"'Thurston.'"
"'June 9, 1850.'"
"In the paragraph already quoted from the Globe of June 30, Mr. Thurston affirms that I am a more dangerous man than Benedict Arnold was; because, as he states, I am more 'Jesuitical.' Webster, the celebrated American Lexicographer, defines Jesuitism thus: 'Cunning, deceit, prevarication, deceptive practices'—yet this same man, Mr. Thurston, who bestows epithets upon me without stint and beyond measure; who accuses me of being 'Jesuitical,' and who occupies the situation of a grave legislator, admits that his measures will not bear the light of truth, and he requires his friend to keep still, until he shall complete the perpetration of a deed of wickedness. Is this not the cunning of the fox? who prowls around in the darkness, that he may rob the hen-roost of the farmer while he is sleeping, without a suspicion of a meditated evil. Is not the sending of such a document, with the request written upon it to keep 'dark,' a deceptive practice, within the very letter and meaning of Webster's definition of Jesuitism? Mr. Thurston, it appears, was afraid of the light of facts, which he did not desire to have communicated to the Government at Washington, before he completed an act of contemplated wrong doing.
"In the letter referred to, speaking of Oregon City, he says, 'The Methodist Mission first took the claim with the view of establishing here their Mills and Mission—they were forced to leave it under the fear of having the savages of Oregon let loose upon them.' This charge is likewise without a fraction of truth, as a few facts will demonstrate. In 1829, I commenced making preparations at the falls of the Willamette, for building a sawmill. I had a party residing there during the winter of 1829 and 1830. This party, in my employment, and paid with my money, built three houses, and prepared the timber for the erection of a mill. Circumstances rendered the suspension of the mill for a while necessary. In the spring of 1830 I commenced cultivating the ground at the Falls. In the year 1832 I had a mill race blasted out of the rocks, from near the head of the island which Mr. Thurston calls Abernethy Island—but Mr. Thurston found it convenient to conceal from the United States Government that Mr. Abernethy and others purchased the island from F. Hathaway, who jumped the island in the first instance, and that Judge Bryant and Gov. Lane finally purchased whatever right Mr. Abernethy had acquired. The Indians having burnt in 1829 the timber which during that same year had been prepared for the erection of the mill, I had, in the summer of 1838, another house built at the Falls; during the same year I had squared timber prepared and hauled to the place at which I had originally proposed to erect a mill; the erection of the mill was again postponed. In 1840 the Rev. Jason Lee, superintendent of the Methodist Mission in Oregon, applied to me for the loan of some of the above mentioned timber, for the purpose of erecting a Mission building. To this request I assented, and at the same time sent Dr. F. W. Tolmie to point out to the Rev. Mr. Lee the spot upon which he might build. Up to this time, it should be observed that no effort had been made to interfere with my claim, and no one called in question my perfect right to make it. It should be borne in mind, too, that I commenced improving in 1829, and that the missionaries did not come here till 1834. To prevent, however, any future misunderstanding, growing out of any occupancy of sufferance, I handed Mr. Lee a letter, dated Vancouver, 21st July, 1840, in which I described the extent of my claim, as embracing 'the upper end of the Falls, across to the Clackamas Falls, in the Willamette, including the whole point of land and the small Island in the falls, on which the portage is made and which I intend to claim when the boundary line is drawn.' The words italicised are not so in the original. I now do this to call attention to them. Up to this time no one but myself claimed the island. Mr. Lee promised to return the timber he procured to erect the building, with the wood thus loaned Mr. Waller and family, who were placed in it by Mr. Lee. I gave Mr. Lee permission to occupy, as a mission store room, a house I had got erected for myself. Up to 1841 my claim to the island had never been interfered with; in this year Mr. Felix Hathaway put some logs on the island. I gave him notice of my claim, and erected a small house upon the island. Hathaway finally proceeded with his building. I did not forcibly eject him because I wished to preserve the peace of the country. In the autumn of 1842, I first heard that the Rev. Mr. Waller, as I was informed, set up a claim in conflict with mine, (not for the Mission, but in his own name.) I subsequently bought off Mr. Waller, in the same anxious desire to preserve the peace.
"In conclusion of this part of the subject I will remark that when Mr. Waller requested Capt. W. K. Kilbourn, who resides in this place, to assist him in putting up the logs which I had loaned to Mr. Lee, Capt. Kilbourn said to him: 'I will not assist to build the house, if you intend to set up any claim here.' Mr. Waller disavowed any such intention.
"In 1842 I had the claim surveyed by Mr. Hudspath, and laid off some lots; in the fall of 1843, there being better instruments in the country, I had my claim surveyed by Jesse Applegate, Esq., who more accurately marked its streets, alleys, lots, etc., etc. When the Oregon Provisional Government was formed, I recorded my claim in accordance with the provisions of its organic laws; this record covers the island and the site of Oregon City. In making this record, I circumscribed the limits of my claim, so that instead of extending down to the Clackamas River, as I had made it previous to there being any government in the country, I made it so as to extend only about half way down. This I did because the Organic Law provided that no one should hold more than six hundred and forty acres. This I did also for the sake of peace, notwithstanding Mr. Thurston is not ashamed to more than intimate a disposition to 'let loose upon them savages of Oregon.' Mr. Thurston says, 'He has held it by violence and dint of threats up to this time.'—That I have held my claim or any part of it by violence or threats, no man will assert, and far less will one be found to swear so, who will be believed on his oath, in a court of justice. I have probably no other enemy than Mr. Thurston, so lost to the suggestions of conscience as to make a statement so much at variance with my whole character.
"He says that I have realized, up to the 4th of March, 1849, $200,000 from the sale of lots; this is also wholly untrue. I have given away lots to the Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. I have given 8 lots to a Roman Catholic Nunnery, 8 lots to the Clackamas Female Protestant Seminary, incorporated by the Oregon Legislature. The Trustees are all Protestants, although it is well known I am a Roman Catholic. In short, in one way and another I have donated to the county, to schools, to churches, and private individuals, more than three hundred town lots, and I never realized in cash $20,000, from all the original sales I have made. He continues, 'He is still an Englishman, still connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, and refuses to file his intentions to become an American citizen.' If I was an Englishman, I know no reason why I should not acknowledge it; but I am a Canadian by birth, and an Irishman by descent. I am neither ashamed of my birth-place or lineage—but it has always appeared to me that a man who can only boast of his country has little to be proud of:
"'A wit's a feather, a chief, a rod—
An honest man's the noblest work of God.'"
"I was a Chief Factor in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, and by the rules of the Company, enjoy a retired interest, as a matter of right.—Capt. McNeil, a native born citizen of the United States of America, holds the same rank as I held in the Hudson's Bay Company service. He never was required to become a British subject; he will be entitled, by the laws of the Company, to the same retired interest, no matter to what country he may owe allegiance.