corporate body in the United States could hold land by preëmption, so no foreign corporation could do it; and lastly, that if his claim had any validity at all, it arose more than two years subsequent to Waller's.[1]
In addition to the caveat prepared for McLoughlin, Ricord framed an address to the citizens of Oregon, in which he counselled them to resist the aggressions of McLoughlin, and talked grandiloquently of the rights of his client; going so far into this missionary enterprise as to declare that he had read a correspondence, which never took place, between McLoughlin and Waller, in which the latter asserts his rights "in modest and firm terms," offering, however, to relinquish them if McLoughlin would comply "with certain very reasonable and just conditions." These documents had been prepared, and left in the hands of the missionaries, to be made public only when Lee and Ricord were embarked for the Islands.
It was on the 3d of February, 1844, that they sailed, and the caveat was served on McLoughlin on the 22d. Lee was well informed of all these things, when he earnestly and with every appearance of sincerity expressed the hope that Waller would agree to McLoughlin's proposition before mentioned; he also drew a promise from McLoughlin to take no measures to dispossess the Mission at the falls before his return from the United States; which having obtained, he departed, satisfied that he would return armed with an assurance from the government of the United States, which would bring heavy loss on McLoughlin, and triumph to himself and the Methodist Mission.[2]
- ↑ Letter of John Ricord, in McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 1st ser. 17–19. If no corporate body could hold land by preëmption, how could Mr Waller hold Oregon City for the Mission?
- ↑ The Private Papers of John McLoughlin, from which the history of the Oregon City claim is chiefly obtained, consist of several documents, with his comments and explanations. They are divided into series, as they relate to different matters—to the settlement of the country; to early efforts at trade by the Americans; to the milling company, and the Oregon City claim in missionary and afterward in territorial times. McLoughlin was no writer, in a literary sense; but every sentence penned by him is endowed with that quality which carries conviction with it; direct, simple, above subterfuge. The care
