"On behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company, I hereby license A. B. to trade, and also ratify his having traded in English goods within the limits of Red River settlement. This ratification and this license to be null and void, from the beginning, in the event of his hereafter trafficking in furs, or generally of his usurping any whatever of all the privileges of the Hudson's Bay Company." It was to save Oregon from becoming a den of such oppressors and robbers of their own countrymen, that Whitman risked his life in 1842-3, that the provisional government of the American settlers was formed in 1843, that five hundred of them flew to arms in 1847, and fought back the savage hordes that this same Hudson's Bay Company had trained, under the teaching of their half-breeds and Jesuit priests, to sweep them from the land. Is this so? Let us see what they did just across the Rocky Mountains with their own children, as stated by their own witnesses and countrymen. Sir Edward Fitzgerald says of them, on page 213:-- "But the company do not appear to have trusted to paper deeds to enforce their authority. "They were not even content with inflicting fines under the form of a hostile tariff; but, as the half-breeds say, some of the fur traders were imprisoned, and all the goods and articles of those who were _suspected of an intention to traffic in furs_ were seized and confiscated. "But another, and even more serious attack, was made on the privileges of the settlers. "The company being, under their charter, nominal owners of the soil, dispose of it to the colonists in any manner they think best. A portion of the land in the colony is held from Lord Selkirk, who first founded the settlement. "Now, however, the company drew up a new _land deed_, which all were compelled to sign who wished to hold any land in the settlement." This new land deed, above referred to, is too lengthy and verbose to be given entire; therefore we will only copy such parts as bind the settlers not to infringe upon the supposed chartered rights of the Hudson's Bay Company. The first obligation of the person receiving this deed was to settle upon the land within forty days, and, within five years, cause one-tenth part of the land to be brought under cultivation.