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 did not carry out, feeling that by going on immediately with the already organized emigration of 1843 he would be of greater service. Whitman did not organize the emigration of 1843, but joined it and rendered valuable services en route. As the facts about the emigration of 1843 are perfectly accessible in Bancroft, I shall merely quote from Whitman's letters such extracts as will illustrate his purposes, his relation to the emigration, and his own view of what he had accomplished by coming East.

On May 12, 1843, Whitman writes from St. Louis, "I have made up my mind that it would not be expedient to try and take any families across this year except such as can go at this time. For that reason I have found it my duty to go on with the party myself." Calling attention to the Catholic missionary efforts, for which he refers the committee to De Smedt's Indian Sketches, he continues, "I think by a careful consideration of this together with these facts and movements you will realize our feelings that we must look with interest upon this the only spot on the Pacific Coast left where protestants have a present hope of a foothold. It is requisite that some good pious men and ministers go to Oregon without delay as citizens or our hope there is greatly clouded, if not destroyed."