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36 consistent with such a proposition; his whole thought seeming to be how to repel Indian aggressions. Whatever admiration he had at first felt for the aboriginal character had been completely effaced by his experiences among them. Why then did he insist that the board should not recall him from the country, except that it was with him as with the Methodist missionaries, that the settler in him was stronger than the missionary—as missionaries were at that period understood to be.

To his disappointment the American board of commissioners for foreign missions had no stomach for territorial conquest or Indian subjugation. They reprimanded him

serve to mark permanently the route for larger numbers each succeeding year, while they have practically demonstrated that wagons drawn by horses or oxen can cross the Rocky mountains to the Columbia river country, contrary to all the sinister assertions of all those who pretended it to be impossible. In their slow progress these persons have encountered, as in all former instances and as all succeeding emigrants must if this or some similar bill be not passed by. congress, the continual fear of Indian aggression, the actual loss through them of horses, cattle, and other property, and the great labor of transporting an adequate amount of provisions for so long a journey. The bill herewith proposed would, in a, great measure, lessen these inconveniences by the establishment of posts, which, while [having] the possessed power to keep the Indians in check, thus doing away with the necessity of military vigilance on the part of the traveler by day and night, would be able to furnish them in transit with fresh supplies of provisions, diminishing the original burdens of the emigrants, and finding thus a ready and profitable market for their produce a market that would, in my opinion, more than suffice to defray all the current expenses of such posts. The present party is supposed to have expended no less than two thousand dollars at Laramie's and Bridger's forts and as much more at Fort Hall and Fort Boise, two of the Hudson's Bay Company's stations. These are at present the only stopping places in a journey of two thousand two hundred miles, and the only places where additional supplies can be obtained, even at the enormous rates of charge called mountain prices; i. e., fifty dollars the hundred for flour and fifty dollars the hundred for coffee; the same for sugar, powder, etc. Many cases of sickness and some deaths took place among those who accomplished the journey this season, owing in a great measure to the uninterrupted use of meat, salt and fresh, with flour, which constituted the chief articles of food they are able to convey in their wagons, and this would be obviated by the vegetable productions, which the posts in contemplation could very profitably afford them. Those who rely on hunting as an auxiliary support are at present unable to have their arms repaired when out of order; horses and oxen become tender footed and require to be shod on this long journey, sometimes repeatedly, and the wagons repaired in a variety of ways. I mention these as valuable incidents to the proposed measure, as it will also be found to tend in many other incidental ways to benefit the migratory population of the United States, choosing to take this direction, and on these ac counts as well as for the immediate use of the posts themselves, they ought to be provided with the necessary shops and mechanics, which would at the same time exhibit the several branches of civilized art to the Indians. The outlay, in the first instance, would be but trifling. Forts like those of the Hudson s Bay Company, surrounded by walls inclosing all the buildings, and