Columbia at least, except such as Great Britain could give it under the convention of 1818.
In Slacum's report to the secretary of war, he says that at the public meeting held at Champoeg for the organization of the cattle company, he told the Canadians that, although they were located within the territorial limits of the United States, the title to their farms would doubtless be secured to them when that government took possession of the country. He cheered them also, he says, with the hope that erelong measures would be adopted for opening trade with the Oregon Territory, when, instead of getting fifty cents a bushel for their wheat delivered at Fort Vancouver, they might receive the dollar and a half which the Russians paid in California.[1] So much interest was he able to create by this suggestion, that a petition was drawn up praying the congress of the United States "to recognize them in their helpless and defenceless state, and to extend to them the protection of its laws, as being, or desiring to become, its citizens," and signed by both Americans and Canadians.
Little time was consumed by Slacum in executing his mission in Oregon. On the 17th of January, four days after he was met at Champoeg by Jason Lee, who had been on business to Fort Vancouver, eleven members of the Willamette Cattle Company[2] left in a canoe for the anchorage of the Loriot, a mile and a half below Wapato Island, to embark for California. On the 21st they went on board, and the following morning Jason Lee took leave of them, first gathering the company on the quarter-deck, and praying for the success of their undertaking.
- ↑ In another part of his report he says that a cargo of 5,000 bushels could at that time be obtained from the settlers on the Willamette, and also that the Russians required 25,000 bushels annually. This was, of course, a great inducement to the settlers to strive for independence in trade, and to oppose the monopoly of the fur company.
- ↑ Their names were P. L. Edwards, Ewing Young, Lawrence Carmichael, James O'Neil, George Gay, Calvin Tibbets, John Turner, W. J. Bailey, Webley Hauxhurst, and two Canadians. De Puis and Erguette.
