call on the military companies to put down uprisings among the natives. The manner in which White and the soldiers used their authority has been given in a previous chapter.
The law of land claims, the most important of all to the original agitators of a provisional government, required that the claimant should designate the boundaries of his land, and have the same recorded in the office of the territorial recorder, in a book kept for that purpose, within twenty days from the time of making his claim; unless he should be already in possession of a claim, when he should be allowed a year for recording a description of his land. It was also required that improvements should be made, by building or enclosing, within six months, and that the claimant should reside on the land within a year after recording. No individual was allowed to hold a claim of more than one square mile, or six hundred and forty acres in a square or oblong form, according to natural surroundings, or to hold more than one claim at one time; but having complied with these ordinances, he was entitled to the same recourse against trespass as in other cases provided by law.
The fourth and last article of the land law forbade all persons to hold claims upon city or town sites, extensive water privileges, or other situations necessary for the transaction of mercantile or manufacturing operations. Like all the important acts of the legislative committee, the land law was the work of Shortess, who was, at this period of his history, in close sympathy with the Methodist Mission. The fourth article was directly designed to take from John McLoughlin his claim at Oregon City, but when the motion was put to adopt the law as a whole, there arose considerable argument, the Mission having also laid claim to a portion of the land at Oregon City, and having erected mills on the island at the falls. In order to quiet this discussion and satisfy the Mission, a proviso was proposed "that nothing in these
