Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/159

 How BRITISH AND AMERICAN SUBJECTS UNITE 151 ernment.3 2 Besides the Americans now called upon their French neighbors to join them in forming a government for all.33 New arrivals and old settlers combined in this effort to secure a union with the Canadians. 34 At last a meeting called apparently for the purpose of hearing the wishes of the Cana- dians and to harmonize such differences of opinion as had arisen was held in March, 1844. To this assembly the Cana- dian residents of the Willamette Valley presented an address, drawn up by one of their priests Me. Langlois3S in which they set forth their objections to the existing government and suggested what seemed to them a better plan of organization. The evidence that such a meeting was held for the special purpose of conciliating the Canadians and considering a plan of union is as follows : 1. The salutation of the address reads, "We, the Canadian citizen residents of the Wallamat, ma- turely considering the object for which the people are gathered in the present meeting, present the unanimous expression of our desire for union." 2. The signatures of president, two vice presidents, two secretaries, three Americans, one (Joseph Gervais) certainly, another probably (Francis Renay) French- men, indicate a meeting of some kind, made up of both Ameri- cans and Canadians, though so many officers may show a permanent organization. These signatures are found at the bottom of the French copy of the address. 3. McLoughlin in a letter of September, 1845, says that the address was handed in in March to a meeting then assembled. 4. There is an indorsement in a different handwriting from that of the ad- dress on back of the English copy, "Address of the Canadians to the Meeting at Champa " (illegible). Inasmuch as it has been the practice to date, this address as drawn up in 1842 and presented some time in 1843, it seems desirable to give the reasons for fixing its date as 1844. 32 Letters of McLoughlin, F. O. Amer., 440, 459 33 Ibid. 34 Signatures of officers at bottom of Canadian Address, Oregon Archives, Provisional, i. 35 McLoughlin states positively that it was drawn up and presented by him. It has always been incorrectly attributed to F. N. Blanchet. Lanj?lois arrived at the Willamette Falls, September 16, 1842. He later became superintendent of St. Joseph's College founded at Oregon City by Blanchet. De Smet's Oregon Missions in Early Western Travels, 29: 135.