Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/376

370 nineteenth-century facility. At the "wolf meeting" on the first Monday in March, 1843, it was resolved, "That drafts on Fort Vancouver, the Mission, and the Milling Company, be received on subscriptions [towards making up a scalp bounty fund] as payment." At the great public sale of the property of the Ewing Young estate, about two months later, the settlements were almost altogether by means of personal notes. The great scarcity of specie is in evidence in the petition against the Government's using the escheat funds of the Young estate and thereby making itself liable to a large specie payment on demand.

As late as 1846 trade was carried on almost exclusively through an interchange of commodities, money figuring only in the accounts. The Legislature went so far as to enact on August 19, 1845, that "available orders, wheat, hides, tallow, beef, pork, butter, lard, peas, lumber, or other articles of export of this territory" shall "at their current value" "be a lawful tender in payment of all demands in this territory, where no special contract had been made between the parties;" "Provided, the same be delivered at such points on the navigable streams, or such other places as may be established as depots of such articles." This act passed on the next to the last day of the session did not receive the approval of the Governor. There was also an attempt in the Legislature about this time to make "wheat and peltries" a legal tender.

The Governor in his message to the Legislature at its next meeting in December of the same year defines his position on the legal tender question and states his reasons for withholding his approval from the radical measure of the preceding session. He says: "That a legal tender should be provided for the payment of all liabilities beside gold and silver, we