by our own discovery and prior occupancy of Columbia River. Throughout the work, incontrovertible Authorities are relied on for historical facts, and for the construction given to the laws of nations. Out of her own mouth is Britain judged: and if this pamphlet shall serve to convince my countrymen of the insolent selfishness of Great Britain-her grasping injustice, her destitution of political honesty-and serve to show a necessity for the people to act for themselves, and to expect from the hands of their Government, at Washington, the maintenance of the rights and honor of their country; the author will feel richly rewarded for whatever labor he has bestowed in collecting and arranging the evidence of their rights to the Oregon Territory-the whole of it, and nothing less!

NEW-YORK, May 30, 1844.

THE AUTHOR.