Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/171

Rh to pay the remaining expenses of the Cayuse war was acted upon, the committee consisting of McBride, Parker, and Hall, of the council, and Deady, Simpson, and Harding of the house. Nothing further of importance was done at this session.

When the legislative assembly adjourned in February, it was known that Thurston was returning to Oregon as a candidate for reëlection, and it was expected that there would be a heated canvass, but that his party would probably carry him through in spite of the feeling which his course with regard to the Oregon City claim had created. But the unlooked for death of Thurston, and the popularity of Lane, who, being of the same political sentiments, and generously willing to condone a fault in a rival who had confirmed to him as the purchaser of Abernethy Island a part of the contested land claim, made the ex-governor the most fitting substitute even with Thurston's personal friends, for the position of delegate from Oregon. Some efforts had been made to injure Lane by anonymous letter-writers, who sent to the New York Tribune allegations of intemperance and improper associations, but which were sturdily repelled by his democratic friends in public meetings, and which could not have affected his position, as Gaines was appointed in the usual round of office-giving at the beginning of a new presidential and party administration. That these attacks did not seriously injure him in Oregon was shown by the enthusiasm with which his nomination was accepted by the majority, and the result of the election, as well as by the fact of a county having been named after him between his removal as governor and nomination as delegate. The only objection to Lane, which seemed to carry any weight, was the one of being in the territory