This act, as a matter of course, opened all the liquor shops of the Hudson’s Bay Company and of all the unprincipled men in the country. To give a better idea of this liquor question, a letter of James Douglas, found in No. 10, volume 1, of the Oregon Spectator, June 11, 1846, is given. Mr. Parker, in his stump speech, alluded to the liquor law, and asserted that it was daily violated by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Mr. Douglas attempts to refuse the charge and sustain the law. The italics in the following letter are the author’s:—
“Mr. Editor,—In Mr. Parker’s address to the electors of Clackamas County, delivered at the meeting lately held in Oregon City, as reported in the Spectator of the 28th of May, I observe that he is pleased to point out Mr. Douglas, a judge of the County Court, who, he understood, was in the habit of selling ardent spirits. This may have suited Mr. Parker’s purpose, while attempting to establish a position which appears to be a favorite with him, ‘that the oath of office binds a man to do just as he pleases!’ As it can not, however, be supposed that I admire the mode of illustration he has chosen, and as I also happen to entertain a very different opinion touching the force and propriety of that oath, I hope it will not be considered a breach of courtesy on my part, to offer, through the medium of your respectable paper, a direct and unqualified denial of this charge of rum-selling, in the only sense it is plainly meant to be received, and can be considered at all applicable to the subject in question. As a particular favor, I ask Mr. Parker to bring forward a single proof in support of the assertion he has so wantonly advanced. I refer him to all his fellow-citizens. I ask him to search the country from one extremity to another, and to put the question to each individual member of the community with the absolute certainty that not one person will be found who ever purchased ardent spirits from Mr. Douglas. A stranger in the country, evidently unacquainted with its early history, Mr. Parker may not have been informed that the members of the Hudson’s Bay Company have for many years past uniformly discouraged intemperance” (by a regular daily allowance of liquor to their men, as we shall see Mr. Douglas says) “by every means in their power, and have also made great and repeated pecuniary sacrifices to prevent the sale of ardent spirits in the country: an article, moreover, which forms no part of their trade, either with the white man or the Indian.” (See Mr. Dunn’s book, in which it is asserted the company sells to Indians, and Fitzgerald, page 162). “Mr. Parker does not indeed pretend to speak from his own personal experience of the fact, but on the authority of others; and should any doubt still linger in his mind with respect to the correctness of what I have just said, he may perhaps have no objection to seek other means of arriving at the truth; suppose, for instance, he was to try the experiment of negotiating a purchase, I venture to predict he would soon be convinced that Mr. Douglas is not in the habit of selling ardent spirits.
“But let us inquire a little further into this matter. What could have induced a person of character to hazard an observation in public, which, he must know, would, if false, be as openly exposed. Mr. Parker must have had some grounds for his assertion; he may possibly have heard, or he may have supposed that her Majesty’s ship Modeste was daily receiving supplies at Fort Vancouver. If, with reference to these supplies, he had told his hearers that her Majesty’s ship Modeste, now stationed at Fort Vancouver, had, with other supplies for ship use from the stores of the Hudson’s Bay Company, received several casks of rum; or if, referring to the company’s own ships, he had stated that a small allowance of spirits is daily served out to the crews of the company’s vessels; and that other classes of the company’s servants, according to long-accustomed usage, receive, on certain rare occasions, a similar indulgence, he would have told the plain and simple truth, and his statement would not this day have been called in question by me.
“These acts, which I fully admit, and would on no account attempt to conceal, can not by the fair rules of construction be considered as infringing upon any law recognized by the compact which we have agreed to support, in common with the other inhabitants of Oregon. [The same argument is used to justify Mr. Ogden in furnishing powder and arms to the Indians at the commencement of the Cayuse war.]
“The framers of these laws, with a decree of wisdom and foresight which does them honor, never entertained the idea that a person, in becoming a member of the compact, thereby relinquished his distinctive national character.
“On the contrary, British subjects and citizens of the United States, casting aside every shadow of illiberal prejudice, extended to each other the right hand of good-fellowship, for the purpose of mutual protection, to secure the peace and promote the prosperity of the country, until protected by their respective governments. The compact was formed and perfected upon that principle, and can rest with security upon no other foundation.
“We are pledged, and do faithfully intend to support the organic laws. They do not bind us to violate pre-existing engagements with our servants, nor to withhold from the officers of our government supplies of whatsoever kind the company’s stores can provide. In the high character of the latter we enjoy the fullest security against abuse to the detriment of the country. With all other parties we have most rigidly, and shall continue to enforce the prohibitory statutes of Oregon. My wish in addressing you, Mr. Editor, is to set Mr. Parker right in respect to this matter of rum-selling, and the people may rest assured that if my wishes could influence the community, there would never be a drunkard in Oregon.
“James Douglas.”
Mr. Parker’s answer, which, like the letter of Mr. Douglas, is addressed to the Spectator, says:—
“Mr. Editor,—Our friend Mr. Douglas, in the Spectator of the 11th instant, denies, in the most unqualified terms, the charge of rum-selling at Vancouver, and challenges me to the proof of the assertion, by calling individually on all of our fellow-citizens for testimony; and no other alternative is left me but to proceed in accordance with his request; he will, I am sure, pardon me if I seek this among the highest authorities, and I will produce one at least whose veracity will not, I am sure, be called in question by our friend.
“When I, in my speech, adverted to the fact that rum was sold at Vancouver, contrary to law, the statement was based on the thousand-tongued rumor, and I so qualified my remarks. But in Mr. Douglas’s confession, found in the paper alluded to, the matter of doubt is settled, and we are now furnished with the authority of no less a personage than Mr. Douglas himself. Hear his testimony. ‘If,’ says he, ‘with reference to these supplies, he had told his hearers that her Majesty’s ship Modeste, now stationed at Fort Vancouver, had, with other supplies for ship use from the stores of the Hudson’s Buy Company, received several casks of rum; or if, referring to the company’s own ships, he had stated that a small allowance of spirits is daily served out to the crews of the company’s vessels; and that other classes of the company’s servants, according to long-accustomed usage, receive, on certain rare occasions, a similar indulgence, he would have told the plain and simple truth,’ etc.
“These facts, Mr. Douglas, who has charge of the trading-post at Vancouver, fully admits, and upon his testimony in the matter I place the most implicit confidence. It was not my intention to charge our friend with having kept a tippling-shop at Vancouver, and I wish to correct such, if any there are, who may have come to such a conclusion; but I confess, I had not supposed that the law in relation to ardent spirits (and which may be found in the first number of the Spectator) had been so wantonly disregarded. We know, from personal observation, that rum in considerable quantities had found its way among our citizens from some quarter, and the disclosure here made furnishes a key to the mystery, and we are now broadly told that casks of this article have been furnished to her Majesty’s officers stationed in Oregon, but that in their high character we enjoy the fullest security against its abuse, etc.
“And now, my dear sir, having heard much of the hollow and ceremonious professions and hypocritical grimaces of courts, and men in high places, and disgusted with every thing that savors of aristocratical or monarchical parade, and smitten with the love of republican simplicity and honesty, I can not admit that rank or men in high places are guaranteed against our laws, nor are they so framed as to justify such a conclusion. Raised as I was under these simple institutions, which tend to bring all on an equality, I can not perceive those high guaranties or pledges which are said to emanate from rank or station in high places in society. With us, men give pledges of honor and character, alone from their moral conduct; and the bacchanalian carousals (one was a most disgraceful drunken row kept up for several days by the officers of the Modeste, in honor of the Queen’s birthday) which came off in the Tualatin Plains on Vancouver rum, last winter and spring, at the expense of the good morals of our farming community, gave me abundant and additional evidence to admire our simple and republican usages, while it serves as a moral worthy the consideration of a prince, or the strongest appendage of nobility. Our laws make no distinction in favor of the officers on board of her Majesty’s ship Modeste, nor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants. If their ships visit our ports, our laws will protect them, and, according to the usages of all nations, we expect them to submit to their provisions; but should these officers, through the plenitude of their power, determine to disregard our laws, it certainly could find no justification with one filling the high judicial station which Mr. Douglas occupies. He has sanctioned our law-making authority by accepting one of the highest judicial offices under our organization. According to his own confession, he has disregarded the law, not only by giving in small quantities, but by selling ardent spirits by the cask; nor can he find justification by dealing it out under pre-existing contracts to the servants of the company. To admit that principle, dealers in this article would only be required, when the prohibitory law was about being passed, to contract for the supply of all their old customers, and thus defeat the object and intention of the law by a pre-existing contract. And as for the argument of long-existing usages, that pays the poorest tribute of all. Why, the very toper may plead his long indulgence in the use of this article, with as much propriety. I should not have noticed the subject again, but for my anxious desire that the matter should be fairly placed before the public.
“Samuel Parker.”
These two laws, and the two communications we have given, place the temperance question fully before the reader. The communication of Mr. Douglas shows the position and feelings of the English and the Hudson’s Bay Company in relation to our laws, as also the liberty they claimed to violate them whenever it suited their interest or their convenience. Mr. Douglas says, “with all other parties we have most rigidly, and shall continue to enforce the prohibitory statutes of Oregon.” It also shows another fact. “The Modeste, now stationed at Fort Vancouver,” is our (the company’s) protection, and you must not attempt to enforce a law upon English subjects, or English ships that enter the rivers or ports of the country. To say that many of us did not feel keenly this taunt, and almost despair of securing this vast country from the rapacious mouth of the crouching lion, whose drunken, beastly representatives were distributing their rum to every family that would receive them, would not be true.
When their representatives entered our legislative councils, the most stupid of its members understood their object. They wished to make laws for Americans. Their own people needed no laws, and no other government than such as was provided for them by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The reader is already informed how those laws were enforced.
Dr. Tolmie, who at the present time (1870) stands at the head of the company in Vancouver Island and British Columbia, presented the following resolution to the house on the sixth day of the session, showing the true position of the English element:—
“Resolved, That the judiciary committee be discharged from further duty, as the present Legislature deems it inexpedient to organize the judiciary at the present time, in any manner different from the present organization.”
By a reference to the journal of the house, we find Dr. Tolmie to be a member of the judiciary committee. Four days after, we find this same gentleman presenting another resolution:—
“That the Legislature deems it inexpedient, at the present time, to legalize the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits.”