"Mr. Thurston is pleased to describe me as 'chief fugleman to the Hudson's Bay Company.' This is a term which he probably gathered from the vocabulary in which he found the word 'gumption,' with which he recently garnished another dish, and which he seems to have prepared for appetites similar to his own. By the use of this, and such like epithets it will at once be seen that he has a field of literature which he is likely to occupy without a rival, and the exclusive possession of which no one will deny him. Neither my principles nor my tastes lead me in that direction. But I am described as a 'fugleman' of the Hudson's Bay Company; first to cheat our Government out of the whole country, and next to prevent its settlement. I am an old man, and my head is very white with the frost of many winters, but I have never before been accused as a cheat. I was born a British subject--I have had for twenty years the superintendence of the Hudson's Bay Company's trade, in Oregon, and on the North West Coast; and may be said to have been the representative of British interests in this country; but I have never descended to court popularity, by pandering to prejudice, and doing wrong to anyone. I have, on the other hand, afforded every assistance to all who required it, and which religion and humanity dictated; and this community can say if I did so or not. My language to all who spoke to me on the subject of politics, was that situated as we were we ought to say nothing about the boundary question, as that was an affair of the Government; but to live as Christians in peace and concord, and in acting as I did I consider that I have rendered services to the British and American Governments. But if I had acted differently, the Government would have had difficulties, and this community would perhaps not have enjoyed the peace it has, nor be in so prosperous a condition as it is, and certainly there is not a man in it who will say that I have sought to prevent its settlement. There are, in this Valley, very many persons, and especially among the earliest immigrants, of the first years of the settlement of the country, who are sufficiently honest to admit that the country could never have been colonized as easily as it was, but for the timely, ample, and continuous assistance rendered by me, to them, with the means of the Hudson's Bay Company under my charge. Provisions were sent to meet the immigrants--boats were dispatched to convey them down the Columbia,--when arrived on their claims, cattle were loaned them--they were supplied with clothing, food, farming utensils, and wheat for seed. Very many of these men honorably paid, as soon as they could; others, though able to pay, and though their notes have been standing for many years, testify their sense of the number and magnitude of my favors by signing a _secret_ Memorial to the Congress of the United States, to take from me my property, and to leave me in the