Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/585

534 Hudson's Bay Company to force payment in an oppressive manner. But as this was the first law passed for the collection of debts, and the company was heretofore wholly without the power to enforce payment, being. entirely outside the pale of colonial war, Gray's explanation of his motives in presenting such a bill lacks consistency. The law on currency, after declaring that in addition to gold and silver treasury drafts, approved orders on solvent merchants, and good merchantable wheat at the market price, delivered at some customary depot for wheat, should be lawful tender for the payment of taxes, judgments rendered in the courts, and for all debts contracted in the territory, where no special contract had been made to the contrary—provided that no property should be sold on execution for less than two thirds of its value after deducting all encumbrances; and that the value of the property should be fixed by two discreet householders, who should be sworn by the officer making the levy, and they should make a written statement of the value, which the officer should append to his return. Should the property remain unsold on the return day of the writ, the officer having so indorsed it, the writ and indorsement should constitute a lien on the property; the defendant having the right to remain in possession of the unsold property by executing a bond with sureties, in double its value, to deliver the property at the time and place appointed by said officer.

An act supplementary to the currency law was passed, requiring all those who paid taxes in wheat to deliver it at stated places in their districts; at Fort George in Clatsop County; at Cowlitz Farm or Fort Vancouver in Vancouver County; at the company's