LOWNSDALE LETTER TO THURSTON 239
Peter H. Burnett and his particular friends never went) ready to leave the plains there was a report started saying the Cayuse Indians had come to the settlement and were at a certain Indian lodge in the plains and wonderful to say they met at the lodge on the morning the troops were to leave Portland for the up country and found one crippled old woman, t\vo small children and an old Indian man, but this answered the purpose for which it was got up, and out of 45 men twenty-eight met at rendezvous, the rest following Burnett twenty miles the other way to take by storm this Indian camp as before described. Thus he foiled this part of the army, at least as far as the 17 men which were reported as defaulters. The balance, 28, left for the Cayuse country in boats and arrived and was reported at The Dalles to Col. Gill [i] am ready for service. The band, at first published in the Spectator (being edited at that time by a member of the Jesuit order) numbered a full company of 67 rank and file, but when they appeared had to gather some three of the cultas or trifling Americans to make their number thirty who did advance with the rest of the army to Wayalatpu. To suit everything to their wishes, the Hudson's Bay Company advised what should be done in the progress of the war (this suited them.) They quickly answered the governor, who by the by, except being an entire peace man, was not disposed to bear the insult on the American people without summarily punishing it. But at this time all were poor and had their families to supply in a new country and not the means to be spared for an emergency like the present and but few in- dividuals could contribute means to sustain the territory. A few, however, did contribute out of their scanty means enough to fit out and provision the army of about four hundred for a short time.
The Hudson's Bay Company still held out against the will of the people and they having almost all the moneyed business in the country under their control gave them an influence on the war that perhaps can now be traced to its defeat, for by the moves of that party to have a controlling influence they plead that there was danger of having the whole of the tribes on this side of the mountains join against us and thereby en- danger the families of those engaged against the murderers murdered in their absence until they succeeded in getting our leaders to give way to their direction, which was to appoint commissioners to treat with other tribes in the vicinity of the Cayuse nation which gave them the advantage by the neces- sity for their servants or men who were under their control
