Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/47

Rh 10th, 1869, the commission awarded the two companies 1450,000 and 8200,000 respectively.

Many of the old settlers in Oregon cherished a resentment against the Hudson's Bay Company for real or fancied wrongs and the thought of such immense claims being preferred by foreign corporations was exasperating. The feeling was intensified by the belief that the Hudson's Bay Company had intrigued against the interests of the United States during the joint occupation. On the other hand, for one reason or another, the most of the land claims of the Protestant missions were forfeited because they were not actually occupied at the time of the passage of the land law. The title to all the stations of the American Board lapsed in this way except that to Waiilatpu, where the occupants had been massacred. In 1862 the Board put in a claim to Lapwai, Mr. Spalding's station in the Nez Percés country, but it was disallowed, and he devoted years to the effort to secure a reversal of the decision. That the mission claims should be rejected while those of the Hudson's Bay Company were recognized by the National Government seemed an outrage to Spalding. To cap the climax, just about this time it came to his attention that an attack on the work of the missionaries of the American Board had been given an extensive publicity by being included in a public document.