Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/280



territory, many of whom, by so doing, were left in a suffering con dition. Men left families depending on their daily labor for sub sistence, farmers turned their horses loose from the plough in the furrow and furnished them to the army for transportation. They have waited nearly three years, and received as yet no remunera tion. Your memorialists respectfully but firmly conceive that the expenses of the war should be borne by the nation at large ; that it was a war fought in self-defense for the United States by the people of this territory. The time has come when the men who spent their time, money, and property in the prosecution of that war should be remunerated. The territory is too weak to do it and meet the demands made upon her resources by her growing interests. To conclude, your memorialists respectfully but firmly pray your hon orable body, at your present session, to appropriate the sum esti mated by the commissioners on Cayuse war claims, according to the annexed report, to be expended, ( under the direction of the leg islature of this territory, or by such officer as congress may direct ) , in the payment of the expenses incurred by the late provisional government of Oregon in the Cayuse war. 18

/ The first bill actually passed for the payment of the Cayuse war debt was for seventy-three thousand dollars, and in 1853-4 Hon. Joseph Lane concluded the business by securing an appropriation of seventy-five thousand dollars to pay the remaining expenses. Lane also secured the passage of a bill giving bounties to volunteers in any wars in which they had been regularly enrolled since 1790, which was intended to cover the Oregon Indian wars. Some private claims have been paid from time to time. There remained until the present decade only a bill for the relief of Captain Lawrence Hall s company, which was in the hands of Senator Mitchell, Captain William E. Birk- himer, United States army, having been designated to examine the accounts, who found in favor of their payment. The Cayuse war marked, and closed the existence of the provisional government of Oregon. As an example of the facility with which Americans organize and establish gov ernments or armies, it is one of the most interesting on record, and as an illustration in the main of the good points in American character it is noticeable. "When I

" Oregon Archives, MS. 1044.