LAST STEP IN PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 319
sonnel of the government. The elections were held annually and at the second election in May, 1844, only one of the old officers was re-elected and a majority of these elected to fill the three places on the Executive Committee and the nine members of the Legislative Committee came out to Oregon the preceding year, 1843. Only three of the members of these bodies were again chosen in 1845. The leading and guiding spirits in the legislation of 1844 and 1845 proved to be men who had recently arrived in Oregon, Peter H. Burnett and Jesse Applegate. These new men had less reason to feel an- tagonistic towards the Hudson's Bay Company than had those longer resident who had taken sides in the controversy that had arisen between McLoughlin and the Methodist mission over a land claim at Oregon City, nor did they share in the enmity felt toward the Company by so many of the older residents. (Shortess Petition in Holman, McLoughlin, 198.) The Provisional Government had originally been formed as an act hostile to McLoughlin and the Company. The new men exhibited a more conciliatory spirit and realized that the Pro- ivsional Government would be greatly strengthened by secur- ing the allegiance of the Hudson's Bay Company men. 5
Thus by the summer of 1845 these influences were working for the complete union of all elements residing in the country. On the part of the Willamette Valley settlers the advantages were clear. British subjects resident there would be better contented. Those that acknowledged allegiance to the United States realized that they were too remote to count upon the active protection of their own government and that it were better part of wisdom to placate than to defy the Hudson's Bay Company, upon which they were in so large measure de- pendent for their existence. Further the financial assistance that would come from collecting taxes from the men and property of the Company would make the running of the gov-
5 McLoughlin in Last Letter, p. 116, gives it as his opinion that Applegate and his friends were actuated by anxiety to prevent disorders in the country and to secure right to coerce and drive from Company's grounds American citizens by action of law.
