Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/266

Rh to accomplish more than Waller, as his secret agent, ever aimed at. He had determined to again visit the United States, to secure, if possible, from the government a grant, conditioned on the sovereignty of the United States, of all the tracts of land settled upon as missions, which would include Oregon City, and a gift of $5,000 in money toward the endowment of the Oregon Institute. With this purpose in view he had resigned the presidency of the board of directors of the institute in September, and had offered his services as an agent for the collection of money in the States, with which to furnish chemical and other apparatus to the school, an offer gladly accepted by the other members of the board.

The visit to Fort Vancouver, before mentioned, was while he, in company with Ricord, and Hines and family, was on his way to the mouth of the river to embark in the fur company's bark Columbia, Captain Humphries, for the Sandwich Islands. Before leaving the Willamette Valley, Ricord had penned a caveat against McLoughlin, in which he called Waller his client, and in which McLoughlin was warned that measures had been taken at Washington to substantiate Waller's claim to Oregon City as the actual preemptor upon six hundred and forty acres of land at that place; and that any sales which McLoughlin might make thereafter would be regarded by his client and the government as fraudulent.

Waller founded his claim on the grounds of citizenship of the United States, prior occupancy of the land, and improvement. He denied McLoughlin's claim for the following reasons: that he was an alien, and so not eligible; that he was officer of a "foreign corporate monopoly;" that he did not reside and never had resided on the land; that while he pretended to hold it for himself, he was in fact holding it for a foreign corporate body, as was proved by the employment of individuals of that company as his agents; and as no