He was born in 1784, and was eighteen years older than Dr. Whitman. He entered the Northwestern Fur Company's service in 1800. He afterward studied medicine, and for a time practiced his profession, but his fine business abilities were so apparent, that in 1824 we find him at the head of affairs in Oregon. His power over the rough men in the employ of the Company, and the savage tribes who filled their coffers with wealth, was so complete as to be phenomenal.

In many of the sketches we have shown that his kindness to the pioneer Missionaries in another and a higher sense, proved his manhood. To obey the orders of his company, and still remain a humane man, was something that required tact that few men could have brought to bear as well as Dr. McLoughlin. While he did slaughter, financially speaking, traders and fur gatherers right and left, and did his best to serve the pecuniary interests of his great monopoly, he drew the line there, and was the friend and the helper of the missionaries.

If the reader could glance through Mrs. Whitman's diary upon the very opening week of her arrival in Oregon, there would not be found anything but words of kindness and gratitude to Dr. McLoughlin. In justice to his company, to which he was always loyal, he pushed the Methodist missions far up the Willamette, and those of the American Board three hundred miles in another direction. But at the same time he was a friend and brother and adviser, and anything he had was at their service, whether they had money or not.

After the immigration in 1842, and the larger immigration led by Whitman in 1843, the company in England became alarmed and sent out spies—Messrs. Park, Vavasaur and Peel, who were enjoined to find out whether McLoughlin was loyal to British interests. After many months spent in studying the situation, their adverse report is easily inferred from the fact that Dr. McLoughlin was ordered to report to headquarters. The full history of that secret investigation has never yet been revealed, but when it is, the whole blame will be found resting upon Whitman and his missionary co-workers, who wrested the land from English rule, and that Dr. McLoughlin aided them to success.

When the charge of "Friendship to the missionaries," was made, the old doctor flared up and replied: "What would you have? Would you have me turn the cold shoulder on the men of God who came to do that for the Indians which this company has neglected to do? If we had not helped the immigrants in '42 and '43 and '44, and relieved their necessities, Fort Vancouver would have been destroyed and the world would have treated us as our inhuman conduct deserved; every officer of the Company, from Governor down, would have been covered with obloquy, and the Company's business ruined!"

But it all resulted in the resignation of Dr. McLoughlin. The injustice he received at the hands of Americans afterward, is deeply to be regretted, and it is greatly to the credit of the thinking people of the State of Oregon that they have done their best to remedy the wrong. At many times, and in a multitude of ways, Dr. McLoughlin, by his kindness to the missionaries, won for himself the gratitude of thinking Americans in all the years to come. With a bad man in his place as Chief Factor, the old missionaries would have found life in Oregon well-nigh unbearable. While true to the exclusive and selfish interests of the great monopoly he served, he yet refused to resort to any form of unmanliness.

After his abuse by the English company and his severance of all connection with it, he settled at Oregon City and lived and died an American citizen. The tongue of slander was freely wagged against him, and his declining years were made miserable by unthinking Americans and revengeful Englishmen. His property, of which he had been deprived, was returned to his heirs, and to-day his memory is cherished as among Oregon's benefactors. A fine oil painting of Dr. McLoughlin was secured and paid for by the old pioneers and presented to the State.

The Hon. John Minto, in making the address at the hanging of the picture, closed with these words:

"In this sad summary of such a life as Dr. McLoughlin's, there is a statement that merits our attention, which, if ever proven true, and no man who ever knew Dr. McLoughlin will doubt that he believed it true, namely, that he prevented war between Great Britain and the United States, will show that two of the greatest nations on this earth owe him a debt of gratitude, and that Oregon, in particular, is doubly bound to him as a public benefactor. British state papers may some day prove all this.

"It is now twenty-six years since the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon, so far as restoration of property to Dr. McLouglin's family could undo the wrong of Oregon's Land Bill, gave gladness to the heart of every Oregon pioneer worthy of the name. All of them yet living, now know that, good man as they believed him, he was better than they knew. They see him now, after the strife and jealousies of race, national, business, and sectarian interests are allayed, standing in the center of all these causes of contention—a position in which to please all parties was impossible, to 'Maintain which, only a good man could bear with patience'—and they have adopted this means of conveying their appreciation of this great forbearance and patient endurance, combined with his generous conduct.