PBA Galleries

E.Bottomley. Autograph Letter signed. Greenfield (Manchester), England. March 10, 1845. 1pg. + stampless address leaf. To his son, James Bottomley, New York.

As a Manchester wool merchant, his industry, beset by the worst economic depression and unemployment in memory, Bottomley, like the rest of the British public, had been “entirely engrossed” by domestic problems. Thus “little attention has been paid to the Oregon question until the present time”, but “now it has assumed a serious aspect, and fears are entertained that a war will ensue. The British government shows a determination to support their claims, and our naval preparations, evidently for that purpose, are on an extensive scale…”

The prospect of a British-American war concerned Bottomley especially, as he had long exported cloth to America, where his sons represented him in America. Soon after he wrote, conflicting British and American claims to Oregon would come to a height of tension, with Royal Navy vessels showing the flag in the waters of the Pacific Northwest as British-American diplomatic negotiations to divide Oregon broken off, and Yankee expansionists taking up the battle cry “54-40 or fight!”. The dispute was not to be resolved until June of the following year.