Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/149

 then the first infraction of tariff laws or sailors rights will see an inglorious British backdown, or a lively scrimmage for possession of the whole coast. As it is now, the proximity of the British ports to American centers of trade and population, with all the differences in tariffs, foreign labor laws, diverse populations, British control of navigable channels between the American Pacific coast states and the American territory of Alaska, and British control of competing transcontinental railroads, is a continually disturbing factor in Pacific coast commerce and a menace to the prosperity of Portland and other American Pacific seaports.

The Oregon pioneers saw all these points of possible trouble, clearly. Senators Benton and Linn of Missouri, and Semple of Illinois, foresaw the whole story, and made their battle for the whole coast from Mexico up to Alaska. The presidential election which placed James K. Polk in the White House, was fought upon this platform. It was everywhere in the air. The pioneer wagons, the plains across, had emblazoned on their canvass tops, "Fifty-four, forty or fight." The great mass of the people were ready for the contest with old England.

The pioneers who organized the provisional government at Champoeg in May, 1843, were fully awake to the warlike temper of the two nations. There were two sessions of the Oregon legislative committee, which adjourned to wait and hear what news the emigration of 1844 would bring from the states. The British subjects in Oregon were quite as anxious to hear the news as the Americans. Dr. McLoughlin was not insensible to the strained relations between the United States and England on the Oregon question; and it is said added another bastion to old Fort Vancouver to resist a possible attack from Americans—although the explanation given was that there was danger of an uprising from the Indians. The British war ship Modeste, entered the Columbia, came up the river and anchored in front of Fort Vancouver. Congressman Wentworth of Illinois declared in congress in January, 1844: "I think it is our duty to speak freely and candidly, and let England know that she never can have an inch of Oregon, nor another inch of what is now claimed as the United States territory." And Sir Robert Peel of the British parliament responded to the challenge of Wentworth, by saying: "England knows her rights and dares maintain them." But at the last minute President Polk backed down and sold the Oregon pioneers out to the Hudson Bay Company. It was the most disgraceful chapter in the diplomacy of the United States. And this is the reason why the merchants and manufacturers of this city are not now, this day, supplying all the traders and consumers of the whole coast north of Portland clear up to the Arctic ocean with Oregon manufactures and produce.

As the emigrants of 1843 not only made the old Oregon trail, but also substantially decided the future political status of Oregon, by bringing here a body of forceful men who were possessed of the necessary courage, intelligence and enterprise to execute all necessary movements locally to hold the country, it seems to be not only meet and proper, but due their services and memory, that their names be preserved here as a part of the record of this city, and a precious heritage of their descendants. No complete record of those who composed the emigration of 1843 is in existence. J. W. Nesmith, a young man from Maine, who was elected orderly sergeant, with the duties of adjutant, made a roll of all the male members of the caravan of 1843 who were capable of bearing arms, which included all above sixteen years of age. This roll was preserved by Nesmith until long after he had become United States senator from the state of Oregon. And thirty-two years after he had made that "roll of honor" he read it before the Oregon Pioneer Association at its third annual reunion in 1875, and there requested all the survivors of that roll to answer to their names, as present for duty, and only thirteen responded. There were undoubtedly many more still alive in the state at that time who were not present at that reunion.