Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/657

606 filled by Frederick Prigg; H. M. Knighton was elected marshal; John H. Couch, treasurer; George W. Bell, auditor; and Theophilus McGruder, territorial recorder. The organic law concerning partnerships in land of "two or more persons" was amended by repealing the words "or more;" a measure which had been much discussed previously, as a means of breaking the monopoly of the fur company and the missions, as well as of other speculators. By an act regulating weights and measures the imperial bushel of the Hudson's Bay Company, so much complained of, was abolished.

All these acts, though good and proper, did not interest the people as did the memorial, about which so much had been said. The committee first chosen by the legislature to frame this important document was composed of Hall, Peers, Summers, McDonald, and Boone. Their joint production was placed in the hands of a revisory committee consisting of T'Vault, Summers, and Peers; and finally was remodelled by Peers, who was a man of good parts, and a writer of considerable ability, whose verses sometimes graced the columns of the Spectator, so that at the last the American petition to the congress of the United States was penned by a British subject. That the colonists' interests were not less happily represented the memorial shows for itself.

After respectfully soliciting the attention of congress to their wants, the proud position which Oregon would soon occupy before the world was briefly mentioned, and reference made to the flattering report of the congressional committee on post-offices and roads for 1846, in which the climate, soil, and other advantages of the country west of the Rocky Mountains were said to be correctly set forth; from which it would seem that Oregon was "destined soon to become a central point of commerce and happiness."