In the first place it was incumbent upon the advocates of this measure to show the expediency of their proposal. They had been called visionary and fanciful. That it was only the continuation of a growth that had characterized all our past history, was well expressed by Floyd in the words: “At most it is only acting upon precisely the same principle which has directed the progress of population from the moment the English first landed in Virginia.” In the various reports and debates much emphasis was placed upon the material benefit which would follow. By statistics, the value of the fur trade was exhibited as well as that of the whale fisheries, the returns from which two industries alone would many times repay all expenses incurred; while the possible resources in the line of agricultural wealth, though scarcely known, were boldly prophesied. While some regarded the measure as visionary, others opposed it because it seemed too practical, would draw capital and labor from the older sections, where they were still needed, and would beget a trade with the Orient which would detract from that of the Atlantic Coast. No friend of the measure could have painted a bolder and more prophetic picture than that of the opponent who said: “The trade of the Pacific will naturally be with China, Japan, and the Philippines. They will not only be invited to this by their local position, but by the circumstances of their situation. Commerce is never so profitable as when it is carried on between a newly settled country, in which land is fresh and easily obtained, and one in which a dense population has made manufactures cheap and abundant.” Considerable importance was attached to the establishment of a waterway connection by the river systems of the Missouri and Columbia, between the east and the west, “when distance and time will be conquered, and the ends of the earth be brought together.” Should this prove feasible, and statistics were not wanting to demonstrate it, the United States would have the proud distinction of establishing that waterway for which the nations had been so many centuries in search. Attention was called to the value to the nation there would be in the encouragement of the fisheries, for the training of seamen, and the advantages of a naval station at the mouth of the Columbia in case of war with Great Britain. General Jesup suggested that troops stationed there could be used in removing the British from the territory when the time came to settle the boundary. Such propositions were not palatable to the English, nor were they especially calculated to hasten a friendly settlement of such diplomatic proceedings as were necessary at a later time. They rather served the purpose of strengthening whatever purpose the English had of looking out for their own interests. But they were clearer and more forcible announcements of the view of the American people than England could get through the diplomatic service.