recognize the spirit and value of Dr. Whitman and seek his counsel for the journey before starting at Fitzhugh's Mill, to trust his statements at Fort Hall as to the possibility of getting thence to the Columbia River with their wagons and to defend him against the unreasonable complaints of his fellow travelers when receiving the benefit of the supplies from his store. It was natural also for J. W. Nesmith, after many years, to see the basis of humor in the florid speech of Mr. Burnett at Fitzhugh's Mill, as well as his serious and high estimate of the effect of Whitman's counsel at Fort Hall, to trust his (Whitman's) guidance and cling to their wagons placing himself with the foremost of the working force clearing the way. Each of these men were students of the human tide setting toward Oregon. Burnett, much the most advanced, seeking to swell the tide as a possible means of giving him ultimate opportunity of paying off the heaviest monetary obligations any man is subject to, crossed the plains and mountains with view to the settlement of the Oregon boundary question, which, strange to say, he did while continuing to lead the way in Americanizing the Pacific Coast from lower California to British Columbia. Always a close student of men and things, and using his personal influence by wo>d and pen for peace, freedom and justice, Peter H. Burnett carved a first place as an American pioneer to the Pacific Coast. He should stand next to Whitman in that.
In several respects the life and service of Peter Henderson Burnett typifies the best spirit of early Oregon's army of occupation. Ever watchful to effect his public object peacefully, yet keeping constantly in view his business obligations, he was generous in the extreme in preferring other men to
settlers prior to March, 1843, but at that date the proceedings of forming the Provisional American Government would have failed except for the presence of a free trapper class represented by Russell, Newell, Meek, and Ebbarts, Virginians, and a very few ex-Canadian patriots like F. X. Matthieu; and this only began the contest for power, terminated by the homebuilders arriving in 1813 and 1844, whose knowledge of legal forms and diplomacy caused the officers of the Hudson Bay Company to accept the cover of the local laws of Oregon for the property in their care.
