LOWNSDALE LETTER TO THURSTON 219

pression as is generally taken by many here. That it is the fact that the old organic law gave grants of land, this same thing is plainly the opinion expressed in the memorial to Con- gress of 1846; but notwithstanding the English-Scotch me- morial of '46, notwithstanding many of our wise men at home and our most wise congress should be of this opinion if you or they look again you will not find any grant given by that old instrument. It makes certain rules by which any man shall be governed who was then holding or wishing to hold a claim of land in this territory ; and not granting either formally or vn*~ formally any right to the soil whatever; but laid down the rules as above described to keep down strife among the settlers with each other, but at the same time leaving to the anticipation of what every American citizen has an undoubted right to ex- pect from our mother government a donation o>f land, and this too in preference to any occupant of any other nation. If the former has been the cause of these words of the organic act of Congress for this territory, then have they taken the right view of the case ; for by the old organic law the preference has been in favor of the foreigner, not as it was dared to be openly expected by the then tzvo-fold character given to that instrument, but by the bribery of these monsters who have dealt in this manner up to the present in Oregon, to the advan- tage of their masters, the H. B. Co. and foreigners.

A law, however, that has in view justice to Americans set- tled in this country cannot give a more just bearing to dona- tions or pre-emptions than this same old organic law, for the simple reason that by this they would secure their claims as they have laid them ; yet it needs considerable qualifications to prevent foreigners and those who have not been at any trouble to settle and improve the country from sharing with those who have a right to their choice and inalienable right to what their toil and privations necessarily borne by the first settlers. I know of no better mode of a donation law than the following which I extract from a letter from one of my friends in Missouri; in which he shows the clear necessity of framing the law with an eye to the rights of the Americans composed of farmers, mechanics and professional men, all of which it takes to make a community, and when you fall short of meeting this community (and not individuals) you fall short of the spirit of every vital interest of any country in its settle- ment. There is one thing, however, which should be kept in view. That is, a course to prevent speculators from retarding those settlements ; therefore, the more simple, plain and de-