President Tyler promptly and positively stated: "Dr. Whitman, your long ride and frozen limbs speak for your courage and patriotism; your missionary credentials are good vouchers for your character." And he promptly granted his request. Such promise was all that Whitman required. He firmly believed, as all the pioneers of Oregon at that time believed, that the treaty of 1818, while not saying in direct terms that the nationality settling the country should hold it, yet that that was the real meaning. Both countries claimed the territory, and England with the smallest rightful claim had, through the Hudson Bay Company, been the supreme autocratic ruler for a full third of a century. More than half a dozen fur companies, attracted to Oregon by the wealth flowing into the coffers of the English company, had attempted, as we have before shown, to open up business on what they claimed was American soil; but, in every instance, they were starved out or bought out by the English company. The Indians obeyed its orders, and even the American missionaries settled in just the localities they were ordered to by the English monopoly. In another connection we have more fully explained this treaty of 1818, but, suffice it to say, these conditions led Whitman to believe that the only hope of saving Oregon was in American immigration. It was for this that he plead with President Tyler and Secretary Webster and the members of Congress he met. From the President he went to the Hon. James M. Porter, Secretary of War, and by him was received with the greatest kindness, and he eagerly heard the whole story. He promised Dr. Whitman all the aid in his power in his scheme of immigration. He promised that Captain Fremont, with a company of troops, should act as escort to the caravan which Whitman was positive he could organize upon the frontier. The Secretary of War also inquired in what way he and the Government could aid the pioneers in the new country, and asked Dr. Whitman, at his leisure, to write out his views, and forward them to him. Dr. Whitman did this, and the State Historical Society of Oregon did excellent service, recently, in publishing Whitman's proposed "Oregon Organization," found among the official papers of the War Department, a copy of which will be found in the appendix of this volume.