Mr. Hines, in his 21st chapter on Oregon, says: "The number of people in the colony was so small, the business transactions so limited, and the difficulties so few, that the necessity of organizing the community into a body politic did not appear to be very great, though for two years persons had been chosen to officiate as judges and magistrates." The fact that the judges and magistrates officiating were chosen by the Methodist Mission, in opposition to the wish of the settlers, and from whose decisions there was no appeal, and that there was no statute or law book in the country, and nothing to guide the decisions of the judge or magistrate but his own opinions, caprice, or preferences, Mr. Hines leaves out of sight. This state of things was submitted to from the combined organized influence of the Methodist Mission and the unorganized condition of the settlers. A petition was gotten up and sent to Congress. This petition is too important a document to be omitted. The writer has no means at present to give the names attached to it. The petition speaks for itself. As settlers, we saw and knew the objects of the Hudson's Bay Company and the English government, by their actions and oft-repeated insolent assertions that they meant to "_hold the country_" _by fair or by foul means_, which, as men understanding the unscrupulous and avaricious disposition of the entire English occupants of this country, we fully understood and duly appreciated, as will be readily demonstrated upon a perusal of the following:-- _Petition of 1840._ To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: Your petitioners represent unto your honorable bodies, that they are residents in the Oregon Territory, and citizens of the United States, or persons desirous of becoming such. They further represent to your honorable bodies, that they have settled themselves in said Territory, under the belief that it was a portion of the public domain of said States, and that they might rely upon the government thereof for the blessings of free institutions, and the protection of its arms. But your petitioners further represent, that they are uninformed of any acts of said government by which its institutions and protection are extended to them; in consequence whereof, themselves and families are exposed to be destroyed by the savages around them, and OTHERS THAT WOULD DO THEM HARM. And your petitioners would further represent, that they have no means of protecting their own and the lives of their families, other than self-constituted tribunals, originated and sustained by the power of an ill-instructed public opinion, and the resort to force and arms.