Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/274

Rh Oregon Institute, to follow Gary in his efforts to close up the business of the Mission.

Gary seems to have become imbued with the spirit of his advisers, and to have eclipsed his predecessors in rapacity. Before his advent, some time in the month of April 1844, at the suggestion of White indorsed by Major Gilpin, who had arrived in the country the previous autumn, McLoughlin was induced to attempt once more to come to a final understanding with Waller, and agreed to leave the matter to White, Gilpin, and Douglas as arbitrators on his side, and to Leslie and Waller on the side of the Mission. After much discussion, White and Gilpin considering the demands exorbitant, to settle the matter McLoughlin consented to allow the Mission fourteen lots, and to pay Waller five hundred dollars and give him five acres of land out of his claim. This bargain would not have been consummated had it been left to White and Gilpin, but Douglas thought it better for McLoughlin "to give him one good fever, and have done with it."

But this was not the last, and he had not yet done with the missionaries. On the 13th of July Gary offered to sell back to him the lots he had donated to the Mission. To this offer McLoughlin replied that, considering the extortionate manner in which the lots had been obtained, and the fact that they were those he required in his own business, the demand upon him to pay the Mission for them and whatever they might ask seemed unreasonable; but if he could make an exchange of other lots for those, he would do so. It was not land, however, that the Mission wanted now, but money. "It would be the fairest way," said Mc-