Oregon was ours by right of discovery, exploration, and cession; as well as settlement by Astor in 1811-12. A foreign monopoly, having knowledge of the American Fur Company’s weakness and danger, paid a nominal price for its goods and possessions, and has held and robbed the country, as by its own statements, of twenty million pounds sterling, in profits. As we have before stated, that company dared not use the same instruments at first, to drive out or destroy the missionaries, that it had used against fur traders and hunters. The Indians regarded the American missionaries as teachers sent from God, and received them, and protected them, till forced by the teachings and influence of their masters to attempt to cut off the American settlement.
The English people, as a whole, charge the American missionaries, and justly, with being the means of their losing Oregon. They also charge the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrongfully, as favoring the American settlement of the country. Dr. John McLaughlin, all honor to his name and memory, told his superiors in London the truth, when he said to them, “Gentlemen, as a man of common humanity, I could not do otherwise than to give those naked and starving people to wear and to eat of our stores. They were not our enemies. I did what I thought was right, and must leave consequences to God and the government, and if you insist upon my compliance with your rules in this particular, I will serve you no longer.”
Contrast this noble sentiment of Dr. McLaughlin, though a Canadian-born subject and supporter of the Roman Catholic faith in the country, with that of his successor, Sir James Douglas, who refused supplies to punish the murderers and protect the American settlements, he having been an officer under the provisional government, and taken an oath to protect and defend it.
Did it conflict with his duties as a British subject? The reason assigned by him for his refusal was, “the stringent rules laid down for his government by the home company,” which the noble old Canadian said he would resign his position sooner than obey.
It is not difficult to see that Oregon, during the existence of the provisional government, was a country possessing peculiarly interesting relations to the two nations who were claiming its allegiance and sovereignty. Had the Hudson’s Bay Company been true to its own country, and encouraged the settlement of loyal British subjects in it, there is no question but, with the facilities and capital at its command, it could have secured the country before an American settlement could have acquired any strength in it. The same was the case with California. One or two ships a year from 1835 to 1840, or even 1846, leaving out the Roman and Jesuit missionaries, could have brought substantial English families with their English chaplains, and formed their colonies and absorbed the American missionary settlements in it, and no one would have questioned their right, or attempted to defeat them; but the £7,000 or more of clear profits in the fur trade, and native associations, were too strong. The country becomes valuable in its estimation, as others have improved and developed its wealth. The natives with the furs of the country were the only source of wealth to it, and especially to the home company in London. If the least possible credit is due to it from any source, it is for its stupidity and ignorance as to the real value of the country, of which no one can give a true history without developing the avaricious character and degrading influences and proceedings of that company; for it had, as we remarked at the commencement of our history, and as every one knows, the absolute control of it up to the organization of the provisional government in 1843. Those influences were active and in full operation up to 1842, when it was discovered, by Dr. Whitman and a few others, that the whole country was about to pass into the hands of the English, as was asserted by the over-zealous priest at Wallawalla: “The country is ours! America is too late! They may now whistle.” An American heard, and to hear with him was to act. “If the Board dismisses me, I will do what I can to save Oregon to my country,” was his remark to us, as he gave his hand and mounted his horse, to see what could be done at Washington. The result of that trip was the delay of the boundary question and an immigration and settlement, that no Hudson’s Bay and Jesuit exterminating combinations have been able to overcome or drive from the country.
CHAPTER LXV.
Description of the face of the country.—Agricultural and mining productions.—Timber.—The Wallamet.—Columbia.—Dalles.—Upper Columbia.—Mountains.—Rivers.—Mineral wealth.—Climate.—The Northern Pacific Railroad.—Conclusion.
Thus far I have confined myself to the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the early settlement of the country, its public men, the provisional government, adverse influence, and the American and Jesuit missions. We will now proceed to describe its geographical and physical position and value.