Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/424

Rh pation, presented a report adverse to the expediency of establishing a territorial government. The reason given by the committee for making an adverse report was that they were "anxious to observe the letter and spirit of the treaties between the United States and Great Britain." Yet they accompanied their report by a communication from the secretary of war, and another from the secretary of the navy, containing estimates of the expense which would probably be incurred in "certain assumed contingencies contemplated by the order of the house;" by the letter and petition of Jason Lee before adverted to; by a memoir from Wyeth on the soil, climate, and resources of the country, and the business of the Hudson's Bay Company, representing the value of the fur trade; by a letter from the secretary of the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society, to which reference has been made in one of the early chapters of this volumnevolume [sic], with a copy of the constitution of the society; and by Slacum's report, and a memoir by Kelley. Of this voluminous document, the whole of which took, from having so much in it that was furnished by persons interested in the occupation of Oregon, a tone of accusation and enmity toward the British fur company, ten thousand extra copies were ordered printed, which were scattered broadcast over the land, educating the people to an exalted idea of the worth of the Oregon country, and at the same time to a hatred of the British traders who had so far succeeded in driving out of it American competitors.

On the 18th of December Linn again called the attention of the senate to a series of resolutions on the subject of Oregon, which were referred as usual to a select committee, who reported, on the 31st of March, 1840, a substitute, asserting the title of the United States to Oregon, authorizing the president to take such measures as might be demanded for the protection of the persons and property of citizens of