Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/343



already mentioned that as early as 1838 the Methodist Missions furnished the colonists with a magistrate and constable, not so much because the services of those officers were needed as because the Americans were determined not to be behind the British fur company in the exercise of civil jurisdiction. The arrival of the great missionary reënforcement of 1840, by increasing the colony, made it apparent that some form of government would sooner or later be necessary. Still such quiet and good order had hitherto prevailed, that it is difficult to say how long the attempt to institute even a primitive form of government would have been postponed had not an unexpected event furnished particular occasion for it. This was the death of Ewing Young in the winter of