With a scheme of an exclusively Methodist colony, a sort of religious republic in his own mind Jason Lee was not likely to listen with favor to the plans of a man who, however religious in his own sentiments, had come to the country in company with horse-thieves and banditti; and Kelley, with a sore heart and half-crazed brain, was left to dwell in solitude on the failure of his magnificent scheme of an ideal American settlement devoted to liberty, virtue, order, education, the enlightenment of the savage tribes of the north-west, and the promotion of individual happiness.[1] So little sympathy and so much blame did he receive from those he had unwittingly involved in his misfortunes, that he did not venture during his stay in the country to visit the Willamette Valley, being deterred therefrom by threats of vengeance.[2] In the spring, accepting passage on the company's ship Dryad, Captain Keplin, he departed from the country upon which his grandest hopes had been so centred, sailing for the Hawaiian Islands.
But if Kelley was forced by untoward circumstances to leave the country, he did not fail solemnly to affirm in a communication to McLoughlin, that while he was not a public agent, acting by authority from the United States government, but only a private individual, he was yet a freeborn son of American independence, moved by the spirit of liberty, and animated with the hope of being useful to his fellow-men.[3] That those who had come with him were not idle or profligate, in such degree as to threaten the peace of the community,
- ↑ Kelley's General Circular, 13–27.
- ↑ Kelley s Colonization of Or., 56.
- ↑ Kelley's Colonization of Or., 57.
loss to know what portion of it to attribute to either writer. It is only that part of the book which relates to events happening previous to 1840 that we can feel sure was furnished by Lee, unless it be where he speaks of himself by name. Lee writes fairly, and with less of the usual religious cant than might be expected of a Methodist missionary of nearly fifty years ago. He simply puts down events, leaving the reader to make his own comments. His truthfulness, compared with other authorities, is nearly absolute. Like his uncle, he could refrain from mentioning a subject; but if he mentioned it, what he said was likely to be correct. The title of his book is Ten Years in Oregon, and it was published in 1844 in New York. It is quoted in this work as Lee and Frost's Or.
