sion- twenty-five persons of all ages and both sexes who would shortly be reinforced by forty-five others, making seventy. "As a matter of fact," says Bancroft, "the number reached was seventy-seven. There were sixteen persons belonging to the missions of the American Board, and about twenty settlers, missionaries and others, going out from the Western States in the spring: In addition to which there were about forty-five men settled in the country who had Indian wives and half-breed children."
The memorial drawn up before Lee left Oregon was presented to the Senate by Linn of Missouri on January 28, 1839, and on December 11, 1838, Linn, as you will recall, had introduced a bill in the Senate for the occupation of the Columbia, or Oregon, River, and to organize a territory north of 42 degrees and west of the Rocky Mountains to be called Oregon Territory. This measure also provided for the establishment of a fort on the Columbia, the occupation by a military force, the establishment of a port of entry, and the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over the country. Senator Linn followed this formal action on his part by a speech on the 22d of February, 1839, supporting a bill to provide for the protection of citizens of the United States then in the Territory of Oregon, or trading on the Columbia River. It is a matter of history that Jason Lee was the unseen hand behind this first active effort at Washington, and he was regarded in a special sense as the noncommissioned representative of the government of the United States.
At this time an appropriation of considerable money from the secret service fund of the United States was made for the charter of the ship Lausanne. This was known only to Jason Lee and was not revealed or disclosed until the boundary question was settled between the United States and Great Britain by the Ashburton Treaty of June 15, 1846.
