Company, and of all British subjects who should be found already in the occupation of land or other property lawfully acquired, within the said territory, should be respected; and to the fourth article, which declared that the farms, lands, and other property belonging to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company on the north side of the Columbia, should be confirmed to the said company, with the stipulation that in case the situation of these farms and lands should be considered by the United States to be of public and political importance, and the United States government should signify a desire to obtain possession of the whole or any part thereof, the property so required should be transferred to the said government at a proper valuation, to be agreed upon between the parties. The commissioner directed the surveyor-general to call upon claimants under the treaty, or their agents, to present to him the evidence of the rights in which they claimed to be protected by the treaty, and to show him the original localities and boundaries of the same which they held at the date of the treaty; and he was not required to survey in sections or minute subdivisions the land covered by such claims, but only to extend the township lines over them, so as to indicate their relative position and connection with the public domain.
The surveyor-general reported with regard to these claims, that McLoughlin, who had recently become a naturalized citizen of the United States, had given notice September 29, 1852, that he claimed under the treaty of 1846 a tract of land containing 640 acres, which included Oregon City within its boundaries, and that he protested against any act that would dis-
for in that act, and therefore had no title either under the treaty or the land law by which his heirs could hold. This raised a question of law with regard to the heirs of British residents of Oregon before the treaty of 1846; and Corbett introduced a bill in the senate to extend the rights of citizenship to half-breeds born within the territory of Oregon previous to 1846, and now subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, which was passed. Sup. Court Decisions, Or. Laws, 1870, 227–9; Cong. Globe, 1871–2, app. 730, 42d cong. 2d sess.; Cong. Globe, 1871–2, part ii., p. 1179, 42d cong. 2d sess.
