DE MOFRAS EXPLORATION OF OREGON

with tears in his eyes and had him sit among the other settlers. It is at least doubtful whether the punishment inflicted in a like circumstance by a civil judge would have produced as efficacious a result; besides, this patern- al correction had the great advantage of not leaving any scar on the person who had received it. MISSION OF SAINT PAUL If at Fort Van Couver we were received as a for- eigner, at the mission of Saint Paul Abbe Blanchet wel- comed us as a compatriot and a brother; and we felt again a keen joy in finding on these distant shores, in a country where France has allowed herself to be deprived of all her rights, a parish and villages which reminded us of those of our own provinces. But we must confess to a painful impression that we felt when on Sunday, in the church where six hundred Canadians were assembled, we heard a French priest say in French to a congregation en- tirely French: "Let us pray for our Holy Father the Pope, and for our well beloved Queen Victoria." After mass we asked Mr. Blanchet the reason of this strange prayer; he answered that it was enjoined on the priests to make it publicly once a month under pain of removal. The Hudson's Bay Company sees, not without appre- hension, the establishment of new families of free French- men. It would like for the colonization to develop on the right bank of the Columbia. The Company fears that the free population of the Willamette will escape it some day, especially since in March, 1838, at the instigation of Mr. Lee, head of the American Methodists, a petition signed by twenty-seven Americans and nine of the prin- cipal French Canadian settlers was addressed to Congress to claim the protection of the United States Government and invite it to take possession of the territory. 21 The 21 Documents of the 25th Congress, No. 101, page 4.— de Mofras. This petition was dated March 16, 1838 , and signed "J- L. Whitcomb and thirty-five others. " It was written by Philip L. Edwards, who had come out in 1834 with Jason Lee.