Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/214

 streams in safety. And more and worst of all, they represented that 192 three or four tribes of Indians along the route had combined to resist all immigration." They represented that, "Famine and the snows of Winter would overtake all with destruction, before they could reach Oregon."

They did succeed in scaring this band of one hundred and thirty-seven men, women and children in 1842 into leaving all their wagons behind, but they went on to Oregon on pack-saddles.

In the meantime they ran a literary bureau for all it was worth, in the disparagement of Oregon for all purposes except those of the fur trader. The English press was mainly depended upon for this work, but the best means in reach were used that all these statements should reach the ruling powers and reading people of the United States.

The effect of this literary bureau upon American statesmen and the most intelligent class of readers prior to the Spring of 1843, is easily seen by the sentiments quoted, and by their published acts, in refusing to legislate for Oregon. Modern historians have said that, "The Hudson Bay Company and the English never at any time claimed anything south of the Columbia River." Such a statement can nowhere be proved from any official record; on the contrary,