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 Slavery Question in Oregon. 325 to go with him to the Indian camp and persuade them to cease their warlike operations and thus prepare the way for an amicable conference by both parties for the adjustment of mutual wrongs. He laid the war to bad white men, which was admitted, and also that the settlers to a man were indis- posed to a conflict; indeed, had done nothing to provoke it— also admitted. Then said Mr. Beeson, ' ' Come with me and we will tell the Indians the truth about this matter; lay the blame where it belongs, and have this w^ar stopped before it goes any further." Mr. Colver, who, though as much of a humanitarian as his visitor, was more discreet and answered as foUow^s: "Well, Friend Beeson (in a drawling nasal tone peculiar to him), you may go to Old John and exercise your powers of persuasion upon him, and if you come back with your scalp fast on your head, I will go with you tomorrow." Mr. Beeson didn't go. The Indians knew aA well as those gentlemen that the white miscreants who were continually upon them, were but a small fraction of the population, but they also knew that the white population did not exert them- selves to discover and punish the guilty persons who seemed to enjoy complete immunity among their brethren. They knew that the Hudson's Bay Company held both races equally responsible for wrong doing, but they could not understand w^hy we did not do likewise. They were short as jurists, and concluding that the whole race was their enemy, made indis- criminate war. Among the less active, but still worthy of honorable men- tion, was George Woolen, a man of herculean frame, mild mannered, temperate of speech, wise in counsel, seldom moved from the even tenor of his way ; his great force and firmness seeming to be automatically adapted to every occasion. Under a given set of conditions everybody could foretell what George Woolen would do; he would do what he thought to be right with reference to the general interests. In a word, he was a plain, straightforward anti-slavery man who exercised his influence without fret or friction. Though so mild and re- ticent, he sometimes astonished his neighbors by putting in a