Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/532

Rh Early in the session Gray made a motion that a committee be appointed to draught a memorial and petition to congress, setting forth the condition and wants of the country; and accordingly Gray, Applegate, H. A. G. Lee, McClure, and Hill were appointed, and a memorial prepared and adopted. 'To the honorable the Senate and Home of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: Your memorialists and petitioners, the representatives of the people of Oregon, for themselves, and in behalf of the citizens of the United States residing in this territory, would respectfully submit for the consideration of your honorable body some of the grievances under which we labor, and pray your favorable consideration of our petition for their remedies. Without dilating upon the great importance of this territory as an appendage to the federal union, or consuming your valuable time in repeating to you the oft-repeated account of our agricultural and commercial advantages, we would, with due deference, submit to your serious consideration our peculiar difficulties as occupants of this territory. As by treaty stipulations between the governments of the United States and Great Britain this territory has become a kind of neutral ground, in the occupancy of which the citizens of the United States and the subjects of Great Britain have equal rights, and, as your memorialists humbly conceive, ought to have equal protection: such being the facts, the population of the territory, though promiscuously interspersed, is composed of the subjects of a crown and the citizens of a republic, between whom no common bond of union exists. It may naturally be supposed that in the absence of any provision having been made by the two governments, to prevent or settle any such occurrence, that conflicting interests, aided by ancient prejudices, would speedily lead to results the most disastrous; particularly when it is considered that this mixed population exists in the midst of numerous and warlike tribes of Indians, to whom the smallest dissensions among the white inhabitants would be the signal to let loose upon their defenceless families all the horrors of savage warfare. To prevent a calamity so much to be dreaded, the well-disposed inhabitants of this territory have found it absolutely necessary to establish a provisional and temporary government, embracing all free male citizens, and whose executive, legislative, and judicial powers should be equal to all the exigencies that may arise among themselves, not provided for by the governments to which they owe allegiance; and we are most happy to inform your honorable body, that with but few individual exceptions, the utmost harmony and good-will has been the result of this, as we conceive, wise and judicious measure; and the British subjects and American citizens vie with each other in their obedience and respect to the laws, and in promoting the common good and general welfare of Oregon.

'Although such has been the result, thus far, of our temporary union of interests, though we, the citizens of the United States, have had no cause to complain either of exaction or oppression at the hands of the subjects of Great Britain, but on the contrary it is but just to say that their conduct toward us has been most friendly, liberal, and philanthropic, yet we fear a longer continuance of the present state of things is not to be expected—our temporary government being limited in its efficiency, and crippled in its powers by the paramount duty we owe to our respective governments—our revenue being inadequate to its support—and the almost total absence, apart from the Hudson's Bay Company, of the means of defence against the Indians, which recent occurrences led us to fear entertain hostile feelings towards the citizens of the There was