The time of Sir George Simpson's visit to the coast on his journey round the world was one of much agitation as to the boundary line between the British and United States possessions on the Pacific Coast. By the treaty of 1825 Russia and Britain had come to an agreement that the Russian strip along the coast should reach southward only to 54 deg. 40´ N. lat. The United States mentioned its claim to the coast as far north as the Russian boundary. However preposterous it may seem, yet it was maintained by the advocates of the Monroe doctrine that Great Britain had no share of the coast at all. The urgency of the American claim became so great that the popular mind seemed disposed to favour contesting this claim with arms. Thus originated the famous saying, "Fifty-four, forty, or fight." The Hudson's Bay Company was closely associated with the dispute, the more that Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River might be south of the boundary line, though their action of building Fort Victoria was shown to be a wise and timely step. At length in 1846 the treaty between Great Britain and the United States was made and the boundary line established. The Oregon Treaty, known in some quarters as the Ashburton Treaty, provided that the 49th parallel of latitude should on the mainland be the boundary, thus handing over Fort Vancouver, Walla Walla, Colville, Nisqually, and Okanagan to the United States, and taking them from their rightful owners, the Hudson's Bay Company. Article two of the great treaty, however, stated that the Company should enjoy free navigation of the Columbia River, while the third article provided that the possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company and all other British subjects on the south side of the boundary line should be respected.
The decision in regard to the boundary led to changes in the Hudson's Bay Company establishments. Dr. McLoughlin, having lost the confidence of the Company, threw in his lot with his United States home, and retired in the year of the treaty to Oregon City, where he died a few years after. His name is remembered as that of an impulsive, good-hearted, somewhat rash, but always well-meaning man.
Though Fort Victoria became the depôt for the coast of the trade of the Company, Fort Vancouver, with a reduced staff, was maintained for a number of years by the Company. While under charge of Chief Trader Wark, a part of the fields belonging to the Company at Fort Vancouver were in a most high-handed manner seized by the United States for military purposes. The senior officer, Mr. Grahame, on his return from an absence, protested against the invasion. In June, 1860, however, the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew from the Columbia. The great herd of wild cattle which had grown up on the Columbia were disposed of by the Company to a merchant of Oregon. The Company thus retired to the British side of the boundary line during the three years closing with 1860.
Steps were taken by the Hudson's Bay Company to obtain compensation from the United States authorities. A long and wearisome investigation took place; witnesses were called and great diversity of opinion prevailed as to the value of the interest of the Company in its forts. The Hudson's Bay Company claimed indemnity amounting to the sum of 2,000,000 dols. Witnesses for the United States gave one-tenth of that amount as a fair value. Compensation of a moderate kind was at length made to the Company by the United States.
On its withdrawal from Oregon the Hudson's Bay Company decided on opening up communication with the interior of the mainland up the Fraser River. This was a task of no small magnitude, on account of the rugged and forbidding banks of this great river. A. Caulfield Anderson, an officer who had been in the Company's service for some fourteen years before the date of the Oregon Treaty and was in charge of a post on the Fraser River, was given the duty of finding the road to the interior. He was successful in tracing a road from Fort Langley to Kamloops. The Indians offered opposition to Anderson, but he succeeded in spite of all hindrances, and though other routes were sought for and suggested, yet Anderson's road by way of the present town of Hope and Lake Nicola to Kamloops afterwards became one great waggon road to the interior. No sooner had the boundary line been fixed than agitation arose to prepare the territory north of the line for a possible influx of agriculturists or miners and also to maintain the coast true to British connection. The Hudson's Bay Company applied to the British Government for a grant of Vancouver Island, which they held under a lease good for twelve years more. Mr. Gladstone opposed the application, but considering it the best thing to be done in the circumstances, the Government made the grant (1847) to the Company under certain conditions. The Company agreed to colonize the island, to sell the lands at moderate rates to settlers, and to apply nine-tenths of the receipts toward public improvements. The Company entered heartily into the project, issued a prospectus for settlers, and hoped in five years to have a considerable colony established on the Island.
Steps were taken by the British Government to organize the new colony. The head of the Government applied to the Governor of the Company to name a Governor. Chief Factor Douglas was suggested, but probably thinking an independent man would be more suitable, the Government gave the appointment to a man of respectability, Richard Blanshard, in the end of 1849.
The new Governor arrived, but no preparations had been made for his reception. No salary was provided for his maintenance, and the attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company officially at Fort Victoria was decidedly lacking in heartiness. Governor Blanshard's position was nothing more than an empty show. He issued orders and proclamations which were disregarded. He visited Fort Rupert, which had been founded by the Company on the north-east angle of the island, and there held an investigation of a murder of three sailors by the Newitty Indians. Governor Blanshard spent much of his time writing pessimistic reports of the country to Britain, and after a residence of a year and a half returned to England, thoroughly soured on account of his treatment by the officers of the Company.
The colonization of Vancouver Island proved very slow. A company of miners for Nanaimo, and another of farmers from Sooke, near Victoria, came, but during Governor Blanshard's rule only one bonâ-fide sale of land was made, and five years after the cession to the Company there were less than five hundred colonists. Chief Factor Douglas succeeded to the governorship and threw his accustomed energy into his administration. The cry of monopoly, ever a popular one, was raised, and inasmuch as the colony was not increasing sufficiently to satisfy the Imperial Government, the great Committee of the House of Commons of 1857 was appointed to examine the whole relation of the Company to Rupert's Land and the Indian territories. The result of the inquiry was that it was decided to relieve the Hudson's Bay Company of the charge of Vancouver Island at the time of expiry of their lease. The Hudson's Bay Company thus withdrew on the Pacific Coast to the position of a private trading company, though Sir James Douglas, who was knighted in 1863, continued Governor of the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, with the added responsibility of the territory on the mainland.
At this juncture the gold discovery in the mainland called much attention to the country. Thousands of miners rushed at once to the British possessions on the Pacific Coast. Fort Victoria, from being a lonely traders' post, grew as if by magic into a city. Thousands of miners betook themselves to the Fraser River, and sought the inland gold-fields. All this compelled a more complete organization than the mere oversight of the mainland by Governor Douglas in his capacity as head of the fur trade. Accordingly the British Government determined to relieve the Hudson's Bay Company of responsibility for the mainland, which they held under a licence soon to expire, and to erect New Caledonia and the Indian territories of the coast into a separate Crown Colony under the name of British Columbia. In Lord Lytton's dispatches to Governor Douglas, to whom the governorship of both of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia was offered, the condition is plainly stated that he would be required to sever his connection with the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and to be independent of all local interests. Here we leave Sir James Douglas immersed in his public duties of governing the two colonies, which in time became one province under the name of British Columbia, thus giving up the guidance of the fur-trading stations for whose up-building he had striven for fifty years.
The posts of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific Coast in 1857 were:—