Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/548

Rh ; and Joseph L. Meek, marshal. Thus was the machinery of a popular and efficient form of government set in motion, which joined the lion and the eagle not one moment too soon. For a few days after McLoughlin and Douglas had given their consent to the union, there arrived from Puget Sound, in company with Chief Factor Ogden, Lieutenant William Peel, third son of Sir Robert Peel, and Captain Park, of the royal marines, with a letter from Captain John Gordon, brother of the earl of Aberdeen, and commander of the British fifty-gun ship of war America, of the British squadron in the Pacific, at that time amounting to fifteen vessels, carrying over four hundred guns.

Captain Park brought also a letter from Admiral Seymour, informing McLoughlin that firm protection would be given British subjects in Oregon, and not long after, another letter from Captain Baillie of the Modeste, which had been in the Columbia the previous summer, informing him that he was sent by the admiral to afford protection to her Majesty's subjects in Oregon, if they required it.

Had these proffers of protection, which really meant war, come in the month of June instead of August, the Oregon Question would have taken a different