Adams continued longest in the public service; indeed, his wish to die in the harness was gratified. The ex-President entered Congress in 1831 and represented the same district in the House of Representatives until his death in 1848. He knew the Oregon Question from end to end. He knew how Doctor Floyd and others had tried, in 1821, to persuade Congress to establish a settlement on the Columbia. He knew about William A. Slacum's investigation and report, in 1837, as well as the report of the Wilkes Expedition, in 1841. On returning from church on 24 July, 1842, he called on Lord Ashburton and spent an hour with him learning about the negotiations with Secretary Webster for a treaty in which, as he found, the "Oregon Territory and Columbia River question remains open."[231] The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was concluded on 9 August, 1842, but there were further negotiations, for in March, 1843, after an illness of eight days, Adams got to the State Department and had a three hours' talk with Secretary of State Daniel Webster. He was displeased. Webster seemed frank enough with him about some points, but he admitted with apparent reluctance that Great Britain would not object to the United States extending southward from the Columbia River to San Francisco, at the expense of Mexico, if Great Britain was given a free hand north of the Columbia. Remembering the Puget Sound region as a part of such a sacrifice, Adams wrote in his diary: "What an abime of duplicity!" On 16 February, 1843, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he reported unfavorably Senator Linn's bill for the occupation of Oregon Territory. For this he has been criticized, but no one knew so well as he what lay behind that Article III in the Convention of 1827.