Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/318

 310 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN. do. He made his home*at Oregon City, and became a "citizen of the United States. THE LATTER DAYS OF DR. M 'LOUGHLIN. E shall not, at this time, go into the details of actions against him, and of how he was unfairly treated by some persons whom he had befriended and helped and protected; I shall merely mention that conspirators against Dr. McLoughlin took for themselves parts of his land claim and, by means of malicious misstatements, caused Congress unjustly to deprive him of all the rest of his land claim, and thus humbled and humiliated and impoverished the grand, the noble, the gen- erous Father of Oregon. I shall merely mention that his kind and humane treatment of these immigrants and others, by lying tongues, was made to appear as inspired by base and unworthy motives and to be to the great prejudice and dam- age of those he had so greatly assisted. I shall not dwell on the sorrows and misfortunes of his latter days. I shall, however, say that he, who sacrificed his all, by reason of his humanity, for his suffering and needy fellowmen and in the making of Oregon, died here in Oregon City, a broken-hearted man. It is tragic that so noble a life should have had so sad an end. But I recall with joy that five years after his death the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon restored to Dr. McLoughlin 's descendants most of his land claim, which Con- gress had so deprived him of. By that act Oregon did tardy justice but she redeemed herself and justified and approved the acts and deeds, and vindicated the name and memory of him we here honor today. In Dr. McLoughlin 's noble answer to the Governor in Chief and Directors of the Hudson's Bay Company to the criticisms concerning his aids to the early Oregon immigrants, he wrote defending what he had done, and said that had he not acted as he did, "the trouble which would have arisen would have probably involved the British and the American nations in war," and that "I was silent in full reliance that some day justice would be done me."