As shown in Dr. McLoughlin's printed letter of September 12, 1850, Thurston had sent to a confidant in Oregon, with instructions for secrecy, a printed copy of his letter to the House of Representatives. He also sent a printed copy of the bill for the Donation Land Law. These arrived in Oregon late in August or early in September, 1850. The eleventh section of the latter began to be noised about, and Thurston's friends, who were not in the conspiracy, met the charge with scornful denials. They said such a thing was not possible. But it was.[48] There were Oregon pioneers who protested. Before the law passed, when the intended action of Thurston became known, in relation to said section eleven, on September 19, 1850, a public meeting was held in Oregon City. Resolutions were passed declaring that the selection of the Oregon City claim for an university reservation was uncalled for by any considerable portion of the citizens of the Territory, and was invidious and unjust to Dr. McLoughlin; and that he "merits the gratitude of multitudes of persons in Oregon for the timely and long-continued assistance rendered by him in the settlement of this Territory." At the same time a memorial to Congress was signed by fifty-six persons, which set forth that Dr. McLoughlin had taken up the Oregon City claim like other claims in the Territory, and it had been held by him in accordance with the Provisional and Territorial governments of Oregon; that the memorialists have ever regarded it as entitled to protection as fully as other claims, without an intimation to the contrary from any official source until that time; that under this impression, both before and especially since March 4, 1849, large portions of it in blocks and lots had been purchased in good faith by many citizens of Oregon, who had erected valuable buildings thereon, in many instances, in the expectation of having a complete and sufficient title when Congress should grant a title to Dr. McLoughlin, as was confidently expected; that since March 4, 1849, he had donated for county, educational, charitable, and religious purposes more than two hundred lots. They, therefore, remonstrated against the passage of the bill in its present form, believing that it would work a "severe, inequitable, unnecessary, and irremediable injustice."[49] There were no telegraph lines in Oregon or California in those days. And the bill was a law eight days thereafter.