west for its own country, hastened action while the inhabitants were yet very few. Such, however, was the vigor and activity of the Americans that, though they were at first inferior in numbers, they soon gained the ascendant, and, rapidly reinforced during the years that followed, they had fully established civil government in Oregon long before the question of national jurisdiction was finally settled between the United States and Great Britain.
This first effort to establish a government here was rooted largely in this international competition. From the first the people of Oregon had been separated into two great divisions—those owing allegiance to Great Britain and those owing allegiance to the United States. How this came about is the one long story of our early history. There is no time to deal with it here. I merely speak of it as the fundamental fact in the early history of Oregon. So closely divided were the parties that it was difficult at any time after 1840 to say which had the numerical superiority. From the transfer of Astoria in 1813 down to the arrival of the American missionaries and first permanent American settlers—down, indeed, to the year 1840—the English influence was decidedly in the ascendant. Preponderance of the Americans was slowly gained.
The very first movement of the American settlers was a petition to congress, in the year 1840. That petition asked for the protection of the United States, and prayed that "congress would establish, as soon as may be, a territorial government in the Oregon Territory." It contained an allusion to the conflict with British interests here, as a reason why the United States should take speedy action.
As American influence increased, our pioneers became constantly more active and urgent for the formation of a
