Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/132

114 majority, was that of the anti-Hudson's Bay Company sentiment, which was industriously worked up by the missionary element, in the absence of a large number of the voters of the territory, notably of the Canadians, and the young and independent western men. Thurston was besides a democrat, to which party the greater part of the population belonged; but it is the testimony of those who knew best that it was not as a democrat that he was elected. As a member of the legislature at its last session under the provisional government, he displayed some of those traits which made him a powerful and useful champion, or a dreaded and hated foe.

Much has been said about the rude and violent manners of western men in pursuit of an object, but Thurston was not a western man; he was supposed to be something more elevated and refined, more cool and logical, more moral and Christian than the people beyond the Alleghanies; he was born and bred an eastern man, educated at an eastern college, was a good Methodist, and yet in the canvass of