brigade, with the year's furs. He then drank a glass of wine to open the festivities. Soon after he came to Oregon, from morality and policy he stopped the sale of liquor to Indians. To do this effectually he had to stop the sale of liquor to all whites. In 1834, when Wyeth began his competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, he began selling liquor to Indians, but at the request of Dr. McLoughlin, Wyeth stopped the sale of liquors to Indians as well as to the whites. In 1841 the American trading vessel Thomas Perkins, commanded by Captain Varney, came to the Columbia River to trade, having a large quantity of liquors. To prevent the sale to the Indians, Dr. McLoughlin bought all these liquors and stored them at Fort Vancouver. They were still there when Dr. McLoughlin left the Hudson's Bay Company in 1846.

Dr. McLoughlin soon established numerous forts and posts in the Oregon Country, all of which were tributary to Fort Vancouver. In 1839 there were twenty of these forts besides Vancouver. The policy of the Hudson's Bay Company was to crush out all rivals in trade. It had an absolute monopoly of the fur trade of British America, except the British Provinces, under acts of Parliament, and under royal grants. But in the Oregon Territory its right to trade therein was limited by the Conventions of 1818 and 1827 and by the act of Parliament of July 2, 1821, to the extent that the Oregon Country (until one year's notice was given) should remain free and open to the citizens of the United States and to the subjects of Great

Britain, and the trade of the Hudson's Bay Company should not "be used to the prejudice or exclusion of citizens of the United States engaged in such trade." Therefore, as there could be no legal exclusion of American citizens, it could be done only by occupying the country, building forts, establishing trade and friendly relations with the Indians, and preventing rivalry by the laws of trade, including ruinous competition. As the Hudson's Bay Company bought its goods in large quantities in England, shipped by sea, and paid no import duties, it could sell at a profit at comparatively low prices. In addition, its goods were of extra good quality, usually much better than those of the American traders. It also desired to prevent the settling of the Oregon Country. The latter purpose was for two reasons: to preserve the fur trade; and to prevent the Oregon Country from being settled by Americans to the prejudice of Great Britain's claim to the Oregon Country.

For more than ten years after Dr. McLoughlin came to Oregon, there was no serious competition to the Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon Country west of the Blue Mountains. An occasional ship would come into the Columbia River and depart. At times, American fur traders entered into serious competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, east of the Blue Mountains. Such traders were Bonneville, Sublette, Smith, Jackson, and others. They could be successful, only partially, against the competition of the Hudson's Bay Company. Goods were often sold by it at prices

7 See Document C.

which could not be met by the American traders, except at a loss. Sometimes more was paid to the Indians for furs than they were worth.

Dr. McLoughlin was the autocrat of the Oregon Country. His allegiance was to his Country and to his Company. He knew the Americans had the legal right to occupy any part of the Oregon Country, and he knew from the directors of his Company, as early as 1825, that Great Britain did not intend to claim any part of the Oregon Country south of the Columbia River. The only fort he established south of the Columbia River was on the Umpqua River. I do not wish to place Dr. McLoughlin on a pedestal, nor to represent him as more than a grand and noble man, ever true, as far as possible, to his Company's interests and to himself. To be faithless to his Company was to be a weakling and contemptible. But he was not a servant, nor was he untrue to his manhood. As Chief Factor he was "Ay, every inch a King," but he was also ay, every inch a man. He was a very human, as well as a very humane man. He had a quick and violent temper. His position as Chief Factor and his continued use of power often made him dictatorial. And yet he was polite, courteous, gentle, and kind, and a gentleman. He was an autocrat, but not an aristocrat. In 1838 Rev. Herbert Beaver, who was chaplain at Fort Vancouver, was impertinent to Dr. McLoughlin in the fort-yard. Immediately Dr. McLoughlin struck Beaver with a cane. The next day Dr. McLoughlin publicly apologized for this indignity.

Punishment of Indians.

The policy of the Company, as well as that of Dr. McLoughlin, was to keep Americans, especially traders, out of all the Oregon Country. The difference was that he believed that they should be kept out only so far as it could be done lawfully. But he did not allow them to be harmed by the Indians, and, if the Americans were so harmed, he punished the offending Indians, and he let all Indians know that he would punish for offenses against the Americans as he would for offenses against the British and the Hudson's Bay Company. Personally he treated these rival traders with hospitality. In his early years in Oregon on two occasions he caused an Indian to be hanged for murder of a white man. In 1829, when the Hudson's Bay Company's vessel, William and Ann, was wrecked on Sand Island, at the mouth of the Columbia River, and a part of her crew supposed to have been murdered and the wreck looted, he sent a well armed and manned schooner and a hundred voyageurs to punish the Indians.

Jedediah S. Smith was a rival trader to the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1828 all his party of eighteen men, excepting four, one of which was Smith, were murdered by the Indians, near the mouth of the Umpqua River. All their goods and furs were stolen. These four survivors arrived at Fort Vancouver, but not all together. They were all at the point of perishing from exhaustion and were nearly naked. All their wants were at once supplied, and they received the kindest treatment. When the first one arrived Dr. McLoughlin sent

Indian runners to the Willamette chiefs to tell them to send their people in search of Smith and his two men, and if found to bring them to Fort Vancouver, and Dr. McLoughlin would pay the Indians; and also to tell these chiefs that if Smith, or his men, was hurt by the Indians, that Dr. McLoughlin would punish them. Dr. McLoughlin sent a strong party to the Umpqua River, which recovered these furs. They were of large value. Smith at his own instance sold these furs to the Hudson's Bay Company, receiving the fair value for the furs, without deduction. Dr. McLoughlin later said of this event that it "was done from a principle of Christian duty, and as a lesson to the Indians to show them they could not wrong the whites with impunity." The effect of this Smith matter was far-reaching and long-continued. The Indians understood, even if they did not appreciate, that the opposition of Dr. McLoughlin to Americans as traders did not apply to them personally.

Dunn, in his History of the Oregon Territory, narrates the following incident: "On one occasion an American vessel, Captain Thompson, was in the Columbia, trading furs and salmon. The vessel had got aground, in the upper part of the river, and the Indians, from various quarters, mustered with the intent of cutting the Americans off, thinking that they had an opportunity of revenge, and would thus escape the censure of the

8

John Dunn was an employée of the Hudson's Bay Company. He came from England to Fort Vancouver, in 1830, by sea. He returned to England in 1839 or 1840. The first edition of his history was published in London in 1844.