or slaughter them in the pasture, the sheriff and the constables would turn a deaf ear to his appeal for lielp. He would become an outlaw.
The reform of 1844 fails to satisfy. The governmental reform of 1844, while effective in certain respects, created another political agitation in the Oregon colony. Some no doubt were alarmed at the very success of the new law relating to taxation. Others felt aggrieved over the alteration in the land laws. Still others professed to feel outraged because the legislative committee failed to extend the jurisdiction of the provisional government over that part of Oregon lying north of the Columbia. They raised against the committee the charge of a want of patriotism. In fact, Dr. McLoughlin reported that a party among the settlers wished to establish an Oregon or Pacific State which should be independent of both the United States and Great Britain. Still others found serious fault with the manner in which the committee had wrought these profound changes. They had set aside an organic or fundamental law adopted by the people themselves without so much as saying "by your leave," and had created virtually a new constitution as well as a new legal code without submitting any portion of their work to the people for acceptance or rejection. In a word, the legislative committee had enacted a political revolution, a thing dangerous in itself and, by the reaction it was bound to engender, likely to prove disastrous to the colonv.
The revision of 1845. The Legislative Committee
