The Edinburgh Review, in 1843, says: "However the political question between England and the United States as to their claim on Oregon shall be determined, Oregon will never be colonized overland from the United States. The world must assume a new phase before the American wagons make a plain road to the Columbia River." In this educating work of the English press, we can easily understand how public opinion was molded, and how our statesmen were misinformed and misdirected. It was, no doubt, largely due to the shrewd work of the great monopoly in Oregon backed up by the English Government. Its first object was to keep it unsettled as long as possible, for on that depended the millions for the Hudson Bay Company's treasury, but beyond that, the government plainly depended upon the powerful organization to hold all the land as a British possession. In the war of 1812, one of the first moves was to dispatch a fleet to the Columbia, with orders, as the record shows, "to take and destroy everything American on the northwest coast." The prosperous people of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are in a position now to enjoy such prophetic fulminations, but they can easily see the dangers that were escaped. It was a double danger, danger from abroad and at home, and of the latter most of all. The Nation had been deceived. It must be undeceived. The outlook was not hopeful. The year 1843 had been ushered in. The long-looked-for and talked-of treaty had been signed, and Oregon again ignored. There was scarcely a shadow cast of coming events to give hope to the friends of far-away Oregon. Suppose some watchman from the dome of the Capitol casting his eyes westward in 1843, could have seen that little caravan winding through valleys and over the hills and hurrying eastward, but who would dream that its leader was "a man of destiny," bearing messages to a nation soon to be aroused? Of how little or how much importance was this messenger or his message, turn to "The Ride to Save Oregon" and judge. But certain it is, a great change, bordering on revolution, was portending. CHAPTER III. THE ROMANCE OF THE OREGON MISSION. These pages are mainly designed to show in brief the historical and political environments of Oregon in pioneer days, and the patriotic services rendered the nation by Dr. Marcus Whitman. But to attempt to picture this life and omit the missionary, would be like reciting the play of Hamlet and omitting Hamlet. The mission work to the Oregon Indians began in a romance and ended in a great tragedy. The city of St. Louis in that day was so near the border of civilization that it was accustomed to see much of the rugged and wild life of the plains; yet in 1832 the people beheld even to them the odd sight of four Flathead Indians in Indian dress and equipment parading their principal streets.