Referring to Dr. McLoughlin's statement in his letter that the Hudson's Bay Company's business was so managed "in all respects subservient to the best interests of the country, and the duties of religion and humanity," Thurston said: "If to make the settler pay _with his life_ the penalty of settling where they did not want him to, or to oppress him until he was compelled to yield; if tearing down houses over families' heads, and burning them up, and leaving a poor woman in the rain, houseless and homeless; if attempting to break down all American enterprises, and to prevent the settlement of the country--if, sir, to do all these things, and many more, which are hereafter proved, then is the quotation true. If this is their religion, then have they adorned, for the last ten years, the religion they profess." These charges are maliciously false. Thurston charged that Dr. McLoughlin was "for all practical purposes, as much in, of, and connected with the [Hudson's Bay] Company as he ever was ... yet he comes up here with a hypocritical face and pleads poverty! and says that he has picked up my people out of ditches, mud-puddles, from under the ice, and warmed them into life; which Wait and Thornton virtually testify to.... Who ever heard a Jew or a Gypsy making up a more pitiful face than this." Thurston further said that Dr. McLoughlin persuaded some of the immigrants of 1842 to go to California; that he provided outfits for them "and took notes, payable in California. And this was done for the purpose of ridding the country of these unwelcome visitors.... That the Doctor was determined to do all he could to prevent the country from finally settling up, and with this object in view, undertook to persuade our early settlers to leave." This is absolutely untrue, except the part that Dr. McLoughlin furnished said immigrants with outfits and took their notes payable in California. Most of these notes were never paid.