Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/205

 1 SLACUM^S REPORT ON OREGON, 1836-7 19? cession the party will receive in California. They will doubt- less reach the Willhamet safely in June, the distance by the coast of the Pacific being about six hundred miles. The men are all experienced woodsmen. I certainly view this measure as one of the highest importance to the future growth and prosperity of this fine country, even if no other object is attained by my visit to the Columbia. A large cargo of wheat, five thousand five hundred bushels, could at this time be procured from the settlers on the Will- hamett. It would find a good market at the Sandwich islands, the Russian settlements at Norfolk sound, (Sitka,) or in Peru; but some steps must be taken by our Government to protect the settlers and the trader, not from the hostility of the In- dians, but from a much more formidable enemy, that any American trading house establishing itself on the Willhamet or Columbia would have to encounter, in the Hudson Bay Company. All the Canadian settlers have been in the service of the company; and from being for a long time subject to the most servile submission to the chiefs of the monopoly, are now, although discharged from the service of the company, still blindly obedient to the will of those in authority at Van- couver, who, on their part, urge the plea that, by the legisla- tive enactments of Canada, they are prohibited from discharg- ing their servants in the Indian country. Therefore they consider the people of the Willhamett although freemen in every sense of the word still subject to the protection and authority, otherwise thraldom of the Hudson Bay Company it being only necessary for the authorities at Vancouver to say, "if you disobey my orders, your supplies shall be cut off ;" and the settler knows at once that his few comforts, nay, necessaries of life, are stopped, rendering him more miserable than the savage that lurks around his dwelling. At the public meeting that took place at "Camp Maud du Sable" on the subject of the expedition to California the live- liest interest appeared to be felt when I told the "Canadians" that, although they were located within the territorial limits of the United States, their pre-emption rights would doubtless