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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: passage, written by him some time afterwards.
"I remember well having invited your proposition on this
subject,*** and encouraged it with the assurance of every
facility and protection which the government could properly
afford. I considered, as a great public acquisition, the
commencement of a settlement on that point of the western coast
of America, and looked forward with gratification to the time
when its descendants should have spread themselves through the
whole length of that coast, covering it with free and independent
Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and
interest, and enjoying like us the rights of self-government."
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