In the course of the discussion, Linn’s policy had received many reinforcements from without. It was about this time that the naval officer whom President Jackson had appointed, made a report which showed the need of action. In the beginning of the new agitation of the question, the Rev. Jason Lee, head of the Methodist missionary movement in the Willamette Valley, appeared in Washington. He had performed the long and dangerous journey across the plains, partly in the interests of his mission and partly in the interests of settlement and a civil government. Although a Canadian by birth, he early identified himself with American interests as best adapted to the successful accomplishment of his missionary enterprise. Although he had gone into the country in the interests of the natives, he was soon convinced that their interests would be served not alone by laboring with them, but by building up a moral and religious community. He was the bearer of a petition to congress from the colonists. It was signed not alone by those connected with the mission, but by some of the French and Canadian ex-employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who had started an agricultural settlement on a beautiful tract of land called the French Prairie, in the Willamette Valley. This document set forth the history of the mission settlement, the prosperity which had attended it, the resources of the country for agricultural purposes, the advantage of its position for trade with China, and urged upon the United States the extension over it of a civil government, both in the interests of the colonists and of the country at large. It showed how the nucleus of a settlement was started; it dwelt upon the previous dependence upon the Hudson’s Bay Company, a relation which could not be expected to continue long in the changing conditions. While in the east, Mr. Lee delivered lectures at various points, and exhibited two Indian lads whom he had brought with him. In reply to inquiries from Hon. Caleb Cushing, who led the debate in the house, and who had been appointed upon a committee to make inquiries, he wrote a letter containing these significant phrases. “The country will be settled, and that speedily from some quarter, and it depends very much upon the action of congress what that population shall be, and what shall be the fate of the Indian tribes in that territory. It may be thought that Oregon is of little importance, but rely upon it, there is the germ of a great state. We are resolved to do what we can to benefit the country, but we are constrained to throw ourselves upon you for protection.”