In his endeavor to accomplish so much villany the delegate failed. The senate struck out a clause in the fourth section which required a foreigner to emigrate from the United States, and which he had persuaded the house to adopt by his assertions that without it the British fur company would secure to themselves all the best lands in Oregon. Another clause insisted on by Thurston when he found he could not exclude British subjects entirely, was that a foreigner could not become entitled to any land notwithstanding his intentions were declared, until he had completed his naturalization, which would require two years; and this was allowed to stand, to the annoyance of the Canadian settlers who had been twenty years on their claims.[1] But the great point gained in Thurston's estimation by the Oregon land bill was the taking-away from the former head of the Hudson's Bay Company of his dearly bought claim at the falls of the Willamette, where a large portion of his fortune was invested in improvements. The last proviso of the fourth section forbade any one claiming under the land law to claim under the treaty of 1846. McLoughlin, having declared his intention to become an American citizen was no longer qualified to claim under the treaty, and congress having, on the representations of Thurston, taken from McLoughlin what he claimed under the land law there was left no recourse whatever.[2]
- ↑ Cong. Globe, 1849–50, 1853.
- ↑ Says Applegate: 'It must have excited a kind of fiendish merriment in the hearts of Bryant and Thurston; for notwithstanding their assertions to the contrary, both well knew that the doctor by renouncing his allegiance to Great Britain had forfeited all claims as a British subject.' Historical Correspondence, MS., 15.
he had told Johnson, California and Oregon, which see, page 252, exactly the contrary. See Or. Spectator, Sept. 12th, and compare with the following: There were 38 mills in Oregon at the taking of the census of 1850, and a fair proportion of them ground wheat. They were scattered through all the counties from the sound to the head of the Willamette Valley. Or. Statesman, April 25, 1851; and with this: 'The census of 1849 showed a population of over 9,000, about 2,000 being absent in the mines. The census of 1850 showed over 13,000, without counting the large immigration of that year or the few settlers in the most southern part of Oregon. Or. Statesman, April 10th and 25, 1851.
