Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/130

 122 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN of which is printed in the Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association for 1880, he said, in reference to his advice to the French-Canadians, old employes, settling in the Willamette Valley: "Many of the Canadians objected to go to the Willamette [Valley] because it would become American Territory, which I told them it would be as the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1825, officially informed me that, on no event, could the British Government claim extend south of the Columbia." So, unless there was a war over the Oregon question in which Great Britain would be successful, there was no chance or danger that the part of Oregon over which the original Provisional Government assumed to exercise control would be- long to Great Britain or required saving to the United States. While this may not have been known to any of the fifty-two persons who voted for a provisional government, May 2, 1843, it does not change the fact. One can not find what is not lost, nor save that which is not in peril. I do not wish to belittle what these fifty-two persons did on that second day of May. I do not seek to detract from the praise and honor to which they are entitled. As a grandson of an Oregon pioneer of 1843, and the son of two Oregon pioneers of 1846, I take pride in the action, on that memorable day, of these fifty-two and in the formation and perpetuation of the Oregon Provisional Government. It is no small thing that the Oregon pioneers were able, and willing to establish and to maintain a government for their own protection and regula- tion without aid, support, or encouragement from the United States Government. But I wish, and you should wish, to know the facts, and knowing the facts, to take pride in them and discard what is merely fiction. There is enough in the establishment and maintenance of the Provisional Government for all Oregonians to be proud of. History should deal in facts. Let us, while we may, estab- lish Oregon History on a proper and accurate basis. The facts of history outweigh, more than a thousand fold, the romances of unreality.