Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/495

444 No census was taken of the amount of property in the country.

Applegate calls the acts of the legislative committee of 1844 "impolitic and unpatriotic;" and asserts further that the conservative class, which greatly outnumbered the mere demagogues and their followers, determined these wrongs should be righted at any cost. Had Mr. Applegate ever done anything to deserve the name of demagogue, here would be the time to accuse him of wishing in his turn to subvert a good government, because it was proposed to place it on a firm basis. He was perhaps unconscious of the influence at work to create public sentiment against the acts of the legislative committee, or the jealousies which struggled to prevent either of two of the members of the executive committee from being governor of the colony. How the people finally decided I shall relate in a future chapter concerning the legislature of 1845, of which Applegate was a member.

After all there appeared to be no great need of law in Oregon. The only occasion on which Judge Babcock, elected at the primary meeting of 1841, exercised his probate powers, was at the death of Cornelius Rogers in the spring of 1843. All the disturbances occurring in the colony had been of a nature to bring them under the jurisdiction of White. There is but a single mention of an assault previous to the establishment of circuit courts, and that one was accompanied by extenuating circumstances, the offender escaping with a fine. But in the spring of 1845 Joel Turnham assaulted Webley Hauxhurst with such violence that a complaint was entered against him. Turnham, being a constable, could not take himself into custody, and John Edmonds was deputed to make the arrest. Turnham resisted and attacked Edmonds,