Linn himself fueled the hostility by an impassioned speech to the Senate.  Calling Oregon "Our Soil," he accused the Hudson's Bay Company of unfair trading practices, of comitting "murder, oppression and every species of unfair trading practices," and of training on their savage dependents to way lay our wanderers, to burn our settlements, exterminate the Settler."

The immigrants themselves may have brought the copy of the speech that fell into McLouglin's hands [at Fort Vancouver].   However it arrived, he was incensed, stormed that "This is a foul calumny," and said no American could call the area "our soil" when both countries had "the same right" to be there.