Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/54

48 to judge exactly what the facts are about the founding and continuance and termination of the Whitman-Spalding-Eells Mission, and the origin and purpose of Whitman's ride, I would contribute $500 (which would be fully one-half of the necessary expense of it) towards the cost, of the publication, and would rest the question of the origin, purposes and results of Whitman's ride entirely on those letters and on the reports of the action of the Prudential Committee of the Board thereon as shown by its official records, and by the letters which its Secretary sent in reply to them. My only conditions were that they should print the fyll text of those letters, and the replies to them, and the action of the Prudential Committee on them, with correct copies of the memoranda showing the date of receipt of each letter, and that they should print and put on sale at least 2,500 copies and furnish me free of cost 250 copies. While I only stipulated for the publication of such letters as I should select, I distinctly stated that it was only because of the great volume of other letters which related merely to routine missionary business, and do not possess the least value for the purposes of the general historian, casting no light whatever on any controverted points, but I also added, that if the American Board thought the publication of this inconsequential correspondence would be of any benefit, I should not object, and if they would only furnish to the public an accurate copy of the text of the letters and records I asked them to print, I did not care how much more they printed, nor how many notes and explanations they might print in an appendix or as footnotes. To this letter I never received any reply. That offer still holds good, but there is no probability that it will ever be accepted.

It is now more than twenty-seven years since I began the study of the acquisition of the Oregon Territory, and for five years I was imposed upon by the Saving Oregon theory of Whitman's ride, as told by Gray, and Spalding, and Rev. C. Eells. Twenty-two years ago I found that story to be fictitious, and since that have never faltered in my determination to publish the truth about it, as soon as I should find myself able to do so. Compelled to work steadily at my profession as a teacher to support my family, and caught and nearly ruined in the panic of 1893, I have not yet found myself able to publish the indisputable evidence which I have been so long and carefully collecting. Finding the Whitman Saved Oregon story, with all its astonishing perversions of the real history of the longest, most interesting, most successful and most remarkable diplomatic struggle we have ever made for territory was being