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168 shape in his mind, he would deceive them a little; for the sake of progress and the God of progress, his God and theirs, he would not tell them all at once his whole heart.

For the old affair he had more help than he needed; for his slowly evolving purpose he had not enough. Moreover, the fruits of the sewing-societies and the Sunday-schools would be none the less acceptable to civilization than to savagism at this juncture. Therefore he decided in the winter of 1837–8 to visit the states and obtain more men and means.

Preparatory to this, Lee made a hasty excursion in March 1838 to the Umpqua Valley, to inform himself of its nature and advantages for the purposes now in contemplation. A convention was called in order to memorialize congress to extend jurisdiction over the Oregon colony. The memorial set forth that the settlement began in 1832, and had prospered beyond all expectation; that the people of the United States were ignorant of the value of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, of the mildness of its climate, the wealth of its resources, and its commercial advantages in relation to China, India, the Islands of the Pacific, and the western coast of America; for all of which reasons the government was urged to take formal possession without loss of time; not only because of its general importance to the nation, but for the consequent benefits to the colony. Moreover, if this were not done, evil to the settlers would ensue. The interests of the memorialists they declared were identical with those of the country of their adoption. They felt themselves the nucleus of a great state, and were anxious to give it at the beginning an elevated moral and intellectual tone. They were concerned, also, about the character of those who might emigrate to Oregon, and desired congress to say by whom the territory should be populated. Unprincipled adventurers, Botany Bay refugees, renegades from civilization now