Thurston, in this speech, took up the Shortess petition and read numerous parts of it. He said in reference to the phrase that the petitioners hoped that Dr. McLoughlin never would own his land claim, that that is "just what the land bill provides for." Referring to the assertion in the Shortess petition that Dr. McLoughlin "says the land is his, and every person building without his permission is held as a trespasser," Thurston said: "What do you think of this, Mr. Speaker? An Englishman holding an American citizen a trespasser for settling on American soil, where the American Government had invited him! This, sir, was before the treaty [of 1846] and before the Provisional Government was formed, and when one American citizen had as good a right to settle there as another, and all a better right than Dr. McLoughlin. Yet this barefaced Jesuit has the effrontery to pretend he did not hold that claim by dint of threats." Thurston does not explain how the American Government invited the immigrants prior to 1847 to settle in Oregon. The truth is that the American settlers who left the East prior to 1849 went on their own initiative. They were neither invited nor helped nor protected by the Government, until after the establishment of the Territorial Government in 1849. Under the Conventions of joint-occupancy Dr. McLoughlin had the same rights, up to the Treaty of 1846, as a British subject, that any citizen of the United States had—no more, no less. This, Thurston as a lawyer, knew.
After quoting further from the Shortess petition, Thurston said: "Now, Mr. Speaker, all this was before the Provisional Government was in operation—before the treaty, when no man had any right to meddle with the soil. Who can contemplate the helpless condition of these few and feeble American citizens, at that time and place, struggling for life, and for subsistence, thus kicked and buffeted round at the mercy of one of the most powerful corporations on earth, headed by a man whose intrigues must have furnished Eugene Sue with a clue to his 'Wandering Jew,'—who, I say, sir, can thus contemplate our flesh, and blood, and kindred, with their land, their houses, their all, thus posted up, and declared subject to any disposition this unfeeling man might make of them without shedding tears of pity for their distress.... Now, sir, just turn to my correspondence in letters one and two, where he tells you, if a man settled where the company did not allow him to, he paid the forfeiture with his life, or from necessity was compelled to yield. And here, again, the names of Wait and Thornton rise up before me, and while reading their laudations of McLoughlin, I can think of nothing but two Jews lauding Judas Iscariot....
"This petition is signed by many persons, many of whom I know, who are now living in Oregon. I can bear unqualified testimony to their character in society, to their honor and to their veracity. I undertake to say, that not a word is uttered in it but the truth, and it is susceptible of any reasonable proof. I know the gentleman who wrote the original, whom to know is to respect, to listen to, to believe. He is a gentleman of the highest standing in Oregon, of some twelve or fourteen years' residence, and who would be universally believed on any subject on which he would presume to speak. That gentleman informs me that every word of it is true to the letter.... If in the mouth of two or three witnesses all things are established, then surely sixty-five men are good evidence of the facts stated in the petition to which their names were attached, and, then, you and the country can judge whether this man McLoughlin, by whom all the abuses here complained of were dictated, is entitled to receive gratuities of the American Government for such rascalities, or whether the people of Oregon owe him a debt of gratitude which they refuse to pay."
Thurston set forth the letter of Dr. McLoughlin to Robert Shortess, dated at Vancouver, April 13, 1843, in which Dr. McLoughlin wrote: "I am informed that you have circulated a petition for signatures, complaining of me, and of the Hudson's Bay Company. I hope you will, in common fairness, give me a copy of the petition, with the names of those who signed it, that I may know what is said against us, and who those are who think they have cause of complaint against us." Thurston said: "The names must be given, and for what? I will not say whether as a sure guide to the tomahawk of the Indian, or as a precursor to death by combined and grinding oppression—I leave this to the witnesses who have already spoken. But could you read in the records of heaven the deeds of this power in Oregon, while you would admire the consummate skill with which they were conducted, your whole moral nature would be shocked by the baseness of the design, and the means for their accomplishment."
Thurston in this speech, without giving names, gave excerpts from a number of letters he had received, sustaining his actions against Dr. McLoughlin in the Donation Land Bill. Shameful as Thurston's actions were against Dr. McLoughlin, Thurston had reason to believe that his actions were sustained and approved by leaders and members of the party which had elected him. Those who thus abetted Thurston in his misstatements and actions against Dr. McLoughlin were as culpable as Thurston was—they became his accessories. Some of these afterwards were ashamed of their actions against Dr. McLoughlin. Their repentances, although late, are commendable.
DOCUMENT O
Correspondence of S. R. Thurston, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Robert C. Winthrop and Dr. John McLoughlin, published in the "Oregon Spectator," April 3, 1851.
"Chicopee, Mass., Nov. 16, 1850."
"Capt. Nath. J. Wyeth: