No intelligence from abroad has reached us this winter. Mount St. Helen, one of these snow-capped volcanic mountains, some 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, and eighty miles northwest of Vancouver, broke out upon the 20th of November last, presenting a scene the most awful and sublime imaginable, scattering smoke and ashes several hundred miles distance.
A petition started from this country to-day, making bitter complaints against the Hudson’s Bay Company and Governor McLaughlin. On reference to it (as a copy was denied), I shall only say, had any gentleman disconnected with the Hudson’s Bay Company been at half the pains and expense to establish a claim on the Wallamet Falls, very few would have raised an opposition. His half-bushel measure I know to be exact, according to the English imperial standard. The gentlemen of this company have been fathers and fosterers of the colony, ever encouraging peace, industry, and good order, and have sustained a character for hospitality and integrity too well established to be easily shaken.
I am, sir, sincerely and most respectfully, your humble and obedient servant,
Elijah White,
Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.
T. Hartley Crawford, Esq.,
Commissioner Indian Affairs.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Letter of H. H. Spalding to Dr. White.—Account of his mission among the Nez Percés.—Schools.—Cultivation.—Industrial arts.—Moral character.—Arable land.—Letter of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of War.
My Dear Brother,—The kind letter which our mission had the honor of receiving from yourself, making inquiries relative to its numbers, the character of the Indian tribes among whom its several stations are located, the country, etc., is now before me.