It would not be a matter of surprise if the publication of this paper should revive many topics for discussion among those interested in the history of Old Oregon.
SUPPLEMENTARY INTRODUCTORY NOTE
By the Editor of The Quarterly
The first strong impulse with a document like the Lownsdale letter is to withhold it from publication. But it is a document contemporary with the public affairs with which it has to do; and, moreover, it is in a large measure representative of the views of those in the ascendant at the time. While it is utterly worthless as a clear source of abstract facts, it cannot be discredited as an expression of the deeper feelings and of the attitude of probably a majority of the Oregon community of the later forties. Every statement in it contains an element of perverting prejudice, yet it is explicit and it tells what must largely have been believed and acted upon at the time. It is saturated with poison but it contains what was no doubt in the thought and hearts of the majority that elected Samuel R. Thurston as Oregon's first delegate to Congress. It interprets the first insurgency of the Oregon demos. It is the first function of history to understand, so if Oregon history of that time and throughout is to be fully understood, this letter of Daniel H. Lownsdale is an absolutely indispensable source.
It will be noted that the writer presents it virtually as the brief of the American interests when vital conflicting claims between settlers of American antecedents and those of British antecedents were about to be brought to an issue before Congress. This Lownsdale letter was calculated to serve the needs of Thurston as he struggled to realize the purposes for which he had been sent to Washington. Its resume of the course of events through which the Oregon situation had been evolved was just what Thurston had to have in hand as his residence in and acquaintance with Oregon had been very brief. The document reflects the basis of the attitude of the dominant party in the first great marshalling of forces in Oregon's political history.
Dear Sir: Since your departure, I have been writing and know not whether I shall have time to finish all I had intended and even what I have has been written without proper revision
