[Footnote 7] This statement about Rev. Mr. Blanchet and associates, "their enterprise in erecting mills end other public Works," shows how easy it was for the agent to belittle his own countrymen's labors, and attribute to others what they never attempted to do, and in the next paragraph say they "are doing but little for the Indians;" while the truth is, and was at the time, that Mr. Lee and his mission were the only persons in the Wallamet Valley doing any thing to improve the condition of the Indians, of which their Indian school, now Wallamet University, is a permanent monument, which Dr. White ignores in this report. * * * * * I must close by praying that measures may be speedily entered into to take possession of this country, if such steps have not already been taken. I left home before the close of the session of Congress, and by reason do not know what disposition was made of Hon. Mr. Linn's bill. As a reason for this praying, I would here say, the time was when the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company and the missions wielded the entire influence over this small population; but as they have been re-enforced latterly from whale ships, the Rocky Mountains, and the Southwestern States, these hitherto salutary restraints and influences are giving way, and being measurably lost. At present I have considerable influence, but can not long expect to retain it, especially in the faithful discharge of my duty. As a reason for coming to such a conclusion, I had but just arrived from the interior, when I received an urgent call to visit the mouth of the Columbia. I left at once, in company with Nathaniel Crocker, Esq., Mr. Rogers (my interpreter), his lady, and her young sister (the females going only to the falls), with a crew of Indians, on our ill-fated expedition. We reached the falls at sunset, February 1, and, by reason of the water being higher than usual, in passing around a jutting or projecting rock, the canoe came up suddenly against a log constituting the landing, at which instant I stepped off, and in a moment the canoe was swept away, with all its precious cargo, over the falls of thirty-eight feet, three rods below. The shock was dreadful to this infant colony, and the loss was dreadful and irreparable to me, Mr. Rogers being more important to me than any one in the country; nor was there a more respectable or useful man in the colony. Nathaniel Crocker came in with me last fall from Tompkins County; he was much pleased with the country and its prospects, and the citizens were rejoiced at the arrival of such a man in this country; he was every way capacitated for usefulness. None of the bodies of the four whites or two Indians have been as yet found. * * * * *