Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/88

70 Shark's crew in 1846. It was soon arranged between Hathaway and Lane that Hill's company should establish a post near Nisqually, when the Indians would be called upon to surrender the murderer of Wallace. The troops were removed from Astoria about the middle of July, proceeding by the English vessel Harpooner to Nisqually.

On the 13th of May the governor's proclamation was issued dividing the territory into judicial districts; the first district, to which Bryant, who arrived on the 9th of April, was assigned, consisting of Vancouver and several counties immediately south of the Columbia; the second, consisting of the remaining counties in the Willamette Valley, to which Pratt was assigned; and the third the county of Lewis, or all the country north of the Columbia and west of Vancouver county, including the Puget Sound territory, for which there was no judge then appointed. The June election gave Oregon a bona fide delegate to congress, chosen by the people, of whom we shall know more presently.

When the governor reached his capital he found that several commissions, which had been intended to overtake him at St Louis or Leavenworth, but which failed, had been forwarded by Lieutenant Beale to California, and thence to Oregon City. These related to the Indian department, appointing as sub-Indian agents J. Q. Thornton, George C. Preston, and Robert Newell, the Abernethy delegate being rewarded at last with this unjudicial office by a relenting president. As Preston did not arrive with his commission, the territory was divided into two districts,