Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/373

322 of the latter toward the fur company, and especially toward McLoughlin, to whose jealousy of them the Methodists attributed the action of the company in allowing, or as they believed in inviting, the Catholics to settle in the territory. This suspicion was strengthened when McLoughlin joined the Catholic church in 1842. It then began to be said of him that he had always been a Catholic, and a very Jesuitical one, and that he was plotting against Protestantism and American progress in every form; and though nothing could be further from the truth, these accusations had great weight with those opposed to him from personal, sectarian, or political motives. That neither McLoughlin nor the fur company had any intention of covering the country with missions, as the Americans had done, was evident from the refusal of the committee to allow two other priests, Rev. A. Landois and J. B. Z. Bolduc, to follow the first two to Oregon, by denying them a passage in their express in 1841, although this did not prevent their coming the year following by sea.

The reader will remember that a petition of the Flatheads for white teachers, sent to St Louis about