Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/61

Rh opportunity for Mr. Peel to poll the attendants as to their national predilection, and by the aid of Robert Pentland, an Englishman, the poll was made with the result that the majority present were Americans. A bet of a bottle of wine between Peel and Newell afforded excuse for the poll. Peel manifested chagrin at the result, pointed across the mill floor to a man who might easily he guessed to be an Englishman, and offered Newell another bet that that man would fight on the side of Great Britain in case of war over Oregon. Newell took the bet and Mr. Pentland went straight across the floor and said to the man: "Sir. which side would you support in case of war over the Oregon boundary?" The man without hesitation replied: "I fight under the Stars and Stripes, myself!" The man was Willard H. Rees, a neighbor of Newell and elected with the latter in the general election of 1847. Robert Newell as the ablest man of the American mountaineers.

As to Lieutenant Peel, he spent nearly a year in Oregon and used all the means in his power to increase pro-British sentiment, to be very generally gently defeated.

There was probably no leader in the settlement at that time who more certainly would have been ready to take the field for the American side than Cornelius Gilliam. As leader of the largest following of the immigration of 1844, Gilliam was by nature and prejudice mast intensely opposed to British rule over Oregon. He was met at The Dalles with a liberal present of food sent by Dr. John McLoughlin. While partaking of this some of his family connection (one of his sons-in-law, probably) saw a chance to have a joke at his expense, and said: "General, they are trying to buy you up in advance." This raised a laugh, but Gilliam, who always took himself seriously, said, "Well, I have no objections to living in good neighborhood with the Hudson Bay Company as long as my rights are respeeted, but if they cut up any rustics with me, I will do my best to knock their stockade down about their ears." This story in different versions was campfire gossip while the writer, with Daniel Clark and S. B. Crockett, were engaged with a boat loaned by Doctor McLoughlin. probably the very boat which carried this present to Gilliam and his friends,