no notice of, further than it had of the application of the company for protection of its property. As tor the officers of the company, they required no protection, being personally as much esteemed and respected as any individuals in the country.
Having answered these several charges specifically, he summed up on the main one of being "more than accessory" to the introduction of American settlers, by saying that the company had defeated every American trader in fair opposition, while so conducting themselves that neither they nor their friends had any occasion to be ashamed of their conduct. The great influx of missionaries, whom they had no right or power to prevent coming, and the statements they circulated through the public prints, was, he said the remote cause of Linn's bill offering donations of land, concerning which the British government had seen fit to be silent, thereby itself becoming "more than accessory" to the American settlement of Oregon He repelled the assumption that it was the duty oF the company to defend England's right to territory The obligation of the company's officers, he asserted, was to do their duty to the company, whatever their feelings might be, and, minding their proper business, let the government take care of its own affairs.
He admitted helping the immigrants of 1843, 1844 and 1845 with boats to transport their families and property to the Willamette before the Columbia should be closed with ice, in which case those left behind must perish of starvation; taking the sick into the hospital at Vancouver for treatment, thereby saving several lives. And he also admitted assisting the immigrants of 1843 to put a crop in the ground both as a means for providing for their support and of saving the company from the necessity of feeding the next immigration. "If we had not done this, he declared "Vancouver would have been destroyed, and the world would have judged us treated as our inhuman conduct deserved; every officer of the com-
