Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/70

52 as fast as the country could get along independently of it; and inasmuch as the fur company had, through the dependence of the American community upon them, been enabled to make a fair profit on a large amount of goods, it was scarcely to be regretted that they should now be forced to give way, and retire to new territory where only fur companies properly belong.

Among the events of 1849 which were directly due to the mining episode was the minting of about fifty thousand dollars at Oregon City, under an act of the colonial legislature passed at its last session, without license from the United States. The reasons for this act, which were recited in the preamble, were that in use as currency was a large amount of gold-dust which was mixed with base metals and impurities of other kinds, and that great irregularities in weighing existed, to the injury of the community. Two members only, Medorum Crawford and W. J. Martin, voted against the bill, and these entered on the records a formal protest on the ground that the measure was unconstitutional and inexpedient. ''Grover's Or. Archives'', 311, 315. The act was approved by the governor Feb. 16, 1849. According to its provisions the mint was to be established at Oregon City; its officers, elected annually by the house of representatives, were to give each $30,000 bonds, and draw a salary of $1,999 each per annum, to be paid out of proceeds of the institution. The director was empowered to pledge the faith of the territory for means to put the mint in operation; and was required to publish in some newspaper in the territory a quarterly statement, or by sending such a report to the county clerk of each county. The act provided for an assayer and melter and coiner, the latter being forbidden to use any alloys whatever. The weight of the pieces was to be five pennyweights and ten pennyweights respectively, no more and no less. The dies for stamping were required to have on one side the Roman figure five, for the pieces of five pennyweights, and the Roman figure ten, for the pieces of ten pennyweights, the reverse sides to be stamped with the words Oregon Territory, and the date of the year around the face, with the 'arms of Oregon' in the centre. What then constituted the 'arms of Oregon' is a question. Brown, ''Will. Valley'', MS., 13, says that only parts of the impression remain in the Oregon archives, and that it has gone out of the memory of everybody, including Holderness, secretary of state in 1848. Thornton says that the auditor's seal of the provisional government consisted of a star in the centre of a figure so arranged as to represent a larger star, containing the letters Auditor O. T., and that it is still preserved in the Oregon archives. Relics, MS., 6. But as the law plainly described the coins as having the arms of Oregon on the same side with the date and the name of the territory, then if the idea of the legislators was carried out, as it seems to have been, a beaver The