bloodshed by the introduction of intoxicating drinks
among the natives; or that they wantonly, at any time,
put the lives of the people in peril, the affair of Cockstock,
at Oregon City, being the most bloody of any incident in
the colonial history of western Oregon. And perhaps a
good deal of this immunity from war was owing to the
caution of the governor, who never failed to keep the
subject before the people.
Once again a year rolled around without bringing to Oregon the long expected news that congress had passed an act organizing a territory west of the Rocky mountains. An immigration of nearly four thousand souls had poured into the Wallamet valley, swelling the population to about eight thousand, making the situation still more critical. There had not been lacking since the first efforts at local government a certain element in the colonial life which favored setting up an independent state; and the failure of congress to stretch out its hand and take what was so generously offered it, created a discontent which grew with every fresh disappointment. We find Dr. White, in 1843, writing to the secretary of war, that "should it (the Oregon bill) at last fail of passing the lower house, suffer me to predict, in view of what so many have had to undergo, in person and property, to get to this distant country, it will create a disaffection so strong as to end only in open rebellion."
Dr. McLoughlin also wrote, in 1844, to a member of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada, " They declare that if in ten years the boundary is not settled, they will erect themselves into an independent state." The annual fresh importation of patriotic Americans served to discourage the independent movement; but the legislature of 1845 would not adopt the name "Oregon territory," because congress had not erected any such organization. The boundary was at last settled, and still Oregon got nothing but promises, and those at long intervals of painful
