74 Joseph Schafer pany's ship "Vancouver," addressed to your Lordship, with an enclosure to His Excellency the Governor General in Can- ada, considering that the delay in forwarding our dispatches through England to Canada in order that they might be re- turned to England would warrant our deviating from His Lord- ship's instructions on this occasion. The House of Representatives remained in session about a fortnight, many laws, arbitrary in the present state of the coun- try, were proposed, but the majority of the members being well and peaceably inclined, they were not adopted. To show the feeling of the American population against the British subjects, it may be well to inform your Lordship of two measures, which were proposed as laws, but rejected. 1st. For the prevention of the half breed population from holding land or property in the country under the Organic laws, which would be equivalent to a separation between the two parties. The half breeds, children of the gentlemen and servants of the Company and of the Red River settlers, form- ing the principal and most numerous portion of Her Majesty's subjects in this country. 2d. For the taxation of the Sandwich Islanders, employed almost exclusively as servants and laborers, by the H. B. Com- pany, and intended merely to annoy and embarass the gentle- men in charge of the said company. The only laws of importance, except of local interest, that were passed during the session, were for the formation of two lines of communication across the Cascade range of mountains, south of the Columbia, which if practicable will shorten the distance from the emigrants pass in the Rocky Mountains to the Valley of the Willamette, and avoid the necessity of de- scending the Columbia. We have conversed with the contractor of one of these routes by the Sandiham [Santiam] River, who is sanguine as to the result. We should have visited this route had it been practica- ble at this season, but the snow in the mountains obstructed all
communication. From the numerous difficulties experienced----
