Your petitioners would further represent, that the country south of the Columbia River, and north of the Mexican line, and extending from the Pacific Ocean one hundred and twenty miles into the interior, is of unequaled beauty and fertility. Its mountains, covered with perpetual snow, pouring into the prairies around their bases transparent streams of the purest water; the white and black oak, pine, cedar, and fir forests that divide the prairies into sections convenient for farming purposes; the rich mines of coal in its hills, and salt springs in its valleys; its quarries of limestone, sandstone, chalk, and marble; the salmon of its rivers, and the various blessings of the delightful and healthy climate, are known to us, and impress your petitioners with the belief that this is one of the most favored portions of the globe. Indeed, the deserts of the interior have their wealth of pasturage; and their lakes, evaporating in summer, leave in their basins hundreds of bushels of the purest soda. Many other circumstances could be named, showing the importance of this Territory in a national, commercial, and agricultural point of view. And, although your petitioners would not undervalue considerations of this kind, yet they beg leave especially to call the attention of Congress to their own condition as an infant colony, without military force or civil institutions to protect their lives and property and children, sanctuaries and tombs, from the hands of uncivilized and merciless savages around them. We respectfully ask for the civil institutions of the American Republic. We pray for the high privileges of American citizenship; the peaceful enjoyment of life; the right of acquiring, possessing, and using property; and the unrestrained pursuit of rational happiness. And for this your petitioners will ever pray. DAVID LESLIE, [_and others_.][1] [Footnote 1] Senate Document, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session. No. 514.