Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/211

Rh and children arrived from the states. They came with their wagons to Fort Hall, and from thence packed their effects on horses and drove their cattle. They passed, without visiting Vancouver, from The Dalles to the Wallamette over the Cascades by the road which the Methodist Mission had opened to drive cattle from the Wallamette to that place. Dr. White who had formerly been a member of the Methodist Mission, but disagreeing with them had left them in 1840, came with these immigrants. He gave himself out, at a meeting which he called for the purpose, as being appointed Sub-Indian Agent by the American government for Oregon Territory. But of course the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company did not acknowledge his authority, and the immigrants brought the printed copy of a bill brought into the Senate of the United States by Dr. Linn, in which it was proposed to donate 640 acres of land to every white male inhabitant, the same to a male descendant of a white man, 320 to a wife, and 160 to a child under 18 years old. This year my difficulties began with the Methodist Mission, but as I have already given a full detail of it, I will not repeat it here. In 1843 the Americans again proposed to the Canadians to join and form a temporary government, but the Canadians declined for the same reason as before.

In the summer a number of the immigrants of last year, headed by Mr. Hastings, not being satisfied with the country, left for California. As they were destitute of means, I made them advances, which they were to pay to the late Mr. Rae, at San Francisco, but few did so. But in the fall, 875 men, women, and children came from the states by the same route as those of last year, and brought 1,300 head of cattle. These came to The Dalles, on the Columbia River, with their wagons, drove their cattle over the Cascades by the same route as those of last year to the Wallamette, and when the road was