Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/372

Rh been rescued from brother Waller." In return for this interference with his mission, Waller pulled down a flag hoisted on Sunday by Blanchet's order. But the latter declares that he was consoled for this insult because some Clatsops, seeing the altar, ornaments, and vestments, spoke disparagingly of the Protestant missionaries, who had never shown them such pretty things.

The childish quarrels, of which this is an example, might well be overlooked were it not necessary to refer to sectarian feuds hereafter to account for events of greater importance.

Despite their troubles with the Methodists, Blanchet and Demers labored industriously to disseminate their religion. They visited distant tribes and baptized a vast number of infant savages, attended to the spiritual wants of the fur company's servants, most of whom were Catholics and taught diligently at St Paul and St Xavier. Aside from their super-abundant zeal, they were excellent men and faithfully discharged their duties as they understood them. If they drew away from the Methodist school the children of the French settlers, they did not neglect their education afterward, but were as zealous to establish institutions of learning as Jason Lee himself. Nor were they behind in erecting mills and making improvements which might give them a title to the lands occupied by them when the United States should carry out its promise of free farms to actual settlers.

The immediate effect of the arrival of Blanchet and Demers was to unite the French settlers in a community by themselves, and thus weaken the power of the Methodist Mission as a political body. This is shown by the fact that the first two petitions of the settlers to the United States congress were signed equally by French and Americans, but the subsequent memorials by Americans only. It increased the hos-