Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/48



It is the purpose of this paper to endeavor to give the prevailing sentiment of the heads of families who crossed the plains and mountains and made their homes in Oregon prior to the settlement of the Oregon boundary question in June, 1846, on the subject of which nationality—that of the United States or that of Great Britain—they intended to support by their movement to and settlement here.

As a means of indicating my point of view, I will say that I left England as a member of my father's family with a strong bias towards the United States form of government, so far as it differed from that of England in recognition of personal freedom and the individual right to have a voice or vote in framing the laws to which one should submit. I was only in my eighteenth year, but I had heard much discussion on the subject, and under the inﬂuence of my father's teaching had been led to believe that under the United States Government that personal freedom and the voting privilege could be attained as conceded rights.

On the passage from Liverpool to New York I had opportunity to read "The Pioneers," by Cooper, and the picture of life on the frontiers there given was a fascination to me, as, very soon after landing. the name of Oregon became. Before the end of my ﬁrst year in America, I had resolved, if ever opportunity served, I would go to Oregon. Before the end of the second year I had answered the question of an American much more intelligent than myself as to "which side I would take in case I went to Oregon and war arose between the