Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/114

 described Oregon, the soil, climate and its desirableness for American colonies, and said that he had crossed the Rocky Mountains that winter principally to take back that season a train of wagons to Oregon. We had been told that wagons could not be taken beyond Fort Hall. But in this pamphlet the doctor assured his countrymen that wagons could be taken through to the Columbia River and to the Dalles, and from thence by boats to the Willamette; that himself and mission party had taken their families, cattle and wagons through to the Columbia, six years before. It was this assurance of the missionary that induced my father and several of his neighbors to sell out and start at once for this country."

Mr. Spalding is our sole authority for the text of this letter. A reference to p. 62 will show the reader how he interpolated Dr. White's letter to the Indian Commissioner. That this letter of Zachrey's contains interpolations is practically proved by the fact that one of its statements, which is absolutely false, occurs elsewhere in a document which Spalding wrote. On pp. 71–78 of Exec. Doc. 87 is a narrative of the Oregon missionary history in the form of a series of resolutions adopted at three different times by three different churches. This narrative is identical in much of its language and in its ideas with Spalding's other narratives, of which extracts are given on pp. 9–15 and 100–101.

Resolution 6 reads: "By the arrival of the Protestant Whitman at the city of Washington, in March, 1843, through untold winter sufferings in the mountains of Utah and New Mexico, not an hour too soon to prevent the transfer of all Oregon to Great Britain to go into the Ashburton and Webster treaty for a cod-fishery on Newfoundland: by his personal representations to President Tyler of this country, of its vast importance, and his assurance of a wagon route, as he assured him we had taken cattle, a wagon, and his missionary families through six years before," etc. The false statement that is common to the Zachrey letter and