At the time of Elder Taylor's visit, great distress existed among the laboring classes in England, and as the Saints were chiefly of that class, they suffered with the rest. The trouble arose very largely from over-population. This being the case, the queen was memorialized by the Saints to adopt a system of emigration to Oregon, a general name given to an immense but indefinite tract of country in the western part of the British possessions, Vancouver's Island forming part of it. To return the means that government was asked to expend in emigrating the people, it was proposed that in a tract of country divided into sections of six hundred and forty acres, and numbered, that each emigrant be entitled to settle on the sections bearing even numbers, and that government retain the odd sections. The presence of the settlers and their improvements on the even sections would give a value to the odd sections and bring them into market, and through the sale of these lands government would soon be repaid the sum expended for emigration.
In the interest of this scheme, Elder Taylor called upon, and obtained an interview with the Earl of Dartmouth, but the government refused to engage in the business.
Having accomplished the object of his mission to England, Elder Taylor's heart turned to his family in the wilderness. He left the port of Liverpool in the ship _America_, in company with Elder Pratt, and a few Saints--fourteen in all. No ship ever left that port with brighter prospects, but no sooner were they fairly out into the Irish Sea, than they met a heavy gale and for nine days were tempest-tossed and utterly unable to reach the broad Atlantic. At last they were compelled to return to Liver pool.
"I had strange presentiments," says Elder Taylor, "before we went on board, of danger or ship-wreck--the spirit did not manifest which; and I was glad when we safely returned to Liverpool."
A second start was made on the seventh of February, and after a pleasant voyage of thirty-six days, the vessel made the port of New Orleans. Here Elder Taylor wrote to the editor of the _Star_, his farewell address to the Saints, which virtually is a review of his brief mission among them. Following are extracts from it: