Indians. No discrimination as to suffrage was made against persons not citizens of the United States, but "every free male descendant of a white man of the age of twenty-one years and upward, an inhabitant of this territory at the time of its organization," was declared a qualified elector. Elections were to be held annually. The executive power was to be vested in "a committe of three persons, elected by the qualified voters at the annual election." The judicial power was to be vested in "a supreme court, consisting of a supreme judge and two justices of the peace; a probate court and two justices of the peace." Proceedings in general were to follow the laws of the Territory of Iowa. This simple outline of the provisions of the constitution of the Provisional Government will suffice, in a sketch like the present one, which can be but an outline. In the official record it is written that this ordinance, the organic law of the nascent commonwealth, was "approved by the people July 5, 1843." The convention proceeded to elect David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale an executive committee, and it confirmed the previous appointment of A. E. Wilson as Supreme Judge, of George W. Le Breton as Clerk and Recorder, of Joseph L. Meek as Sheriff, and of W. H. Willson as Treasurer. It appointed as legislative committee Robert Shortess, David Hill, Robert Newell, Alanson Beers, Thomas J. Hubbard, William H. Gray, James (O'Neil, Robert Moore, and William Dougherty, and then adjourned. The Provisional Government had been completed and set in operation. The number of Americans in Oregon was still much less than that of the subjects of Great Britain. Many of the latter were, however, within the limits of the present State of Washington, while nearly all the former were within the present limits of the State of Oregon. But a powerful reinforcement of the Americans was on the way and soon to arrive. That was the
