At the same time that Congress received the above memorial, it received a petition from a majority of the members of the respective houses of the Indiana legislature. This petition asked that the freehold qualification for electors be abolished; that Indiana Territory be not divided, and that the undivided territory be soon made a state. It was said that the people were too poor to support a divided government, and that as the general court met annually in each county it was slight hardship to the frontier to have the supreme court meet at Vincennes.(196) It was probably true at this time, as it certainly was in 1807, that the general court met as above stated. Appeal by bill of exceptions was, however, allowed. The supreme court had no original, exclusive jurisdiction.(197) Nothing daunted by this memorial from the legislature, Illinois, in a short time, prepared another memorial—this time with twenty signatures. This adds to the grievances recited in the previous memorial that the wealthy appeal cases against the Illinois poor to the supreme court at Vincennes; that landholders on the Wabash are interested in preventing the population of lands on the Mississippi; that preëmption is needed, and that it is hoped that the general government will not pass unnoticed the act of the last legislature authorizing the importation of slaves into the territory. It violates the Ordinance of 1787. The memorialists desired such importation, but it must be authorized by Congress to be legal. The population of Illinois was given as follows: By the census of April 1, 1801: 2,361 Inhabitants of Prairie du Chien and on the Illinois River, not included in above: 550 “Emigration” since 1801, at least one-third increase: 750 Settlements on the Ohio River: 650 4,311(198) The truth of some of the complaints from Illinois is apparent. That a land company on the Wabash wished to hinder settlement on the Mississippi is probably true, for Matthew Lyon, of Kentucky, said in Congress, in the winter of 1805-6: “The price of lands is various. I know of two hundred thousand acres of land on the Wabash, which is offered for sale at twenty cents per acre.”(199) It is to be presumed that the company making the offer could not give a secure title to the land.