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THE l\IAKERS OF CANADA
VOL. XX

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

(

J
9

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

SIR JAMES
DOUGLAS

BY

ROBERT HAl\fILTON COATS

AND

R. E. GOSNELL

TORONfO
l\10RANG & CO., LIl\lITED
1909

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in
the year 1908 by jl,Iorang & Co., Limited, in the
Department of Agriculture.

SEP I) 1955

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I Page
THE NORTH- 'VEST COAST . 1
CHAPTER II
THE TRAVELLER OVERLAND 49
CHAPTER 111
NE'V CALEDONIA 87
CHAPTER IV
FORT VANCOUVER 113
CHAPTER V
THE OREGON BOUNDARY . 147
CHAPTER VI
VICTORIA 175
CHAPTER VII
VANCOUVER ISLAND 207
CHAPTER VIII
THE T'VO COLONIES 231
CHAPTER IX
CONFEDERATION 303
INDEX 3õ7

CHAPTER I

THE NORTH-WEST COAST

B RITISH Columbia, as we know it to-day,
has had an organic existence only since the
year 1859, or, at the earliest, if we include the
colony of 'T ancouyer Island, since 1849. Its his-
tory, therefore, as Crown colony and province of
the Dominion of Canada, is contemporary with the
lives of many still living. In a previous era, how-
ever, the region had bulked large in the annals of
the fur trade; and in a period still more remote it
was a part of the romantic story of the conquest of
the Pacific. If, therefore, we ,vould penetrate be-
yond results to ultimate causes, to see the com-
munity in its making and the material which the
most active of its makers found to his hand, as well
as the development which sprang from that begin-
ning, we should find that the inquiry, notwith-
standing the remoteness of the region from the
political life of the continent with which we are
most familiar, and the recent date at which its
organization was effected, leads far into the past.
We must begin, indeed, if we would trace the
stream of western history to its source, with a
time almost coeval with the earliest European
knowledge of America and but little subsequent
to the landing of Columbus on its eastern shores.
1

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

The fact that the progress of colonization on this
continent received a very remarkable impetus
from the western side, has not always been given
emphasis. Three causes have been commonly
assigned for the early spread of civilization in
America. The original discovery of the continent
came as a result of that spirit of adventure, born
of the Renaissance, ,vhich, coupling itself with the
demand of the trader for a short route to the
Orient, sent na\.igators into every sea. Two cen-
turies before Colulnbus, l\Iarco Polo and his follow-
ing of mediæval travellers had fired the imagina-
tion of the age with the glories of Cathay. The
dream that a path to these might lie by the west-
ern ocean, or, when the barrier of two continents
stretched itself in the \vay, by the rivers and
mountain passes of the new land (or, it might be,
by some "Strait of Anian" in the sea itself), was
ever before the eyes of that daring race of sailors
and discoverers who traced the coasts and pene-
trated the pathless wildernesses of the New ,V orld.
The second compelling force manifested itself later,
when to the religious zeal of Europe, still seething
fronl the Reforlnation, came the knowledge that
America had a native population sunken in sav-
agery and spiritual darkness. This operated in t\VO
directions: the heathen brought the missionary,
most dauntless of martyrs; on the other hand,
those who in an age of relentless persecutions
looked with longing eyes for a land of freedom,
2

COLONIZATIO
FROM THE 'VEST

found suddenly a whole continent open to them
where opposing bigotries were unkno\vn. Of such
were the Jesuit Fathers and the Puritans of New
England. "If Columbus discovered the new con-
tinent," says l\Ir. Goldwin Smith, "the Puritans
discovered the New "T orld." But a third factor,
strong as these, was the lust of gain. To the
covetous eyes of the Spaniard, mighty on sea
and land, who had already forced his way by
Cape Horn to the Pacific, stood revealed the
wonderful riches of l\Iexico and Peru. These
hapless countries he overran with fire and sword,
plundered theln of their gold, and trampled their
ancient and reInarkable civilizations into the dust.
The return of the Spanish galleons laden with
treasure set Europe on fire. Of all the influences
that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
turned the eyes of the adventurer towards America,
greed was undoubtedly the most powerful. It is of
special import to the present purpose because of
the far-reaching part it played in the development
of enterprise on the Pacific Ocean.
I t is not the intention here to outline the his-
tory of the entire Pacific coast of America, but to
trace briefly the 11lore Ï1nportant events which led
to the discovery of the north-west portion of it
and to the ultimate domination of British interests
therein. And here, across the path of the story at
its outset, falls, and for two centuries abides, the
mighty shadow of Spain. It was fortunate for the
3

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

establishment of British influence in North Amer-
ica and especially on the western shores of the con-
tinent, that a people so powerful as the Spaniards
in the sixteenth century did not possess the genius
for colonization. Ilnpetuous and daring the Span-
ish spirit was; but the greed and cruelty ingrained
in its very fibre cast a blight on whatever it
touched and left no other monument than endur-
ing hate. Such power could not finally prevail.
War and spoliation led the Spaniards, at various
times, far northward from their base in l\-Iexico;
but the vast Pacific slope, so full of latent pos-
sibilities, remained, for as long as their influence
overshadowed it, unvisited and unknown.
The early operations of Spain in the Pacific,
however, are of importance as the first of a series
of events which have had an immediate influence
upon present conditions in the northern and west-
ern portions of America. Other contributing agen-
cies from the side of the Pacific were the Russian
occupation of Alaska and the establishment of Brit-
ish trade interests by sea on the north-west coast.
Intermingled with these were the later activities
of the overland traders and discoverers of the
North-West Company, the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany and the Astorians, who fought their way
through the mountains to the Pacific under the
flags of their nations. It will be of interest to note
from the earliest point how these several influences
arose and entered into combination.
4

THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC

Balboa was the first ,vhite man to see the Paci-
fic-marching his men mid-deep into its surf and
proclaiming the sovereignty of Spain over its
mighty waters, "for all time, past, present, or to
come, without contradiction. . . . . . north and
south, . . . . . from the Pole Arctic to the Pole
Antarctic." l\Iexico, the ancient seat of the Tol-
tecs and Aztecs, was discovered five years later,
in 1518. In 1519, it was conquered by Cortez, and
the civilization of l\Iontezuma was overthrown.
l\Iagellan, a Portuguese, who had joined the ser-
vice of Spain under Charles V, had previously
completed his memorable voyage around the
world, sailing through the straits of his name to
the Philippine Islands, where he lost his life. This
opened the way to the Orient by the Southern
Ocean. Vanschouten and Lemaire, two Dutch
navigators, subsequently doubled Cape Horn, pas-
sing in 1516 outside of the course held by l\Iagel-
Ian. These and other voyages, while they threw
light on one of the vexed problems of the day,
disappointed anticipations both as to the nearness
of Asia and the nature of the passage. They led,
however, to greater zeal in the prosecution of dis-
covery on the continent of America itself, in
which, especially in southern latitudes, Spain was
the leader and, at first, almost alone. There fol-
lowed the conquest of Peru by Pizarro in 1532 and
1533, when the rule of the Incas, more enlightened
in many respects than that of Spain herself, was
5

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI
AS

overwhelmed. This epoch of blood has been made
a household tale by Prescott: it is referred to here
only in connection with the immediate result it
had of further whetting the appetite of the Span-
iards for plunder, in pursuance of which they be-
gan, soon after, a series of excursions northward.
One of the earliest of these expeditions was
made, under the direction of Cortez, in 1528, by
Pedro N uñez l\laldonado, who surveyed the coast
for one hundred leagues, as far as the river San-
tiago. Another ,vas despatched in 1532, under the
command of l\lendoza, who penetrated to the 27th
parallel of north latitude. A third set out a year
later, consisting of two ships commanded by Gri-
jalva and Becerra, the former of whom discovered
the Revillagigedo Islands, while the latter reached
the 23rd parallel. Nuño de GuzlIlan, governor of the
Spanish possessions on the Gulf of l\fexico and the
rival of Cortez, next traced the western shore of
the continent as far as the mouth of the Colorado
River. It is unnecessary to mention all the voy-
ages made by Cortez himself, by Ulloa, Allarçon
and Cabrillo, prior to 1543, by which time the
country between the 41st and 43rd parallels-
or what is now the northernmost limits of the
state of California-had been reached both by
sea and overland. l\feanwhile the Spaniards had
established themselves firmly on both seaboards of
Central America and l\lexico. The expeditions by
land were equally as notable as those by sea, and
6

:FRANCIS DRAKE

the hardships which they involved even more ter-
rible. The two friars, l\Iarcos and Honorata, with
Francisco Vasquez de Coronada and Fernando de
Soto ,vere the most celebrated leaders, and the
wished-for goal was the discovery of new l\lexicos
and Peruse But Spain ,vas not to repeat adventures
like these. The actual and more important result
was one that in itself she valued little-the deter-
mination of the coast of California and the ex-
ploration of a vast extent of the interior.

Coincidently with the earlier enterprises of
Spain, we are introduced, amid clash of swords,
decks slippery ,vith blood and desperate battle
indescribable, to the British type of adventurer in
the Pacific-Francis Drake, the first Englishman
to sail a ship on its waters. Sea-dog and pirate
as he ,vas, he lives forever in the memory of his
countrymen as the scourge of their ancient enem-
ies. 1Vith the immortals, IIawkins, Frobisher, and
Cavendish, he was one of the founders of the navy
of England. Rounding Cape Horn in 1578, he
burst upon the Spanish coast, eager for revenge
and treasure. The towns were unprepared for his
coming, and could offer but litHe resistance. So
inconceivable to the Spaniard was an Englishman
in the Pacific, that their ships, low in the water
with the gold and jewels of Peru, dipped colours
and waited for him as a friend. Drake's story is so
wild, so terrible, as to be ahnost alone of its kind.
7

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Deep was the memory of his voyage to the Span-
ish coast; for a century after, his name was never
spoken but with horror. The age ,vas one of re-
lentless cruelty and reprisals, and Drake gave less
perhaps than he would have received. His visit to
the Pacific is ilnportant as establishing the earliest
claim of England to an interest in that ocean. In
the spring of 1579 he sought to return by a north-
ern route, in order to avoid the Spaniards; but after
reaching a point between the 42nd and 48th paral-
lels-or, according to some, as far north as the
southernmost islands of Alaska-and finding no
avenue of escape, he retraced his steps and put in
at a safe harbour for repairs. 'fhe bay a little north
of San Francisco, commonly known as Drake's Bay,
was the point selected for this purpose. There he
remained for some time, having assumed, on be-
half of Queen Elizabeth, the sovereignty of the
North American coast, to which he gave the title
of New Albion. His ship, laden with booty, carried
him, in the end, safely home by ,vay of the Philip-
pines, the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good
Hope, arriving at Portsmouth on September
26th, 1580. Cavendish, with hardly less of battle
and plunder, followed much the same course as
Drake, in the year 1587.

One who belongs to the century of Drake and
whose name is inseparably associated with the
waters of British Columbia, though the honour was
8

JUAN DE FUCA

long withheld, was Juan de Fuca, a native of Ceph-
alonia. His real name was A postolos Velerianos.
'Vhile in the service of the viceroy of 1\1 exico, he
commanded, in 1592, an expedition northward, in
the course of which he entered the strait no"r known
by his name, between Vancouver Island and the
state of "r ashington. He sailed some distance
eastward, his course, as described by himself, cor-
responding in the main with the general direction of
the waters as "re now know them. He returned,
however, before emerging northwards into the sea,
somewhat rashly concluding that he had discovered
the traditional Strait of Anian. For many years the
voyage ,vas regarded as apocryphal, and it ,vas not
until the strait was rediscovered by subsequent
navigators in the latitude assigned to it by Juan de
Fuca that the earlier sailor received his due meed
of renown.

During the period covered by these and other
early voyages in the Pacific, the struggle for the
sovereignty of the New "r orld and the trade of
the distant 'Vest-a struggle destined to continue
for nearly three hundred years-had already begun
amongst the maritime nations of Europe. The
powers were Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal
and Holland. The first, having established herself
in Central and South America, conquered the
Philippines and secured a foothold in the East
Indies. Portugal extended her trade to India and
9

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the South Seas. A new France arose in the valley
of the St. Lawrence. Great Britain planted vigor-
ous colonies on the North Atlantic coast. Dutch
navigators, throughout, laboured persistently in the
wake of their competitors. Here was ample field
for opposing interests. It was, however, the pre-
tentions of the Spaniards to exclusive domain in the
south and west that were most bitterly resented by
the rival nations. By virtue of prior discovery and of
the papal grant of 1493, no nation of Europe, with
the one exception of Portugal, was recognized by
the court of l\ladrid as having any claim to occupy
territory ill Alnerica, or to navigate the western
Atlantic or any part of the Pacific. The exception-
al position of Spain had bee.n in a measure re-
cognized by Great Britain in 1670, and confirmed
by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, though the terms
of these and other agreements were so vague, as
applied to a new and unknown continent, that they
served rather to increase than to prevent confusion.
It was, however, the efforts of England to establish
trade relations with the Spanish dominions which
constituted the cause of nearly all the disputes
between the two countries subsequent to the middle
of the sixteenth century.
In connection with this keen trade rivalry, which
has to do with much that follows, the difference
often remarked between the policy of Great Britain
and the continental po\vers should be borne in mind
from the outset. In the developlnent of British
10

RIVAL TRADE POI
ICIES

commercial and colonial empire, incomparably more
has been effected by the enterprise of private in-
dividuals than by government initiative. Certain of
the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns encouraged, and
even undertook, commercial ventures, and the fact
lent them a support among the trading classes
which stood thenl in good stead during periods of
political unrest and financial embarrassment. But
the practice was never extended into a principle.
The continental colonial policy, however, and not-
ably that of France and Spain, was almost wholly
paternal, designed to reflect the greatest possible
glory on the reigning monarch. The new possessions
were accordingly surrounded by a rigour of control
that ultimately crippled all expansion. On the other
hand, under the British policy, as exemplified on
the AtlantIc seaboard of America, in the voyages
of British traders to the Pacific, or in the operation
of the Hudson's Bay Company in the interior of
the continent, enterprise was ever untrammelled
and individual. To-day, as a consequence, North
Alnerica is the home of a free and progressive people,
,vhile over the southern continent still hovers the
spirit of its Spanish origin,-restlessness, revolt,
and a lack of the genius of organization and
initiative.
From the date of de Fuca's voyage, the Pacific
coast bet,veen the 43rd and the 55th parallels of
latitude remained for upwards of one hundred
and eighty years unvisited by any European navi-
11

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

gator. Roughly, the period embraces the whole
of the seventeenth, and three-quarters of the
eighteenth, century. IVleanwhile, under the Spanish
king's instructions, the coast of California had been
surveyed again by Sebastian Vizcaino, one of whose
ships reached the 43rd parallel in January, 1603.
The interval also included the establishment of
the Jesuit missions, and their subsequent expul-
sion frOlTI the Spanish dominions; sundry voyages
and discoveries in the Southern Pacific; the for-
mation and disappearance of a British colony in
the Falkland Islands; the establishment of Span-
ish settlements and Dominican missions on the
west coast of California, from which the .l\Iexi-
can Creole of the present day is sprung; and,
most important of all, the gradual 'waning of the
power of Spain. On the whole, the record on the
Pacific was one of almost sheer stagnation. On the
Atlantic coast, during the same period, nations had
been born and cradled. France had founded a
great colony, and had lost it to England. England
had planted the seeds of the United States of
America. The whole eastern continent was sub-
dued to the Anglo-Saxon. In the great plains of
the interior, an empire within an empire, the Hud-
son's Bay Company already bore sway. Still fur-
ther north and ,vest, Russia had made good a
foothold that was eventually to include domin-
ions twice as large as the British Columbia of
to-day.
12

THE VOYAGE OF THE SANTIAGO

Before entering upon the period which ,vas to
decide forever to whom the ascendency in these
waters should belong, namely, the closing quarter
of the eighteenth century, certain final efforts of
Spain to perpetuate her exclusive grasp upon the
Pacific must be briefly dealt with. They followed
somewhat tardily upon the conclusion of an agree-
ment in 1763 with Great Britain and France,
whereby New Orleans and Louisiana west of the
l\Iississippi passed to Spain, ,vhile Canada, Florida
and the other French possessions in North America
were a\varded to Great Britain.
Spain had at last awakened to the fact that the
nlaintenance of her sovereignty in the New \V orld
called for decisive action. But official corruption,
the forerunner of national decay, had long ago set
in, and its effects ,vere in no place more con-
spicuous than in America. Galvez, an officer of the
court of Castile, was sent as vÙtitador. On his ar-.
rival, he at once determined upon the establish-
ment of colonies and garrisons on the west coast
of California. Pursuant to this policy, an effort
was made to explore the coast north of Cape
Blanco, on or about the 43rd parallel, beyond the
present boundary of California, to which point
\Tizcaino had penetrated in 1602-3. In the year
1774, Juan Perez, accompanied by Estevan José
.l\lartinez, made a notable voyage from San Bias in
the corvette Santiago. He was commissioned to
proceed to the 60th parallel, where it was assumed
13

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the north-west passage from the Atlantic would be
found, and to explore the coast line southward.
After reaching the northern islands of the Queen
Charlotte group, however, Perez steered home-
ward, passing some time in a bay which he called
Port San Lorenzo,-identified by some as Nootka
Sound on Vancouver Island, the anchorage of
Cook some fourteen years later, but more prob-
ably, according to recent investigations, a small
bay situated between Puint Estevan and the
Escalante Reef. Upon his return to l\lonterey, the
Santiago 'was re-commissioned under command of
Heceta, ,vith Perez as one of his officers. The
corvette was accompanied on her second voyage
by the schooner Sonora, commanded by the cele-
brated Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra,
with l\laurelle as pilot. This expedition was by far
the most notable of all the Spanish voyages to
the north-west coast and ranks high in the annals
of discovery in the Pacific.
With varying fortunes, the vessels steered north-
ward. Off the strait of Juan de Fuca, as they sup-
posed, they were blown southward by a heavy
gale. At the Isla de Dolores, subsequently named
Destruction Island, a boat's crew was murdered by
the Indians. The vessels became separated, and
I-Ieceta, losing heart, set sail for l\:10 nterey. On
the way he in part redeemed the venture from
failure by sighting, from twenty miles off shore, the
entrance to the great Columbia River; but, with a
14

BODEGA Y QUADRA

crew so stricken ,vith scurvy that they could
neither reef sail nor drop anchor, he could venture
no nearer to confirm the discovery. If ,vhat he said
was true, he was the first white man to see that
famous stream. The prolnontory of San Rouge, near
by, he probably identified. l\Ieanwhile, Quadra and
l\laurelle kept bravely on, despite incredible hard-
ships and a greatly dinlinished crew, passing and
nan1ing a number of coast features now well-known.
Anchoring finally in the Bay of Islands, on the
north side of Edgecomb .l\fountain, Quadra took
formal possession of the country in the name of
Spain. Returning southward, he surveyed the coast
line ,vith the utInost care, to discover, if possible,
the Strait of Anian, or, failing that, the mouth
of the Columbia; but as his examination began
about thirty n1Ïles south of the proper latitude,
the quest at Cape l\1endocino was abandoned. In
steering for San Francisco Bay, then well-kno,vn,
the Sonora entered a smaller bay to the north,
to which Bodega gave his own name. This is the
bay in which Sir Francis Drake is supposed to
have refitted, known to-day as Drake's Bay. Four
years later, Artfaga and Quadra, accompanied by
the faithful l\laurelle, made still another voyage
of discovery, sighting l\lount St. Elias, previously
known to the Russians, and entering Prince \Vil-
liam's Sound.
This was the third and final voyage of the
Spaniards in carrying out the policy inaugurated
15

SIR JAl\iES DOUGLAS

under Galvez. Until nine years later, or the year
1788, no further attempt was made to extend the
power of Spain to the northward. In the interval,
events of the utmost importance had taken place,
events which were ultinlately to loosen forever her
hold upon North America. Another and a more
aggressive nation had learned of the wealth of this
coast. "Then, in the year named, the Spaniards
sought once more to assert their claim, the seeds
had been planted for a contro\gersy that brought
them to the verge of war and all but set aflame a
general European conflict.

That other and more aggressive nation was, of
course, Great Britain. Since the days when Sir
Francis Drake had swept like a hurricane along the
coast of South America, laying, perhaps unwitting-
ly, in these and other exploits, the foundation of
the naval supremacy of his country, England had
risen from a fourth or fifth rate power, with little
territory, limited population and resources, and a
small and irregular army, to the first rank among
the powers of Europe. The triumph was almost
wholly one of commerce. After the defeat of the
Armada, trade had based itself upon the
aval
prowess of England and had thrust her steadily for-
,vard. By the end of the seventeenth century she
had eclipsed her greatest rival of commerce on the
high seas-the Dutch. So, too, in the eighteenth
century, the trading class of Great Britain was the
16

GREAT BRITAIN IN THE PACIFIC

first to recognize the importance of the Pacific.
The time was opportune. England was herself
firmly established on the Atlantic coast. France
was no longer a power in America; the Revo-
lution and Napoleon were as yet hidden in the
political future. Spain's recent endeavour to retain
her grasp on the Pacific and to justify her claims
to exclusive rights in its waters was but the
final effort of an expiring influence. Russia, a
more to be dreaded antagonist, had already for-
tified herself in the extreme north-west and was
known to have extended to the New ,V orld her
traditional policy of encroachment. Having con-
quered Siberia and established a trade with the
natives of the Alaskan archipelago, there had been
created a series of vested rights, more embarrassing
to Great Britain at this juncture than all the plans
of France and Spain combined. England, therefore,
was alive to her interests when she decided to
send expeditions at this tinle to delimit the shore
line of the continent. But the impelling motive was
commercial-to discover the passage, supposed,
somewhere between the 40th and 60th parallels, to
lead to the Atlantic. The key to the oriental trade,
more important even than the New ,V orld itself,
was thus the objective of the intrepid Cook and
Vancouver, and the fact is eminently characteristic
of British policy. It was left, too, in the end, to the
enterprise of commerce-to the Hudson's Bay
Company and the N orth- West Company-to con..
17

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI.JAS

serve for England her splendid domain in "\ì\T estern
America. The French Revolution and the ambition
of Napoleon withdre,v her energies, at a critical
moment, for the defence of her own shores and the
.
preservation of Europe; and these far off lands,
at that time as little known in the United States
as in the Old 'V orld itself, were left largely to
,vork out their own destinies.
The era of exploration that dawned with the
appearance of the British trader in these waters,
was included within the closing quarter of the
eighteenth century. It was the final and, in many
respects, the most brilliant in the history of dis-
covery in the Pacific. Great Bntain played the
leading rôle, but Russia, France and Spain were
only less active. The United States also plunged
with all the ardour of young nationhood into the
quest of glory over seas. \Vith the eager spirit
which had animated the earlier centuries of dis-
covery, the unexplored remainder of AInerica was
now made kno,vn to geographers, and the outlines
of the continent charted with approximate ac-
curacy. The ad\Tantages of Great Britain lay in
the superiority of her methods of navigation, the
ability of her seamen, the strength of her com-
nlercial fleet and her ,vorldwide trade, whereby
she was able to utilize immediately and to the
fullest extent the wealth of her discoveries. Thus
it happened that of all the nations her efforts were
the most persistent and her work the most pains-
18

THE NORTH-'YEST PASSAGE

taking and exact, and it ,vas ll1àinly through her
navigators that the ,vorld ".as finally enlightened
as to the character of the north-west coast. Spain
and Russia, though they sent out many expedi-
tions, added, in cornparison, but little of value.
The Spaniards, in particular, pursued a policy of
secrecy which robbed them of ll1uch credit. But
the inferiority of their mathematical instruments
would still have left thell1 handicapped in the
race with Great Britain. The work of Cook and
Vancouver demanded qualities of skill, as well as
of courage and endurance, that are not often dup-
licated in a single generation.
It is well to repeat, in connection with the voy-
ages of these two great cOlnmanders, that their
primary object was to survey the north-,vest coast
line, within specified paraHels of latitude, and to dis-
cover whether any opening existed such as might
lead to the Atlantic Ocean by the supposititious
North-west Passage, for the disco\?ery of which a
reward of twenty thousand pounds ,vas offered by
the British admiralty. The narrative of Juan de
Fuca, though long discredited, had not been for-
gotten. The latitude of de Fuca's opening was
between the 47th and 48th parallel. There was
also the reputed strait of Adlniral de Fonte, an-
other and wholly mythical explorer of the seven-
teenth century, near the 53rd parallel. The fam-
ous river of Oregon, reported by Jonathan Car-
ver, might even connect by some mysterious chan-
19

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

nel with the waters of the long sought Strait
of Anian. I t is not the first instance in history
in which a chimera, having laid hold of the popu-
lar imagination, paved the way for results more
Ílnportant than were claimed for the original
fancy.
In 1778, the famous navigator, Captain James
Cook, arrived on the north-west coast of America.
He had two ships, the Resolution and the Dis-
covery, and his instructions from the British gov-
ernment 'were to examine the coast line from
about 45 0 north latitude to the Arctic Ocean, and
to ascertain whether any large rivers, inlets or
arm.s of the sea extended to the eastward. Cook
first sighted the coast in latitude 44 0 north; but,
having been blown off shore by bad weather, the
strait of Juan de Fuca escaped his observation.
Land was next seen in the vicinity of a large
sound, latitude 49 0 30' north, in which Cook
anchored, l\larch 29th, 1778. After a few weeks
spent in refitting his vessels and refreshing their
crews, he continued on his northward voyage,
his men having obtained a valuable quantity of
furs during their stay. Cook named the bay in
which he had passed this interval King George's
Sound; but understanding afterwards that it was
called Nootka by the natives, it was re-named,
and has ever since been known as N ootka Sound.
It was Cook's intention, on leaving Nootka, to
proceed as speedily as possible to the part of
20

CAPTAIN COOK

the coast lying under the 65th parallel of lati-
tude; the violence of the weather, however, again
prevented him from approaching the land for
some days, and he was forced to leave unvisited
the region near the 53rd parallel where geogra-
phers had placed the strait of Fonte. Cook accord-
ingly denied the existence both of :Fonte's and
de Fuca's channels. After discovering and naming
the two large bays known as Prince William's
Sound and Cook's Inlet, and having stayed a short
time at U nalaska, Cook proceeded to the Arctic
Ocean, passing through the strait which he named
Behring in honour of the Danish navigator who
had first discovered it. Turning about, he set sail for
the Sandwich Islands, where he ,vas killed, Febru-
ary 14th, 1779. The ships then returned to Eng-
land. It was the report of these crews respecting
the boundless wealth in furs-to be had alrnost for
the asking on this coast-that aroused the Euro-
pean nations to action, and incited them, on Cook's
narrative being given to the world in 1784, to
plan still further expeditions and discoveries.

Had an independent state arisen in that early
time on the north-west coast, it might fittingly
have chosen the sea-otter as its emblem. To the
early navigators of the North Pacific the sea-otter
offered the same lure of fortune as the gold and
silver of Peru to the soldiers of Spain. The tales of
the dangers of the chase and of the enormous profits
21

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

read like romance. So eager and relentless was the
trade that the sea-otter was already rare ,vhen
British Colulnbia placed the wapiti and the
mountain sheep on its escutcheon; it has now
all but vanished, leaving no trace of the time when
it played so important a part in the history of the
region. "Tith its discovery by Cook a new era be-
gins in the story of maritime adventure in the
Pacific.
The earliest expedition having the trade in otter
primarily in view was made by James Hanna, an
Englishman, in the year 1785. The voyage was
eminently successful. Otter skins were purchased
from the natives for trinkets, and sold at enormous-
ly enhanced prices in China, then the world's market
for furs. About the same time, Guise, l\leares and
Tipping came from England on a similar errand.
.l\leares spent the winter of 1786-7 in Prince
"Tilliam's Sound, ,,,here lnore than half his crew
died of scurvy. Portlock and Dixon, fur traders
sailing from London in 1785, lnade the discovery
of the separation of the Queen Charlotte group
fron1 the mainland. The discovery was confinned
in 1788 by Duncan, who, with Colnett, arrived
on the coast prior to the departure of Portlock
and Dixon. This and the numerous openings found
in the shore-line, all presumably channels extending
far to the east,vard, led to the supposition that the
entire north-western portion of the American con-
tinent might be a vast collection of islands, and
22

'"THE SEA-OTTER

the story of t.he mythical de Fonte's voyage again
began to gain credit. It was at this time also that
the name of the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, was
rescued froln oblivion by the re-discovery of the
broad afln of the sea into which he declared
he had sailed in 1592. Barkley, an Englishman, in
command of the Imperial Eagle, a trader for
furs under the flag of the Austrian East India
Company, was, according to one version, the means
of rehabilitating de Fuca's fame. After the sale of
the Imperial Eagle in the East Indies in 1788,
Barkley made a second voyage to the north-\vest
coast in the brig Halcyon. He was accompanied
on both voyages by his wife, the first white woman,
so far as known, to visit these shores.
'Vith the separation of the American colonies
from Great Britain, a new element was introduced
into this growing commerce of the Pacific. 'The
moment the bond was broken, every skipper in
New England seemed to turn his thoughts seaward.
Great Britain being occupied in Europe and her
powerful competition therefore withdrawn, the
American ships were free to carry the new flag
wherever the ambition of trade might lead. And it
led far. Unrestrained, its sailors swept southward
to Cuba, to South America, and around Cape Horn.
In the year 1787, they made their first voyage to
the Pacific and the north- west coast, the ship
Columbia under I{endrick, and the sloop Lady
1Vasllington, under Gray of Boston, doubling Cape
23

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Horn together. The Lady 1Vaslzington arrived
at Nootka on the 17th September, 1788, and
remained there with her consort during the
whole of the following winter. They were still
in N ootka Sound in 1789. The Columbia, now
by an exchange of commanders, under Gray,
returned to Boston by way of China, arriving in
August, 1790, when she was received amid great
rejoicings, medals being struck in honour of the
ship that had first carried the flag of the United
States almost fifty thousand miles around the world.
l\Iean,vhile the Lady 1l T ashington, under Kendrick,
remained in N ootka Sound. In six ,veeks Gray had
refitted and had started again for the Pacific.
During' this voyage he was destined to make one
of the greatest discoveries in the annals of his
country. On l\Iay II th, 1792, he entered the
mouth of the Columbia River, accomplishing ,vhat
generations of navigators, Cook and Vancouver
among them, had sought in vain to do. On leaving
the river on l\lay 20th, he gave it the name
of his ship. The honour of the discovery has been
claimed by the Spaniards, and for Broughton, the
lieutenant of Vancouver, who subsequently entered
the riyer and sailed a hundred miles against its cur-
rent in the arn1ed brig Chatham ; but it undoubt-
edly belongs to Gray, one of the most modest and
worthy of the heroes of the Pacific. If the world
places Cook and Vancouver in the niches of its naval
heroes, Gray must be placed between them.
24

LA PÉROUSE

For Kendrick, the comrade of Gray, has been
claimed the credit of re-discovering the strait of
Juan de Fuca, though the matter is one of con-
troversy. l\letcalfe, a citizen of the United States,
visited N ootka in 1789 ; and Ingraham explored the
coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1791 in the
brig Hope. The latter left a very important
description of the geography and natural history
of the islands, and of the language, manners and
customs of the natives. "\\Tith the exception, how-
ever, of the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, the
passage of the strait of Juan de }1'uca by Kendrick,
and the cruise of the Hope, nothing of special
importance was achieved by American enterprise at
that period. For a time their traders wcre acti \-e
and numerous, but they followed trade alone, and
cared little for discovery or exploration.
The north-west coast about this period attrac-
ted the attention of other nations than Great
Britain and the United States. La Pérouse, a
distinguished naval officer of France, spent three
months in 1788, under orders from his govern-
ment, between the 52nd and 54th parallels, mak-
ing a scientific examination of the coast. He
was followed in 1791 by Etienne l\larchand, who,
in a merchant ship, followed much the same
course, leaving an account of his voyage in three
volumes. l\lalaspina, from whom the strait of
that name is called, in the same year endeavour-
ed, with t,vo Spanish ships, to deterInine in more
25

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

northern latitudes the existence of the Strait of
Anian. Important also in this connection was the
attempt of Elisa, in the summer of 1790, to explore
the strait of Juan de Fuca, his lieutenant, Quirnper,
examining both shores for a distance of one hundred
miles, but being unable, for lack of time, to follo,v
the many channels and inlets the general direction
of which was noted. l\Iany Spanish names were
given; few of them have survived. The Spaniards
undertook a permanent establishment at Friendly
Cove, N ootka, in 1790 ; and in 1792 endeavoured
to form a settlement at Neah Bay, near Cape Flat-
tery. From the former basis, Elisa, its commandant,
sent Fidalgo, his lieutenant, to examine the coast
to northward occupied by the Russians, and to en-
quire into the nature of their operations. lIe ac-
quired but little geographical inforlnation of value.
One of the Russian ships reported by him was
that which, in command of Joseph Billings, in
1790, visited U nalaska, N odiak and Prince 'Vil-
liam's Sound.
A voyage of the British captain, l\Ieares, in
1788, which is a part of this fur-trading chronicle,
owes its importance, not to any achievement of the
expedition itself, but to the diplomatic results
which it was the means, sometime later, of bring-
ing about. War with Spain was, for :it short season,
imminent, and the termination of the "N ootka
Affair," which had its origin in l\Ieares's operations
at Friendly Cove, gave to Britain the control of an
26

l\IEARES AT NOOTI{A

important territory, though the terms of the settle-
ment itself, as will be seen, opened the door to a
further series of controversies which were not finally
laid at rest until the fixing of the Oregon boundary
in 1846. In the year 1788 l\leares was at Canton,
China, engaged, with the assistance of some Eng-
lish merchants, in fitting out an expedition of two
vessels for the American trade,-the Felice and
the Iphigenia .l,rllbiana, comlnanded by himself and
Captain 'VilliaIn Douglas, respectively. The ships,
though British property and navigated by British
subjects, sailed under the Portuguese flag, and
were ostensibly owned by Don Cavallo & Co., of
l\Iacao, the object being to escape the heavy dues
levied by the Chinese authorities on the goods of
nations other than the Portuguese. On February
12th, the lphigenia sailed for Cook's River, and
the Felice for N ootka Sound, the latter arriv-
ing on l\lay 15th. The most notable native
chiefs of N ootka at that time were l\Iaquinna
and Callicum, with wholn l\feares cultivated friend-
ly relations, and by whom, and by the natives gen-
erally, he was warmly welcomed. It was l\Ieares's
purpose to establish at this point a post \vhich
might become the basis of the fur trade of the
future. 'Vith this in view, he purchased from
l\Iaquinna a tract of laud on the shore of Friendly
Cove for \vhich he paid some eight or ten sheets of
copper and other articles. Here he erected a sub-
stantial structure surrounded with breastworks and
27

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

armed with one cannon. The British flag was
hoisted and for the first time ,vaved above a formal
British possession on this coast. At Nootka, Meares
also built the first ship launched in what is now
British Columbia-the North-wcst Amcrica. Later
he explored the coast southward, narrowly missing
the mouth of the Columbia, and on his return en-
tered and examined the strait of Juan de Fuca for
some distance, taking possession of it in the name
of Great Britain. His ship, after again reaching
Friendly Cove, was joined by her consort the Iphi-
genia frorn Cook's River, with a large cargo of sea-
otter. I.later l\leares sailed for China with the furs,
while the Iphigenia and the North-west Am.erica
repaired to the Sandwich Islands.
The succeeding events which enter into the fam-
ous N ootka affair are too intricate to be more than
mentioned here. Douglas, with the Iphigenia and
the N ortlt-west A merica returned to N ootka in the
following year for the purpose of continuing the
fur trade. Thereupon both vessels were seized by
a Spanish ship of war commanded by l\lartinez,
who was under orders to assert the sovereignty of
the king of Spain throughout the Pacific Ocean.
Nootka, which the Spanish called Port San Lor-
enzo, was claimed by l\f, artinez by right of dis-
covery. Douglas, however, was able to show from
a chart of the voyage of the Santiago in 1775 that
Cook, and not the Spaniard, was the discoverer
of Nootka Sound. The Iphigenia was thereupon
28

THE NOOTKA AFFAIR

released by Mat:tinez, and the greater part of his
stores returned to Douglas, with the warning, how-
ever, that he was to trade no more on that coast.
Douglas subsequently sailed to the Queen Char-
lotte Islands and thence to China. Soon after, the
British ships Princess Royal and Argonaut, sent
from l\lacao by the Associated Companies to
trade on the north-west coast, were seized in like
manner, and, with the North-west America were
pressed into the service of Spain. The crew
of the N01.th-west A 117erica was sent to China on
the American ship Columbia then in those waters;
but the crews of the two other ships were
deported to San Bias, where they were treated
with cruelty. Nootka was taken formal possession
of and was occupied by Spain until 1795.
The dispute which immediately arose between
the governments of Great Britain and Spain forms
one of the most important chapters in the history
of the north-west coast. Not only a matter of
moment in itself, it was the basis for most of the
controversy that followed over the possession of this
territory. Spain, as we have seen, still claimed the
exclusive right to the western seas. All foreign
vessels found ,vithout license in these waters were
regarded as enemies, even though belonging to a
nation at peace with the king. No other country,
moreover, was held to have rights in any territory
to reach which it was necessary to pass around
Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan.
29

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI.JAS .

Such were the fancies still nursed by Spain in the
eighteenth century. It was doubtless the final
consciousness that the encroachment.s of' other
nations on her traditional sphere of influence
,vould effectively overthrow all semblance of her
right to exclusive sovereignty that induced Spain
now to make a final attempt to co.nfirm her
original claim. \Vhatever may be said of the un-
doubted priority of Spanish enterprise in the
Pacific, England had been more active in the ex-
ploration of' the north-west portion of it, and had
inaugurated, and now enjoyed, the greater part of
the trade in that part of the ,vorld. "Tithout other
grounds of sovereignty than the papal concession
of three hundred years before, which embraced
half the area of the world and included a continent
,vhich was not then known to exist, Spain's case,
on the threshold of the nineteenth century, and
within sixty years of the freedoln of Italy, stood
on a tottering basis.
When the news of the seizures reached England,
a vigorous protest was iInmediately lodged with
the Spanish government. Pitt, then at the zenith
of his power, united a profound knowledge of
Spanish decrepitude with a wholesome belief in
the ability of Great Britain to defend her own
interests. The Spanish government, more skilled in
the arts of intrigue than of statesmanship, and seek-
ing at first to evade the issue, ,vas met with a dem-
onstration in force. The principle that "British sub-
30

THE NOOTKA CONVENTION

jects have an indisputable right to the enjoyment
of a free and uninterrupted navigation, COlnmerce
and fishery, and to the possession of such establish-
ments as they should form, with the consent of
the natives of the country, and not occupied by
any other European nation," was enunciated with
emphasis. Spain, whose power had rapidly de-
clined, could not risk a \var with England. After
repeated conferences, she agreed to restore the
seized vessels, to indemnify the owners for their
losses, and to give satisfaction to the dignity of the
British Cro,vn. It was understood at the saIne time
that the Spanish declaration "was not to preclude
or prejudice the ulterior discussion of any right
which His Catholic l\lajesty might claim to form
an exclusive establishment at N ootka Sound." The
amount of indemnity was fixed by a commission at
$210,000. This was handed over to the owners of
the property which had been seized, and N ootka
and the adjoining territory were restored to the
British Crown.
Into the final settlement a number of considera-
tions entered which deprived Great Britain of
much of the strength of her position. Pitt was
undoubtedly determined, in the event of war, to
strike a blow at the Spanish Empire in America.
Spain, however, by the terms of the Family Com-
pact, had the ear of France. The times were not
happy for England. The French Revolution was
already brewing; Europe was arming; and a series
31

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

of continental alliances left Great Britain isolated.
"Tith a diIninished credit, the government leaned
towards a peaceful solution of the difficulty; and
apart froln the restitution of property and the re-
paration made for losses and acts of violence, the
treaty left the situation in the north-west coast to
all intents unaltered. In parliament it \vas vigorously
attacked as a capitulation to Spain. Fox pointed
out that it enlarged the area. of dispute, and pre-
dicted a renewal of the difficulty. In this, time
proved Fox right. The prestige of the country,
however, had been vindicated; and the govern-
ment, with a large majority at its back, was glad
to be rid of an embarrassing situation. In the light
of history it may be regretted that motives of
temporary expediency, in this as in other instances,
should have dictated the policy of Great Britain
with regard to her interests in America. There
were at that period only two other claimants to
the Pacific coast, Spain and Russia. The latter had
undoubtedly no rights south of the 60th parallel,
while the former had established no title to the
coast north of the 38th parallel which was superior
to that of Great Britain. A decisive stroke might
have secured the states of Washington, Oregon
and a large portion of California, for all time to
come.
Pursuant to the terms of the Nootka conven-
tion, commissioners were appointed by the govern-
ments of Spain and Great Britain to effect the
32

VANCOUVER AND QUADRA

formal act of restitution. The men selected were
George ,r ancouver, and one whose intrepidity has
been already witnessed, Bodega y Quadra. 'V or-
thier representatives of the two great powers, it
,vould have been impossible to choose. Steadfast
as they both ,vere in enforcing the claims of their
sovereigns, and zealous to the last degree for the
rights of their respective countries, each, neverthe-
less, could recognize in the other high courage,
splendid ability and true greatness of character.

Vhile honour forbade compromise, they neverthe-
less became firm friends and to the last maintained
the highest admiration for each other. Their names
will forever remain associated as two of the great-
est in the history of the north-west coast.
Though the commissioners had explicit instruc-
tions from their governments as to the manner in
which Nootka should be handed over, they inter-
preted their orders in a widely different spirit.
Quadra maintained that restitution ,vas required
only of the buildings and lands that had been
occupied by British subjects; and as, from due
inquiry, he could find no evidence of such occupa-
tion, he argued that there was nothing to be paid
for by Spain. Vancouver, on the other hand, held
that, under the terms of the convention, Great
Britain was entitled to the possession of the whole
of the territory surrounding N ootka and Clayo-
quote VVidely divergent evidence was offered in
support of the opposing claims. The immediate
33

SIR .JAl\lES DOUGLAS

result was that the commissioners, unable to come
to a satisfactory understanding, referred the dis-
pute back to their respective governments, Noot-
ka remaining in the interval under the Spanish
flag.
Vancouver with his two ships, the Ðið'covery
commanded by himself, and the brig Cllatlta11l,
under Broughton, who had previously surveyed the
coast from Cape l\Iendocino northward, now pro-
ceeded to the second and lnost important part of
his commission-the thorough exploration of the
whole north-west shore line. The aim, as ever, \vas
to solve the problem of the north-west passage; it
was also to establish England's claim to the coast
between K ev{ Spain on the south, and Russian
.r\.merica on the north. The ,york of 'T ancouver
and his lieutenants in this connection was so
Ininute as to be final. The summers of 1792, 1798
and 17
4 ,vere spent on the coast, and the obser-
vations included every bay, cape and channel from
San Francisco to Behring Sea. The winters were
passed at the Sand"wich Islands. On his untiring
energy success attended from first to last, and his
work remains the most extensive nautical survey
ever completed in one expedition. To Vancouver,
accordingly, ,ve owe in large measure the nomen-
clature of the North Pacific coast. In the names
which he chose lnany were of persons distinguish-
ed in the official life of his day; lnany were of
humble members of his crew.
84

RESTORATION OF NOOTKA

Vancouver sailed, for the last time, from the
north-west coast on October 16th, 1794. On Christ-
mas Day of that year, being still at sea, he finds it
of interest to record that the cre'v did not fail to
drink in silence to the memory of Quadra, who had
died some time before. He ,vas to be followed soon
by Vancouver himself. The friendship of the two
men was cemented by the name given by Van-
couver to the great island of the mid-Pacific coast,
for long afterwards kno\vn as "Quadra and V an-
couver Island." In the efflux of time, the Spaniards
having abandoned the coast altogether, the name
Quadra 'was dropped and the temporary triumph at
Nootka ,vas thus avenged at the expense of one of
the most noble of his race. In the settlement of the
N ootka affair also, \T ancouver's view in the end pre-
vailed, and on the morning of l\Iarch 28th, 1795,
Lieutenant Pierce and Brigadier-General Alca,
representing respectively the governments of Eng-
land and Spain, completed the act of restitution,
and the British flag \vas hoisted, never again to be
hauled down.
\Vhen Vancouver was at Point Gray, in the
Gulf of Georgia, near the site of the present city
of \T ancouver, he fell in with two Spanish vessels
of "Tar, the Sutil and the J..1Iexicana, com-
manded respectively by Lieutenants Galiano and
,r aldez. They were small and badly equipped, and
they were the last sent by Spain into the North
Atlantic Ocean for purposes of discovery. The
85

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

expedition has this distinction, however, that it is
the only one, since that of Vizcaino, of which an
adequate account has been given to the world
with the sanction of the Spanish government. The
journal of Galiano and Valdez was published at
lVladrid in 1802, by order of the king, with an
introduction which included an historical sketch of
the earlier voyages of the Spaniards on the coasts of
America north of l\lexico. The introduction is now,
naturally, the most valuable part of the work.
Notwithstanding its activity for a time, Spanish
exploration had resulted in nothing. No colonies
were established; no trade was built up; no terri-
tory was acquired. A few names dotting the maps
of the coast-Haro, Valdez, Texada, San Juan,
and the like-are all that remain to show the
once all-powerful influence of Spain. The ma-
jority even of these have been replaced by the
names given by English navigators, particularly
those of ,r ancouver, and are known to-day only to
the Inap- maker and the student of early coast
history.
It may be added that Great Britain herself, for
a long time after the date of the Nootka Treaty,
ceased to take further interest in the territory
which it affected. The victory, in fact, was one of
diplomacy alone. For many years a thousand miles
of the Pacific coast was in reality a "no man's
land," and it is in no sense due to the prescience of
the statesmen of the early nineteenth century that
86

RUSSIA IN Al\IERICA

it is British territory to-day. We must remember,
of course, in mitigation of the indifference felt by
Great Britain as to its future, the circumstances
and conditions of the times, the remoteness of the
region and the almost total lack of knowledge
concerning it. It was the fur trade, not the nation,
which pushed its way overland into this western
empire, and carried with it the supremacy of the
British flag and the authority of British law.

Several terrible encounters with the Indians
occurred when the trade was at its height. In
1803, the American ship Boston was destroyed
by the natives of Nootka Sound, all the crew
being murdered, with the exception of the ar-
mourer and the sailmaker who were kept in slavery
for four years by that chief 1tIaquinna who figured
so prominently in Vancouver's and Quadra's day.
In 1805, the A tahualpa, of Rhode Island, was
attacked by the savages of l\1illbank Sound, and
her captain, mate and six seamen killed, after
which the sailors succeeded in repelling the assail-
ants and saving the vessel. In the same manner the
Tonquin of Boston, the first vessel of the As-
torians, was in June, 1811, attacked by the natives
while at anchor in Clayoquot Sound and the entire
crew massacred.

We may turn now to the other great power that
had entrenched itself, even more securely than
87

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI
AS

Great Britain, on the north-western coast, a power
that has menaced at more points than one the
advance of the British Empire. In 1788 Haro, on
the return of a Spanish expedition from Alaska,
wrote to San BIas that he had found Russian
establishments between the 59th and 60th parallels.
The results of that occupation were still alive in
the Behring Sea and Alaska boundary disputes
of the present generation.
In Siberia, as in the northern part of the
Alnerican continent, the stimulus to early adventure
and exploration had come from the fur trade. By
the middle of the se\renteenth century the Russians
had pushed their way into that vast and desolate
territory, and, early in the eighteenth, had com-
pleted the conquest of the whole of northern Asia.
Rich in furs of all kinds, the newly acquired possess-
ion afforded a fruitful field for exploitation, the
n10re so on account of its proximity to the markets
of China, with which trade relations were speedily
established. Communication was provided by means
of caravans, a system somewhat analogous to the
brigades of the Hudson's Bay Company. But in
trade it is what lies just beyond that lures. Expedi-
tions from the northern rivers of Siberia had by
1648 found their way around the north-eastern ex-
tremity of Asia into Behring Strait, and at least
one vessel was driven by storlll in that year upon
the coast of I{amtchatka. After repeated adventures
of this kind and the establishment of intercourse
88

DISCOVERIES OF BEHRING

with the natives of this far-off region, Kamtchatka
was definitely included in the territory of the
traders. But accounts were no'v brought back of
still another continent looming beyond the islands
of these northern seas. \Vas it America? Or was it
a ne,v land altogether-wedged in between the
eastern shores of Asia and the western limits of
America? Peter the Great, his ambition unap-
peased by the subjugation of Siberia, resolved
to emulate the conquests of his European rivals in
the New World. To this end he equipped an ex-
pedition under Vitus Behring, a Dane attracted to
the Russian service, whose heroic career received
scant justice from his o,vn age. Sailing from Kamt-
chatka in 1728, Behring passed through the strait
which separates Asia frOlll America and satisfied
himself on the then disputed point whether the
continents were two or one. In that and the follow-
ing year, however, he did little to determine the re-
lative position of tbe new land.
It is unnecessary, for the present purpose, to detail
the various stages by which the conclusions of
Behring's first voyage were confir-med and amplified.
A later expedition, under the same unflinching cap-
tain, set out after an interval of three years, and
was prolonged until his death. It succeeded in
reaching the 53rd parallel of latitude, discover-
ing the Shumagin Islands and the aborigines.
The latter were, in the main, like those of
N orthem Asia, and though they had never seen
89

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

white men before, they had knives and other articles
of iron and copper, which it was supposed they had
obtained through trade with the Siberian natives.
Behring's final expedition was one of terrible hard-
ships. He was by this time old and imbecile. Worn
by sickness and anxiety, he died, on November
28th, 1741, on an island on which his ship had
been driven by stress of weather. The island was
afterwards named in his honour, as well as the great
northern sea and strait in which so much of his
activity had been displayed. With Behring were
associated Chirikoff, scarcely less unfortunate, and
the naturalist Groyers, who also lost his life.
The last voyage of Behring had one very im-
portant result : it laid the foundations of the trade
in furs between Russia and the Amel"ican continent.
In the privations of the expedition, provisions
failed, and the crew were forced to subsist for a time
on the flesh of sea-otter-" sea beaver" as they were
called by the Russians-which they hunted and
killed. The skins were preserved, and on the return
of the ships brought extravagant prices from the
Chinese merchants. News of this character was not
long in reaching the ears of the Siberian traders.
From this chance beginning, a series of private
expeditions were soon racing each other across the
Pacific with the object of the new trade in otter.
They were continued in ever-increasing numbers
over a period of a quarter of a century or In ore.
Incidentally they added much to the knowledge
40

THE PRO!\IISHI
ENIKS

of the islands between Kamtchatka and Am-
erICa.
In all the long annals of commercial enterprise,
lawful and unrighteous, the traffic of these Russian
adventurers has been surpassed in horrors by one
and one only-the African slave trade. The vessels
were small, many of them built of green planks
lashed with deer sinew or thongs of walrus hide to
the timbers, and caulked váth moss. The traders
themselves, known to the Russians as Prornish-
leniks, were the riff-raff of Siberia, criminals often,
though sometimes of noble, even of royal, lineage,
amenable only to passion and the law of greed.
Being nearly all landsmen, they sailed usually by
dead reckoning alone. It is not surprising that
numbers of their crazy craft were annually cast
away. The crews were the victims of unheard-of
cruelties, as well as suffering every conceivable
hardship from cold, starvation and disease. In addi-
tion, they were attacked and murdered on every
available opportunity by the natives, in revenge
for the enforcement of levies, the debauching of
their women, and the slaughter and enslavement
of their men by the traders,-ending in a state of
open war that twice wiped Russian settlement
from the coast of America. Yet, prompted as were
these expeditions by lust and avarice, accompanied
by many of the most revolting atrocities that ever
disgraced the name of humanity, it is impossible to
withhold a tribute of admiration for the energy
41

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

with which voyage after voyage was made, or for
the courage, stubborn as it was reckless, displayed
by the traders amidst their appalling difficulties.
As a matter of fact, the outrages of the place and
period were not confined to the Promishleniks, but
characterized the ,vhole Russian administration.
They were contrary to the express instructions of
the government; but, as the Russian proverb said:
"God was high in the Heavens, and the Czar was
.{.' "

ar away.
The immediate successor of Peter the Great
continued the policy of expansion begun by that
sovereign. Synd, Krenitzin and I.levaschef com-
Inanded explorations to America between 1764
and 1769. The first cargo of furs to enter Canton
by ship was carried by a party of Polish exiles
who escaped from Kamtchatka, and under the
Polish flag cruised through Behring Sea and mnong
the Aleutian Islands. rrhe story of this desperate
venture is in itself nlaterial for a romance. No ex-
peditions of note followed for some years after-
\vards. Up to the time of Cook, notwithstanding
the number of Russian vessels that had been in
Alaskan waters, no exact geographical knowledge
had been gained respecting that portion of the
coast, and the errors in recorded latitudes and
longitudes were sOlnetimes very great.
In 1781, Ivan Golikoff, the celebrated Gregory
Skelikoff, and other Russian fur merchants, or-
ganized themselves into a formal trading associa-
42

THE RUSSIAN Al\fERICAN COl\IP ANY

tion. There was need enough for organization of
some sort. Four years after Behring's discovery of
the sea-otter, seventy-seven Russian concerns were
hunting in the islands of Alaska. This was the
beginning of the Alaskan fur monopoly, later to
become of international irnportance. A rival com-
pany was formed in 1797, but was soon after ab-
sorbed into what was known as the Skelikoff
United Trading Company. Still another company
was projected in the following year. In 1709, how-
ever, the Emperor Paul took all the rival traders
under his protection, consolidated their interests,
and granted them a charter for twenty years as
the Russian American Company, with sole control
over the coasts of America north of the 55th paral-
lel of latitude. Their obligations were: to organize
settlements; to promote agriculture, trade and
discovery; to propagate the Greek Catholic faith;
and, without interfering with the rights of other
nations, to extend the influence and sovereignty of
Russia in the Pacific. The capital was fixed at
ninety-eight thousand silver roubles.
Without going into details as to this highly or-
ganized company which, in the nature and extent
of its powers and in the vastness of the territory
over which it ruled, resembled the Hudson's Bay
Company, it may be stated that its sway was
virtually absolute in the country, even to the
life of the inhabitants. All persons and property
were under the control of the chief director,
48

SIR JAl\iES DOUGLAS

who lived in Kadiak, and from whom there ,vas no
appeal except to a board of governors far away
at Irkutsk. Its regulations were in general just and
humane; but their enforcement was entrusted to
men with whom justice and humanity were sub-
servient always to interest and expediency, and
sometimes to baser passions. Baranoff, one of the
most picturesque figures of his time, ruling for
twenty years like a despot over the colonies from
his castle overlooking the village of Sitka, may be
taken as the outstanding type of the local Russian
governor, iron-hearted, iron-framed, bold, shrewd,
unscrupulous, alternating days of toil with nights
of revel on raw and fiery vodlt'a, a Peter the
Great in Ininiature among vagabonds and adven-
turers.
I t was part of the policy of Russia, in pursuance
of a method already traditional, to establish her
power in America to the exclusion of all other
nations north of the Spanish zone. To this end, dur-
ing the régime of Baranoff, Von Resanoff was dis-
patched to plant Russian colonies at the mouth
of the Columbia and on the Californian coast. In
this he failed. Searching for the estuary of the Col-
umbia,-at the very time, it may be noted, that
Lewis and Clark, the pioneers of discovery over-
land from the United States, were leaving their
winter quarters at Clatsop,-he either missed it
altogether or was unable to cross the bar, and so
passed on to California. Later, however, in 1812, a
44

LATER RUSSIAN ENTERPRISE

Russian colony was established on Bodega Bay by
Kuskoff, and was known for many years as the
Ross, that is, the Russian, settlement. I t con-
tinued with varying fortunes until 1841, when it
was purchased by the American trader, Sutter, for
$30,000. These operations are of importance in the
light of the claim later advanced that the Russian
A merican Company controlled the whole Pacific
coast of America and adjacent islands, from
Behring Strait to the mouth of the Columbia.
That famous company, it may be added, main-
tained its existence through a long and chequered
career, renewing its charter from time to time
until 1861, when it fell into decay and was not
again revived.
A word may be added in completion of this
hasty outline. Baranoff died in 1819, broken-hearted
by his recall. Thereafter, a more enlightened and
humañe policy was introduced, and many of the
old abuses were removed or abated. Baron W ran-
gell, who had followed Baranoff as director-gen-
eral, was succeeded in 1836 by KuprianofL In
1840, Adolphus Etoline, a young admiral of noble
birth, became governor. The splendour of his
rule was in startling contrast with the ways of
Baranoff, who lived in Spartan simplicity and
ruled "rithout ruffles. In still greater contrast was
the luxury of Etoline's castle with the squalor of
the village surrounding it. It was Etoline whom
Douglas visited as an officer of the Hudson's Bay
45

SIR JAl\tIES DOUGLAS

Company in 1842, in connection with affairs of bus i-
ness between the two companies.
During the period of Russian occupation, and
especially between the date of Cook's voyage and
the beginning of the nineteenth century, continuous
activity was displayed in the exploration of the
north-west coast, with more particular reference to
the portion now included in Alaska. In addition to
the voyages already mentioned, many expeditions
of note were undertaken both on private and official
initiative. Those of Lastochkin and Pribyloffin 1787;
of Ismyloff, Becharefl: and Delareff in 1788; of
Joseph Billings and Martin Sauer in 1769 and 1791 ;
of Khwostoff and Davidoff in 1802 ; of Krusenstern
and Lisiansky in 1803 and subsequent years; of
Kiskoff in 1808; of Kotzebue in 1816 and 1823;
of Baron Wrangell and Etoline in 1820 and 1822;
are worthy of special mention. The most important
of all, no doubt, were the explorations of Krusen-
stem and Lisiansky, of .which a full account is
given in the journal of Krusenstern himself, a mine
of information on all points relating to Russian
enterprise on the North Pacific coast.
The story of Russia in North America is singu-
larly sordid and unattractive where it is not merely
terrible. The stem Alaskan coast has its intervals
of warmth and sunshine; but there is no time in the
period of Russian sovereignty that is not gloomy and
forbidding, overcast with heavy clouds of human
suffering and despair.
46

THE PASSING OF THE NAVIGATOR

In the foregoing pages it has been sought to
trace, in outline, the salient features of that long
and stirring period during which the coast line of
America, stretching for twelve thousand miles from
Cape Horn to Behring Sea, became kno\vn-at
what a price of sacrifice and endeavourJ-to human
enterprise. The story of the period, it was seen,
divided itself naturally into three parts, correspond-
ing in the main with the activities of three great
nations,-Spain, Russia and Great Britain. \Ve may
include the last even here, because, while her oc-
cupation of the middle coast was never until later
times as definite as that of her rivals in the north
and south, she was finally, after a long ihterval of
diplomacy, to establish herself permanently within
her sphere, while the others have vanished from the
continent. 'Vith Vancouver, the era of discovery
came to an end. Thenceforward the field of the ex-
plorer was shifted to the Arctic Ocean, where his
continued activity is of interest as showing the
tenacity with which the British clung to the idea of
a north-west passage. l\ferchant vessels from the
United States and other countries continued
meanwhile to come and go at intervals. With
the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Con)pany
at Fort Vancouver in 1824 a regular trade with
England, by way of Cape Horn, sprang up. The
date of the Beaver, the first steamship in the Paci-
fic, was 1835. The coastwise trade developed later,
until, within a few years, as the Pacific became
47

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

more and more the meeting place of East and
West, the merchant marine employed in its service
had multiplied into a powerful fleet. We have now,
however, to turn from the tale of seafaring trade
and adventure to the pioneers of travel overland,
to the scouts and convoys of the fur-traders who,
by sled, ox-cart and canoe, opened up, over a net-
work of trails and great rivers as perIlous as the
ocean itself, a way of communication across the
plains and mountains of the west and on to the
Pacific. -

48

CHAPTER II

THE TRAVELLER OVERLAND

I N the record of coastwise exploration, of ,vhich
a brief account was given in the preceding
chapter, it \vill have been noted that the explorers,
if they landed at all, did not ordinarily venture
beyond gunshot of the waters whereon their vessels
rode, and that the information they brought back
related entirely to the" configuration of the shore or
to the animal life which teemed in the adjacent
seas. The traveller overland was scarcely possible
until the sailor had supplied him with a sure ob-
jective; but his advent, when at last he came, had
a more immediate significance for the country. He
came as the forerunner of the trade that had
already opened up the ,vhole of the interior con-
tinent and that is notable in history for the fierce
rivalry with which it sought new worlds to con-
quer. 'Vith the first dip of his paddle in the tumul-
tuous upper waters of the western slope, the hour
of civilization for that mighty region may be said
to have struck; while with the firm establishment
of the fur trade as the dominant local influence
we are come at once to a period from which condi-
tions began-tentatively at first, but in accordance
with a definite process-to take on the form ,vhich
was destined to be final. The sailor showed the
49

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

way, but it was the overland traveller who entered
in and took possession.
There is a wealth of rnaterial bearing on this
important epoch in the settlement of the continent.
The Pacific slope, no less than the border lands of
Canada and New England, was the rneeting place
of many an old-time jealousy; and many political
currents of the great world sent their waves into
that distant territory. Europe and the ne\v-born
republic lay behind-the iInmediate fountains of
energy; before, was all the glamour of the ancient
East, to which, even yet, America could be thought
of as a stepping-stone. But our concern must first
be with the rnen whose unconquerable will and
daring were needed before any nation could lay
claim to the land-with the traveller and the
trader who were the first to scale the rnighty
barrier of the rnountains and to penetrate the
fertile valleys that lay beyond.
It is a singular tribute to tenacity of purpose
(the wish being father to the thought) that the
search for the N orth- ,-,rest Passage furnished a rno-
tive hardly less powerful for the earliest expeditions
overland than for those that had been undertaken
by sea. The firm belief in the existence of an ice-
free channel did not end with the conclusive
voyages of Cook and Vancollver. In England
especially, when almost every other nation had
abandoned the pursuit, a stubborn confidence
remained. From Frobisher, Gilbert and Davis,
50

THE NORTH-\VEST PASSAGE

in the sixteenth century, through Hudson, Barrow
and Baffin in the seventeenth, to Ross, Franklin
and l\IcClintock in the nineteenth, the tradition
on the Atlantic seaboard had been handed on.
But, long before the navigator gave over the quest,
other agencies had been invoked. One of the most
frequent complaints against the Hudson's Bay
Company in the eighteenth century was that it had
done little to develop the land acquired by its char-
ter, and, especially, that it had nlade no serious
effort to find a shorter route to the Pacific. IIence
the expeditions of Hearne, Rae, and Simpson,
on behalf of the company, and the discovery of the
Coppermine River in 1769. Hence, also, with a
shifting of the scene and leading actors, the historic
voyage of Alexander l\Iackenzie to the mouth of
the river bearing his name, and his expedition later
to the Pacific-efforts fruitless in so far as their
immediate objective was concerned, but rich be-
yond measure in ultimate results for his country
and for humanity. The subject proper of this
chapter may begin with l\fackenzie.

I t is not necessary in referring to the N orth- West
Company, whose servant l\lackenzie was, to do
lnore than lnention that it was organized at Mont-
real in 1784, and that its object was to secure the
trade of the remoter Indian territories without fear
or. favour of the Hudson's Bay Company, a rival
with which its members were unable separately to
51

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

contend. For the nonce, success attended the ven-
ture; the ancient and more powerful rival was out-
stripped; and to the North-West Company fell the
honour of being the first to send its men into the
country of the Pacific slope. The company was, in
effect, a consolidation of the interests of a number
of independent merchants, trading across a territory
t\VO and even three thousand miles in extent, and
so beset with difficulties that years often elapsed
between the first capture and final delivery of the
furs. The traffic was carried on through coureurs de
bois and voyageurs, that unique and ever fascinating
type indigenous to this continent-their home, the
forest and the plain ; their instincts, those of the
wildest nornad; their pleasures, feasting and song;
their literature-oral, as among all prin1itive
peoples-the chan,yon and conte; their calling,
hunting and trapping, and the wielding of the
paddle and the axe over river and portage. Of such
,vas the domain to which the lad l\Iackenzie came.
I ts dominion was the whole boundless west.
The portraits of Sir Alexander Mackenzie reveal
a personality in which strength of intellect and pur-
pose was suffused and exalted by the imagination
which belongs to the true artist. 'ìVithout rashness or
impetuosity, he possessed a will and energy of the
most indomitable; and his well-balanced Scottish
rnind and his instinct for detail enabled him, without
danger, to cherish the greatest resolves and to risk the
largest undertakings. Of Stornoway parentage, he
52

ALEXANDER J\fACKENZIE

earlyernigrated to Canada and was bound appren-
tice to the fur trade. At thirty-four years old, we
find him risen to the cornmand of Fort Chipewyan
on Athabaska Lake, in the rnidmost of the vast
expanse that lies between Hudson Bay, the Arctic
and the Pacific. l\lackenzie knew of the discover-
ies of Hearne and longed, both for his own and his
company's fame, to rival or eclipse them. Fort
Chipewyan had, in fact, been built as much with
discovery as with trade in vie,v. It was from this
point, accordingly, that he set out in 1789 to find,
and afterward to trace, the great river of the north
-the l\Iackenzie, as he named it in reasonable
pride-to its delta in the Arctic Ocean, near-
ly a thousand miles distant, and to satisfy him-
self and the world of the futility of seeking a route
beyond to the Atlantic. On his return, he had al-
ready resolved to attempt the more dangerous
passage westward to the Pacific, where ",vhite
men wearing armour" were to be n1et, according
to Indian legend, doubtless referring to Quadra's
Spaniards. But the task required special prepara-
tion ; and l\Iackenzie deferred its execution until
he had visited England, where he made care-
ful study of the narratives of Cook and other
navigators and acquired a more perfect knowledge I
of astronomical instruments. Thus equipped, he re-
turned to Western Canada. Leaving Fort Chipe-
wyan on October 10th, 1792, he set forth on his
memorable journey.

53

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

The route lay by the Peace River, nine hundred
miles to the foot of the Rocky l\fountains, where
l\lackenzie erected a fort and spent the winter. By
June 12th, 1793, he had ascended that difficult
river to its source. Crossing the height of land, he
found within a rnile of the Peace a small stream
flo\ving southward. This was the Tacouche Tesse,
afterwards the Fraser, the rnouth of \vhich was al-
ready known to the sailors of the Pacific, but \vhich
had never been seen inland before. .l\Iackenzie fol-
lowed its course in the belief that he had found the
long-sought river Oregon; but learning from the
tatives, some two hundred miles below, that a
shorter route to the sea could be taken overland, he
retraced his steps to a branch, named afterwards
the 'ìV est Road River, and proceeded for the rest
of the journey on foot. On July 20th, at the
mouth of the Bella Coola, he came upon the Pacific.
I t would be hard to overstate the difficulties and
dangers as well as the importance of l\lackenzie's
journey. As the crow flies, over a thousand rniles of
rugged mountain and treacherous water\vay lies
between Fort Chipcwyan and the Pacific. The
'wandering of De Soto and his Spaniards in the wild
country of the Gulf of l\Iexico, the crossing of the
Rockies by the Astor traders, or the famous ride of
'Vhitman from the Oregon to the city of Washing-
ton rnay equal it perhaps as feats of endurance; yet
the self-imposed and unflinchingly executed task of
l\Iackenzie forms a record of courage and resource-
54

ACHIEVEl\IENT OF l\fACKENZIE

fulness such as the annals of few nations can display.
Geographically, the voyage was an additional blow
-all but the final one-at the notion of a North-
\Vest Passage. l\Iackenzie, gazing at the Pacific after
the long battle with the Rockies and the wilderness,
is an incomparably greater figure than Balboa-nay,
is worthy of being named with Columbus himself.
He had penetrated a vast and unknown continent
still in a condition of untarned nature and offering
every obstacle of rapid river, impenetrable forest,
sky-towering lllountain, and the extremes of a vari-
able climate. At every step new dangers confronted
him. Strange skies or the lodges of hostile savages
were his only roof. Tribes who had never before
seen white men had to be awed or conciliated. He
was Inany a time face to face with starvation and
with the mutiny begotten of despair. His final suc-
cess was alrnost a rniracle of victory. He is his own
historian in a narrative that stands with that of
Caesar for simple dignity and plain truthfulness.
Napoleon had it translated into French and it be-
came one of his favourite books-an eminent re-
cognition by one master mind of the greatness
of another.
His body lies in the churchyard of A voch,
beside that of his gifted and beautiful wife, Lady
Geddes l\lackenzie, who survived until 1860. The
stone at his head bears the record of his wonderful
life. But his sufficient title to fame was the legend
roughly painted by his own hand on a rock on the
55

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

shores of the Pacific: " ALEXANDEU MACKENZIE, FUOl\I
CANADA, BY LA
D,THE T'JVENTY-SECO
D Of' JULY, ONE
THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY -THREE."

lackenzie's expedition was the beginning of
a new life for the country west of the Rocky
l\Iountains. Out of the territory which he traversed
in that famous journey were formed, before a
quarter of a century had passed, t\VO great dis-
tricts-the one, New Caledonia; the other and
more celebrated, Oregon. These areas received
their titles from circumstances in themselves
of interest to history. Nearly all the traders
and proprietors of the N orth- West Company
were of Scottish birth or descent, and the region of
the Peace, through which the fur trade followed
.l\Iackenzie, was named in honour of their rugged
Dative land. By the title of New Caledonia the
north-eastern portion, and often the whole, of
British Colurnbia was for a long time known.
Strictly speaking, the district occupied a huge
triangle, the base of which extended from the
southernmost point of Alaska to the Rocky l\Ioun-
tains, containing the greater part of the present
districts of Cassiar and Cariboo. The rest of British
Columbia was included in the far extending region
to the south and west known as Oregon. The
Ineaning and origin of the word are wholly ob- .
scure. Jonathan Carver, an early traveller in the
interior of the continent, refers in 1779 to the Oregon
'56

DAVID TI-fOl\lPSON

River, of which he had heard from the natives,
or had read, perhaps, in the narratives of others.
Whether Carver invented the name, whether he
mistook the title current among the Indians, or
whether the word itself has since perished from
their language, remains unknown. In process of
time the territory westward through which the
river was supposed to flow came also to be known
as Oregon or the Oregon Territory. Some years
later, as we know, a river, the mouth of which had
previously been sighted by Heceta the Spaniard,
was discovered by Gray of Boston and named the
Columbia. Thenceforward the two names, Oregon
and Columbia, were applied indifferently to the
same vague territory. It happened, accordingly,
when the western boundary line between the
United States and Canada was fixed at the 49th
parallel, that the country north of it was called
British Columbia, to distinguish it from the por-
tion lying south of the line. Here, for fifty years after
the discoveries of l\Iackenzie, was the scene of action
of the men who made the history of the Pacific
coast. The day of the navigator, except as an
auxiliary to the fur trader and the landsman, had
forever passed away.
After l\lackenzie, the first to enter the interior of
British Columbia were David Thompson and Simon
Fraser. Both were employees of the N orth- West
Company. Thompson, who was an astronomer, had
been previously in the service of the Hudson's Bay
57

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Company, making surveys of its eastern territories.
After joining the rival enterprise, he had travelled
north and south throughout the region immediately
east of the Rocky l\lountains, from the Peace into
the heart of the l\Iandan country, obtaining a gen-
eral knowledge of the inhabitants and of the state
of the fur trade. Combining a scientific training with
experience in the methods of commerce, Thompson
,vas in valuable to the company for the work in
which he was for so Inany years engaged. After
several ineffectual attempts to cross the mountains
south of l\Iackenzie's point of ingress, Thompson
penetrated into the interior of the Bow River Pass,
through which the Canadian Pacific Rail way now
enters the Rockies. This was in 1805. The hostility
of the natives soon after cOlnpelled his returñ, but
on a second expedition he discovered Howe's Pass,
reached the Columbia Ri\Ter, ascended it to its
source, and built Fort K:ootenay. Thompson, in
fact, stands in the highest rank among early
travellers in British Columbia. He was the first
to explore the Kootenay District; he was the
discoverer of the A thabaska Pass; he descend-
ed the Columbia, (and as far as the Lewis River he
,vas the first to do so,) proclaiming the sovereignty
of Britain at the junction of the Spokane, and all
but forestalling the establishment of the Astorians
at its lnouth. But this is to anticipate somewhat.
Three years before Thompson had completed his
work in 1811 and had returned to Eastern Canada
58

SIl\;10N FRASER

(where he ended his days in poverty) Fraser and
other members of the N orth- 'iV est Company had
achieved an even more signal success in the race
for trade, incidentally ,vinning for their country
a domain that is one of the most cherished in its
possession to-day.
. As the result of a conference held in 1805 at Fort
Willialn, the headquarters of the company, the
task of extending its operations to the great new
land discovered by l\Iackenzie had been assigned to
Simon Fraser. Ascending the Peace River from
Lake Athabaska, in the sanle season in which
I
ewis and Clark dropped down to the mouth of
the Columbia and wintered there, Fraser confined
his first year's efforts to the establishment of two
trading-posts on the threshold of the new domain.
In 1806, however, he portaged to the Tacouche
Tesse, later to be known by his own name-then
supposed to be either the Columbia or one of its
tributaries-and built two forts, one on what is
now Stuart Lake, and a second on the river itself.
For still another year Fraser tarried in this region,
busied in the firm planting of the company's power.
I t was at this stage that the territory over which
his discoveries extended, and in which the com-
pany's operations were now carried on, received the
definite title of New Caledonia. 'iV e may find an
added interest in the man and the district from
the fact that not many years afterwards, James
Douglas, then a rising officer in the Hudson's Bay
59

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Company's service, came upon the same scene,
and was one of the most active in the district of
which Fraser laid the foundations.
But the crowning achievement of Fraser was to
follow. '''"hat matter if the spur that pricked hio1
on was the jealousy of rival traders? The fame of
the voyage of l
ewis and Clark had made clear to
the N orth- VVest Company how immediate was the
need of anticipating another on the north-west coast.
Acting on instructions fron1 headquarters, an expe-
dition was fitted out in New Caledonia with the ob-
ject of extending the company's rule at once to the
Pacific. Three lnen, whose names are forever pre-
served in the annals of the Pacific slope,-Simon
Fraser, John Stuart and Jules l\Iaurice Quesnel,-
with a crew of twenty-one, nineteen of whom were
voyageurs, embarked on the undertaking. They
were in four canoes, and the stream whose unknnwn
reaches lay before them was the Fraser. Those only
who have seen the tremendous rapids and cascades,
the precipitous side walls and the thousand other
dangers of that splendid river, can appreciate the
nature of the task that confronted them. The Fraser
has be
n described as a ragged gash in the moun-
tains, by which, in ages gone by, the waters of a
great interior sea burst through their barriers of rock
to the ocean. The modern traveller gazes in wonder
at the thread-like trail cut into the face of the over-
hanging cliffs, by which at dizzy heights the railway
traces the yawning canyons through which the river
60

DESCENT OF THE FRASER

hurls itself forward, and is lost in admiration at the
daring of the men who carved its tortuous way
along the mountains. Even greater was the
task of Fraser and his men, who for the first
time, ,vithout landmark to guide them or know-
ledge of the country of any kind, and beset by
hostile natives, followed the river throughout its
length from source to mouth, a distance of seven
hundred and fifty miles. Fort George, the point of
departure, was left on l\Iay, 28th 1808; the journey
to tide water was completed on July 1st. To the
sea itself Fraser was prevented by the natives fronl
penetrating. Returning, the party arrived at Fort
George on August 6th. Thus was accomplished the
second epoch-making feat of exploration in British
Columbia. It was only less notable than that of
l\lackenzie himself. The latter had demonstrated
that it was possible, though at a fearful price, to
reach the Pacific overland. Fraser had proved that
the river he had descended was not the Columbia,
but an independent stream which fell into the sea
over seven degrees further north.

I t is necessary now to turn to the phase in the
development of the Pacific coast which more than
all others influenced its political destiny. And here
it will be well to define somewhat the rela-
tive positions of Great Britain and the United
States with respect to the sovereignty of the western
continent at the end of the eighteenth century.
61

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Up to this time, no nation, certainly neither of
the two in question, had established any absolute
claim to the country north of Lower California.
Drake had harried the Spaniards, and had taken
possession of the Californian coast in the name of
Elizabeth; British navigators, also, had in later
times done more than those of any other nation
to deterrnine the northern shore line and to Inake
it known to the world. Spain had to all intents
abandoned the field. On the other hand, the
United States could claim with justice to have
solved the mystery of the Great River of the 'Vest.
As yet, moreover, there had been no actual oc-
cupation of N ootka, and only a nominal possession
of Vancouver Island, by Great Britain. The situa-
tion, therefore, was chaotic. About the beginning
of the nineteenth century, however, a number of
events combined to create an interest in the coun-
try ,vest of the Rocky l\-1ountains that commanded
order to arise. The question, to which of the
two Anglo-Saxon nations the Oregon territory be-
longed, was slowly formulating itself.
At first its utterance ,vas no more than a whis-
per-a passing word in the halls of diplomacy and
state. Forty years before, the capture of Quebec
and the subsequent cession of Canada to England
had changed the face of politics on the continent.
To this had succeeded the An1erican revolution, a
counter-change still more momentous. The new
conditions, however, did not make themselves felt
62

THE I
OUISIANA PURCHASE

at once in the western country. It was not, in fact,
until 1803, that any echo of the great events that
had happened on the Atlantic was heard on the
Pacific. It came then as the result of very special
circumstances. In 1762, Spain had ceded to France
in perpetuity the ,vhole of the territory of Louisi-
ana. There has already been occasion to remark the
vagueness of the region included in that compre-
hensive term. In the cession of 1762, no attempt
was lnade to dispel the uncertainty; and indeed it
,vould have been impossible. In the following year,
a treaty which considerably modified this arrange-
ment was concluded between France and Spain on
the one hand, and Great Britain and Portugal on
the other, but again not a word was included as to
the easterll or western limits of Louisiana, though
Great Britain was granted Canada, Florida and the
portion of Louisiana " east of the line drawn along
the l\Iississippi from its source to the River Iber-
ville, thence along the middle of the Iberville and
the Lakes l\Iaurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea."
In the course of events, the territory ,vas again
ceded back to France in 1800, and in 1803 passed
by purchase into the possession of the United
States. IInmediately the question of its boundaries
arose, this time ,vith an insistence that demanded
an :tnswer. Did they extend west of the l\Iissis-
sippi? Did they embrace the whole of the interior
plateau to the foot of the Rocky l\Iountains? Did
they extend to the ocean? If so, for how far north
63

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

and south? What were the southern limits of
British territory? To its earlier possessors, Louisiana
had been a word and little more; to the United
States it was the gateway to a golden future. Spain
and Great Britain were the other nations affect-
ed, as the possessors of contiguous territory to
the south and north. Spain on the one hand
claimed the whole of the territory west of the
l\Iississippi, to which the United States opposed
a counter claim to an enonnous portion of the
coast of the l\lexican Gulf. As against Great
Britain, the view held was that the 49th parallel of
latitude marked the southern limit of British pos-
session. Both of these disputes were postponed for
settlement from time to time with results unfor-
tunate to British interests.
Varying estimates have been placed upon the
character of Thomas Jefferson, author of the De-
claration of Independence, and third president of
the United States. Whether as a result of Jeffer-
son's personal initiative or of the foresight of his
advisers, several notable events occurred. within
the period of his influence to determine the trend
of circumstances unfavourably to British interests
beyond the l\lississippi. These were: the acquisition
of Louisiana, for which Napoleon was paid the
sum of $15,000,000; the expedition of Lewis and
Clark to the mouth of the Columbia River; and
the founding of Astoria by the Astor Fur Com-
pany. Whoever pointed the way, the foundation
64

THOl\IAS JEFFERSON

was laid in these events for the expansion of
the republic across the l\lississippi and beyond
the Rocky l\10untains. While the great mass
of the people cared nothing for the west, there
were a few who realized its possibilities. Jeffer-
son was undoubtedly one of the latter. Projecting
his vision into the future, he saw the hosts of settlers
pressing further and further west-beyond the Alle-
ghanies; across the Ohio and the Mississippi; along
the valleys of the mighty rivers which rise among
the foothills of the Rockies; overcoming finally the
Rockies themselves, and surging down into the
valleys of the Pacific slope; blazing trails that were
to become national highroads; building homes,
towns and cities; carving out new states of the
republic. He saw the possibility of adding another
and larger empire to the thirteen. states. He saw
and he acted. He had read of the overland journey
of Mackenzie; he knew that the British flag was be-
ing carried by the fur traders across the continent in
the north; and he realized not only the possibilities
that lay in the fur trade, but that, in the time to
come, settled industry would follow the march of
the fur brigades, and the solitude of the forest and
the plain be broken by the voices of civilization.
In the meantime, and while the dream was
forming in his mind, the territory of a foreign
nation intervened. This obstacle removed, the
genius of the American people, it was thought,
might be trusted to 30 the rest. But the Louisiana
65

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

purchase did not fully accomplish the end that
Jefferson had in view. The added claim of explora-
tion was still lacking. I t was to establish this that
Jefferson now equipped the second great expedi-
tion to cross the continent. Lewis and Clark, two
experienced frontiersmen, were placed in command.
As the journey was long and hazardous, and the
territory through which it lay unkno\vn, the presi-
dent took the utmost care to provide against every
contingency. The objective was the lnouth of the
Columbia, to the credit of discovering \vhich the
l.Tnited States already laid claim; but it was by no
means certain \vhere the expedition would end. If
the Pacific were reached at all, it might be in Span-
ish, British or Russian territory. The impression
was accordingly conveyed that the expedition was
in the interests of science and literature alone, and
to this end the coöperation of the other nations
was sought and obtained. The leaders were sup-
plied with passports by the representatives of the
powers at Washington, so that they Inight travel
without hindrance through foreign territory, and
were furnished besides with letters of credit for use
in foreign ports. At the same time a confidential
message was despatched to congress disclosing
the real object of the enterprise, which was to
strengthen the claim of the United States to the
distant west against the day of settling the re-
spective titles of the nations having interests
between the l\fississippi and the Pacific. The
66

LEWIS AND CLARK

ruse was in every detail successful. Not only were
the necessary funds forthcoming; but the repre-
sentatives of the foreign powers at 'Vashing-
ton vied with each other in rendering their as-
sistance. The details of this famous expedition
are not gennane to the present narrative. It
was thoroughly equipped, though costing only
$2,500; it consisted of forty-five persons; the start-
ing-point was St. Louis and the actual distance
travelled amounted to about one-third of the
circumference of the globe. The route lay from
Illinois through regions since known as 1\lissouri,
Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, l\lontana,
Idaho, \Vashington and Oregon. 1'he main water-
ways followed on the eastern side of the moun-
tains were the l\1issouri and the Yellowstone; and
on the Pacific side, the Lewis, the I{ooskooskee,
and the Columbia. The continental divide was
surmounted in three places, many miles apart.
Though great hardships \vere often encountered,
and sometimes suffering and immediate peril, there
,vas but one life lost. The expedition occupied over
two years, from l\lay, 1804 until August, 1806,
during which time all communication with the
outside world was suspended and an immense mass
of exact information respecting this hitherto unex-
plored territory was made available. Lewis and Clark
wintered at Fort Clatsop, on the Pacific Coast.
This great expedition, so successfully brought to
an end, was not the only one that Jefferson had in
67

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

mind; but the futile mission of John Ledyard to
Russia and the ignoble ending of the project of
.i\ndré l\lichaux, for which Lewis volunteered, call
for no special comment. In the light of events, it is
unnecessary to emphasize the momentous conse-
quences which flowed from the Louisiana purchase
and the Lewis and Clark expedition. Seldom has
appreciation more acute of the greatness of an
opportunity been seen in history; seldom has the
wisdom that divined possessed the power to ex-
ecute in equal measure. Jefferson was the proto-
type of American diplomacy; Lewis and Clark
\vere the prototypes of the men who followed its
voice and reaped its harvest.
The logical sequel of the journey of Lewis and
Clark was the formation in 1810 of the Pacific
Fur Company by John Jacob Astor of New York.
The organization has been made a name in litera-
ture by \Vashington Irving. Astor" had risen from
humble circumstances to great wealth and political
influence. He was the friend of Jefferson, and the
project of extending the territory of the United
States westward, doubtless owed much to his
encouragement. Appreciating to the full, from his
intimate association with the fur trade, the value to
commerce of the territory west of the l\Iississippi,
Astor's ambition was to obtain for himself a sphere
of influence in the United States similar to that
possessed by the North-West and Hudson's Bay
Companies in British America. Not less anxious
68

THE PACIFIC FUR COl\IPANY

was he, for the same reason, to see the 49th paral-
lel extended to the Pacific Ocean as the dividing
line between the two countries. There can be little
question that when the Lewis and Clark expedi-
tion was decided upon, it 'was with the entire con-
currence of Astor. From Irving, who deals at
length with Astor's aims and methods, we learn of
the close relationship which existed between him
and the administration; it is not, therefore, far
to seek for the inspiration of J efferson's policy.
Astor, the rival of the British fur companies, was
the only man of his time who had an overpowering
self-interest in extending the United States west-
ward to the Pacific.
The Pacific Fur Company was not the first or-
ganization of its kind, but it was the first which
carried out its aims in accordance with a compre-
hensiye plan combined with practical business exper-
ience and ability. The operations which it immedi-
ately set on foot partook of the nature of a national
effort to counterbalance the success of the British
companies and divert the fur trade from l\lontreal
to New York. Thus, though its object was in the
main a business one, it had, at the same time,
many features that appealed to wider sympathy
and support. The main features of Astor's pro-
ject, as embodied in his company, involved the
establishment of a line of posts along the Mis-
souri and the Columbia to the mouth of the latter,
where the chief trading dépôt of the company was
69

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

to be situated. Subsidiary posts were to be set up
in the interior and on the tributary streams of the
Columbia to trade with the Indians; these would
draw their supplies from the main establishment
and bring to it the peltries they collected. Coasting
vessels ,vould be built and fitted out on the Col-
umbia, to trade, at favourable seasons, along the
north-"west coast, and to return with the proceeds of
their voyages to the place of deposit. In this way
the entire Indian trade, both of the interior and of
the coast, would converge at the mouth of the
Columbia. ....\. ship was to be sent annually from
N ew York with reinforcelnents, supplies, and Iner-
chandise suited to the trade. It would take on
board the furs collected during the preceding year,
carry them to Canton, invest the proceeds in the
rich stuffs of China, and return thus freighted to
New York. 'Vhat was of importance in the scheme
was the development of trade with the Russian
establishments on the north-west coast. This sug-
gested many possibilities. As a preliIninary step,
a staff experienced in the Indian trade and inured
to life in the wilderness was necessary. This was
recruited in l\fontreal. Three prominent eIuployees
of the N orth- 'Vest Company were aInong those
,vho accepted the terms of Astor. A personal
representative and chief agent ,vas appointed. The
Pacific Fur Company was then formally incorpor-
ated and the work of organization perfected to
its final details.
70

ASTORIA

The expedition which it was determined at once
to send out for the realization of these plans was
di rided into t\VO parties; one to proceed in the
ship Tonquill by way of Cape Horn to the
Columbia; the other to follo,v in the footsteps
of Lewis and Clark across the continent. The
quarrels of the members of the party on the Ton-
quilt \vith her captain; the final loss of the T07Z-
quill and the murder of her cre\v by the natives at
Clayoquot; the sending of a second ship from
:New York; and the terrible sufferings of the over-
land party under Hunt, are familiar history. 1'he
establislnnent of Astoria and its varying fortunes
need not detain us here. By a series of nlishaps it
soon passed into the possession of the North-
'Vest COlnpany. Irving assigns the failure of
the enterprise primarily to the loyalty of the
ernployees to Great Britain and their former
masters the N orth- "Test Company. There is force
possibly in the contention. The final blow was
the ,V Rr of 181:!. ""'hen peace \vas declared, Fort
Astoria 'was ceded back to the United States,
though \vithout prejudice to the rights of Great
Britain to the territory in \vhich it was situated.
The Pacific Fur Company, however, made no
further attelnpt to carry out the projects of
Astor; and the North-West Company, and sub-
sequently the Hudson's Bay Company, continued
in \Tirtual occupation of the fort until the settle-
lnent of the boundary dispute in 1846. The
71

SIR JAl\iES DOUGI
AS

abiding importance of the experiment lies in the
fact that the occupation of the Columbia by the
Astorians was put forward at the time of the settle-
n1ent of the boundary question as one of the strong-
est claims in behalf of the United States. This in-
ternational aspect of the case .will be referred to
later in the present volume.
I t may be well to recapitulate in proper sequence
the five great transcontinental expeditions of these
early times as follows:-(l) The expedition of Alex-
ander l\lackenzie, by the Tacouche Tesse and Bella
Coola Rivers, in 1793. (2) The expedition of Lewis
and Clark, by the .l\Iissouri and the Columbia Riv-
ers, in 1805. (3) The expedition of Simon Fraser,
by the river which bears his narne, formerly the
'.racouche Tesse, in 1808. (4) The expedition of
David Thompson, by the Columbia River, in 1811.
(5) The overland expedition of the Astorians in
1811. Among the most glorious in the history of the
Anglo-Saxon race, these great achievements must,
for the moment, be remembered in their special and
less happy significance: as shedding light upon the
bitter rivalry \vhich was to follow-of which indeed
they were already the beginning-between the
mother and the daughter countries for the continent
so dauntlessly won for their common civilization.

I t has now been shown, however briefly, by what
steps the Pacific coast first became known to the
world; and it has been noted, also, how the over-
72

THE HUDSON'S BAY COl\IP ANY

land explorer completed the work of the navigator.
The fur trader, it has been seen, was the first to
enter the new country as other than a spy or
adventurer, and his forts and dépôts were the first
roofs, as his trafficking with the Indians was the
first act of commerce, in the great interior. The re-
mainder of this chapter may be fitly devoted to a
statement of certain broad and salient features in
the life and methods of this striking type as it
existed during the first fifty years of the last cen-
tury. These were the days of the trader in the full
flush of his glory, and the recital of his leading
characteristics, however familiar, is necessary to
give a background to the succeeding narrative. In
this it will be understood that the reference
throughout is to the Hudson's Bay Company, which
in 1821, after a struggle which had ended in arm"ed
hostilities and the effusion of blood, absorbed the
North - ',,"est Company, and from that time forward,
retaining only what seemed best in its former con-
stituent bodies, completely dominated the trade and
the life of the western country.

Ho\v the great enterpise-" the Governor and
Company of Adventurers of England trading into
Hudson's Bay,"-came to birth in the revival of
mercantile activity \vhich follo\ved the restoration of
King Charles II ; how Rupert, Prince of England
and Bohemia, dashing cavalier and patron of com-
merce, became its founder ; how the powers con-
73

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

ferred upon it in that lavish age included, in addi-
tion to the " whole, entire and only liberty of
Trade and Traffick," the absolute ownership of a
third part of North America, .with authority to
frame la\vs, administer justice, wage war or make
peace therein; how its early servants planted its
rule on the edge of the wilderness amid difficulties
that \vould have driven back any but the most
determined of men; how through a century and a
half of steady progress-of bloody wars with the
French, implacable rivalries with other traders,
thrilling adventures and vicissitudes innumerable-
it dro,.e its purposes to a victorious end, sending out
its explorers on journeys that gave a new face to
the continent, narning some of the greatest rivers
and mountains of the earth, spreading step by step
the arteries of its trade and the empire of its flag
over thousands of miles, and over thousands of souls;
civilizing sometimes, corrupting and degrading
often, bartering continually ;-all these varied and
commanding activities combine to form an episode
unrivalled for the romantic and the picturesque in
our history.
The general system under \vhich the company
carried on its multiform and far-extending business
has been many times described. In the Inanner in
which it adapted means to ends it could have little
to learn from the largest enterprise of modern days.
The minuteness of the trade and the tremendous
distances which it traversed rendered necessary a
74

THE FUR r.fRADE

method of accounting, at once the most elaborate
and exact. For organization - purposes, the vast
dominions of the company were divided into four
great departments. These were again divided into
districts. Each district had its fixed and permanent
trading-posts, as well as a number of temporary or
flying stations, the latter frequently the precursors
of the former. Here were the vital points of con-
tact between the company and the trade from
which it drew its life's blood: here the traders met
and bartered with the Indians. Important posts or
parties, together with the transportation service,
,vere in the charge of chief clerks ; a lower grade of
employees managed the outlying stations. The dis-
tricts were under the chief traders. In the depart-
ments, dépôts and distributing points were presided
over by the factors, while over all tHe chief factor
bore rule. An army of postmasters, interpreters,
mechanics, guides, canoemen and apprentices made
up the rank and file, though even here degrees were
strictly recognized. In general terms, the service
,vas made up of three classes; the servants, the clerks
and apprentices, and the officers. The second class
sat at the officers' mess and were addressed as gentle-
men. But the officers were the real oligarchy, bound
by special covenant to fidelity, and receiving their
reward not in salary but in a share of the company's
profits. Subject to the orders of his superior and
the regulations of the cOlnpany, each officer was
supreme in his sphere of duty. The system, as will
75

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

be seen, was military in its absolutism. The chief
factor was lord paramount; his word was law, to
support and symbolize which the office was en-
veloped in a halo of dignity. When a chief factor
transacted the most ordinary business, his habili-
ments were elaborate and imposing ; when he
travelled, it was in state, with a retinue by whom
he was lifted in and out of his conveyance, his
arri vals and departures heralded by the firing of
salutes. High above all reigned the governor of the
company, a personage scarce
y less exalted than the
most absolute of sovereigns, owing allegiance to no
one save the directorate in London, whose policy,
as a matter of necessity, was largely dictated by his
advice. Great indeed was the majesty that hedged
about a governor of the company. But the show was
no greater than the reality, though part of a deli-
berate plan to overawe the natives and subordinates
where rebellion or mutiny would have meant ex-
tinction. It succeeded in so far as the immediate
object was concerned; but, as examples show, it had
sometimes an unhappy effect upon the ruler.
The company's "r estern Department, with which
the present narrative has chiefly to do, included the
entire region between the .watershed of the Rocky
J\Iountains and the Pacific Ocean, bounded on the
north by Russian territory and the Northern De-
partment (the latter embracing the country drained
by the rivers running into the A rctic Ocean and
Behring Sea) and on the south by the Mexican
76

FORT VANCOUVER

republic. Roughly, it extended a th
usand miles
in length, by half that distance in average width.
The dépôt for the department was, in the early
days, at Fort Vancouver. a post of considerable size
(its stockade measuring 7.50 feet in length by 600
feet in breadth) situated on the Columbia River
six miles aboye its junction '\vith the Willamette.
Afterwards it was removed to Victoria. Here the
company's goods were received from abroad for
distribution throughout the coast and the interior.
Here were collected the furs as they were sent in
by the traders for subsequent transportation to
England around Cape Horn. Here, too, were the
headquarters of the chief factor and the "heart of
the official life of the region. 'Vhile Fort Van-
couver remained the dépôt for a period of some
twenty-three years, the districts north of the
Columbia landed their supplies at the mouth of
the Okanagan, and packed them on horses thence
to their destination. For the service of the
other districts, lying nearer the coast, the furs and
goods were carried to and from the Fraser River.
Goods for the Upper Columbia and Koote-
nay '\vere landed at Fort Colville near the Rocky
1tIountains; those for the Snake River were landed
at WalIa Walla. The former became in time the
centre of all the trade on the Columbia-the last
post touched at by the brigades on their long jour-
ney fronl Fort Vancouver to Norway House. The
coast ports were supplied by sailing vessels, the
77

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

returning boats and vessels bringing in the furs
collected at the several ports. The trade in New
Caledonia, and in what is now known as the
Yukon in the Northern Department, was carried
on by way of the Athabaska route, of which the
forts on Hudson Bay 'were the entrepôts.
The activity of the company in the 'Vestern
Department was by no Ineans restricted to the
trade in peltries. In process of time, large farms
were established in the vicinity of ,rictoria, on
Puget Sound, in the 'Villamette valley and in
other parts of the country. The trade in horses,
cattle, sheep, pigs and general farm produce, soon
attained Ï1nportance. The erection of grist mills,
sawmills, tanneries and dairies followed. A con-
siderable fishing industry sprang up. \
Vithin a few
years, the ships of the company were regularly
exporting flour, grain, beef, pork and butter to the
Russian settlements in Alaska and Siberia, lumber
and fish to the Sandwich Islands, and hides and
wool to England. The company ,vas the first to
open the coal mines of Vancouver Island, at Fort
Rupert first and later at N anaimo. The wants of
its own communities and of the vessels of the coast
furnished the original incentive; but the sale of a
thousand tons. to a vessel bound for California,
during the height of the mining excitement, proved
the inauguration of a trade that has since become
of first importance to the district. It ,vas, in fact,
the proportions reached by the general commerce
78

NATURAL RESOURCES

of the department, even at an early stage of its
development, and the industries thus founded
and nourished, that first attracted the attention
of the outside world to the potentialities of the
Pacific coast, the result being a gradual process
of settlement that eventually extinguished the
company's rule. The debt that is owing to the
men 'who were the first to recognize in the natural
resources of the country still greater possibilities
than existed in the gathering of peltries-even
though they could not clearly foresee the effect
that was to follow for the company whose servants
they were-is one that could not easily be over-
estimated. Had they followed tamely in the foot-
steps of precedent; had they lacked sagacity to per-
ceive the wealth that lay in the fertile valleys, the
teeming rivers and the timber-clad hillsides of the
vast dominion 'whose present destiny they shaped
at will, they might have purchased for the great
master of their allegiance a few doubtful years of
the power to barter "skin for skin"; but they
,vould have thrown back the progress of the coast
at least a quarter of a century, and they would
have missed the opportunity of conferring upon
their country a boon far beyond the gift of any
corporation bound to a single and narrow circle
of activity.
A word may be added as to the treatment ac-
corded by the company to the Indians,-its equals
in trade, its benefactors even, but with all the
79

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

pathetic helplessness of an inferior race. There can
be no doubt that the company was, before every-
thing else, a keen trader. It took the Indian as it
found him-and it kept him so. To be a hunter and
a ,vanderer was the Indian's nature; he would have
been useless to the company had he been other-
wise. There was no effort, accordingly, to civilize
him,-none, for almost two centuries, to christianize
him. But he received justice-or what he thought
was justice-even kindness, dictated though both
were by policy. To gain the Indian's confidence was
a necessity of the trade; and the company made sure
of this. In two centuries of rule over tribes of every
shade of racial difference, ranging from the Eskimos
of the Labrador and Arctic coasts, through the Crees,
Sioux and Blackfeet of the interior, to the polyglot
chaos of tribes that dwelt along the Pacific Ocean,
war was unknown and violence and bloodshed only
an occasional incident. Thousands of miles from any
force of arms, trade was carried on in scores of factor-
ies in perfect trust. The coast tribes <:>f the 'Vestern
Department were perhaps more truculent and ex-
citable than any on the continent, yet here as else-
where Indian outrage was comparatively unknown.
The manner in 'which intercourse between the trader
and the Indian was held had much to do with
this result. Respect was always paid to fairness in
exchange. Docile as the Indian was, and avid of the
goods that made his barren existence happier, this
was no difficult task. In other respects an equal dis-
80

THE INDIANS

cretion was displayed. The relations established
,vere ever those of reserve; familiarity was per-
mitted on no pretext, though firmness was temper-
ed with tact, courtesy and the constant expression
of good-will. The frequent intermarriages of traders
with native women did much to secure the good
feeling of the Indian, and to further the interests
of the company. That some of the traders were
profligate must be admitted ; that rum found its
way into the trade has been proved; but in these,
as in other matters, the law of self-preservation was
the constant monitor of the company. In the sum-
ming up, history will accord thanks to the cOlnpany
for the fruits of its attitude towards the Indian.
lVithout that preparation of the Indian mind, the
peaceful settlement of the country would have been
impossible. "Then the hour of the fur trade had
struck and the settler stood at the gateway of the
lnountains, he found a native race subdued to
the methods of the white man, and ready to play
its part in the new order. 'fhe Indian is to-day a
more important factor in the labour nlarket of
British Columbia than of any other portion of
the Dominion.
Of the life that went on beneath the extraordin-
ary surface of the company's system and policy,
who could give even a glimpse in a page? It ,vas a
,vorld in itself, so romantic and full of wonders that
every fireside has listened to the story of it. Over half
a continent it embraced scenes the most varied and
81

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

sublime on the earth-the forest growth of ages,
pathless and ilnpenetrable; the endless prairie,
roamed by millions of bison; mountain lands
unrivalled for 'wildness and grandeur; all alike in-
terlaced by one of the most beautiful and majestic
chains of waterways in the world, running down in-
to the everlasting sea which bore the company's
trade to its ultimate markets. Dotting the wilder-
ness, hundreds of miles apart, were the" forts" or
trading-posts of the company, ,vhence it drew sus-
tenance and by which it kept its grasp upon the
land. Even these were stamped with individuality.
Built, large and small, upon a common plan-a low
and quadrangular centre structure surrounded by
high palisades, flanked by bastions and defended by
six-and twelve-pounders-they aptly proclaimed the
rigour that ruled within. This was no less than
martial law, to transgress which was punished with
swift and ruthless severity, and from wl.1Ìch the only
seasons of respite came at Christmas and the New
Year, or on the days, many months apart, on which
news and letters were brought from the outside
world-sunbursts of joy that made their recurrence
the chief solace of an existence unparalleled for
monotony and isolation. The brigades were the
agents of this beneficence, the tie that bound the
forts together, and constituted the veins and arteries
of the system. In summer they canle with goods in
" York boats,"-nine triplnen to each, and eight
boats to the brigade,-or by cart and cayuse over
82

LIFE IN THE 'VILDERNESS

the prairie; in winter they brought only letters
and ne\vspapers by sledge and snowshoe, the gaily
caparisoned dog trains lnaking forty miles a day
over the snow, sheltering under trees and bushes,
and covering once a year the entire round of
the company's trading-posts. But the real bond
of union was the comradeship of the service which
laid its spell (or its terror) upon all, the essence
of which, for rude and polished alike, was its
touch upon the aboriginal and the elemental in
both wild and human nature. In such a setting, life
took on varied forms. The man of mighty \vill
turned all to power, triumphing over difficulties
that subdued and appalled others, and rose because
he could do nothing else. Others in \vhom the flame
burned less fiercely, adapted thelnselves to their
surroundings and hewed out paths of useful effort.
Others were broken utterly, consuming their hearts
in the awful toil and loneliness until death or mad-
ness came.
The roll of honour in the company's western
service is a long and illustrious one. From 1805 to
1846, and in British Colulnbia until 1858, the fur
trader ruled on the coast. It \vas not an ab-
solute s\vay: the settler arrived early to dispute
it; and the half-century was one of conflict and
evolution. Simpson, Ogden, Ermatinger, 1\1 cDon-
ald, l\lcLeod, 'rod, Yale, Dallas, Finlayson, Ander-
son, Black, l\fcKay, Ross, Campbell, l\lurray, Dease,
Rae, Tohnie, Grahame, are some of those who bore
83

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

a share, in the early and formative period, in direct-
ing the energies and moulding the destinies of the
country, each in his own field and method. Their
inlpress can never be obliterated. But from the list
of all that generation two names stand out preëm-
inently in the history of the upbuilding of the
Pacific Slope-l\lcLoughlin and Douglas. Occa-
sion more than once will be offered in the follow-
ing pages to note the striking personality of the
former of these great men. He was the founder
and the patriarch-the first great leader of the
company in Oregon. He made the career of
Douglas, who was his friend and follower, possible.
The superior of his disciple in all that touched
the human and the lovable; magnetic, impul-
si ve, eager ; Napoleonic in the swiftness of his
judgments and of his movements to execute
them; resolute, brave and chivalrous, l\IcLough-
lin was swept frOlll his feet in the end by a
movement that struck at his emotions and his sense
of right-the right of the mass as opposed to that
of an individual interest. He could not, or he would
not, stem the tide of settlement from the United
States, so fatal to the company's and, as it proved,
to his country's future. And when, in 1846, the
land north of the Columbia to the 49th parallel
passed to the United States, he went ,vith it,
divorced from an allegiance to 'which his 'whole life
had been devoted. Douglas, his successor, less keen
and restless; of an order of genius that had less
84

1\IcLOUGHLIN AND DOUGLAS

perhaps of fire and humanity but more of purpose
and obedience; studious, orderly, tactful and re-
sourceful; commanding a rigid respect and admira-
tion, if not love; one at all times master of him-
self and his surroundings, was undoubtedly the
greater officer, if not the greater man. Of the
two, Douglas must always remain of larger
interest to the historian. He came into command
at a moment of supreme importance in the period
of rapid transition from old to new conditions, for
which 1\-1 cLoughlin had opened the door. U n-
shackled by doubts of any kind, he was in a special
degr
e qualified to deal with developments which
he could not wholly control, but which he could
influence powerfully in the direction of the com-
pany
s interests, while at the same time clearly
foreseeing that they must result in a new order
wherein the company would cease to be a ruling
factor. It ,vas in truth to this last point that the
enterprise of the fur trader in building forts to be
the centres of future settlement; in opening lines
of communication throughout the interior to be
the avenues of future commerce; and in the bring-
ing of ships to the coast dépôts to establish in-
tercourse with the outside world, inevitably con-
verged. Even a less clear-sighted observer than
Douglas could not but see in the movements which
drove the company out of Oregon and which planted
a colony in the valley of the Red River, something
that portended the ultimate extinction of its
85

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

sovereignty in the west and the erection of popu-
lar government in its stead. Of never-fading in-
. terest in themselves the lives of the traders in the
'wilds of the interior and on the shores of the Paci-
fic must always remain. That strange and varied
period is a subject, probably, of which the ground
has been no more than broken. l\IcLoughlin was
of it, and his lamp was extinguished 'when the
trade passed away. Douglas too was of it, blood
and bone; but he was something more. As has
been said, our interest in the fur trade is for the
fruits it bore in subsequent history. 'i\T e ha\Te to
watch its huge and tireless mechanism as, in
measured process, James Douglas, the most no-
table figure which it produced in the country west
of the Rocky l\10untains, rose step by step to the
post of chief command, thence, by the inevitable
sequence of events, as the company gave place to
civil government, to become the first representative
of the Crown in a British colony on the Pacific
Ocean.

86

CHAPTER III

NEW CALEDONIA

O ONCERNING the early life of Sir James
Douglas, little is known. He was not in his
youth a keeper of diaries, and there are few records
of the long period of his apprenticeship to the
North- West and Hudson's Bay Companies, prior
to his assumption of command at Fort Vancouver.
The generation which knew "him in the flesh has
passed away. In the family circle he was not a
purveyor of official slllall news. Neither was he
given to reminiscence or to talk of himself or of
his exploits. When he passed from the scene he did
not leave behind him a single purely personal record
either of his actions or of the opinions and early
experiences on which they were based. 1
This might at first appear remarkable in a mall
who at all times so fully recognized the importance
of his position in so far as mere forms were con-
cerned. How seriously he could consider this
aspect is well illustrated in n letter which he ,vrote
in l\Iay, 1859, to the governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company. It was evident that he could not occupy
the dual position of governor of the Pacific colonies
and representative of the company, and it was
necessary, therefore, that he should retire from the
1 A journal kept by Douglas at Fort Vancouver, quoted by Bancroft,
has disappeared.

87

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

service of the latter. This he was willing to do, con-
ditional on the payment of !:8,500 as a retiring
interest:
"In the event of the rejection of that offer [he
wrote), I must resign my office of governor, as the
salary offered, !:1,800 per annum, is altogether
inadequate to my support in a becoming manner.
"As a private individual I can live in a style
befitting the fortune I possess; but as governor
for the Crown, there is no choice: one must live in
a manner becoming the representative of the
Crown, and I could ne\Ter consent to represent
Her l\Iajesty in a shabby way."
The fact is that the manner of a chief factor
clung to him to the last in governmental, com-
pany, and domestic relations. This was second na-
ture to all Hudson's Bay Company officials. Doug-
las, however, was to an exceptional degree steeped
in the ceremonial of official life, and the fact has led
to not a little misinterpretation of his character.
The fondness of display and the autocratic methods
with which he has been charged were in fact the
natural outcome of his long and devoted service to
an organization famed the world over for its iron
discipline, joined to the trait which he displayed
frolll first to last of taking high and serious ground
e\Ten in small things. His early training, acting
upon a spirit essentially religious, shaped his whole
after career to this pattern of conduct and bearing.
It \vould have been easy for a nature, nourished as
88

HIS RETICENCE

his had been in mountain solitudes to exaggerate
the importance of command. Yet Douglas was re-
markable throughout his whole career for nothing
more than for his sane self-knowledge.
An evidence that his self-assertiveness was on the
surface merely may be deduced from the fact that he
failed entirely to foresee the interest which the his-
torian would one day attach to his life and person-
ality. He did not apparently realize that, as a chief
factor of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific
coast for many years, and as the first governor of
the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Col-
un1bia, he was moulding {uture events and lnust
one day stand as the central figure of his time.
Official statemen ts he put forth in plenty; but the
record of his life, as a whole, as throwing light up-
on the most interesting half century in western his-
tory, he invariably refused to compile, nor could
he ever be brought to see anything in the success
he had achieved which would add interest to his
personal opinions or actions. A natural repugnance
to publicity in part accounted for this. He was a
In an of great reserve, though of strong passions
and deep feelings. But, above all, the unwritten
law of the company stood in the way; it is
easy to appreciate how such an obstacle appealed
to James Douglas. Unbroken silence on all lllat-
ters of its internal economy, is the rule of the
company for its servants. Reminiscences, e\.en of
the purely literary kind, were never encouraged;
89

. SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

and there are volumes of unwritten history in
the archives of the company to-day, which have
never become accessible to the student.
Of those invaluable aids to the historian, therefore,
-the memoir, the sheaf of letters, the diary, writ-
ten solely from the personal standpoint,-we have
few at hand, in the early years especially, for
use in writing the life of Sir James Douglas.
The loss is great. With the events of the period
during which he ruled on the coast, he was more
familiar than any other man. A history by Douglas
of the fur trade in the country west of the Rocky
lVlountains, or of the early colonial period on the
Pacific, would have been a document the most
valuable of its kind. As a lover of biography, and a
careful student of politics, he might have been ex-
pected to employ the leisure of his later years in
literature and to have enriched it from his o
n unique
experience. He was possessed, besides, of a gift
of style, as his State papers show. That he passed
from the scene in silence is one of the most strik-
ing instances we have of a not uncommon phen-
omenon-the indifference of the men who bore the
brunt of the early battle with the wilderness, and
who solved the earliest problems of social organiza-
tion and government, to everything but the practi-
cal and immediately important side of the events
in which they played so large a part.
The greatest of men are creatures of circum-
stance; but they are also springs of action; and what
90

BIRTH AT DEIVLERARA

we cOlnmonly term destiny is often only a conveni-
ent word for the complex relationship of man and
his environment. Political history, thus conceived,
becomes the biography of the makers of nations.
Every man is the product of his age; but every age
is what its greatest men have made of it. It is in
this spirit that the present life of Douglas, shorn
largely from necessity of personal detail, has been
written. He, more than any other Ulan, gave form
to British Columbia. As the legend in the great
London cathedral bids the reader look around if he
would see the monument of him whose mind con-
ceived the majestic pile; so, if one would seek a
measure of the achievement of Sir James Douglas,
let him behold the fair province of the mountains
and the Pacific, whose sturdy growth bore in its
early fashioning the lasting impress of his handiwork.
The life of Douglas, therefore, serves as no other
would for text from which to hang a connected
narrative of the origin and progress of British Col-
umbia, youngest perhaps of all the provinces in that
her present but feebly foreshadows her great future,
yet bringing our history into vital touch \vith the
far-off time of the greatness of Spain, beginning even
with that fateful day on which Balboa :first.
"Stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent upon a peak in Darien."

James Douglas was born at Demerara, British
Guiana, August 15th, 1803. His father was a de-
91

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

scendant of the Earl of Angus, the "Black Doug-
las" of Scottish history. I
ittle is known of the
father's youth or parentage, except that he was
the son of one .John Douglas, merchant, of Glas-
gow. A search of the Registry Office at Edinburgh
reveals nothing of his earlier ancestry , John Doug-
las being a familiar name and frequently appearing
in the Glasgow records.
I
ieutenant-General Sir Neil Douglas, I{.C.B.,
colonel of the 78th Regiment, who took part in the
battles of Busaco, the Pyrenees, Seville and Tou-
louse, and whose gallantry on the field of "T aterloo
obtained for him the Austrian order of 1\iaria-
Theresa and the Russian order of St. Vladimir, was
a cousin of James Douglas and has been described
as the "fifth son of the late John Douglas, Esq., of
Glasgow, whose grandfather, Douglas of Cruxton
and Stobbs, descended lineally from the famous
Earls of Angus." The lineage of Douglas was well
known to his companions of the fur company, and
he went for many years by the sobriquet of the
"Black Douglas," a title for which his swarthy
skin and stern cast of features was in part respon-
sible.
J ames was taken at an early age to Scotland,
where he was educated in a private school at
Lanark. He was a studious youth, conscientious
and of regular habits, traits which characterized
him through life. 'Ve are indebted to family tradi-
tion for the statement that his French tutor was
92

ENTERS NORTH-WEST CO
lPANY

an exiled nobleman of France who was the means
of furnishing an accomplishment which Douglas
was soon after to turn to very practical account. In a
new country, engaged in a trade which brought
him into daily contact with the French-Canadian
voyageur, it was the most immediately useful part
of his education. N early all the Hudson Bay
traders spoke French fluently, and when Sir James
made a tour of the continent after his retirement
as governor, he was still able to converse in
French with a good accent.
I t was in the year 1820 that Douglas left Scot-
land to seek his fortune in the service of the North-
'Vest Company. The origin of his choice of a
career is in obscurity, but two brothers appear to
ha ve preceded him in the
ame field. Although in
his seventeenth year only, he was already tall and
well developed, "with ideas beyond his age." 'fhat
he had courage to leave kith and kin to plunge
into the wilderness of the New World goes without
saying. He reported at Fort 'Villiam, the head-
quarters of the COll1pany, then under the rule of
the celebrated .John l\I c Loughlin, who seems to
have been struck immediately \vith the promise of
the lad. But the career thus launched ,vas destined
to an early interruption. In 1821, the North- 'iVest
Company ,vas absorbed by the Hudson's Bay
Company (in what manner need not delay us
here), and Douglas was of the party which re-
garded the terms of union with dissatisfaction. He
93

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

was on the point of returning to Scotland with his
brothers, when McLoughlin persuaded him to
throw in his lot with the new réginle. The friend-
ship of the older for the younger man, which was
to bear such rich fruits later, was already firmly
planted, in the soil of a warm and appreciative
nature on the one hand, and of sterling merit on
the other.
IcLoughlin was to have charge, under
the new arrangement, of the vast territory lying
west of the Rocky l\Iountains, then termed the
Columbia Department, and he wrote to the direc-
tory to ask that Douglas might accompany him.
The request was granted. In less than two years
service, and before he had reached his twentieth
year, Douglas had won the trust and friendship of
the man who ruled an empire equal in area to a
third of Europe and, though stIll in a state of
savage nature, rich beyond measure in political and
industrial possibilities. Great indeed was the oppor-
tunity; as will be seen, no part of it was thrown
away.
l\lcLoughlin had had a history of his own which
is typical of the day and place. Born in 1784 at
Rivière du I
oup, he had lost his father while still
a boy, and had grown up with his brother David
in the gray stone mansion of his grandfather, l\lal-
colm Fraser, overlooking the St. Lawrence where
it ,videns to the sea. The children early caught a
military bearing from the grandsire ,vho had brought
a Highland regiment to Canada and who had
94

JOHN l\lcLOUGHLIN

settled later on a St. Lawrence seigniory. It was a
discipline, too, of a thoroughly Scottish savour.
Scottish books were read; Scottish tales were
told; the bagpipes droned in the hall; and the
kilts were often worn. When the boys grew
up, they were sent overseas, destined to the study
of medicine at Edinburgh. But Napoleon had
begun the war with England, and David fled his
gallipots to follow the Iron Duke to Waterloo.
John took another course. "I never could fight
N apoleon
I admire him too much," he said, and
returned to Canada. Arrived there, he had still
his future before him. A story is told of the
incident which sent him into the service of the
N orth- West Company-a quarrel with an English
officer who had shown discourtesy to a lady on
the streets of Quebec. But his uncles were
high in the company, and the life Inight have
appealed to him on other grounds. Birth, talent,
and, above all, his splendid presence, brought rapid
promotion. His first important command was at
Sault Ste. Marie: it was in McLoughlin's time
that the post was burned during the War of 1812.
Here he had married the widow of his friend
l\lcKay. (IVI cKay had crossed the continent with
Alexander bIackenzie and had been one of those
engaged by Astor in Montreal for his .venture on
the Pacific-a voyage fronl which McKay never re-
turned, having been slain by the Indians on the ill-
fated Tonquin.) Thence he passed to Fort William,
95

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the metropolitan post of the company, then in its
titne of greatest splendour,-his hair white before
he was thirty from an accident in Lake Superior, in
which all but himself were lost. Of the remainder
of his life there will be more in the sequel.
It was a part of l\fcLoughlin's plans for Doug-
las, when, on the amalgamation of the companies,
the faces of the two were turned westward, that he
should not be confined too closely to anyone
branch, but that by a succession of duties he might
become conversant with the entire range of the
service. Consistent with his duty to the company,
l\IcLoughlin seems to have spared no fa\
our that
inured to the advancement of his protégée Douglas
was already an excellent accountant; he had more-
over a thorough command of the language of the
voyageur. The time was come, therefore, when he
must learn at first hand the ponderous yet minute
organization by which the operations of the united
companies \\
ere conducted in the field. New Cale-
donia, the nucleus from which the present province
of British Columbia was to evolve, was at the
moment the most distant and difficult of l\fc-
Loughlin's outlying departments. To New Cale-
donia, accordingly, went Douglas, after an inter-
val spent with l\IcLoughlin himself in the Atha-
baska district, for the very sake of the difficul-
ties which offered there and the experience to be
gained in encountering them. This was in 1823
or 1824.
96

NEW CALEDONIA

A glance at the natural conditions and the
state of development which awaited the young
trader in New Caledonia will be of interest here.
Dotted with innumerable lakes; thridded by a
network of rivers, with the Fraser for central
waterway; helnmed in and intersected throughout
by mountains, clad in the south with the Douglas fir
and in the north with spruce and pine ; New Cale-
donia embraced, roughly, the whole of the territory
between the Rockies and the coast range of moun-
tains, from the valley of the Thompson on the
south to the northern sources of the Peace. The
interlninable forest with which the district was
covered yielded no food save berries, roots, and the
flesh of animals; but the lakes and rivers abounded
in fish and waterfowl. From time immemorial the
region had been peopled by the western Déné
Indians, the main branches of which were the
Nahanais and Sekanais in the extreme north and
east, the Babines and Carriers in the west and
centre, and the Chilcotins in the south and west.
They, as well as the white men who first entered
the country, depended almost wholly upon the
salmon for their food, so much so that the damming
of a stream by a fall of rock would cause an entire
tribe to remove. How .l\lackenzie discovered and
how Fraser took possession of the country, has
been already described. Rocky Mountain Portage,
the first post of Fraser, was built in 1805. l\-lcLeod,
the first permanent station ever erected in British
97

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Columbia west of the mountains, still standing with-
out a year of interruption, had been established soon
after. The discovery of Stuart Lake followed; and
Fort St. James, destined as the dépôt of the new
district, arose on its banks in one of the most beau-
tiful spots of that land of surpassing natural beauty.
Fort Fraser, on Fraser I
ake,and Fort George, on the
Fraser River, were built in the same year. For three
years longer, which included the famous descent of
the great central river, the pioneers of the company
laboured on the foundations of the new district. In
1809, Fraser returned east, to assume command in
1811 of the Red River Department. Too poor to ac-
cept the knighthood which was offered to him, he
died in 1862 at the great age of eighty-six. Stuart,
the right hand, according to some the brain, of Fra-
ser's enterprise, succeeded him in New Caledonia,
with Harmon as first lieutenant. Stuart was still in
command on the amalgmnation of the companies
in 1821, and to a large extent directed the expan-
sion and multiplication of posts which immediately
followed. Kamloops, the centre of the Thompson
River district, had been built in 1813, the year in
which communications were first established be-
tween the Colulnbia and the Fraser; and in 1821
the building of Fort Alexandria, on the Fraser, still
further facilitated the bringing in of supplies by the
new route from the south instead of by the old and
laborious passage from the east. Babine, famous for
its salmon, on the northern lake of the same name,
98

EARLY 'fRADING POSTS

was built in the following year, and Chilcotin, an
outpost of Alexandria, situated among a tribe not-
able for its ferocity, about the same time. In 1824,
however, the year from which the connection of
Douglas with New Caledonia is dated, Stuart with-
drew to the l\lackenzie, and in his stead 'Villi am
Conolly, an Irishman of long experience in the
trade, was appointed chief factor. Douglas who had
been placed under the command of the new officer
while l\lcLoughlin went forward to the Columbia,
was of the party which accompanied Conolly across
the mountains when the latter first took office.
"Tith them were the wife and half-breed family of
the chief factor, a convoy of twenty-four men, and
the usual quota of supplies for the district.
At the time of Douglas's arrival, three clerks
whose names are of frequent appearance in the later
history of British Columbia, made up the staff of
the chief factor at Stuart Lake-l\IcDougall, Pam-
brun and Yale. At Fraser Lake, l\'lcDonnell was in
charge, with an assistant clerk. At l\lcLeod Lake,
Alexandria, and Babine, the other important posts
of the district, Tod, l\lcDougall, and Brown were
in command. The district was already very prosper-
ous. Beside furs, such commodities as birch bark,
pitch, sturgeon oil, pemmican, Indian rice, buffalo
robes, snowshoes, parchment for windows, dressed
buffalo and moose skins and buffalo tongues entered
into the trade of the country, and returned good
profits to the company. There were more than the
99

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGLAS

usual dangers and hardships in the service of that
isolated district, and the fragrnents of old journals
that have suryived are replete with tales of suffer-
ing. The question of supplies pressed unceasingly;
and the treachery of the natives constituted a cease-
less menace. Sickness and, desertions among the men
were on a corresponding scale.

The record of Douglas's stay in New Caledonia is
involved in much confusion and obscurity, some of
which, at this date, is inexplicable. The leading in-
cidents, however, stand out in greater or less relief;
and it is possible to construct from them a narrative
that is intelligible, if not at every point consecutive.
He remained at first with Conolly at Fort St.
J ames, to the temporary command of which he suc-
ceeded from time to tÏ1ne during the absences of his
chief. Later he served as clerk at l\lcI
eod Lake to
John Tod, famed as a controversialist and writer of
letters, and, as he gave satisfaction, we find in due
course the annual council of the company recom-
mending that he " be engaged for a term of three
years from the expiration of his contract, at !:60 a
year." But he soon returned to the more important
duties of Stuart I
ake. Of his activities here some
interesting details are given in the l\IS. journal of
the fort, which, as they shed light upon the gener-
al nature of the life in New Caledonia, may be
quoted here. As was said above, the maintenance of
a constant supply of provisions was the first care of
100

THE SALl\fON FISHERY

the early trading-posts. In this connection a fishery
had been established at the mouth of a small stream
on Stuart Lake, where, in 1806, the company had
met the first Indians of the country. The catch,
however, had been uncertain, and it was finally re-
solved to establish a second station on the head-
waters of another river falling into the same
reservoir. Douglas was placed in charge of the new
fishery, and the journaP contains the following re-
ferences to his operations :
Saturday,
Vovember 10tll, 1827,-" Received
from the [old] fishery fifty-nine whitefish, the pro-
duce of two nights. Clermont brought over the
greater part of the nets . . . . . To-morrow l\Ir.
Douglas, with two fishermen, ßichon and Clermont,
and two men to assist them will proceed to Y ukogh
(or Petit Lac) to establish the fishery there. This
gentleman will not only superintend the fishery,
but will also collect the fish which the Indians may
have to dispose of immediately, for which purpose
he is provided with leather [dressed skins] and other
articles of trade. "
Sunday, l1th,-" l\Ir. Douglas, with five men, set
out for the fishery of Y ukogh. They are well pro-
vided with nets, having eight of small thread, three
of willo\v, and four of Holland twine . . . . . . l\fost
of the dogs are also sent to the fishery."
11 T ednesday, 14th,-" 'T adeboncæur came from

1 Quoted by Morice, History of the Northern Interior r!f Britùh
Columbia, pp. 127-9.

101

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the fishery and informed me that these two days
back they had not taken a sufficiency for their
consumption. I ordered them to come across to-
morrow to prepare to go and join l\lr. Douglas at
the other fishery."
From that date on we have frequent glimpses of
the future governor hauling with dog sledges the
fish he had taken at his station or had purchased
from the Indians. The life was one of incessant toil
and hardship even for the officers. To the end of his
stay in New Caledonia, 'v hich was prolonged for
six years, Douglas was busy with fish and furs, as
the following entry in the journal lnade on the eve
of his departure for Fort Vancouver shows:
January 1st, 1830,-" . . . . l\Ir. Douglas also re-
turned from his trip. In the way of furs he was
more successful than had been expected, having
collected, principally among the Kuzche Indians,
about one hundred and ten pounds' weight of ex-
cellent furs, chiefly beaver and martin. But the fish
trade has entirely disappointed us, only about one
thousand and six hundred having been procured,
part of which the dogs have brought to the fort by
l\'Ir. Douglas's men."

For the rest, the story of Douglas's life in New
Caledonia is involved in many discrepancies. In the
lnain, it groups itself about two or three well de-
fined incidents, which may be dealt with as nearly
as possible in chronological order.
102

l\IARRIAGE

It was probably soon after his arrival at Stuart
Lake that the young officer took to wife Amelia
Conolly, the daughter of the chief factor of New
Caledonia. She was then in her sixteenth year,
described as a shy, sweet and lovable girl, "mod-
est as the wood violet," and ha ving in addi-
tion to personal beauty, the blood of native
heroes in her veins. A younger sister Julia, who
also married an officer of the company, shared
in the family attractiveness, as her portrait by an
artist who accompanied the first expedition of
Sir John Franklin shows. Beautiful and
ccom-
plished, the sisters were adlnired of all. The
stay of the young wife in New Caledonia after her
marriage was of short duration. Following her
husband to Fort Vancouver, there happened one of
those perilous chances to ,vhich women as well as
men in that stern period were exposed, her boat
upsetting in the dangerous passage of the Fraser.
A description of the dOlnestic life of the family
in the later years of Fort Vancouver shows her
ripened into a comely matron, her children about
her knees, while Douglas on a Sabbath evening
read to them from his Bible on the flo,ver-decked
porch of the officers' quarters. The eldest daugh-
ter of the family in after years married Dallas,
who subsequently became governor of the com-
pany at "Tinnipeg. It may be added in passing
that the status of Indian marriages had a personal
bearing for Douglas from the fact that Conolly, his
103

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI.JAS

father-in-law, on his retirement separated from his
Indian wife and married again. Important legal
proceedings followed, with the result that the first
marriages in such cases were declared binding and
the children legitimate.
There has been some debate as to the exact share
borne by Douglas in the extension of the com-
pany's operations in New Caledonia during the
period of his service there. That he was prominent
in the work is the evidence of several. Interest has
centred in this connection in the erection of Fort
Conolly, so named from the chief factor, and
designed to facilitate from its situation on Bear
Lake the trade with the Sekanais Indians. Douglas
has been considered by many as the guiding spirit
in that enterprise. On other evidence, however, he
was operating in a region remote from Bear Lake
in the year in which Fort Conolly was founded.
The fact is not of first importance, knowing as we
do the general activity of Douglas in exploration,
and having the assurance from indubitable sources
that. for six years crowded with incident he lived
the full life of the district. His mastery of the
Indian languages is but one evidence of the energy
with which he threw himself into the work; and on
his retirement from New Caledonia he had already
laid the foundations of a knowledge of the Pacific
slope that was later to be unrivalled. One of the
many vicissitudes that befell him at this period,
easily the most fateful in his early life, may be re-
104

INDIAN OUTRAGE

ferred to in SOlne detail, not for its intrinsic import-
ance, but as illustrating the character of the man,
the life of the place and the precarious nature of the
evidence on ,vhich it is necessary to rely in this por-
tion of the narrative.
In 1823, Yale, who was in command of Fort
George, had occasion to pay a visit to Stuart Lake.
On his return the mangled bodies of his two assist-
ants ,vere found in an outhouse, at their side one of
the company's axes ,vith which they had been done
to death by two Fraser I
ake Indians. The motive
of the deed is unrecorded. Yale was temporarily
suspended on the ground of negligence, but on full
investigation ,vas reinstated. One of the murderers
soon after paid the penalty of his crime. Several years
elapsed, \vhen in the summer of 1828, the survivor,
Tzoelhnolle by name, hazarded a visit to Stuart
Lake. Concerning the sequel we may note the
versions of the more important writers who have
considered the matter worthy of minute descrip-
tion.
Bancroft,! whose informant was John Tod of
Fort l\lcLeod,-an excellent authority, though over
eighty miles distant at the time of the occurrence,-
states that the occasion of the Indian's visit to Fort
St. James was a native celebration, at a tÏ1ne when
Douglas was in charge. The latter having been in-
forlned of the fact, immediately went in search of
the murderer who took refuge under a pile of camp
1 HMt010y of the North- West Coast, Chapter XX.

105

SIR JAl\IES DOUGL.i\S

equipage. Though an arrow-point stared him in the
face, Douglas and young Conolly seized the wretch
and killed him, in requital of which the former was
taken prisoner soon after by two hundred savages
with blackened faces and compelled to pay com-
pensation.
l\IcLean 1 relates the incident somewhat as fol-
lows: The Indian having visited Fort St. James when
Douglas was in command, and the latter, though
with a weak garrison, having executed "wildjustice"
on the murderer, the tribe, thoroughly incensed, de-
termined to obtain reprisal through a stratagem.
The old chief came alone to the fort and was ad-
mitted; the matter was discussed at length, and
seemed in a fair way of being settled when a
knock was heard at the gate. "It is my brother,"
said the chief, "come to hear what you have to
say." The gate was opened, when the whole of the
Nekasey tribe rushed in. The men of the fort
were overpowered; and though Douglas seized a
wall piece, he was speedily borne down. His life
was in the utmost peril as he was held by the chief
while thirty or forty Indians surrounded him
brandishing knives and shouting "Shall we strike?"
The chief hesitated, and the life of Douglas was
saved only by the prompt courage of the wife of
the interpreter of the fort who harangued the
Indians and secured his release.

1 Notes of Twenty-five Years'Service in the HudifOn's Bay Territory,-
Vol. I. page 268.
106

AN EPISODE AT STUART LAKE

Father l\lorice, l who, in knowledge of the north-
ern interior of British Columbia is without a peer,
gives an entirely different account from the fore-
going, quoting from native eye-witnesses. One
of the murderers, according to l\Iorice, had al-
ready paid the penalty of his crime, having been
secretly slain by the company's servants who
burned the remains in such a way as to suggest an
accident, when the survivor visited Stuart Lake,
Douglas being in charge. Hearing of his arrival,
Douglas went in search, and Tzoelhnolle, though
he . hid under some skins, was quickly discovered.
After an angry altercation, Douglas seized the
murderer by the hair and fired at him with his
blunderbuss, but the bullet flew wide; whereupon
his men beat the life out of the Indian with hoes
and clubs. The body was dragged out and left in
the open; l\lorice adds that it was left to the
dogs. Several days afterwards, the chief with
the father of Tzoelhnolle arrived; Douglas was
seized within the precincts of the fort; and the
chief's nephew pointing a dagger at his breast
iInpatiently asked, "Shall I strike?" A brave at-
tempt at rescue by the young wife of Douglas was
overpowered. Thereupon the women of the fort
threw tobacco, clothing and other goods into the
cro\vd, securing the release of Douglas.
These are only three of a great number of des-
criptions of an affair which has been given an alto-
1 Hi8tory of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, page 138.
107

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

gether disproportionate ilnportance. 1 "Tith reference
to the last account, ,vhich is that of an unbending
critic of the Hudson's Bay Company, some doubt
may be permitted, notwithstanding the unrivalled
knowledge of the author's, to a statement based
on the traditions of local tribes and involving the
ability of the native to recall at a date removed
by half a century the circumstances of an incident
concerning ,vhich he would have many tempta-
tions to fashion a version to his own credit. In
any event, it ,vould seem precipitate to base
on this and other incidents in the early career of
Douglas, the hypothesis that his removal to Fort
,..- ancouver-the next great step in his career-
came as a result of his inability to 'work in har-
mony with the Indians. Every reasonable estimate
we have of the character of Douglas and of his
value as an official is opposed to such a view. The
change, as there is cause to believe, was in the way
of preferment for success well earned in a diffi-
cult branch of the service, and for abilities already
proved and no'v required in a larger field. It was
carried out under the immediate direction of the
governor, who, if any man, would be aware of the
facts of the case, and would scarcely recommend for
honour one who had jeopardized the company's in-
terests in their most vital particular. 'Ve need hold
no brief for either Douglas or the company in the

lFor variations of the story see Gray, HÚJtory of Oregon, p. 44 ;
Hines, Oregon History, p. 392, etc., cited by Bancroft.
108

SIIHPSON AT FORT ST. JAMES

method in which justice was meted to the wretched
native of the story; but that the result was of far-
reaching import to the career of the leading actor
or to the relations of the company with the Indians,
is perhaps beyond the ability of the historian at this
date to demonstrate.

Before the transfer of Douglas to Fort Van-
couver, he had the opportunity of receiving in New
Caledonia no less a personage than the governor of
the company, Sir George Simpson, then on his tour
of inspection of the posts in 1828. A somewhat
detailed account of the ceremonies of the occasion
has survived. To impress the savage mind, it was
thought ad\.isable that the governor should make
his entry into Fort St. James with even more than
the usual amount of display. "\t'Tithin a mile of the
lake the party halted, breakfasted, and decorated.
The order of march was then arranged. The British
ensign, fluttering to the breeze, was borne by a
guide at the head of the procession. A band of
buglers and bagpipers followed. Behind rode the
governor, supported by the doctor of the party
and a neighbouring chief factor, also mounted.
Twenty men packing burdens next formed the line,
while another officer with his wife and family
brought up the rear. Arriving in view of the fort
itself, the bugles sounded and the bagpipes struck up
a famous march of the clans. Douglas replied with
canon and musketry, advancing to receive his dis-
109

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

tinguished visitor. The first exchange of civilities
ended, the line reformed, pipers and buglers entered
the enclosure, and, marching along the gallery con-
tiguous to the palisade, paraded in view of the
wondering natives. A dozen years later when the
governor was on his famous voyage around the
world, Douglas had a second time the honour of
welcoming him to a post of the company. The
scene was at Fort Vancouver, and Douglas had by
this time risen to all but the first rank in the most
important station of the company west of the
Rocky l\Iountains.

The change to Fort Vancouver came in ]830. It
marks the beginning of the career of Douglas as an
officer of real importance to the company. l\lc-
Loughlin's suggestion doubtless lay at the root of
the transfer. A good accountant, possessed of ad-
ministrative ability and capable of lightening the
responsibility of the chief factor in minor affairs,
was called for. Simpson himself had noted the
capacity of Douglas during his visit to New Cale-
donia. The irnportant nature of the post made the
question of its officers a vital one. Ninety miles in-
land from the sea, on a green t.errace sloping from
the northern bank of the Columbia, Fort Van-
couver, like a mediæval castle, was at once a
refuge in time of danger, an oasis of civilization in
a surrounding desert of barbarism, and a capital
from which its commander ruled the adjacent
110

McLOUGHLIN AT FORT VANCOUVER

territory. The fur country immediately tributary
was wide and rich ; and the Indian tribes to
develop its resources were numerous. But it was
more than this. Built by l\IcI.Joughlin in 1824-5 on
the abandonment of Astoria, Fort ,r ancouver had
the threefold advantage of a central location, a sur-
rounding country adapted to agriculture, and acces-
sibility to sea-going ships. The fort, accordingly,
for nearly a quarter of a century, was the emporium
not only of the company's vast interior trade, but
of the traffic by sea both coastwise and with
England and the Orient. It formed the counterpart
of York on Hudson Bay, with an even ,vider
range of operations and involving even greater
responsibilities, on account of its distance from
Great Britain. l\IcLoughlin for this reason was in-
vested with more than the usual powers of chief
factor, having to act to a great extent on his own
initiative. In many ways he was as supreme even
as the governor at Fort Garry. For twenty years
his rule ,vas that of a Czar over the territory that
stretched from Alaska to California, and from the
Rocky l\lountains to the Pacific Ocean. Uncounted
thousands of Indians-Cayuses, 'Valla 'Vallas,
Okanagans, Nez Percés, Flatheads, Spokanes,
Klickitats, l\T ascopams, l\Iolallas, Callapooias,
Tillamooks, Chinooks, Clatsops,-obeyed his be-
hests and feared his displeasure. Over every ,vater-
way in that immense region he sent his Canadian
voyageurs ; through hundreds of miles of forest he
11]

SIR JAJ.\;lES DOUGLAS

dispatched his trappers and traders ; in and out of
the fringing north-west islands, to Sitka itself, his
schooners plied; throughout the San J oaq uin and
Tulare valleys, over the Shoshone country, on the
shores of Salt I
ake and in the Yellowstone itself,
his brigades pitched their tents ; all alike bringing
home rich tribute to the cOlnpany, and restlessly
seeking further and ever further regions to subdue.
To share in this command, the first coadjutor of
l\lcI
oughlin, Douglas, young as he was, had been
chosen. It was an office great in its present powers
and responsibilities; in the hands of Douglas, its
future ,vas to lead him to still higher place and
honour.

112

CHAPTER IV

FORT VANCOUVER

T HE moment of Douglas's arrival at Fort Van-
couver was an important one in the history
of the company. Up to 1830 little had been ac-
con1plished west of the Rocky l\lountains beyond
the slow and laborious establishment of a single
pathway to the sea and the subjection of the
country immediately tributary. New Caledonia had
been gi\7en, for the time, its full measure of de-
velopment; but the situation of l\lcI.Joughlin at
Fort 'T ancouver was still, to outward seeming, not
un]ike that of Fraser twenty years previously. The
new fort had, however, ,vhat Fraser's posts had
not, the illiInitable promise which the command of
both sea and land and the adaptability of the latter
for agriculture held out. With the building of Fort
Vancouver in 1824 and the occupation of the Col-
umbia, the way was cleared for a policy of expan-
sion on a scale unprecedented in the previous
annals of the company. For this, after six years of
preliminary effort, the time was now considered
ripe; and Douglas was a part of the material which
was placed in the hands of l\IcLoughlin. It was the
fortune, therefore, of Douglas to be identified from
the first ,vith the movement which brought the
whole of the coast and the lower mainland of
118

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

British Columbia under the subjection of the 'white
man.
The full measure of the company's design at
that period may be guessed from the part that was
actually realized. l\lcLoughlin ,vas the directing
spirit, though Douglas froln the first entered fully
into the confidence of his chief and assisted in the
formation as well as the execution of his plans. That
the company had in view a great trade north and
south along the coast, with Russians and 1\Iexicans
as well as the native tribes; that it set no bounds
to the regions it sought to dominate in the interior;
that the Sandwich Islands were included in its com-
mercial suzerainty; this much we know from history.
That it cast its vision still further, to the Orient
and the southern seas, is not improbable. l\lagnifi-
cent as was the dream of an ocean added to a
continent for its sole trade, it was no more
than the occasion seemed to ,varrant. Ocean and
continent alike were a no-man's domain; not a
ri val in 1825-30 was in sight. But events moved
too rapidly to leave so trcmendous a development
to private enterprise. The advent of the Alnerican
colonist in Oregon, the establishment of the United
States in California, and the definite partitionment
of the north-west coast behveen Great Britain and
the republic in the celebrated treaty of 1846, were
destined to dissipate these hopes almost as soon
as they were formed. The missionaries were in
Orego
within a decade of 1\1 cLoughlin him-
114

EXPANSION IN THE FUR TRADE

self; and they were follo,ved by a population that
,vas to drive the fur trader forever from the land.
For the forty years, however, that followed the ad-
vent of the white man west of the Rocky
fountains,
the history of that territory is the history of the
fur trade. Its earlier stages have been already out-
lined. In the present and in the following chapter
will be noted the more important developments
that ensued, with Fort Vancouver for centre,
during the second quarter of the century, or un-
til the division of Oregon between Great Britain
and the United States, and the removal of
the company's headquarters north of the 49th
parallel. In discussing the period, it will be neces-
sary first to trace the natural process of expansion,
northward in the direction of Russian territory,
southward towards California, as well as in the
interior of New Caledonia and Oregon. Later, the
movement contingent upon the settlement of
Oregon and the determination of the international
boundary, with the political consequences involved
therein, will be briefly outlined.

The first step looking to the extension of the
company's influence northward was taken almost
immediately after the establishment of Fort Van-
couver. In 1824, an expedition sent out by l\lc-
I
oughlin made a careful examination of the shore-
,vard territory lying between the Columbia and
the Fraser; and its members were the first to
115

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

enter the latter river from the sea. Before further
action was taken, however, the strengthening of
communications with New Caledonia, which, as
above noted, had already been established through
I(mnloops and Alexandria, required attention. This
was accomplished by the founding of Fort Colville,
in 1825-6, on the Upper Columbia, a post which at
once attained importance as a dépôt for the sur-
rounding territory and as final place of ('all for the
brigades which, from this time forward, began to
pass regularly eastward from the coast to Edmon-
ton and Norway House.
After this interlude, l\IcLoughlin turned again
t.o the north, and Fort Langley was erected on the
Lower Fraser in 1827. Langley therefore repre-
sents the earliest occupation of the lower mainland
of British Columbia. The schooner Cadboro which
carried the crew and supplies for the new post was
the first sea-going keel to ruffle the Fraser and the
many bays of the neighbouring coast. Langley at
once became important, the more so on account of
its excellent salmon fishery. For a time, also, the
trade of the coast northward was conducted through
the Indians alone, with Langley as entrepôt.
But competition pressed, t.hat especially of the
American traders; and in 1831 a bold resolve was
taken. Fort Simpson ,vas tremblingly erected at
the mouth of the N aas, some hundreds of miles
north of Langley. It arose in the ntidst of the most
treacherous savages known on the coast; and its
116

OPERATIONS ON THE COAST
occupation became in a peculi
r degree a test of
military endurance. It was the outpost for many
years of the company's effort to monopolize the
north-west trade.
To occupy the territory between Fort Langley
and
'ort Simpson now became the concern of
l\lcLoughlin. In 1833, Finlayson, J.\tIanson and
Anderson were sent north in the brig Dryad, John
Dunn, known as the author of a history of Oregon,
serving as their interpreter. At l\1illbank Sound,
they were joined by J.\tIcN eill in the Llama. (As
throwing light upon conditions at this juncture, it
may be explained that l\IcN eill's first appearance
on the coast had been as the agent of a Boston
conlpany ,vith a shipload of ge"rgaws for the In-
dian trade. These completely outbid the company's
staple commodities, with the result that l\IcLough-
!in, to rid himself of the nuisance, had bought the
ship and her cargo outright and enlisted its captain
in the company's service.) In the all but impene-
trable forest that stretched to the water's edge, a
space was cleared and a fort erected, closed in by
the usual picket, one hundred and twenty yards
square in this instance, with a height of eighteen
feet. Such was Fort l\IcLoughlin. From the first it
was a scene of conflict with the Indians. l\fanson
and Anderson were left in command, Tolmie suc-
ceeding Anderson in 1834 and l\lanson being re-
placed by Charles Ross in 1838. The first circulat-
ing library on the Pacific slope was founded by
117

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Tolmie and l\1anson for the benefit of these posts.
In the same year as Fort l\lcLoughlin, Fort Nis-
qually was erected between Langley and Fort \Tan-
couver, and in 1835 Fort Essin!,TÌon was built to
serve as intermediate station between Forts Simp-
son and l\IcLoughlin.
With the completion of these operations, the way
was prepared for the inevitable collision with Russia
that soon followed. As early as 1825 the need of a
partitionment of interests between Great Britain and
Russia on the north-west coast had been fully appre-
ciated, and had resulted in the signing of a conven-
tion which was destined to affect far distant and
strangely altered times and which therefore is among'
the most important episodes in the period at present
in review. Under its terms, the subjects of both
governments were free to navigate the Pacific and
to trade with the natives of any shore not already
occupied by Europeans. The traders might land at
the posts of their rivals for shelter or repairs, but
for no other reason, unless by express permission.
Prince of Wales Island was established as the
southern limit of Russian territory, the island to
belong wholly to Russia. On the mainland, the
boundary, after following the channel of the Port-
land Canal to the 56th parallel 5 was to lie along the
summits of the coast range of mountains which it
should follow parallel to the shore as far as longitude
141 0 . Thence it should run due north to the
Arctic Ocean. Where the summits of the mountains,
118

THE ALASKA BOUNDARY

however, from the 56th parallel northward should
be more than ten marine leagues from the
ocean, the dividing line, it was agreed, should curve
with the curving of the shore at that distance. For
ten years the British were granted the right to trade
throughout the lisière and to the port of Sitka
in all save .arms, ammunition, and spirits. To the
streams running through the shore-strip to the
ocean, the right was granted in perpetuity. Such
was the beginning of the Alaska boundary question,
a matter that was not finally laid to rest until 1903.
The terms were dictated purely by the circum-
stances of the rival trading companies, the only'
value of the coast-strip to the Russians being that
it excluded the British from the trade of the inter-
ior. Intercourse was held at that time by the Rus-
sians only,vith the Indians of the coast, the latter
bartering with the inland tribes at the head of the
nlountains. Furs and furs alone were the cause of
contention in 1825 ; the land, which in 1903 'vas
the point at issue, was at that tilne regarded as
worthless.
The navigable rivers, it will have been noted, were
left as an avenue by which the British traders might
pierce the Russian cordon to the interior. In 1834,
the first attempt to utilize this conceSSIon was made.
The r{lost considerable river crossing the strip of land
below the 141st degree was the Stikine. To enter it,
traverse the Russian zone, and establish a post in the
hinterland, was the object of an expedition sent north
119

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

under Ogden and Anderson in the year mentioned.
Th
party was well equipped, as befitted one whose
mission was the founding of a station able to sup-
port itself a thousand miles from any base of supplies,
and to fight both savages and rivals. But it had appar-
ently reckoned without its host. At the mouth of
the Stikine a Russian blockhouse was encountered,
supported by a corvette and two gunboats to forbid
the entrance to the river. The Russians well appre-
ciated the danger to their trade that lurked in the de-
signs of the British; and the alleged sale of firearms
and spirits to the natives was now used by Baron
W rangel, the Russian governor at Sitka, as the
grounds for a request to the imperial government to
rescind the clause of the treaty which gave the British
access to the river. \Vithout awaiting a reply,
Wrangel had fortified the Stikine as soon as news of
the projected move of the Hudson's Bay Company
reached Sitka. The coast Indians, jealous of their
commerce with the interior tribes, added their refusal
to that of the Russian governor. Heated negotiations
were conducted on the spot between the rivals; but
after a delay of a few days the company's ship was put
about and returned to Fort Vancouver, armed with
a lengthy protest and bill of losses for reference to
the home government. On the ,yay back, that the
expedition might not be wholly fruitless, Fort Simp-
son was removed some forty Iniles to the south.
The negotiations that followed between Russia
and Great Britain took shape finally in a com-
120

DOUGLAS AT FORT VANCOUVER

mission which met in London. As a result, the
shore-strip reservation was leased to the Hudson's
Bay Company by Russia at an annual rental of two
thousand land-otter skins. The Stikine post was
handed over; and permission was given to erect
another post still further northward on the Taku. It
was agreed also that the British should supply the
Russians at Sitka with provisions, which the in-
. clemency of northern latitudes prevented the Rus-
sians from raising for themselves. So satisfactory in
the issue did this arrangement prove that it was
three times renewed, while in addition to Fort
Taku on the coast, two posts, l\lumford and Glen-
ora, were erected on the Upper Stikien, where they
remained until the advent of the gold-seeker drove
the game from the district.
Douglas played a prominent part in directing the
events which ended as above described. Soon after
his arrival on the coast he had revised and greatly
improved the system of accounting by which the
several posts of the department made annual re-
turns to Fort Vancouver. .At least once he had been
in charge of the York Factory express, a difficult
and dangerous service, the route lying by way of
\Valla \\T alia, Colville, and the Athabaska Pass, to
Edmonton, thence to Hudson Bay and return.
This 'vas in 1835, the party consisting of twenty-
nine Canadians in three boats, eight months being
consumed in the journey. It was Douglas, also,
who, in 1840, was in command of the party which
121

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI.lAS

raised the British flag above Fort Stikine. The
mission was of considerable ìmportance. Rae, Fin-
layson and the son of l\lcLoughlin, with fifty men,
made up the force. By way of NisqualIy and
Langley, the latter being found in ruins from an
Indian attack, and passing forts McLoughlin and
Simpson, they steamed in the Beaver to the head-
quarters of the company in the leased territory,
where the formal act of transfer was completed. A
brave rescue by Douglas of a Inember of his crew
who had been swept away while fording the icy
waters of the Nisqually River was recorded on this
journey. Rae, with eighteen men, was left at
Stikine, and Douglas with the rest passed on to
Sitka. Ten days were spent with Etholin in the
final ratification of the agreement. Some 'words were
dropped as to the purchase of Ross in California, but
nothing definite resulted. On the return from Sitka,
Fort Durham, commonly known as Taku, ,vas
erected. In that desolate spot of almost constant
rain and snow, and among some of the wildest
natives of the coast, it had a life of only three years.
Douglas was again in charge of the party which
dismantled the post. Fort l\IcLoughlin on l\lill-
bank Sound was at the same time moved to
the head of Vancouver Island and renamed Fort
Rupert. Indian turbulence, here as in no other part
of the company's dominions, constantly menaced
its affairs. l\IcLoughlin the younger, who had fol-
lowed Rae at Fort Stikine, was shot in 1842, per-
122

ROBERT CAl\IPBELL

haps the most signal victim of the animosity in the
teeth of which the company drove its northern trade.

With the movement upon Russian trade by ,vay
of the sea, it had been decided to attack from the
land as well; and the result was a series of expedi-
tions in the northern interior of British Columbia
that recall the days of l\lackenzie and Fraser.
'Vith a courage not less conspicuous, the company
pushed its way into the region of the Upper Liard
and Yukon which the white man had never before
seen. The incident belongs in part to the develop-
ment of the l\Iackenzie River Department, and in
part to later history, though it may fitly be men-
tioned here. On the Liard, the most wild and dan-
gerous of all the great eastern streams that dash
down from the Rocky l\lountains, the earliest post
to be established within the confines of British Col-
umbia was the fort which took its name from the
river itself. Fort Nelson on the eastern branch, was
built about the same period, or shortly after the be-
ginning of the century. Twenty years later, Fort
Liard ,vas pillaged by the Indians and its people
murdered. l\feanwhile Fort Halkett had been found-
ed on a higher branch, shortly after the amalgama-
tion of the rival companies. In 1884, the Upper
Liard was ascended by McLeod to its southern
source in Dease Lake. It was not, however, until
1838 that a post was built in this remote country
by a Scotsman named Robert Campbell, the most
123

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

distinguished man which the place and period pro-
duced, and the last of the great explorers which the
fur trade gave to the western continent. Ordered
to the l\lackenzie in 1834, Campbell, after his
operations at Dease Lake, crossed to ,the Pacific
by the Stikine. Here he was taken prisoner by the
Indians. On his escape, after terrible hardships,
Fort Dease was burned to the ground. But it ,vas
not until 1840 that Campbell, under orders from
Sir George Simpson, undertook the journey that
was to make him famous. This was the ascent of
the northern branch of the Liard through the
great gorge that had previously barred all hope of
access to its source, Lake Frances. After a desper-
ate struggle, Campbell surmou:rited the barrier, and
on Lake Finlayson, a tributary reservoir, saw the
waters divide, part to flow into the Pacific, part to
begin the long journey to the Arctic. Beyond the
height of land he sighted the cliffs of the Pelly.
After descending this river a fe\v miles he turned
back. The honour of naming it from himself he re-
fused. In the following year, with a post on Lake
Frances and another on Pelly Danks as a basis, he
again set forth, but was again compelled, this time
by hostile natives, to return, after reaching the
point where the junction of the Lewis and the
Pelly forms the great river of Alaska. It was not
until eight years later that Campbell's efforts were
crowned with success. On that occasion, after
erecting Fort Selkirk at the mouth of the I
ewis,
124

CALIFORNIA

and tracing the latter to its source, he descended
the Yukon several hundred miles to the junction
of the Porcupine, where Fort Yukon, the most
remote of the company's posts, lying one hundred
and fifty miles ,vithin the Alaska boundary and on
the Arctic Circle, had been built some four years
earlier by the trader Bell. I-Iere Campbell united
his own discoveries ,vith those made by way of the
lower and less difficult branches of the l\Iackenzie.
Ascending the Porcupine and crossing to the Peel,
he arrived by way of the l\Iackenzie at his original
point of departure, Fort SiInpson on the Liard. He
had traversed in that great circle over three thou-
sand miles of river and mountain; he had lnapped a
huge region which before had been \vholly Ull-
kno\vn; and he had given a lasting impetus to the
trade inland in the direction of the Russian com-
petitor; all with a forgetfulness of self that was
only equalled by the splendid courage and endur-
ance which the achievement demanded.

In California, the endeavour of the cOlnpany to
secure a foothold, while Fort Vancouver remained
the entrepôt of' the department, was extended over
sixteen years. The descendants of the Spaniards,
who now held the country after throwing off the
yoke of Spain, had neither the enterprise to estab-
lish trade nor the inclination to foster it by govern-
ment. Fish and furs, in small quantities only,
found an outlet through }\>lexico. Nevertheless,
125

SIR JA
IES DOUGl
AS

the efforts of Russia, England, and the United
States, to establish trading-posts in the south, lnet
with fierce opposition. The first attempt of the
Hudson's Bay Company to invade California ,vas
before 1830, the valleys of the Sacramento and
San Joaquin having at an early date attracted the
attention of l\lcLoughlin. A party sent to the
assistance of the American trader J edidiah Smith,
who, on crossing from Salt Lake in 1827-8, had
been roughly handled by the Indians and had lost
a convoy of furs, penetrated as far as the Umpqua.
A second expedition, under Ogden, reached the
Sacramento River, and in 1835 the company estab-
lished a post at the j unction of the Sacramento and
Jesus l\1aria. A few years served to exhaust the
furs of these outlying districts, and, with the desire
to reach still further southward, a collision with
Mexico became inevitable. At this contingency,
Douglas was sent in charge of a party to treat
with the l\lexican governor. Sailing from Fort
Vancouver, December 3rd, 1840, on the ship
Columbia, with a crew of thirty-six and a cargo
of miscellaneous goods, he cast anchor at l\10nterey
on New Year's Day, 1841. The design of the voy-
age was largely political, but the crew had been
increased by stockmen who were to drive north-
ward a supply of cattle. The negotiations with
the governor lasted until January 19th. Douglas
undertook to check the operations of the company
in the Tulare and outlying valleys, and in return
126

SAN FRANCISCO

obtained a temporary relaxation of the law which
confined the coastwise trade to J\tlexican bottoms,
together with the important right for the company to
trade in California by express sanction of the govern-
ment. Fifty cents, it was agreed, should be paid by
the company for each beaver skin taken. San Fran-
cisco was immediately visited with a view to an estab-
lishment, not without friction with rival traders;
and Douglas was back in Fort Vancouver by the
following l\lay. Rae, the son-in-law of l\lcLough-
lin, was recalled from the Stikine and appointed
to the new post, which was situated on Yerba
Buena Cove, in the Bay of San Francisco. Simpson,
then on his famous voyage around the world, and
l\lcLoughlin as chief factor, visited the post soon
after. For two years the record of the company's
transactions was the history of San Francisco, and
its servants made up almost the entire population.
With the interior a steady trade in supplies sprang
up. But the scale of profits from the first was
below the expectation of the company. Rae fell
ill, and in 1845 committed suicide. Forbes took
over the control; but the governor had already
decided, against the judgment of l\lcLoughlin, to
abandon the post. The end came in 1846, when the
company sold the establishment at Verba Buena
and retired forever from San Francisco Bay.

These vigorous efforts of the company in the out-
lying regions of the department were accompanied
127

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

by developments in the immediate neighbourhood
of Fort Vancouver which were of even greater
importance. The agreement with the Russians
relative to the supplying of provisions had been
fraught with far-reaching consequences. From the
first, l\IcLoughlin, in spite of prejudice to the con-
trary, had recognized the agricultural possibilities
of Oregon. The mild and equable clin1ate and the
depth and richness of the soil tempted a diversity
and luxuriance of growth that invited the lnost
unwilling to husbandry. In the open spaces about
Fort Vancouver axe and plough were set to work,
and corn and live-stock reared. Sheep were brought
frorn California, hogs from the Sandwich Islands,
and cattle from Ross. Soon a flour mill worked by
oxen was set up. Grist and sawmills followed on
the Willamette. Horse breeding for the brigades
became extensive. By 1835, some thirty-five hundred
feet of lumber were being sawn daily; while the yield
of grain ,vas annually several thousands of bushels,
and the number of animals constantly on hand
several hundreds. By these activities the company
was saved the expense of bringing supplies through
the mountains or around Cape Horn. The growing
of grain was still a lnere auxiliary to the trade in
peltries, and while it remained so the inherent in-
compatibility of the two was not apparent. In a
land of abundance, however, the supply soon ex-
ceeded the local demand. Flour and lumber from
the Columbia began to seek a market in the Pacific
128

THE PUGET SOUND COMPANY

Islands. Sa]mon was shipped to Boston and Lon-
don. 'Vith the Russian treaty, and the stimulus
,vhich it immediately gave to farming on the Col-
umbia, this new phase was accentuated. The first
intimation had been given, to those ,vho could un-
derstand, of the final destiny of the region. Fur-
trading and settled industry cannot live together.
The company knew this full well. But, as it could
not alter the decree of nature, its primary concern
in the situation was one of organization merely-
the keeping of the two divisions of its activity
separate, now that the industrial branch gave pro-
mise of attaining large proportions.
To have charge of the important commercial and
agricultural interests of the company, a separate
body was deemed necessary. The formation of a
cattle association by some settlers on the 'Villa-
mette pointed the way; and in 1838-9, l\IcI...ough-
lin obtained the sanction of the directors to the
organization of the Puget Sound Agricultural Com-
pany. The new undertaking was brought into being
under the immediate auspices of the Hudson's Bay
Company, which furnished nearly all the original
shareholders. It was officered from the staff of the
parent body; and it was expressly forbidden to deal
in furs. On the other hand the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany handed over all its cattle, sheep, horses and
farming implements to it and renounced husbandry
forever in Oregon. The rich and level region which
lay about Nisqually and between Puget Sound and
129

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

the head waters of the Cowlitz, a branch of the
Columbia which joins the latter about fifty miles
fronl the ocean, offered a fa vourable field for the
rearing of flocks and herds and the production of
wool, hides and tallow. Farms were also opened on
the Willamette. l\fcLoughlin was appointed the
first manager; skilled farmers and shepherds ,vere
brought from Canada and England ; and the com-
pany was finally inaugurated in 1840, with a capital
of
200,000 in
100 shares. Of this capital, however,
no more than
16,lûO were found to have been paid
up at the time the company's affairs were finally
settled.
It ,vould seem that the enterprise suffered almost
from the start from a variety of opposing circum-
stances. Into the history of its chequered career it is
unnecessary here to enter, lying as the period does
some years in advance of the time at present under
discussion. The adoption of the 49th parallel as the
international boundary, in 1846, under circum-
stances to be eXplained further on, was a blow from
which the company never attempted to recover. Its
men deserted for the free lands of the homesteader;
the natives destroyed its stock; while the technical
differences between" possessions" and" possessory
rights" under the boundary treaty, were a source of
perpetual dispute between the companies and the
United States. An offer was finally made to sell all
rights and titles to the United States for $1,000,000.
This ,vas not accepted, and the friction continued.
180

OPERATIONS OF 'j'HE COMPANY

Again, in 1860, it was intimated, through the
British ambassador at 'Vashington, that the sum of
$500,000 would be accepted by Great Britain on
behalf of the companies, and would release the
United States from all engagements under the
treaty. The company, however, maintained its
position until the year 1867, hoping that by con-
tinuing in business, though at a loss, it would make
good its case against the United States. In the year
mentioned, a commission was appointed by which
the various claims were at last determined. Those
of the Hudson's Bay Company were settled for
$450,000 ; those of the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company, for $200,000. It was discovered by the
commission that the latter body was indebted to
the parent company in the sum of
25,000, and
that except at intervals it had not paid a profit to
the shareholders. The highest dividend declared was
ten per cent., and this was continued for five years
only, 1848-53. The last dividend paid was in 1854;
it amounted to five per cent. The Hudson's Bay
Company had an interest as purchaser in one thou-
sand three hundred and eighty-six shares issued at
par. In 1853, the company claimed one hundred and
sixty-seven thousand acres at Nisqually, eighty
thousand acres of ,vhich 'were prairie land. At Cow-
litz, it claimed three thousand six hundred acres. In
1856, according to Tolmie, it had seven hundred and
forty acres fenced at Nisqually. Of its operations on
Vancouver Island there will be mention later.
131

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

McLoughlin, the first manager of the Puget
Sound Agricultural Company, was succeeded on
his retirement by Douglas, who also severed his
connection with the company in the year 1859,
upon his acceptance of the governorship of the
colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
One incident in connection with the agricultural
operations of the company may be noted in pass-
ing. In 1829, when the soil about Fort Vancouver
was first upturned, a fearful epidemic of fever and
ague broke out. The whites suffered severely, but
the Indians fell by thousands. Typhoid, whooping-
cough and measles soon after made their first ap-
pearance. In 1833 a hospital which had been erected
on the Columbia had from two to three hundred
cases as its usual number.

Over many stirring events that had their centre
in Fort Vancouver, during the period in which it
dominated the life of the coast, this summary must
pass in silence. The narration might be made to in-
clude several daring expeditions into forest and
wilderness, such, for example, as that which VV ork
led in 1834 far into the wilds of Oregon, past the
headwaters of the 'Vìllamette, to the buffalo country
of the l\lissouri; or that ofErmatinger in 1841 to the
Sacramento; or that which founded in 1832 Fort
Umpqua on the route between Fort Vancouver
and San Francisco Bay,-almost the only post at-
tempted by the company for purposes of general
132

JEDIDIAH SMITH

trade south of the Columbia. Much space, too,
might be given to the internal development of the
company, and to the Jife that sprang up on the
Columbia, which under l\lcLoughlin was perhaps
more striking than that in any other part of the
company's domain. But the tree had no sooner
achieved vigorous growth than it withered before
the changed conditions which came with the advent
of the agriculturist from the United States. To
the inlportant series of events that ended in the
permanent establishment of the United States in
Oregon, involving the settlement of the boundary
between British and American territory, the ex-
tinction of the fur trade between the Columbia and
the 49th parallel, and the removal of the com-
pany's headquarters from Fort Vancouver to Vic-
toria, the rest of this chapter will be devoted.
As before, Douglas was the close spectator, if not
the actual director, of almost every move that was
taken, having risen to the rank of chief trader in
1832 and of chief factor in 1840, and becoming in
later years the forefront of the opposition offered
by the English company to what it soon had to
acknowledge was the decree of fate.
Prior to 1830, the first to cross the Rockies from
the United States to Oregon, since the days of the
Astorians, was J edidiah Smith, who, with a band
of fellow trappers, entered the Snake River coun-
try in 1825. Since the \\T ar of 1812, it should be
explained, Astoria had been in the possession of
133

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

the United States under an arrangement with
Great Britain by which the country from the
Mexican frontier for an indeterminate distance
northward was held in joint sovereignty. lVlore con-
cerning this arrangement will appear later on. From
that time forward the possibility of the settlement
of Oregon by agriculturists had been debated from
time to time in congress ; but the awful perils of
the journey overland and the conflicting information
as to the value of the country itself led to no active
result. l\Ieanwhile, as we know, l\'lcLoughlin had
installed the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company at
Fort Vancouver and had taken virtual possession of
the territory north and south. Smith was a lieuten-
ant of the Rocky l\lountain Fur Company, which
the enterprise of the trader Ashley had made
famous in the great interior of the continent, and
which was the first to re-establish commercial com-
munications bet,veen the United States and the
territories west of the Rocky l\:1ountains. Since the
dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company the trade
of the Upper l\lississippi and the Missouri had been
carried on by the North American Fur Company,
at the head of which Astor remained, while in 1822
the Columbia Fur Company was formed, for opera-
tion in the same field, from recruits from the N orth-
West Company who were dissatisfied ,vith the
terms of the amalgamation of 1821. Smith, after
crossing twice to the Pacific and ranging through-
out Northern California, was killed by Indians in
134

Al\IERICAN TRADERS

1829, but not before he had led the first train of
waggons from the east to the base of the Rocky
lVlountains. Sporadic expeditions followed under
the command of Pilcher of the North American
Company, Pattie of a 1vIissouri concern, and others
to whom these operations acted as a spur; but until
Bonneville and \V yeth came, direct collision with
the Hudson's Bay Company was avoided. Smith in
fact, as has been noted, owed his fortune, almost his
life, on one occasion, to the English company, and
gratitude may have found a place even in the
breasts of warring fur traders. Bonneville, a French-
man by birth and a captain of the United States
army, having obtained in 1831 a furlough of two
years, led a band of one hundred men and twenty
waggons from the l\1issouri to the Columbia, where
he spent two years in unsuccessful contention ,vith
rival enterprises, and returned having lost all. The
expeditions of ,V yeth of l\Iassachusetts, n)ade
about the same time as that of Bonneville, ,vere
conceived in more serious vein, but met with
scarcely greater success. Two posts were founded
but were almost iInmediately driven out by the
competition of the I-Iudson's Bay Company. Kelly,
a Boston school teacher and an enthusiast in religion
and politics, had the merit of attracting attention to
Oregon by an extravagant scheme of colonization,
in attempting to realize which he passed through
extreme hardships in California and was rescued in
the end from his suffering by the Hudson's Bay
135

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

Company, against which, however, he continued to
entertain to the last an implacable hatred. Unsettled
in mind as he was, Kelly was nevertheless the first
to declare the feasibility of overland elnigration from
the United States to the Pacific, and, in writings
poured forth for over a quarter of a century, to in-
duce ultimately some trial of the undertaking which
was to prove the true solution of the country's
future.
By sea, during the year 1829, the ships Convoy
and Owyhee, both of Boston, attempted to open
trade with the natives of the Columbia. After a
year's stay on the coast, the vessels took their de-
parture and were seen in these waters no more. The
Owyhee was reputed to have brought the first peach
trees planted in Oregon and to have carried thence
the first Columbia salmon to reach the Boston
markets.
But the most potent factor in the permanent
settlement of Oregon was the coming of the mis-
sionaries. The period was the third decade of
the century. The movement had its origin in an
incident, striking as it was touching. About the
time of 'V yeth's first expedition, there had ap-
peared at St. Louis five Indians of the Nez Percés
tribe who, having heard of the ,vhite man's God
and His book, had come to ask that men be sent
to teach their people concerning them. The story
of their quest found its way into the press and ,vas
re-echoed throughout the churches of the land. To
136

THE l\IISSIONARIES IN OREGON

one Jason Lee, a Methodist preacher, the call came
as from l\Iacedonia of old. With his nephew Daniel
Lee and three lay brethren, he joined the second ex-
pedition of \ïV yeth which was at the moment em-
barking on its perilous march. In July 1834, Lee
preached his first sermon in Oregon. 'Vith l\IcLough-
lin's aid, he planted his first mission on the 'ïVilla-
mette, where a few retired servants of the company
had already, by permission, established themselves
and were employed chiefly in herding cattle. The
mission soon became the nucleus of a permanent
colony drawing recruits continuously from beyond
the mountains. It was the first settlement of United
States citizens on the Columbia having other than
a commercial object in view. Before another year
had elapsed, Lee was followed by the Presbyterian
missionaries Parker and 'Vhitman, the latter being
joined by his 'wife. Spaulding and Gray came in
1836. The tribes of the Upper Columbia were
now evangelized, 'i\Thitman settling in the valley of
the 'Valla Walla and Spaulding in the Nez Percés
country, and still further knowledge of the country
was distributed in the Eastern States. "\i\Thitman,
especially, froln the moment of his arrival in
Oregon, was untiring in his agitation for the in-
clusion of the country in the United States territory;
and his establishment among the Cayuses soon
formed a gate\vay through the mountains for the
straggling lines of the settlers, which from this time
forward, as a result largely of his efforts, began to
187

SIR JAl\IES DOUGI.lAS

flow in ever-increasing numbers from the east to
the Columbia. \Vhitman's famous ride from Oregon
to \Vashington over the snow, in 1848, that he
lnight superintend the immigration of the following
year, is the most stirring deed of the whole move-
ment. He returned with a thousand people. Schools
for the education of the natives were opened; and
in 1839 a printing press was set up at WalIa \iV alla
on which were struck off the first sheets ever
printed on the Pacific slope of America north of
l\lexico. The Jesuit missionaries, who came in 1838
froln Canada, penetrated throughout the region,
but had little effect on immigration.
To notice in detail the various steps by which the
intermittent bands of settlers attracted by the mis-
sionaries to Oregon swelled into a great national
movement ending in the occupation of the country
by the United States, would be beyond the scope
of the present chapter. Disconnected and unim-
portant at first, the different strands were in a
measure gathered into a self-conscious whole in
1837, with the formation in the United States of
the first societies for the promotion of emigration to
Oregon. From that time forward the inflow was con-
tinuous, gathering volume with time. Perhaps no
better view of the varied nature of the movement
and of the manner in which its different constitu-
ents were intermingled, is obtainable than that pre-
sented by the follo\ving extracts from a document
prepared by l\lcLoughlin hiInself:
188

THE SETTLEl\fENT OF OREGON

"This year," he writes, with reference to 1836,
"the people in the \Villamette formed a party and
went by sea with l\fr. Slacum to California for cat-
tle, al1d returned in 1837 'with two hundred and fifty
head. In 1836, the Rev. l\Ir. Leslie and family, ac-
companied by the Rev. l\Ir. Perkins, another single
man, and a single woman, came by sea to reinforce
the l\Iethodist l\Iission. In 1837 a bachelor and five
single women also came by sea to reinforce the
l\Iethodist l\lission; and three Presbyterian minis-
ters came across land with their families, while
their supplies came by sea. Two of these mission-
aries settled in the vicinity of Colville, the other in
the Nez Percés country. In 1838, two Roman
Catholic missionaries caIne from Canada. This year
the Rev. l\lr. Griffin of the Presbyterian Church,
with his wife, came across land from the States by
way of the Snake country. There came with him
also a laYlnan of the nanle of Munger, and his
wife . . . . In 1839 a party left the state of' Il-
linois, headed by l\Ir. Farnham, with the intention
of exploring the country and reporting to their
countrymen who had sent them. Four only reached
this place. Three relnained, l\lr. Farnham returning
to the States by sea and publishing an account of
his travels. l\fessrs. Geiger and Johnson came this
year, sent, as they said, by people in the States to
examine the country and report. Johnson left by
sea and never returned. Geiger went as far as Cali-
fornia and returned here by land . . . . In 1840,
139

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS
the Rev. Mr. Clark of the Presbyterian Church
with his wife, and two laymen with their wives,
came across land on the self-supporting system,
but, as their predecessors, they failed, and are now
settled on the Willamette. In 1840, the Rev. l\Ir.
Jason Lee, who had gone in 1838 across land to
the United States, returned by sea in the Laus-
anne, Capt. Spaulding, with a reinforcement of
fifty-two persons, ministers and laymen, women
and children, for the l\iethodist l\fission, and a
large supply of goods with which the l\fethodist
Mission opened a sale shop. In 1841, the American
exploring squadron, under Captain 'Vilkes, surveyed
the Columbia River from the entrance to the Cas-
cades, and sent a party across land from Puget
Sound to Colville and 'Valla 'i\T alIa, and another
from Vancouver to California. At the same time
the Thomas PerÀ'ins, Captain Varney, of Boston,
entered the Columbia River for the purpose of
trade. . . .
"In the spring, the Rev. Father De Smet of
the Society of Jesus came to Vancou ver from
the Flat Head country where the year before
he had established a mission from St. l.Jouis. He
came for supplies, with which he returned to his
mission. In August, the Rev.
lessrs. Langlois and
Bolduc Caine by sea. In the month of September,
one hundred and thirty-seven men, women, and
children arrived from the States. They came with
their waggons to Fort Hall, and thence packed their
140

ARRIVALS IN OREGON

effects on horses and drove their cattle. . . . In
the fall, eight hundred and seventy-five men,
women, and children came from the States by
the same route as last year, bringing one
thousand three hundred head of cattle. These
came to The Dalles, on the Columbia River, with
their waggons, drove their cattle over the Cas-
cades by the same route as those of last year to the
'Villamette, and when the road was blocked by
snow proceeded along the north bank of the Col-
umbia to Vancouver, where they crossed the river
to the Willamette, bringing down their wives, child-
ren, and property, on rafts, in canoes which they
hired from the Indians, and in boats belonging to
the Hudson's Bay Company, lent them by me.
. . . . . The Rev. Father Deros [Demers] of the
Society of Jesus, came this year with two other
fathers of the same society and three laymen and
established a mission in the Colville district. Lieu-
tenant Fremont, of the United States service, came
with a party to examine the country. After purchas-
ing supplies from the Hudson's Bay Company, he
rejoined his party at The Dalles, and proceeded
across land to California. In 1844, the immigrants
amounted to one thousand four hundred and seventy-
five men, women and children. They came by
the same route and were assisted by me with
the loan of boats, as their predecessors of last
year. . . . . . . . The Belgian brig, Indefatigable,
also anchored there. She ,vas the only vessel that
141

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

hitherto came under that flag, and brought the Rev.
Father De Smet, with four fathers of the Society of
Jesus, and five Belgian nuns of the Society of Sis-
ters of Our Lady. The fathers came to reinforce
their mission in the interior in the Flat Head
country and to establish others, and the nuns
to build a convent and open a school for young
females in the Willamette."
Data for ascertaining the numbers that came
across the plains to Oregon, from the year 1840
until the fixing of the international boundary, are
incomplete and unsatisfactory. It has been estim-
ated that at the close of 1841 there were in the
neighbourhood of four hundred citizens of the
United States in Oregon. For 1842, the estimates
range, on good authority, from one hundred and
five to one hundred and thirty-seven immigrants;
,vhile in the following year not less than eight
hundred and seventy-five to one thousand came
into the country. The nUlnber fell to seven hun-
dred in 1844, but rose to three thousand in 1845,
during the period that immediately preceded the
final settlement of the controversy between Great
Britain and the United States concerning the
boundary. In 1846, the movement again fell on:
this time to about one thousand three hundred and
fifty.
The climax of the movement, in a political sense,
came in 1844. From the time of the 111issionaries,
the influx had taken on the characteristics of a
142

THE GOVERNl\IENT OF OREGON

great national propaganda for the annexation of
Oregon to the United States. The settler conveyed
a clearer title to the soil than the fur trader; the
settler, therefore, under the existing conditions was
a patriot as well. Of the intricacies of the debate
between Great Britain and the United States con-
cerning the division of Oregon, some review will
be given later; it is sufficient here to advert to the
political significance of the immigration movement
and to the fact that this significance was under-
stood by everyone who took part in it. By 1844,
enough strength had been gathered for a definite
declaration of policy on the spot. Political organiza-
tion of some sort had, moreover, become expedient.
A provisional government was accordingly erected
on the Willamette, representative entirely of the
American element-for the British held aloof-
and established on the understanding that it would
exist only until the United States extended its
jurisdiction to the country. It had an executive of
three and a legislature of eight. It passed several
laws; but the bowie knife and pistol ren1ained the
most effective engines in bringing delinquents to
justice. For two years the unique experiment ,vas
continued, until the treaty of 1846 erected Oregon
into a territory of the American union.
A word may be added with regard to the course
observed by the Hudson's Bay Company towards
the settlers from the United States. It was indeed
a difficult situation; on the one hand, suffering men
143

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

and women, the terrible passage of the plains
having left nearly all the earlier settlers in a
state of destitution and defencelessness; on the
other, the loss of the country to the trade. Yet
there can be no doubt that. to missionaries and
immigrants alike the attitude of the company was
one of kindness and hospitality. How much of this
was due to l\IcI..Joughlin is a question hard to
answer. The significance of the influx was never
misunderstood; and if upon l\lcLoughlin the bit-
terness of the losing battle fell, the fact remains
that when Douglas succeeded to his place no
change in policy followed. Perhaps it was then too
late; though in any event the movement was irresist-
ible from the first. To rival traders, of course, no
quarter was given; they were fought with every
weapon which the wealth and long experience of
the company had placed in its hand, and with un-
varying success. Ingratitude on the part of those
who had received its bounty is hard to account
for. Yet it is a fact that the ill-will which Nlc-
Loughlin incurred from the company for befriend-
ing the settlers, excused as it might be by the
heavy losses sustained through the policy which he
had adopted, was more than equalled by the
hatred with which he was pursued by some of those
whom he had rescued from death in its most
terrible forms, whom he had fed, clothed, and
supplied with the means of obtaining a liveli-
hood, and for whom he risked his own future
144

FORT VANCOUVER ABANDONED

with the company. Political passion alone can
account for this perversion. A year before the
Oregon boundary had been finally determined,
l\IcLoughlin, the picturesque and admirable, the
"great white eagle" of the Pacific slope, had been
forced from his command; and Douglas, more rigid
in his obedience, though no more able, as it proved,
to stem the tide, ruled in his stead.
Such, in outline, was the nature of the move-
ment which, by peopling the country south of the
Columbia with a race that tilled the soil, drove
out the hunter and the trapper, its discoverer and
first occupant. In this way was solved the vexed
problem of sovereignty in Oregon. Thenceforward
the vast hiatus bebveen the Alleghanies and the
Rockies ,vas bridged by the tie of a common
nationality at either end; and the foot of the repub-
lic was planted firmly once and for all on the shores
of the Pacific. 'Vith the year 1846, the British
frontier was moved back to the 49th parallel, ex-
cept for the portion of Vancouver Island which lay
below that line and for the possessory rights which
the Hudson's Bay Company and others retained in
the Columbia valley, Britain having maintained
throughout that the Colum bia fonned the proper
boundary bet,veen the countries. Fort Vancouver
remained until 1849 as a post of the company; but
the glory had departed. Coming events had cast
their shado\v before; and the relnoval of the bound-
ary did not find the company unprepared. Three
145

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

years before the final settlement, a fort had been
established within the shelter of the ne,v lines,
to inherit the prestige of Vancouver as the COln-
pany's emporium on the Pacific, and to form the
nucleus of the new political and social life that was
to spring up with the definite determination of the
national frontier. This ,vas 'Tictoria on Vancouver
Island, founded by James Douglas in 1843. The
event and its immediate results were of such impor-
tance, both to the fur trade and the country, as to
merit a chapter to themseh.es. Before approaching
this part of the subject, however, it will be of in-
terest to describe more fully that famous contro-
versy between Great Britain and the United States
concerning the Oregon boundary, some further
reference to 'which is necessary in immediate con-
nection with the foregoing, and of which the estab-
lishment of 'Tictoria, though forestalling it in point
of time, was largely in the nature of a result.

146

CHAPTER V

THE OREGON BOUNDARY

T HE fundamental elements of the memorable dis-
pute between Great Britain and the United
States concerning the Oregon boundary have been
set forth incidentally in previous chapters. It will
be well, however, before discussing the negotiations
which brought the contest to an end, to recall in
rapid review the more crucial of these early events,
the significance of which bulked large in the argu-
ments of later times and combined with much that
was new to determine the ultimate destiny of the
Pacific coast.
It has been described how, in the first half of the
sixteenth century, Spain alone of the European
nations-partly by virtue of the Papal bull, partly
in overweening power-followed a career of conq uest
in the N e,v "T orld. How she was brought in due
course to the Pacific, and how, after the plunder of
l\Iexico and Peru, her sailors buffeted their way
along the coast to the 50th parallel of latitude, was
also dealt with. If such discoveries conveyed a title
to the soil, Spain's sole disturber in these early
days was the Englishman Francis Drake, whose
descent upon New Albion was the less vexatious
because, like the Spaniards themselves, he was gone
almost as soon as he had come. As a matter of fact,
147

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the coast above the 42nd parallel was still to all in-
tents an undiscovered country ,vhen, more than a
hundred and sixty years after Drake and'Tiscaino,
the expeditions of Perez, Heceta and Quadra first
gave to Spain what lnight be called a title to the
shore south of the 58th parallel. Cook's voyage,
the discoveries of the Russians, and the rise
of the British trade in sea-otter, have been re-
ferred to at some length in the foregoing. The
result of the advent of Great Britain in these
waters was the collision at N ootka, the final set-
tlement of which pricked forever the bubble of
Spain's pretensions to exclusiye ownership in the
Pacific, the coast being thrO"wn open to the vessels
of both nations for trade, navigation and settle-
ment, while each was given the right of access to
the stations of the other. Vancouver's careful
survey, the investigations of Quimper, and the dis-
covery of the Columbia by Gray followed, Gray's
exploit becoming in later years the strongest argu-
ment with which the United States contested her
claim to Oregon. Soon after, the epoch-making ex-
pedition of l\Iackenzie overland opened the \vay to
the first permanent settlement ,vest of the Rocky
l\Iountains. Of the part played by American navi..
gators, who for a decade after 1800 monopolized
the trade of the coast, and the momentous series
of incidents that grouped themselves about the
J ...ouisiana purchase, including the expedition of
Lewis and Clark and the founding of Astoria, full
148

TRANSFER OF ASTORIA

mention has already been made. With this review
by way of brief reminder, the negotiations that
led to the first formal understanding between
Great Britain and the United States-the powers
who in the process of time inherited the tangled
skein of claim and counter-claim to Oregon-may
be outlined from the beginning.
Upon the close of the War of 1812, it had been
agreed 1 between Great Britain and the United
States that territory taken by either nation in the
course of the hostilities should be restored to its
original owner. No allusion was made to the country
west of the Rocky l\lountains, nor were boundaries
anywhere defined. Astoria, which had been pur-
chased in 1818 by the North-'Vest Company from
its founders, remained in the possession of the
British traders. There had been features, however,
in connection with the transfer of that famous post,
which imparted to the transaction a significance out
of the ordinary. It will be remembered that the sale
was made by agents who, though employees of the
American company, were British by birth and
sentiment; that it took place in the expectation of
the arrival of an overpowering British force; and
that, almost immediately upon the consummation
of the purchase, the British sloop of war Raccoon
took possession of the post, over which the British
flag was raised, the name being at the same time
changed to Fort George. I-Iow much or how little
1 By the Treaty of Ghent, December 24th, 1814.

149

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

of the contiguous territory attached to the fort was
always an open question. The bearing of these in-
cidents ,vas not lost sight of in the United States.
No definite action was taken, however, until 1817,
,vhen the right to be reinstated on a national basis
at Astoria ,vas formally put forward, on the ground
that the circumstances attending the transfer of
1813 mnounted virtually to belligerent capture, and
that the restoration of the fort was therefore in-
cluded in the treaty which closed the war. After a
brief demurrer, the claim was admitted by Lord
Castlereagh for England,-completely and uncon-
ditionally, it was afterwards urged by the United
States, though probably in the first instance with
the idea merely of acknowledging the right of the
United States to be regarded as the party in
possession while discussion of the title to the ad-
joining territory was in progress. It should be ex-
plained that by the prolonged inactivity of Spain,
the absorption of Russia in her northern trade,
and the elimination of France by the purchase of
Louisiana, the United' States had by this time
di vided with Great Britáin the leading interest in .
the region. The American flag was accordingly
raised again over the site of Astoria, though
the English com pan y remained in possession for
several years longer. Herein, it may be said, was
the beginning of that irritating controversy between
Great Britain and the United States which, after so
many years of disquietude tinged ,vith bitterness,
150

THE TREATY OF 1818

ended in the loss to the former of a territory of
singular value.
From the restitution of Astoria to the next stage
of the proceedings was but a step. 'Vhile the armed
vessel despatched by the United States to take
over the post was still upon the seas, a negotiation
had been begun at I...ondon between pleni potentiar-
ies of the two powers, for the adjustment of various
matters left untouched by the Treaty of Ghent.
Among these was the question of the clailns of the
respective countries to the territory west of the
Rocky l\Iountains. The United States, it appeared,
did not assert a perfect title to that region; but she
insisted that her claim was at least good against
that of Britain. Great Britain was no less inclined
to consider her own rights as antedating those of
any other power, at least in the country north of
the Columbia. l\Iessrs. Rush and Gallatin for the
United States, and l\Iessrs. Robinson and Goul-
burne for Great Britain, conducted the deli-
berations. There was an exchange of superficial
argument, which did little more than confirm
the situation established by the restoration of
Astoria a few months previously. An agreement
in which the deadlock that had now been
reached stood fully revealed was at last arrived at,
October 20th, 1818. Under its terms, neither
nation was granted exclusive sovereignty in the re-
gion lying between the 42nd and 55th parallels;
both, however, might trade or establish settlements
151

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

at unoccupied points; each was granted a rightful
title to the posts it had already built; and either
might interfere to protect its subjects in local
quarrels. The agreement was limited to ten years.
Both nations hoped, ere the period was ended, to
strengthen their respective rights to possession:
England by the actual occupancy of her fur traders;
the United States by the ineyitable expansion of
the republic across the mountains, if, as ,vas still
in doubt, the Pacific Fur Company should not rise
from its ashes. By both, therefore, the treaty was
construed as a victory. Yet it settled nothing; it
merely launched the question upon the uncertain
sea of the future, to drift whithersoever the currents
of chance Inight carry it.
'Vith the year 1818, therefore, and the conclusion
of the agreement above nlentioned, the Oregon
boundary question stood forth in clear-cut outline
before the nations upon whom time had laid its
solution. There was great ignorance, great indiffer-
ence concerning it; but for the t,venty-eight years
of its troubled existence, though much that was
ne'v in argulnent was brought to bear from time to
time, the issue itself remained unchanged. Great
Britain held throughout that the boundary should
follo,v the 49th parallel from the Rocky l\Iountains
to the Columbia, descending the rÍ\Ter thence to the
sea; the United States claimed the entire coast
from California to Alaska as of right, but were at all
times ,villing to agree that the boundary should
152

TREATIES 'VITH SPAIN AND RUSSIA
follow the 49th parallel to the Pacific. Only the
more important phases of the question and of the
arguments employed as it passed through the mazes
of diplomacy can be touched upon in the following
paragraphs.
On February 22nd, 18] 9, the Florida treaty was
signéd between the United States and Spain. The
treaty, apart from its main object, dealt largely
with the boundary between Louisiana and Spanish
territory. This, it was agreed, should follow the
42nd parallel from the head"waters of the Arkansas
to the Pacific. North of that line the Spanish title
to the coast was vested in the United States-a
provision that led to much searching of records
later, in the endeavour to determine the value or the
title thus transferred. Soon after, negotiations as to
spheres of influence were begun by the U Gited
States ,vith Russia, whose arm had stretched as
far south as the California coast. As a result, a
treaty was obtained in 1824 which fixed the line
of 54 0 40' as the lin1Ït beyond which neither
nation was to found establishments without per-
mission of the other. In the year following, as
has been already noted, a similar boundary was
agreed upon by Russia and Great Britain, with this
difference, that the claim of the latter to the in-
terior country extending northward to the Arctic
Ocean ,vas at the same time admitted. Some at-
tempt at a joint conference between the three
powers had previously failed, in part through
153

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

emotions raised by the prornulgation of the Monroe
doctrine. IHeanwhile negotiations between Great
Britain and the United States were re-opened in
London, the situation being in this way cleared
for the renewal of the argument as between these
countries alone. Spain, Russia and France, the re-
Inaining powers who, at one time or other, had held
claims to varying portions of the coast, were now
finally eliminated from the controversy.
For over three years the recrudescence of the
question in this simplified form provoked a vigour
of discussion that was exceeded only during the
closing stages of the dispute, still some eighteen
years in the future. Great Britain was represented
by Huskisson and Stratford Canning, the United
States by Rush. A claim to exclusive ownership by
the latter, based on the Spanish transfer, the dis-
coveries of Gray, and the founding of Astoria, and
backed by a reference to the l\Ionroe doctrine, led
to an immediate impasse. A debate in congress
soon after, in which a proposal was Inade to
occupy the Columbia by a military force, had the
result of bringing for the first time unequivocally
into light the latent feeling of the British cabinet
with regard to Oregon, as a territory not worth
fighting for, though not to be relinquished in a
manner repugnant to British pride. Unfortunately,
the knowledge of this soon passed to the American
camp. \Vhen the negotiations were resumed in
1826, Gallatin succeeding Rush, and Addington
154

THE SETTl..El\lENT OF 1827

taking the place of Canning, the revelation had un-
doubted weight in obtaining an arrangement which
virtually perpetuated the agreeInent of 1818. For
both parties a compromise of the sort Inight again
be interpreted as a victory. Great Britain retained
the advantages of actual possession, which since the
VVarof1812 had been complete, and the prospective
profits of the fur trade. The United States might
still reflect ,vith satisfaction that the settler, who
alone would confer a permanent interest in the land,
"Tas far more likely to come from the republic
than from England. No loss of dignity was
sustained on either side; and to break an amicable
and profitable arrangement for a mere title of
possession ,,"'ould, as Greenhow remarks, have been
foolish as well as unrighteous. The knowledge and
acumen displayed by both parties in the notes ex-
changed during the closing stages of the negotiations
were well-nigh perfect, being in strong contrast
with the slip-shod information that did service in
the protocols of eight years previously. They were,
of course, of no a vail in modifying the result, except
in one particular: the arrangement of 1827 'vas
made subject to abrogation at any tÜne by either
party upon twelve months' notice. The matter
thereupon relapsed for over ten years longer into a
state of calm.
But if parlian1ent, congress, and the diplomatic
corps heard nothing of the controversy during that
interval, the question was far from slumbering. By
155

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the irresistible march of events, it had in fact been
brought before the tribunal whose judgment was
to be final. The Oregon boundary had at last be-
come a popular question. Reference has been al-
ready made to that stream of settlement which, be-
ginning soon after 1830, had, within the decade and
a half .which followed, sent thousands of Alnerican
farmers into the valleys south of the Columbia. The
United States, with the kno".ledge gained in 1827,
saw in this the fulfilment of her expectation. There
was no need now of armed occupation; every
settler was a soldier, and his wife and family part of
an American garrison. l\Iuch matter was silently
gathered, in the way of settlers' petitions and re-
ports of missionaries and traders, against the day of
final reckoning. A little later, congress ,vas able to
add to this the call of the provisional government
erected in Oregon in the anticipation of an immedi-
ate extension of United States sovereignty. Popular
murmurings grew meanwhile into a shout. Pamph-
lets and books ,vere multiplied apace. 'Vith skilful
repression, however, the issue was excluded from
the negotiations held with Lord Ashburton in
1842 which had for subject the north-eastern
boundary. But ,vith that victory won, the flood of
passion was no longer stemmed. Tyler's conciliatory
language in 1843, served but as fuel to the flame.
The exchange of views in 1844 and later, bet,veen the
British minister Pakenham and l\Iessrs. Calhoun and
Buchanan for the United States, revealed only a
156

THE FINAL SETTLE1\1ENT

modification of the previous arguments, except for
the altered tone of the American proposals. The
Baltimore platform of 1844, on which Polk was
elected president, declared the title of the United
States to the" whole of Oregon " to be " clear and
unquestionable," and" fifty-four forty or fight" be-
came the shibboleth of half a nation. The" whole
of Oregon," it may be repeated, meant the entire
region between California and Alaska, three
quarters of which had been discovered and explored,
and were now held, by the British fur traders.
Popular clamour alone forced a claim of this
magnitude upon the government, which as the
event proved, was ready enough to agree to a com-
prolnise. Polk as president, did what he was elected
to do in the matter of Oregon. Arbitration was re-
fused on the ground of the difficulty of securing an
unbiassed tribunal in monarchical Europe. The
chances of war were freely canvassed in both
countries, and there was bluster on both sides.
ltIoderate language, however, was at all times pre-
served in the official correspondence. In the end, a
simple notice of the abrogation of the existing
treaty was served upon England, who at once pro-
posed the 49th parallel as the boundary from the
mountains to the middle of the channel which
divides \r ancouver Island from the mainland, the
line to run frorn that point southerly by the middle
of the saIne channel to the Pacific. Clauses ,vere
added giving certain rights of navigation to Great
157

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Britain on the Columbia, and safeguarding the pro-
perty of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agri-
cultural Conlpanies in the territory south of the
49th degree. The suggestion was at once accepted
by the United States. The boundary, it was found
by the orators, was wonderfully adapted to the
natural divisions of the two countries, parting the
two great watersheds of the Fraser and the
Columbia with the same accuracy that it divided,
east of the mountains, the rivers flowing into Hud-
son Bay from those that fall into the Gulf of l\fexico.
It had, indeed, been part of Gallatin's argument
in 1826-7 that the 49th parallel divided the dis-
puted frontage on the Pacific into two nearly equal
parts, whereas, if the Columbia were aecepted as the
boundary, less than one-third would accrue to the
United States. Better, however, than its geograph-
ical excellence, appreciation of which can scarcely
be looked for in Canada, the new boundary repre-
sented the peaceful solution of a long and trying
difficulty, the arbitrament of which by war between
two kindred peoples would have been an unspeak-
able calamity, however much it may be regretted
that more of justice had not mingled with the terms
of settlement.
Such, in the essentials, was the manner in which
that famous controversy concerning the division of
Oregon arose, raged, and was finally placed at rest.
Its dust has long been laid; and there is no desire
on any hand to disturb it. It is necessary, however,
158

ACQUISITION OF SOVEREIGNTY

in this place, to note, in addition to the foregoing,
something of the matter as well as the manner of
the contest, now that the smoke of it has rolled far
off and the facts are as we may assume they will
remain. The wealth, indeed the endless diffuseness,
of the material has been remarked. It permits a
perfect view of the opposing claims as they ap-
peared to their exponents, and furnishes as well a
comprehensive means of classifying those opinions
according to the accepted principles of international
usage.
Sovereignty over new territory may be acquired
by a nation in five ways: by discovery; by settle-
ment; by contiguity; by treaty; and by prescrip-
tion. All acts upon ,vhich a claim to sovereignty
may be based must, of course, be those of a gov-
ernment and not of unauthorized individuals. The
aquisition of territory is a grave act, imposing as a
necessary consequence upon the state acquiring it
the manifold duties of administration. Private per-
sons cannot aSSUlne such responsibilities, and their
discoveries, settlements or treaties confer no bene-
fits and impose no obligations upon the state from
which they have proceeded. In the light of these
principles let us notice some of the claims of the
several powers which at one time or other possessed
an interest in Oregon.
Discovery (which may be grouped with settle-
ment in this brief resumé) in itself does not convey
a perfect title in international law. It is the first
159

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

step to a title-an "inchoate act of sovereignty";
but it must be followed by possession and settle-
ment; and the settlement must be continuous and
permanent. If occupation lapses for any reasonable
length of tilne, the title lapses with it. As to the
discovery of nluch of' the north-\vest coast, Spain
might undou btedly claim that honour; and the
establishlnent of N ootka 'was designed to confer the
added right of possession and occupation. But it
was never acknow ledged that this single settle-
ment could hold so vast a region, or that the voy-
ages of Cook and others might not also rank as
voyages of discovery. The convention of Nootka
gave to England in 1790 equality with Spain in
north-western America. That Gray and Lewis and
Clark were the first to reach the lower waters of
the Columbia was undeniable; as it ,vas equally
undeniable that the northern and principal branch
was first seen by Thompson, and that l\leares
and Vancouver had preceded Gray on the coast,
though they had not sighted the great river itself.
Again, if the founding of Astoria preceded the
British posts of the upper river, those of New Cale-
donia preceded both. As to the question whether
the operations of fur-trading associations, such as
the North-'Vest and Hudson's Bay Companies, con-
stituted occupation in the sense recognized by in-
ternational usage, the vie,v in general of the United
States was that they did not. Yet the establishment
at Astoria was in no sense different to the posts of
160

DISCOVERY AND SETTI.JEl\IENT

the British companies, and the United States from
the moment of the restoration sought to base on it
a claim to the adjacent territory, notwithstanding
the immediate protest of England that the settle-
ment was an encroachment on British dominions.
The territory to \vhich the post of a fur trader
might constitute a claim \vould seem to depend
upon the radius of influence exerted. The Russian
settlement in California, for example, ,vas never
made the basis of a claim for territory. l\loreover,
Gray's ship was a trading and not a national vessel,
and the first exploration of the lo\ver Colulnbia, as
distinct from its discovery, was made by Broughton,
an Englishman.
-tstoria also, according to the
British view, was a purely private enterprise, and
its foundation not to be construed as occupation in
a national sense. The Hudson's Bay C01l1pany, on
the other hand, possessed at least a quasi-official
existence, under royal charter and an assurance of
protection from the British government. It exer-
cised judicial functions in respect to civil and
criminal processes over its servants, \vhile the juris-
diction of the Canadian courts of law extended
over the entire country coteflninous ".ith the limits
of the company's franchise. It engaged in the cul-
tivation of the soil before a single immigrant frolll
the United States had planted foot in Oregon.
Gallatin, who denied that any claim to sovereignty
could arise out of the occupation of the country by
mere fur-trading corporations established for the
161

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGLAS

purpose of traffic alone, admitted that the modest
factory at Calcutta had grown into the British
Empire of India, having an undisputed rule over
hundreds of millions of people-in other words that
the force of international law in this connection
takes its colour largely from attendant circum-
stances. Such as it was, the British occupation of
the Columbia, after the "r ar of 1812, and especially
after the amalgmnation of the N orth- 'i\T est and
Hudson's Bay Companies in 1821, was complete.
During the decade after the restoration of Astoria,
scarcely an American trader was seen in the
country or on the coast, notwithstanding that in the
meantime the introduction of steanl vessels on the
l\lississippi and the l\lissouri had greatly improved
facilities for communication. From 1813 until 1837,
in fact, the quiet and almost exclusive use of the
Columbia "Tas enjoyed by Britain. Even in the final
stages of the controversy the American settle-
ments were entirely on the southern bank of the
Columbia, while the British posts lay both north
and south. At an early date, however, Great Britain
threw away whatever benefits she might have won
by reason of this occupation, when she placed her-
self on record as ,vaiving any claim to exclusive
sovereignty over any portion of the country be-
tween the Columbia and the 49th degree, and as
standing simply for joint occupancy while the right
to exclusive domain remained in abeyance. " The
qualified rights which Great Britain now possesses
162

CONTIGUITY

over the whole of the territory in question" wrote
Huskisson and Addington in 1826," embrace the
right to navigate the waters of those countries, the
right to settle in and over any part of them, and the
right to freely trade with the inhabitants and occupiers
of the same. It is fully admit
ed that the United
States possesses the saIne rights, but beyond they
possess none." The restoration of Astoria was not,
according to Great Britain, in any sense a relin-
quishment of'title in the surrounding territory. But
the practical effect of the admission above was that
the nation ,vho first occupied the country with
settlers should be entitled to exercise those rights of
sovereignty which possession of this kind commonly
bestows. How time fought the battle of the United
States in this has been already sho,vn.
Contiguity has been defined as of two kinds-
perfect and imperfect. The first involves the right
of a nation to exclude all others from a territory
the command of which, though actually not within
her boundaries, is essential to her convenience and
security. It was not, of course, contended that a
foreign settlement west of the Rocky l\lountains
would threaten the welfare of the Atlantic seaboard.
The United States had no Pacific commerce to pro-
tect, and at no time prior to 1846 was the possession
of Oregon essential to her safety or existence. The
report of General J esup to a select committee of
congress in 1823, to the effect that the command
of the Columbia was necessary for protection from
168

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the tribes of the frontier, revealed even in its re-
commendations that the more ilnmediate gain in
contemplation was the dispossession of the British
traders. The other title of contiguity has been de-
fined as a preferable right to acquire lands, which,
though they may be neither settled nor necessary
for convenience or defence, are geographically one
with the acquiring nation. In this connection it was
urged that Oregon belonged more naturally to the
United States than to any other power. From the
earliest attempts at colonization in America, the
whole breadth of the continent between certain
parallels of latitude was ordinarily granted to
colonies established only at points on the borders
of the Atlantic. l\Ioreover, it could not be doubted
that, after 1835, Oregon and Texas offered the most
natural outlet for the rapidly growing population of
the United States, in view especially of the pre-
vailing opinion that the adjoining central division
of the continent offered no inducements to settlers.
Nevertheless it should be borne in mind that even
from the United States, Oregon, in the words of Cal-
houn, was distant more than thirteen thousand
miles by sea, a voyage, in 1846, of six months, and
more than two thousand Iniles by land, a Jnarch of
one hundred and twenty days. That Louisiana
originally extended to the J}acific ,vas denied by Ad-
dington. But that the territory under dispute lay as
much in the pat.h of the British crossing from the
Peace and Saskatchewan as of those who traded from
164

TREATY RIGHTS

the l\Iississippi and l\Iissouri was also insisted upon.
As a matter of fact, the free navigation of the
Columbia was in the early years essential to the
maintenance of the British trading-posts in the in-
terior, south as ,veIl as north of the 49th parallel,
and ,vas the "basis of that vigorous attempt to bring
the whole coast northward under British trade in-
fluence, the success of which has been described.
Colonization from Britain or Canada ,vas not for
the time thought possible. The latter had no re-
dundance of population, and to both more suitable
fields lay closer at hand. At the very moment, in
fact, the United States themselves were drawing
steadily from Britain her surplus population in a
stream that could not easily have been diverted to
other channels.
.
l\luch was made in the course of the dispute of
the bearing of various treaties upon the rights in-
volved. The Treaty of Ghent, in its application to
Astoria, has been already referred to. The conven-
tions between .Russia and England, and between
Russia and the United States, also, need not be
further mentioned. Debate raged fiercest about the
Florida treaty of 1819. 'Vhat was the nature of the
title derived from Spain by that treaty? By the
United States it was regarded as perfect against
that of any other European power at the time of
transfer. By England it was denied that Spain had
any title whatever to convey in 1819. The explan-
ation of this diversity of opinion dates back to the
165

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

N ootka convention and the war which broke out
between England and Spain in 1796 and continued
with only a short intermission until 1809. Granting
that the Nootka convention adlnitted Great Britain
to certain rights on the north-west coast, it was held
by the United States that the convention was an
instrument of a commercial nature merely, that the
right then granted to England to found settlements
did not involve the conveyance of sovereignty to
any part of the region, and that in any other event
the convention had been terminated by the sub-
sequent wars. In 1819, according to this vie\v, the
United States fell heir to the original right of
Spain to the exclusive O"wnership of the coast. To
this the British rejoinder was that the convention
was not a merely temporary or commercial con-
cession; that it destroyed rather than iInplied the
exclusive title of Spain; that the settlements per-
mitted were quite compatible with local sovereignty;
and in general that the title which Spain had failed
to make good in 1790 and \vhich Great Britain
had successfully challenged at the moment of its
greatest strength, could not now be revived simply
because of an agreement with a third power, the
more so that, for over a quarter of a century, it had
fallen into complete disuse. After her formal aban-
donment of the coast in 1795, Spain's only right was
one which she shared in common with England and
the United States; the only right, therefore, that she
could convey in 1819 was one which the latter al-
166

PRESCRIPTION

ready possessed. As to the Louisiana purchase, this
was never successfully maintained as affecting boun-
daries west of the Rocky l\Iountains, unless as an
argument from contiguity; moreover, Louisiana in
1790 belonged to Spain and was therefore included
in the provisions of the Nootka convention and in the
later considerations applying to the title of Spain.
Out of the right of contiguity, perfect and imper-
fect,it might be contended that the United States had
evolved the last of the rights above mentioned-
that of prescription. To prescription the application
of the l\lonroe doctrine ,vas akin. By the free and
independent condition which the American contin-
ents had assumed, they were no longer, according
to the l\lonroe doctrine, to be considered as subjects
for colonization by European powers. But the future
colonization of Oregon, it had been agreed, would
determine the destiny of the region. So far as the
doctrine applied to South America, which had re-
cently cast off the yoke of Spain, Great Britain
sympathized with its object and was prepared to
support it. In the case of the Oregon question,
however, it had the effect merely of rendering the
British government much l
ss disposed to conces-
sion, while tending to produce a union of views,
approaching alnlost to a league, between Great
Britain and Russia, which in the result proved of
distinct disadvantage to the United States.
An effort to apply the cumulative principle to
the argulnents of the United States under the above
167

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

headings was made during the negotiations of 1827.
If, separately, objection might be made to each, con-
sidered together they were believed to establish the
American claim on a solid foundation. To this the
reply was that the claims based on discovery, ac-
quisition from Spain, and contiguity, were in many
respects incompatible the one with the other, and
could not, therefore, be united. If, for example, the
title of Spain by first discovery, or that of France,
as the original owner of Louisiana, were advanced,
it was evident that one or other of these countries
held the territory at the time of Gray's discoveries,
and that the latter therefore could not be put
forward as conferring a claim. If, however, the
importance of Gray and the Astorians was
emphasized, by so much were the Spanish or
French titles diminished. The device of admitting
iInperfections in the several elements in order to
give strength to the aggregate was, therefore, in the
present case, of little avail. The United States, in
counter reply to this, argued that, though in differ-
ent hands the several claims would conflict one
with the other, they supported each other when
united in the same power.

Great Britain has been bitterly censured by a
school of opinion in Canada for the loss of Oregon
between the 49th parallel and the Columbia. The
charge has this foundation: that it is possible
to perceive ho\v the country might have been
168

IGNORANCE CONCERNING OREGON

saved. It will be well, however, to be explicit on
this point. In the final analysis, lack of knowledge
of the value of Oregon, by inducing a perfectly
natural but by no means logical apathy as to its
political future, was probably the cause of the loss,
if lost that may be called which ,vas never held in
undisputed possession. :For lack of knowledge on
the part of Great Britain there was abundant ex-
cuse. The ,vhole of the western continent which
she held, disputed and undisputed alike, was in the
grasp of men whose guiding purpose was to per-
petuate the mystery in which the land had been
wrapped from the beginning. England's attitude
throughout the controversy was simply that of
champion to her fur traders 'whose outposts had
been threatened ,vith invasion, to \vhich in process
of time was added the consideration of national
pride. l\Ioreoyer her ignorance of the country must
be considered relatively. It ,vas at least no greater
than that of the United States until a comparatively
late stage of the dispute. Jefferson ahnost alone in
the early days of the republic showed real know-
ledge of the importance of the west, or at least of
the diplomacy by which it was to be won. As late
as 1844, when the controversy had entered its most
acrimonious phase, Greenho\v, the historiographer
of congress, one of the most learned authorities on
the subject, appraised as practically valueless the
territory in dispute, though he wrote the most able
of the treatises put forth in the behalf of the United
169

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

States to prove the latter's title to the land in
question. Gallatin, the American comInissioner
to England in 1826-7, shared the common view.
In the early debates in congress opinions were
freely expressed as to the worthlessness of the
country. 'Vebster had none of the popular
enthusiasm concerning Oregon, at a time when the
name was a slogan thoughout the United States.
The Inass of the people before 1840 knew little and
cared less about Oregon. The ignorance of Great
Britain, therefore, is not remarkable. To the British
nation at large, Oregon was no more than a
name. A writer in the Edinburgh Review of July
1845 reflected the best informed public sentiment
of his day when he said: " It seems probable that in
a few years all that formerly gave life to the
country, both the hunter and the prey, will become
extinct, and their place will be supplied by a thin
white and half-breed population, scattered along
the few fertile valleys, supported by the pasture in-
stead of by the chase, and gradually degenerating
into the barbarism, far more offensive than that
of the savage, which degrades the backwoodslnan."
Again: "The great error of all parties has been
the inlportance attached to Oregon. ,. And again:
" It is much that the real worthlessness of the
country has been established. All that any prudent
Englishman or American can wish is, that the con-
troversy should be speedily and harmoniously
settled." Still more remarkable were the conclusions
170

THE ATTITUDE OF GREAT BRITAIN

of the same writer as to the future of Oregon:
" However the political questions between England
and America as to the ownership of Oregon may
be decided, Oregon will never be colonized overland
from the United States . . . . 'Vhoever is to be the
future owner of Oregon, its people will come from
E "
urope.
I
et it be said, moreover, that once the question
assumed practical importance, England displayed
both keenness of interest and firmness of purpose
in handling it. That she had recourse in 1846 to
every resort short of war is undeniable. But the
truth is, her point of view had been Inistaken from
the first, and the battle was lost before ever it came
to be fought. Diplomacy, as it proved, could avail
nothing in dealing with an issue of this nature once
it had arisen. Three opportunities had been pre-
sented when, by a decisive stroke, the region might
have been won: in the settlement of the Nootka
affair; in the treaty which closed the War of 1812 ;
and in 1818. Each time a compromise was accepted
in the interest of a " speedy and harmonious" settle-
ment and in the mistaken trust that the future
would strengthen the hands of Great Britain;
each time the door was left open for further con-
troversy; each time the renewal of the dispute
found the position of Great Britain weakened. In
striking contrast was the subtle and far-seeing
diplomacy of the United States, which from the
:first permitted no ignorance of the present and
171

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

actual to preclude appreciation of the future and
potential. When the time for final settlement
arrived, there had been added to this general prin.
ciple of acquisition for its own sake all the ,veight
of established industrial interests, of an awakened
public opinion, and of an inflamed and prejudiced
national spirit. Popular clam our alone was respon-
sible for the claim to the" whole of Oregon,"-a
claim that became serious only when party politics
seized upon it as an issue. England who had bred and
fostered Cook, Vancouver and l\lackenzie, ,vas, in
this vie\v, nothing less than a usurper throughout
the coast; while the Hudson's Bay Company, which
had saved the first American settlers from starva-
tion and murder by the Indians, \\ras but a greedy
and inhuman monopoly, the willing tool of a
goyernment that was now attempting the crime
of grand larceny from the United States. Such was
the temper of the American press and people ,vhen
the issue 'was for the last time joined and lost. But
the loss should bear the date, not of 1846, but of
that earlier time when the first failure was record-
ed either to appreciate the splendid destiny which
awaited the region, or to grasp the means which
would have brought it permanently under British
influence.

The foregoing brief review of the facts and prin-
ciples involved in this historic controversy will at
least have shown that the issues, obscured as they
172

EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES

had been by clouds of witnesses and a mass of con-
flicting testimony in which personal interests and
national prejudices were alike intermingled, proved
simple enough, once the final stage had been reached
and the circumstances had forced the countries to
an agreement. By these circumstances and not by
any theories of international jurisprudence, was the
fate of Oregon decided. In 1840 the question was
as far from solution as ever. The argull1ents from
history and law had been exhausted long ago. No
exclusive right could be established by either party
as the case then stood. The superior advantages
'which Great Britain at one tinle held, she had long
since waived, and had been content to trust the
future to its o,vn developments. These had now
matured. The great nation of the Atlantic seaboard
was by every instinct of its origin and by every
dictate of the policy in which its early steps had
been directed, a nation of expansionists on this
continent. From clearing to clearing, from settle-
ment to settlement, from township to township,
and at last from state to state, its inevitable way led
westward. Even its missionaries were pioneers of
empire. As Canaan became the land of Israel, so '
the United States possessed Oregon. It was of in-
finitely greater value to her than to Great Britain
in 1846. No president or government, it would be
safe to say, could have consented then to less than
was received by the United State
, no matter what
rights of others were involved. \Var only could
173

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

have maintained Great Britain in Oregon. Of a
war, after serious thought, she considered Oregon
not worth the price. Thus ended it.

174

CHAPTER VI

VICTORIA

T HE year 1843 was a turning point in the history
of the north-west coast. }"ate had by that
time unequivocally declared that the north and not
the Columbia must be the final abode of the fur
, trade and the nation whose protection it enjoyed.
The company read the signs of the times, and had
begun to prepare for the inevitable. Long before the
boundary had been named, the desirability of shift-
ing the chief seat of the trade northward had be-
come manifest. It was impossible to secure peltries
on the Columbia in the face of increasing settle-
ment; and for some time past a point of strategic
and commercial advantage, beyond reach of the
conditions that were rendering Vancouver unten-
able, had been diligently sought by the company.
There were many reasons why Camosun,l the
Indian village on the site of which the city of
Victoria now stands, should have attracted the at-
tention of the traders. Esquimalt,2 where a more
commodious harbour exists, might have been
deemed more suitable for a city; it was not, how-

1S pe ll e d "Carnosack" by Doug-las, who gives the native interpreta-
tion as "rush of waters." By others the name is derived from Carnass,
a plant with an edible root, greatly in favour of the Indians, and
abundant in the vicinity of Victoria.
Sit Iswhoymalth.. in the spelling of Douglas.

175

SIR JAl\:IES DOUGLAS

ever, a city that the company thought to establish,
but a post for the prosecution of the fur trade. As
early as 1837, .l\1cN eill had explored the southern
end of Vancouver Island and had found an excel-
lent harbour and fine open country, apparently well
adapted for tillage and pasturage, along the shore.
Simpson himself, during the voyage previously re-
ferred to, had noted the fertile soil, the abundance
of timber, and the equable climate of Camosun, and
had predicted that the place would become in time
"the most valuable section of the coast above
California." Douglas, finally, in 1842, had made a
careful examination of the locality and had reported
favourably. The agricultural possibilities of the re-
gion, which rendered the vicinity of Fort Van-
cou ver of such value, were insisted upon, the re-
quirements of the Puget Sound Company having
now to be consulted no less than those of the Hud-
son's Bay Company proper. On the whole, the
directorate in London had unrivalled information
at its command before resolving on any change.
l\IcLoughlin, Douglas, 'V ork, Ogden, Tolmie,
Finlayson, Anderson and l\IcN eill formed a body
of men whose local knowledge might he regarded
as perfect; while at hOlne the company's Inanage-
ment included several to whonl every project in
the councils of the nation 'was well-known. Fortified
with the approval of both London and Vancouver,
official sanction to the establishment of a fort at
Camosun was soon given. The new post would be
176

FOUNDING OF ,rICTORIA

near the ocean, yet protected from it. A great island
lay to the northward; and to a huge continent it
formed the natural entrepôt. It stood at a cross'ways
of the waters, to the west being the Strait of Juan
de Fuca, to the south Puget Sound, and to the
north the Gulf of Georgia. It commanded the
first good harbour north of San Francisco, the en-
trance to the Columbia having proved difficult even
to the ships of that period. Some idea, too, of
the trade possibilities of Alaska, the Northern In-
terior, the Orient, the Pacific Islands, and South
America, doubtless crossed the minds of the men
who sat in the council chamber of Lime Street,
London. l\Ioreover, it was a point of great natural
beauty, 'Tictoria taking rank to-day as the most
picturesque of all the cities of the Pacific shore.
The expedition which was dispatched to establish
the post set sail from Fort Vancouyer on l\larch
1st, 1843. It consisted of fifteen men, and it was
under the command of James Douglas. Nisqually
and the Cowlitz country were visited for supplies;
and at New Dungeness the Indians were noti-
fied of the intended action of the company. Cross-
ing Fuca Strait, the party cast anchor within Shoal
Point on l\Iarch 14th. According to tradition, the
spot on which Douglas first landed ,"vas knee-deep
in clover at the time, from which it received the
Dame by which it is still known-Clover Point. The
native Songhees, ,"vho had a stockade at the head of
the harbour, showed surprise, but no hostility, sur-
177

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

rounding the steamship Beaver, which had brought
the party, with a swarm of welcoming canoes.
Considerations of detail at once engaged the at-
tention of Douglas. The selection of a site and the
obtaining of a supply of timber for the projected fort
were the first steps necessary. The question of an
anchorage apparently decided the former, the post
being placed where the present Court House of
Victoria stands on Bastion Square. A steamer of
the draught of the Beaver found no difficulty, in
1843, in casting anchor off the site of the present
wharf of the Hudson's Bay Company. By l\Iarch
16th, the men were already at work squaring tim-
bers and digging wells. The natives, pleased at the
prospect of trade, were given employment making
pickets, each picket to be twenty-two feet long and
three feet in circulIlference, axes and other tools be-
ing lent them for the purpose and payment being
made at the rate of one blanket for forty pickets.
These preliminaries under way, Douglas steamed
northward in April to Forts Taku and l\IcI
oughlin,
which it had been decided at headquarters to aban-
don, and the crews of ,vhich were needed to aug-
ment the scanty force at Fort Camosun.

With Douglas to Victoria came Bolduc, the
Jesuit missionary, reputed the first priest to set
foot on Vancouver Island. The natives proved ready
converts; o,.er twelve hundred Songhees, Clallams
and Cowichans were baptised after the first mass,
178

ERECTION OF FORT CA1\fOSUN

which was celebrated in a chapel of pine branches
and boat's canvas on
Iarch 19th, 1843. Boiduc
afterwards passed to Whidby Island, where, though
conversions were numerous, attempts to reform the
habits of the savages met with indiíferent suc-
cess. By April 3rd, the missionary was back at
Nisqually.

It was on the first of June that the Beaver re-
turned from her northern voyage. Taku and 1\1c-
Loughlin had been dismantled, and with the rein-
forcements thus obtained some fifty men were
available for the work at Camosun. Within three
months, in the prevailing pleasant weather, the
stockade, one hundred and fifty yards square and
eighteen feet in height, with blockhouse or bastion
(thirty feet high and armed with nine-pounders,
blunderbusses and cutlasses), at each corner, was
finished. As finally completed, the stores, five in
number, together with the post-office, smithy,
carpenter shops, sleeping quarters for the men,
officers' quarters, chapel, powder magazine, etc.,
were all within the stockade. For the sake of
economy, the fort was built without nails or spikes,
wooden pegs alone being used. The site selected
was an open glade of oak trees, in the midst of the
dense forest which ran down to the harbour and in-
let. Flocks of Indians from Vancouver Island, the
neighbouring archipelago, and the mainlan.d, atten-
tively watched proceedings, but in the face of con..
179

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

stant vigilance offered no opposition beyond åcts of
petty theft. Later they too began to erect lodges
along the harbour bank. The schooner Cadboro
arri ved with further supplies from Fort Vancouver
while the work was in progress; and by October,
Douglas, regarding the establishment as capable of
self-defence, set sail with the Beaver and Cadboro
for the Columbia. Charles Ross, who had been in
charge at Fort l\lcLoughlin, was left as senior officer,
with Roderick Finlayson, transferred from Fprt
SiInpson, second in command. Finlayson, whose
duties included the supervision of construction
operations, thus became the first builder of houses
on Vancouver Island.

A word apart should surely be spared in honour
of those staunch and trim little vessels, the Cadboro
and the Beaver, whose doings have already figured
prominently in this narrative. For nearly forty years
their nmnes appear in ahnost eyery record of the
conlpany's seaward movements. Every island and
canal of that dangerous labyrinth of waters which
lies, a by-word to sailors, between Sitka and Fort
Vancouver, was known to their- captains as a book.
The schooner Cadboro, seventy-two tons burden, had
been built at Rye in 1824. Before her destruction in
1862, every soul but one of the thirty servants of
the company whom she brought on her maiden
voyage from England had been buried. ",Vith her
picked crew of thirty-five and her six guns, she did
180

RODERICK FINLAYSON

the work of many men in the spread of civilization
on the Pacific. The Beaver, which had the unique
distinction of being the first steamship to navigate
the great western ocean, was also built for the
company in Great Britain. In August 1835, with
her escort, the Columbia, she was pointed for Cape
Horn, rounding which she buffeted her 'way north-
ward for four months under sail, her machinery not
being installed until she reached Fort 'T ancouver.
Built of live oak and teak, with engines the best
of their day, for forty-three years of hard and con-
stant usage she plied the thousand bays and
estuaries of the coast. She was still sound in every
timber in spite of adventures innumerable with rock
and reef when, on a dark night in 1888, she met her
doom at the entrance to Burrard Inlet.

In the spring of 1844, Ross, who was in charge at
Fort Camosun, died, and Finlayson was appointed
in his stead, the son of Ross being sent as second in
command. Of Scottish birth, Finlayson had joined
the company in 1837, and had seen hard service at
Taku, Stikine and Simpson. Shrewd and kindly,
he had commended himself to Douglas by his rigid
devotion to duty. His narrative of the events that
culminated in the founding of Fort Camosun is
alnong the most valuable of the contemporary
documents that have survived and are available re-
lative to the history of the north-west coast during
the first half of the nineteenth century.

181

SIR JAl\lES DOUGI
AS

Events proceeded smoothly at Camosun for some
time after the accession of Finlayson. The first seri-
ous test of the defences of the post arose through
the restlessness of the neighbouring Indians.
Directly opposite the fort, at a distance of four
hundred yards, lay the village of the Songhees,
under their chief Tsilalthach. Communication was
constant between the points by means of boats.
A wandering band of Cowichans under Tsoughilam
were encmnped near by. The cattle of the fur-
traders feeding in the open spaces about the fort,
proved too great a temptation to the savages and a
number were slaughtered and eaten. The company
had not made the animals, they averred, nor did it
own the fields that fattened them. A demand for
payment provoked at first surprise, then anger,
ending in a united but ineffectual attack upon the
fort. Finlayson contented himself in reply with re-
vealing the deadly powers of the company's nine-
pounders by blowing to pieces a lodge froln which
he had previously taken care to remove the oc-
cupants. The effect was instantaneous; on the fol-
lowing day full payment for the cattle was made.
Shortly after, danger from fire having been caused
in the vicinity of the fort, Finlayson compelled the
Indians, not without angry parleyings, to remove
to the other side of the harbour, thus originating
the present Indian reserve at Victoria. In the spring
of 1845, again, a party of Skagits from the main-
land coming to trade at the fort were waylaid by
182

GROWTH OF SHIPPING

the Songhees at Clover Point and their goods stolen.
Whereupon Finlays0n again interfered and com-
pelled the restitution of the goods. A demonstration
of the powers of the great gun being a second time
asked for, Finlayson directed that a canoe be placed
in the harbour opposite the bastion. Pointing the
canon at the object, he fired, the ball passing
through and bounding to the opposite shore. The
lesson had its effect.

Next in importance to relations with the Indians
in the early annals of the post was the birth
and progress of its shipping. It was in the spring of
1845 that the first vessel consigned to Fort Victoria!
direct from England arrived in the harbour. This
was the bark Vancouver belonging to the company.
\\Tith the Cowlitz and the Columbia she made yearly
voyages thereafter from London, bringing outfits
for a twelvemonth in advance. In the same year
also occurred the visit of the frigate A merica with
Captain the Hon. John Gordon, brother of the
Earl of Aberdeen, then Prime l\finister of England,
on board. Gordon's mission was to examine into and
report on the value of Oregon, including Vancouver
Island, the controversy concerning which with the
United States was at the moment entering upon its
final stage. A\.n incident related by Finlayson of his
visitor's ill-success at sahnon fishing gave currency

1 The native title was retained until 184.'>, the change being first to
" Albert" and later in the same year to " Victoria."

183

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

to the popular fiction that Oregon was lost to Britain
because the sockeye would not rise to a fly. That
Gordon's prejudices, however, and the unfavourable
iInpression carried away by his party concerning the
Columbia valley did not assist the home authorities
in attaching a proper importance to the country,
may be assumed. From the year 1845, also, the
American whalers of the North Pacific touched
occasionally at Victoria for supplies, until the
Hawaiian Islands were found to afford a more con-
venient port of call. About the same time, while
the cry "fifty-four forty or fight," was stilJ reëcho-
ing through the United States and excitement ran
high in Great Britain as ,veIl, H.l\I.S. Constance,
with five hundred men and officers, arrived at
Esquimalt. Finlayson seized the opportunity for a
military display, for the sake of the effect upon the
Indians. The frigate Fisguard also visited Victoria
in the same year and exercised her men on shore
with a similar object in view. Two surveying ships,
the Herald and Pandora came in the following
season, and re-mapped the Straits of Juan de Fuca,
the harbours of Esquimalt and Victoria, the Canal
de Haro and other waters. These and other ships of
war despatched for the protection of national rights
,vere supplied with beef and vegetables from the
farms of the company.l\Ieanwhile the general trade,
which during the preceding twenty years had con-
verged upon the Columbia and Fort Vancouver,
came gradually more and more to centre at Victoria.
184

FARl\lING OPERATIONS

The farming operations of the company had
engaged attention from the first. Even before the
fort itself had been completed, a number of men
were set to work at clearing the surrounding land for
the raising of vegetables and cereals. \\7' ooden im-
plements alone were available the :first year, an ex-
ample of the thrift of Douglas, and the corn was
trodden out by cattle in the barn. Some of the
younger natives were employed at the work, prov-
ing useful ox-drivers. They were paid, as usual, in
goods. Horses and cattle were imported later from
Nisqually, by the ever active Beaver and Cadboro,
and a farm of several hundred acres was eventually
opened in the immediate vicinity of 'Tictoria. In all,
the company's farms on the island were three in
number; the Fort Farm as it was called, on the level
space 'where the city no\v stands; Beckley Farm, in
the neighbourhood of James Bay; and the North
Dairy Farm, which was situated in] and. The latter,
as the name would imply, was devoted chiefly to
dairying which would seem to have received
special attention; three dairies, each with seventy
milch cows, producing seventy kegs of butter
each in a season, being in full ,vorking order
within four years of the beginning of operations.
Oats, barley, pease and potatoes ,vere also raised;
and forty bushels of wheat to the acre was a not
uncon1mon yield. The price obtairied for the latter
from the Russians was four shillings and twopence
per bushel, paid by bills on St. Petersburg. A large
185

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

wooden building, long to be seen at the com-
pany's wharf at Victoria, was used as a granary,
wherein the grain from Fort Vancouver, Puget
Sound and Langley, as well as that grown on the
island itself, was held for shipment to Sitka. Both
Russian and British vessels were engaged in the
traffic. The profitableness of the agricultural ven-
ture on Vancouver Island was assured throughout
by the abundant supply and cheap price of labour.
The natural increase of the cattle, moreover, was
such that it was soon found impossible to herd
them, many escaping into the woods, where they
were found years afterwards by hunters in the in-
terior of the island.
In 1848, the brigades from the northern interior,
instead of descending to the Columbia by way of
I{amloops and Okanagan as usual, followed the
more direct route of the Fraser 'Talley to l..ang-
ley. A year before the settlement of the Ore-
gon boundary, Anderson, who was then in charge
at Alexandria, had foreseen the necessity of the
change and had carefully explored the country
between Kamlo<?ps and the IJower Fraser, not-
withstanding the stupendous obstacles interposed
by nature. Fort Yale was founded as a result
in 1848 and j1"ort Hope a short time later. For
the decade which followed these events, the main
route to the interior lay from Langley to Fort
Hope by water, thence by trail across the defile
of the Coquihalla River to the Thompson.
186

DEATH OF l\lcLOUGHLIN

The completion of this arrangement marks all
but the end of Fort Vancouver. 'Vith the levying
of Alnerican duties, its days were numbered. The
great l\fcLoughlin had passed from the scene, the
victim, as has already been described, of forces which
he had neither the will nor the power to resist. To
curb his influence, a board, of which Douglas and
Ogden were the other members, had been appointed
some time earlier for the management of the
\Vestern Department. The end came in 1846 when
his resignation followed a report by a commission
sent by the British government to make inquiry in-
to the military conditions of Oregon, with a man-
date from the company as well. Douglas there-
after became the senior officer of the Western De-
partment, l\IcKay being given the supervision of
the northern posts which till then had been under
the immediate eye of Douglas. l\IcLoughlin passed
to Oregon City, then rising at the falls of the
"\Villamette. Sorrow ended his days. He had re-
nounced, after the quarrel with the company, his
allegiance to Great Britain. But his new country-
men would have none of him. His lands were taken
from him by the United States and restitution de-
ferred until he himself was beyond caring. He
was the patriarch, as Whitman was the martyr, of
Oregon. There was a time ,vhen a word from l\Ic-
Loughlin would have hurled the American immi-
grant across the mountains and left to the United
States no other alternative but a conquest by arms.
187

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Yet
ho would name him traitor? His humanity
lifts him above common men.

'Vith the year 1849 an important period is
reached in the history of 'Tictoria and British
Colulnbia. "\Vith the events of that year and their
immediate results, the city enlarges into a colony.
Briefly, these events included the final removal of
the chief emporium of the company frolll Fort
'T ancouver to Victoria; the discovery of gold in
California; the opening of the first coal mines on
,r ancouver Island; the acquisition of Vancouver
Island by the Hudson's Bay Company; the conver-
sion of the island into a Cro,vn colony; and the
appointment of a governor from England. To
each of these developments in turn a word must
be given.

The abandonment of Fort Vancouver was
marked by the removal of Douglas with his wife
and family to 'Tictoria. They came by the ship Cad-
bora, having crossed by horses from the Columbia
to Puget Sound. The family at first took up its
abode in the fort, in the absence of a separate
residence for the chief factor. Finlayson, on the
assumption by Douglas of the chief command, was
made the head accountant for the lVestern Depart-
Inent, a position which he held until 1862. Another
notable arrival of the year ,vas the Rey. R. .T.
Staines, of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, who came as
188

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA

chaplain to the company, and whose eccentricities,
tribulations and death form a strange mixture of
the ridiculous and the tragic. Helmcken, the future
speaker of the legislature and son-in-law of Douglas,
,vas a second arrival of the same year. 'Tictoria
henceforth became the centre of the Hudson's Bay
Company's interests V,Test of the Rocky l\Iountains.

'Tictoria being after San Francisco almost the only
point on the north Pacific coast froin which supplies
could be obtained, the effect of the gold discoveries
of 1848-9 in California on the life of the place was
immediate. Prices rose to an exorbitant degree at
San Francisco and the miners employed the winter
months, when work on the placers was impossible,
in the search for a cheaper market. Finlayson
mistook the first contingent for pirates. Their
mission explained, however, they were allowed to
purchase such goods as were less imrnediately re-
quired for the company's trade at the rate of eleven
dollars per ounce for their gold. G.old in its native
state had never before been seen by Finlayson, and
the transaction gave him serious doubts until he had
communicated with headquarters. The reply receiv-
ed was that more goods ,vould be sent for the new
demand. The traffic however, ,vas not without its
disadvantages, as the excitement caused alnong the
company's elnployees seriously disorganized the ser-
vice, a large number leaving for the diggings, while
the pay of others had to be increased in order to in-
189

SIR JA
IES DOUGI-AAS

duce them to remain. Indians were employed to re-
place the stragglers. Finlayson himself was offered
a thousand dollars a month to take charge of a store
in San Francisco, an offer which he declined, for
the reason that though his salary was but one
hundred pounds per annum from the company, he
was under an engagement to give twelve months'
notice before quitting the service.

In 1849, the development of the first coal mine
in British Columbia was begun. Outcroppings of
the mineral had been noted years before in several
localities; at Beaver II arbour, where Fort Rupert
was erected after the abandonment of Fort !fc-
Loughlin, considerable quantities had been known
to exist. Fort Rupert was uncompleted when.
l\Iichael !Iuir, a Scottish miner, with his wife, a
family of sons and daughters, and a small party of
miners, was sent by the company to establish
workings on the deposits. Upon sinking a shaft.
ninety feet, however, l\luir declared the seam too
small to be workable, and, complications with the
Indians arising, the miners left. for California. The
1\'Iuir shaft was continued later to a depth of one
hundred and twenty-five feet, but without favour-
able result. Additional and better mining machinery
arrived in 1851, but more promising deposits having
been disclosed by the Indians at N anaimo, the plant
was removed thither, and the beginning of what v:as
destined to be one of the most important industries
190

TRANSFER OF VANCOUVER ISLAND

of the Pacific slope was made. The famous Douglas
seam was located in 1852. In the same year, Fort
N anaimo was erected in the neigh bourhood. Two
thousand tons were shipped in the followi
g year,
bringing eleven dollars per ton at N anaimo, and
twenty-eight at San Francisco. Coal outcroppings
were subsequently discovered at various points on
the island, on the contiguous coast of the mainland
and on the Queen Charlotte Islands, but the fields
in the vicinity of N anaimo were the only ones on
the coast that became of commercial value. The
l\fuir family, it ,vould seem, retired eventually from
the service of the company, as the names of five of
them are attached to a petition of the independent
settlers which was presented to the first governor of
the colony on his departure for England.

There remains to be dealt with the highly im-
portant series of incidents that group themselves
about the acquisition of Vancouver Island by the
Hudson's Bay Company, the first attempt at
colonization, and the first and tentative establish-
ment of civil government. The three divisions of
the subject are inextricably interwoven.
In 1838, the license which had been granted to the
company in 1821 to trade, to the exclusion of all
other British subjects, in the territory owned by
Great Britain north and west of Canada and the
United States, was renewed, with certain irnportant
additions, for a further period of twenty -one years.
191

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

The additions bound the company among other
things to enforce the execution of criminal pro-
cesses, and to frame rules and regulations for the
moral and religious improvement of the Indians.
To the governlnent the right to erect colonies or
provinces within the territories included in the
grant was retained, together with the privilege of
applying thereto any form of civil government, in-
dependent of the company, which might be deemed
proper. Though this license, as will be seen, did not
expire until 1859, the question as to the policy to
be adopted by the government with regard to
the colonizing of the country arose at a lnuch
earlier date. Alnlost immediately upon the arrange-
ment of the inf-ernational boundary, the example
afforded by events on the Columbia had its effect
in England. Immigrants were pouring into that
favoured region, towns were springing into being,
and industry was expanding with a speed that was
full of meaning to the overcro\vded population of
Great Britain. From the company's standpoint
also, the moment was an anxious one. There seemed
every prospect that the wave of settlement which
had driven the trade north of the 49th parallel
would follow it even further. The company's con-
duct in Rupert's land, nloreover, had recently come
in for severe criticisln. Yet concessions nlust be ob-
tained if the monopoly was to be saved \vith any
semblance of its old-tinle power. Closely in touch
lS
the directorate was with the official mind of Great
192

OFFER OP HUDSON'S BAY COl\IP ANY

Britain, it ,vas realized that the time for action ,vas
before the settler had appeared and the subject h
ld
achieved prominence. It ,vas shrewdly perceived
also that the company would best attain its object,
not by opposing colonization, ,vhich was now seen
to be inevitable, but by securing control of the
colonizing process so that it might retard or direct
it at pleasure. The government was, therefore, ap-
proached with a proposal on the part of the com-
pany to undertake the rule and colonization of its
various territories. in North America. The magni-
tude of the suggestion apparently startled the
cabinet, ,vhich, with the recent troubles of Lord
Selkirk's colony on the Red River in mind, had
now clear knowledge of the relations which the
settler bore to the fur trader. The negotiations ,vere
suspended, in something not unlike alarm; where-
upon the company adroitly diminished its proposals
to include only the territory west of the Rocky
l\lountains. Failing that, even 'Tancouver Island
alone, it was intimated, would be accepted. Colon-
ization, the company affirmed as a part of its sugges-
tion, would be assisted in every ,yay possible, and
all moneys received for lands or minerals would be
applied to the improvement of the country. The
question was considered by the government with
reference solely to ,.,.
ncouver Island. Parliament
debated the proposal, Gladstone being among those
who spoke against it. In the end the government
declared itself in favour of concluding an arrange-
193

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

ment with the company. No other agency had the
necessary capital, organization and experience for
the undertaking, and the cOlnpany already possessed
the exclusive right of trade in the Indian territory
for eleven years longer. It was willing, moreover,
to vest the appointment of a governor in the Crown.
After protracted negotiations as to terms, the
grant was consummated on January 13th, 1849.
Vancouver Island, with the royalties of its seas and
mines, was handed over to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, in perpetuity, subject only to the domination
of the Crown, and to a rental of seven shillings pay-
able on the first day of each year. The company
was to settle a colony of British subjects within five
years; to sell the land at a reasonable price, retain-
ing only ten per cent. of the proceeds and apply-
ing the balance to improvements; to reserve such
lands as might be necessary for na\Tal stations
and government establishments; to report every
two years with regard to the number of colon-
ists settled and the acreage of lands sold; and
to defray the expenses of all civil and military
establishments, except during hostilities between
Great Britain and a foreign power. The grant, it
was stipulated, would be forfeited if no settle-
ment were effected within five years. The imperial
government reserved the right to recover the is-
land, at the expiry of the company's exclusive
license, by payment of the sum actually expended
by the cOlnpany in colonization.
194

GRANT OF ,r ANCOUVER ISLAND

The wisdom of the grant was widely questioned.
Undoubtedly the desire of the company was
to control rather than to promote the settle-
ment of the coast. This was shown at once by the
prospectus and advertisement which it published
on the conclusion of the arrangement. A reason-
able price for land, it appeared, was, in the com-
pany's view, one pound per acre. l\Ioreover, for
every hundred acres so purchased the buyer
was to convey at his own expense three families
or six single settlers to the colony.
Needless to say, these conditions placed a hope-
less burden on settlement. It is not to be thought
that they were ever intended to do other,vise.
Colonization was incompatible with the fur trade.
As a business matter, the agreement was very
profitable. It continued to the company the use of
the country; and vested rights were created for
which, in the end, the traders were well paid.
Even apart from the above, the methods which
were adopted to induce immigration to the new
colony were worthy of censure. It would not be
fair to say that the company did not want settlers
on ,r ancouver Island: a certain number were needed
to preserve the semblance of good faith; more-
over, servants for the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company were a necessity. In the representations
made, however, to the few who were rich enough
to undertake the company's terms, and to those
sent out as employees, an impression was conveyed
195

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

as to the state of affairs in the colony, which, if
not actually contrary to fact, led the people to ex-
pect entirely different conditions from those which
prevailed. The directors in London, of course,
knew little of the life of the colony; while the
officials on the ground had been graduated in a
school of hardship which prevented them from
appreciating the feelings of men and women trans-
planted from the garden of civilization to an un-
broken wilderness. The situation of the American
settler in Oregon, where land without money and
almost without conditions was to be had, did not
tend by comparison to increase satisfaction. The
California gold fields, too, exercised their lure and
did much to retard the settlement of the British
colony.
The first settler on Vancouver Island under the
terms of the agreement was 'V. Colquhoun Grant.
Hearing of the project, he had sold his comn1Ìssion
in an English cavalry regiment, and ,vith a party
of eight persons, fitted out at his own expense,
arrived on the island. After careful examination of
the country, he chose a location at the head of
Sooke Inlet, twenty miles north-west of 'Tictoria.
After two years he tired of the life, and leased his
farm to the labourers he had brought out. Under
their tenure the place fell into neglect, and was sub-
sequently sold to the l\Iuir family. Grant's purpose,
according to Finlayson, was to form a purely Scot-
tish settlement; the plan, it was even said, included
196

EARL Y SETTLERS

a Gaelic schoolmaster and a Highland piper. James
Cooper was a second early arrival who was to figure
for a longer time in the history of the colony. I.Aand-
ing in 1851, he brought from England a small iron
vessel in sections, to be put together at YÏctoria.
He had previously been in the service of the com-
pany as commander of a vessel between London and
Fort Vancouver, and his object now was to carry on
an independent trade, for which his experience had
well fitted him. In 1852 he launched a scheme for
buying cranberries from the natives of the Fraser
River for the San Francisco market, where under
the prevailing conditions he could obtain as high as
one dollar per gallon for the produce. The Hud-
son's Bay Company, however, had no mind for
enterprises of this nature. Cooper had no sooner
opened his traffic than Douglas sent instructions
to Fort Langley to buy all the cranberries the
Indians offered at a price beyond the reach of
other traders. Cooper thereupon took up land at
l\Ietchosin and farmed three hundred acres for
some years in partnership with one Thomas
Blenkhorn.
Other early arrivals were eight coal miners and
two labourers on the Harpooner in June 1849;
eight emigrants on the bark Norman lJ-forrison
in 1850; and one hundred and twenty hired labour-
ers on the Tory in June 1851. A number of
the latter were sent to Fort Rupert to work in
the coal mines.

197

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

By this time, there were, Rccording to contem-
porary reports, some seven independent settlers
in the vicinity of Victoria, three of whom had pre-
viously been in the company's service. Victoria
itself was laid out in streets in 1852, though
where the city now stands was still forest with only
occasional spaces of cultivated ground. In addi-
tion to the fort, only twelve houses stood ,vithin
the surveyed limits. At the end of 1858, it was esti-
mated that, apart from seventeen thousand natives,
there was on the island a total population of four
hundred and fifty persons of all nationalities, three
hundred of whom were divided between Victoria
and Sooke, with one hundred and twenty-five at
Nanaimo and the rest at Fort Rupert. Up to the
same date, nineteen thousand eight hundred and
seven acres had been applied for, but of this no
less than ten thousand one hundred and seventy-
two acres had been claimed by the Hudson's Bay
Company, and two thousand three hundred and
seventy-four acres by the Puget Sound Agricul-
tural Company. At the beginning of 1854, accord-
ing to Bancroft, not more than five hundred acres
at the most were under cultivation on the island,
and of this all but thirty acres at Sooke and ten
acres at l\1etchosin were under the immediate
management of the company.
Froln the outset, open quarrels were incessant
between the settlers and the company. The first
and leading cause lay in the conditions under which
198

GRIEVANCES OF THE COLONISTS

the colonists were placed upon the land, the oner-
ous nature of which has been already indicated.
The land itself, the more so as the company
had appropriated the best of it, was not inviting.
Fear of the Indians pressed constantly, and there
was loud complaint over the lack of properly con-
stituted courts of justice. The company's time-
honoured method of barter was hateful and unjust.
It was a grievance, too, that the island was not
included in the reciprocity treaty between Canada
and the United States. Besides these matters, which
were of general application, a multitude of indi-
vidual woes filled the cup to overflowing. A single
example will show the lengths to which the strife
proceeded.
Three miles distant from the fort, Captain Lang-
ford, from whom Langford Plains and Langford
Lake received their names, worked on the lands
of the Puget Sound Company as one of four
bailiffs. He had been a Kentish farmer, and for
a time an officer of the British army, but he 'was
induced to enlist in the service of the Hudson's
Bay Company, to open, as he supposed, a farm
on Vancouver Island. On his arrival he found to
his disappointment that he had bound himself to
the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and that
the quarters allotted to him consisted of but two
log huts, of a single room each-one for hilnsell
and his family, the other for his men. Langford \vas
a distant relative of Blanshard, the first governor
199

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

of the colony, and he was not slow to complain.
The colonial office was soon deluged with indict-
n1ents of the Hudson's Bay Company and its
officials, and though the statements of Langford
do not appear to have received full credence in
England, their matter is of interest as throwing
light on the relations in general of the company
with the settlers. Langford's bitterest grievance
was that the colonial surveyor had informed him
when applying for a certain tract that the land
in question was already sold to Dallas, the son-
in-law of Douglas. But apparently the land at
the time had not been sold, and Langford was
therefore mulcted of a prospective profit. He
further complained that although he had applied
to Douglas for an immediate inquiry into the
matter, the erring official had been permitted to
leave the colony for England without explanation.
In addition, I
angford had been hardly used in
court in the matter of a libel which had been
printed concerning him, and he inveighed against
the fitness of David Cameron, a linen draper
and brother-in-law to Douglas, who had been ap-
pointed the first chief-j ustice of the colony. The
report of Douglas as governor on the subject of
Langford's charges had at least the effect of elicit-
ing an expression of confidence on the part of the
home authorities in the various officials of the
colony. That Langford's onslaught upon Cameron
had not the sympathy of the entire community is
200

P ARLIAl\IENT AR Y COl\Il\IITTEE

shown by a document which was presented by a
number of the leading proprietors of the island
to the governor, in which a protest is entered
against the petition requesting the annulment of
his appointment.
Some interesting particulars having àn import-
ant bearing on the same feature in the history of
the island appear in the minutes of evidence taken
before a select committee of the British House of
Commons which was appointed in 1853 to consider
the state of the British possessions in North
America then under the administration of the
Hudson's Bay Company. One of the recommenda-
tions made by the committee after due deliberation
was that the connection of the company with Van-
couver Island should be terminated and that pro-
vision should be Inade for the ultimate extension
of the colony over the adjoining mainland ,vest
of the Rocky l\lountains. 'fhe report was dated
July 31st, 1857, and the recommendations were
given effect in the following year, a step consider-
ably hastened by the discovery of gold on the
Thompson and Fraser Rivers. It was alleged by
the committee as the basis of its findings, that the
population under the company's régime had de-
creased instead of increasing; that the price placed
upon the land was much too high; that the com-
pany's monopoly of the trade of the country
had stifled all competition; that settlers having
no money were compelled to barter with the
201

SIR JA
IES DOUGLAS

company for goods at exorbitant prices; that no
proper protection was afforded from the Indians,
there being only one constable and no military force
on the island; that there was no restriction on the
sale of liquors; that no means were provided for
transmitting money to England, or for banking or
for the marketing of farm produce; that the com-
pany had done nothing to civilize the Indians,
though due credit was given to the humanity of its
policy in this connection; that no survey of lands
had been made except of those belonging to the
company's elnployees; that the company was di-
rectly responsible for the slow progress of settle-
ment; that the company evaded the export of
goods other than its own in its ships from England;
that settlers had been in specified cases induced to
come to Vancouver Island as servants under mis-
representations; and that in general the powerful
influence of the Hudson's Bay Company was in
favour throughout of its own interests and opposed
to those of free and independent land-holders.
Added to this arraignment of social and political
conditions in the island, was a mass of useful and
interesting information concerning its climatic
and natural resources. 'Vith regard to its future,
the witnesses examined by the committee were
with one accord sanguine, provided that a suit-
able form of government were granted and a
favourable opportunity offered for the process of
industrial development.
202

RICHARD BLANSHARD

The history of the early years of settlement on
'T ancouver Island, apart from the above, had few
features of interest. The first governor of the
colony, Richard Blanshard, was appointed in 1849.
It is difficult to discuss his tenure of office seri-
ously. An independent governor was not a part
of the scheme which the company had in view.
The directorate had, in fact, suggested Douglas
for the position; but the nOlnination was dis-
cretely withdrawn on the intimation of the prime
minister that at least the first governor of the
colony should represent the Crown. Blanshard was
accordingly accepted with equanimity by the com-
pany, as an instrument which might be used for a
time and cast aside. The company, with or with-
out the governor, was master of the situation.
Blanshard had been educated as a barrister, and
had had some previous experience in colonial ad-
ministration. He was ambitious, and he accepted
the office at its apparent value, undoubtedly without
exact knowledge of its nature. Under the terms of
the grant of Vancouver Island, the company was
required to pay the expenses of all civil and mili-
tary establishments during peace. Beyond this,
however, Blanshard seems to have had no definite
understanding. A thousand acres of land had
been promised him by the home government; the
, promise, however, was construed by Douglas as
applying only to lands for the governor's tempo-
rary use while holding office. On arriving at 'Tic-
203

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

toria on l\larch lOth, 1850, Blanshard read the pro-
clamation of his appointment to an audience com-
posed of the officers of the ships which had brought
him and the servants and officials of the company;
but having no quarters allotted to him at the fort
he was obliged almost immediately to return on
board his vessel. Thereafter, for some time, the seat
of government moved with the exigencies of the
ship which bore the governor. The island was
coasted and Fort Rupert and other points of inter-
est visited. At Beaver Harbour, the coal workings,
which were then engaging the attention of the
company, were inspected, the judgment of Blan-
shard being unfavourable as to their success. The
condition of the miners and natives having been
investigated, the governor returned to Ylctoria.
Without salary, without allowance for expenses,
,vithout clerical assistance of any kind, without
evidence of the promise of the land he was
to receive, without official residence, ,vithout the
sympathy or coöperation of the officials of the
company with whom he was speedily in open
antagonism, without even duties to perforn1 beyond
the settlement of disputes between the settlers and
the company, one course only was open-to resign.
Before leaving he nominated a provisional govern-
ment of three, consisting of Douglas, Cooper and
Tod, and September 1st, 1851, saw his departure
from Vancouver Island. The experiment of an in-
dependent governor had been tried and had failed.
204

DOUGLAS APPQINTED GOVERNOR
A more cruelly treated officer of his rank it would
be hard to find in the history of British colonial
institutions.
James Douglas was appointed governor of Van-
couver Island in the place of Blanshard. Noone
outside of the company was available; and there
were indeed few interests other than those of the
corporation to render outside representation ad-
visable. Until population became more numerous
and industry more diversified, the machinery of
government was, in truth, seldom needed. At most
it served but to symbolize the supreme authority
of the Crown. l\Ieanwhile, the autocratic rule which
Douglas in his capacity of governor and chief factor
in one was able to enforce, was on the whole well
suited to the conditions. A man more competent
it would have been impossible to find. His know-
ledge of the country was unrivalled, his control of
the officials and servants of the company absolute,
and his influence with the Indians, whose good-
will was essential, almost unlimited. The situation
was anomalous: from many points of view it was
indefensible. But the time to end the domina-
tion of the company was not yet come,-did not,
in fact, arrive till the discovery of gold on the
Fraser gave an entirely new aspect to government
and affairs in British Columbia.

205

CHAPTER VII

VANCOUVER ISLAND

F ROl\I 1851 until 1858 Douglas reigned as
governor of V Rncouver Island. He did in-
deed reign. He continued the council of advisers
appointed by Blanshard, the name of Finlayson
being added, but his position was none the less
that of an almost undisputed sovereign.
The elements which had proved so discordant
under Blanshard were now in harmony. Crown
and company were virtually one, both having their
centre in the governor. If the union wore an omin-
ous look, it had at least been proved that an in-
dependent governor was, under existing conditions,
impossible. For the moment the monopoly was all
triumphant. Colonization came to a standstill. Even
the renewal of the grant of the island for a further
term of five years was achieved in 1854 with little
difficulty, notwithstanding the vigorous protests of
the few settlers who still found a voice.
Yet at the moment of its sturdiest growth the
axe was already laid at the root of the tree. Apart
from routine, only two incidents call for special
mention during this period. The first of these was
essentially antagonistic in idea to the supremacy of
the company; and the second involved the imme-
diate and utter ruin of the fur trade over a wide
207

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGI
AS

area of the mainland. The events referred to were,
respectively, the establishment of representative
government in the colony, and the discovery of gold
on the Fraser River. The present chapter will be
divided between these very impo
nt developments.

I t was in 1856 that Vancouver Island took on
for the first time the full status of a British
colony. The commission issued to Blanshard had
provided for the summoning of a representative
assembly; but for seven years Douglas with his
council alone made shift to provide the scanty
legislation which was needed by a cOInmunity
without independent population. Though the Crown
had granted him this privilege, it was by the Crown
that the first doubts were thrown on its validity.
In due course it occurred to the colonial office that
the establishment of a legislature on 'T ancouver
Island was necessary, if for no other purpose than
to confirm what had already been performed with-
out its aid. It was urged, as an additional reason for
the step, that in 1859 the relations of the company
with the Crown must undergo revision, and that
the future administration of the colony would be
more easily provided for if the experiment of gov-
ernment by a house of representatives had been
already made. Douglas was accordingly instructed
to arrange forthwith for the dividing of the country
into electoral districts, with a view to the election
of a legislature, in accordance with the terms of his
208

ORGANIZING A LEGISLATURE

commission. l\lany practical suggestions as to the
procedure to be followed and the nature of the con-
stitution that would suit so small a community,
were added by l\lr. Labouchère, the colonial secre-
tary of the day.
Consternation was apparently the first f'motion
raised in the breast of the company's leader by
the deterrnination of the home authorities. "It
is not without feelings of dismay," wrote Douglas
in reply, "that I contemplate the nature and
amount of labour and responsibility which will
be imposed upon me in the process of carrying out
the instructions conveyed in your dispatch. Posses-
sing a very slender knowledge of legislation, with-
out legal advice or intelligent assistance of any kind,
I approach the subject with diffidence, feeling, how-
ever, all the encouragement ,vhich the kindly pro-
mised assistance and support of Her l\lajesty's
government is calculated to inspire." l\Iaking a
virtue of necessity, he summoned at once a special
meeting of his council to consider the dubious pro-
blem that confronted him, the result being that it
was resolved to divide the island into four electoral
districts, returning seven members in all, the pro-
perty qualification of members to be the ownership
of freehold estate to the value of three hundred
pounds or more, while that of the voters remained
as fixed by the governor's commission-namely,
twenty acres or more of freehold land. "There 'v ill
be a difficulty in finding properly qualified repre.
209

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

sentatives," wrote Douglas to Labouchère on the
conclusion of these arrangements, "and I fear that
our early attempts at legislation 'will make a sorry
figure, though at all events they ".ill haye the effect
you contemplate of removing all doubts as to the
validity of' our local enactments."
The proclamation which ga\Te effect to the above
was issued on June 16th, 1856. The four electoral
districts into which the colony had been divided
were- 'Tictoria, to be represented by three mem-
bers; Esquimalt, to be represented by two; Nan-
aimo, to be represented by one; and Sooke to be
represented by one. Elections duly followed. In
Victoria five candidates appeared; but in the other
constituencies, so few or indifferent were the elec-
tors, the seats went without a contest. The lnem-
bers of the first assembly were as follo,,'s :-J. D.
Pem berton, .Joseph Yates, and E. E. Langford for
Victoria; Thomas Skinner and J. S. Helmcken for
Esquinlalt: John l\luir for Sooke and John E.
I{ennedy for N anaimo.
The House thus chosen had no sooner met than
it encountered a difficulty that threatened for a time
to be insurmountable. "J. B. Helmcken has been
elected Speaker of the House," ,,'rote Douglas under
date of August 20th, " but nothing further has been
done in consequence of objections having been raised
as to the validity of the election in one instance, and
as to the property qualifications in two cases, making
three out of the seven members against whom peti-
210

l\IÈETING OF LEGISLATURE

tions have been sent in, leaving only three members
and the Speaker at liberty to act, and that number
is insufficient to forln a comInittee of inquiry. . . .
One of the petitions is got up merely for party pur-
poses, and if that were \vithdra\vn there would be
four members and the Speaker who might proceed
to the affairs of the IIouse. In the United States
the practice is in such cases for the governor to
grant certificates of qualification to a majority of
the members, who then proceed to constitute the
House, but I am not certain that such a course
would be in harn10ny with the English la\v. How-
ever, if the House would appeal to Ine on the sub-
ject I would have recourse to that expedient." From
a later despatch it appears that the governor ,vas
spared such summary a,ction. Langford, the repre-
sentative for 'Tictoria,
as the member lacking the
necessary qualifications, and he was replaced at
once by Joseph 'Villiam l\Iackay unopposed.
The legislature met for the first time on A.ugust
12th, 1856. The inaugural speech of the governor
on that occasion is a noteworthy document. Apart
fronl the illustration it offers of \vhat Douglas con-
cei ved to be the status of the young colony, it
throws a strong light un the yarious problems ,vhich
beset the early years of the little community. After
congratulating the council and House on the occa-
sion, "an event fraught with consequences of the
utmost importance to the present and future in-
habitants, and remarkable as the first instance of
211

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

representative institutions being granted in the in-
fancy of a British colony," the address proceeded:
"The history and actual position of this colony
are nlarked by many other remarkable circuln-
stances. Called into' existence by an Act of the su-
preme government, immediately after the discovery
of gold in California, it has maintained an arduous
and incessant struggle with the disorganizing eflects
on labour of that discovery. Remote from e\Tery other
British settlement, with its commerce trarlllllelled,
and met by restrictive duties on every side, its trade
and resources remain undeveloped. Self-supporting,
and defraying all the expenses of its own govern-
ment, it presents a striking contrast to every other
colony in the British Empire, and like the native
pines of its storm-beaten promontories, it has ac-
quired a slow but hardy growth. Its future progress
must, under Providence, in a great lneasure depend
on the intelligence, industry and enterprise of its
inhabitants, and upon the legislative wisdom of this
assembly."
The address paused at this point to refer to the
aid and support which the executive power might
in the future expect to derive from the" local ex-
perience and knowledge of the wishes of the people
and the wants of the country," which the members
possessed. It then resumed:
"Gentlemen, I am happy to infonn you that Her
Majesty's government continues to express the most
lively interest in the progress and welfare of this
212

FISCAL PROBLEl\IS

colony. Negotiations are now pending with the
government of the United States, which may pro-
bably terlninate in an extension of the reciprocity
treaty to Vancouver Island. To show the com-
mercial advantages connected with that treaty I
will just mention that an import duty of
30 is
levied on every
lOO worth of British produce
which is now sent to San Francisco, or to any other
American port; or, in other words, the British pro-
prietor pays as a tax to the United States nearly
the value of every third cargo of fish, timber, or
coal which he sends to any Alnerican port. The
reciprocity treaty utterly abolishes those fearful im-
posts, and establishes a system of free trade in the
produce of British colonies. The effects of that
measure in developing the trade and natural re-
sources of the colony can, therefore, be hardly over-
estimated. The coal, the timber, and the productive
fisheries of Vancouver's Island will assume a ,ralue
before unknown; while every branch of trade will
start into activity, and beCOlne the means of pour-
ing' wealth into the country. So unbounded is the
reliance which I place in the enterprise and intelli-
gence possessed by the people of this colony, and
in the colony, and in the advantages of their geo-
graphical position, that with equal rights and a fair
field I think they Inay enter into a successful com-
petition with the people of any other country. The
extension of the reciprocity treaty to this island
once gained, the interests will become inseparably
213

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

connected with the principles of free trade, a system
which I think it will be sound policy on our part to

ncourage.
" Gentlemen, the colony has been again visited
this year by a large party of northern Indians, and
their presence has excited in our minds a not un-
reasonable degree of alarln. Through the blessing of
God they have kept from committing acts of open
violence, and been quiet and orderly in their de-
portment ; yet the presence of large bodies of armed
sa\?ages, ,vho have never felt the restraining in-
fluences of Inoral and religious training, and who
are accustolned to follow the impulses of their own
evil natures more than the dictation of reason or
justice, gives rise to a feeling of insecurity which
must exist as long as the colony remains without
military protection. Her l\fajesty's government,
ever alive to the dangers ,vhich beset the colony,
ha ve arranged .with the lords commissioners of the
Adrniralty, that the Prcsidcnt frigate should be sent
to 'T ancouver's Island; and the measure will, I have
no doubt, be carried into effect ,vithout delay. I
shall nevertheless continue to conciliate the good-
will of the native Indian tribes by treating theln
with justice and forbearance, and by rigidly pro-
tecting their civil and agrarian rights. l\fany cogent
reasons of humanity and sound policy recommend
that course to our attention ; and I shall, therefore,
rely upon your support in carrying such measures
into effect. 'ì\T e know, from our own experience,
214

FINANCE

that the friendship of the natives is at all times use-
ful, while it is no less certain that their enlnity may
become more disastrous than any other calamity to
which the colony is directly exposed.
"Gentlemen of the House of Assembly, according
to the constitutional usage, with you must originate
aU money bills; it is therefore your special province
to consider the ways and means of defraying the
ordinary expenses of the government, either by
levying a customs duty on imports, or by a system
of direct taxation. The poverty of the country and
the limited means of a population struggling against
the pressure of numberless privations, must neces-
sarily restrict the amount of taxation; it should,
therefore, be our constant study to regulate the
public expenditure according to the means of the
country, and to live strictly within our income. The
common error of running into speculative improve-
Inents entailing debts upon the colony, for a very
uncertain advantage, should be carefully avoided.
The delnands upon the public revenue will, at pre-
sent, chiefly arise from the improvement of the in-
ternal cOllnnunications of the country, and provid-
ing for the education of the young, the erection
of places for public worship, the defence of the
country, and the administration of justice.
"Gentlemen, I feel in aU its force the responsi-
bility now resting upon us. The interests and well
being of thousands yet unborn may be affected by
our decisions, and they wiU reverence or condemn
215

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

our acts according as they are found to influence,
for good or for evil, the events of the future."
'Vith this exordium, the legislature proceeded to
its duties. The opening session .was almost wholly
devoted to the consideration of ways and means. It
would appear on the whole to have been no small
problem to make ends meet in the young colony.
In 1855, for exmnple, the total public expenditures
reached the sum of f:4,I07 2s. 3d., of which f:l,388
5s. 5d. were spent on roads and bridges; f:683 18s.
Id. on surveys; f:I,362 17s. 5d. on the church,
chaplain and parsonage at 'Tictoria; f:IOO on the
administration of justice; f:81 8s. 9d. on militia;
f:30 9s. 2d. on jail expenses; and f:7 15s. Iod. on
government prelnises. To meet this, an income of
f:334 17s. was derived from land sales, and the sum
of f:340 from the sale of licenses to deal in liquor,
these being the sole local sources of revenue. The
sum of f:I30 was voted to meet the expenses of the
first House. This modest appropriation, it is of in-
terest to note in the records, permitted the payment
of f:IO to the clerk of the House; f:5 to the ser-
geant-at-arms; f:20 for lighting, heating and furn-
ishing ; f:50 for the copying of documents; f:5 for
stationery; while the remaining f:40 were prudently
withheld for current salaries.
A_part from this incursion into finance, little of an
original nature was attempted by the assembly. Of
its acts of ratification, the most important was that
by which the rules of the Supreme Court, as previ-
216

INFI..UENCE OF THE COl\fPANY

ously in force for the administration of justice in
civil ca
es, were continued without alteration. This
done, the House lapsed into inactivity. In reality
there was nothing for it to do. It introduced no new
elelnent into the government of the colony. It was
not even representative of anything but the all
pervading interests of the company. Douglas, the
governor, ,vas the company's factor-in-chief. 'V ork,
Finlayson and Tod, who made up the council, were
respectively chief factor, chief trader and ancient
pensioner of the company. The seven members of
the House were no less of the monopoly. H elmcken,
the Speaker, was the company's staff doctor; Pem-
berton was its surveyor-general; and l\Iackay was
its clerk. l\Iuir and Kennedy were retired servants.
Yates was its beneficiary; and Skinner was an agent
of the Puget Sound Company. Cameron, the chief-
justice, was the brother-in-law of Douglas; Ander-
son, the collector of duties, was a retired chief-
trader. For the real history of the island, therefore,
during the period of representative institutions as
before, it is from the archives of the Hudson's Bay
Company that enquiry must be made. The acts of
Douglas as governor and his official despatches to
the colonial office are well known; of Douglas as
chief factor and the communications which he held
with the London directorate-the hidden springs to
which the outside show responded-,ve haye but
occasional glimpses or such stray particles of fact as
may be gleaned by infcrence or from alien sources.
217

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGLAS

Thus, without incident or variation, the govern-
ment of Vancouver Island continued until 1859,
when the end came of the second five years' term of
the Hudson's Bay Company's rule. In truth, the
administration of the colony, as apart from the
company, had proved a matter of small difficulty.
There was but one constable. As no means were
provided for paying a recorder or other administra-
tor of j usticef the governor himself had acted in
that capacity. In the place of sheriffs and a militia,
a body of mounted police termed "voltigcurs" was
organized from among the settlers and servants of
the company. On only two occasions ,vas a display
of force found necessary. In Decelnber 1852, a
shepherd at Christmas Hill was killed by two
natives, one of whom fled to Cowichan and the
other to Nanaimo. To allay the settlers' alarm,
Douglas with a contingent borrowed from H.J\;I.S.
Thetis, then lying at Esquilnalt, proceeded to the
Saanich village, where after a characteristic parley
the murderer was handed O\Ter. The expedition
then passed to Nanaimo and secured the second
culprit. At both places the natives were sternly ad-
monished. On the return to 'Tictoria the criminttls
were tried and executed. Some tÏ1ne later a white
man was shot by an Indian at Cowichan, but the
offender was again delivered up, after a demonstra-
tion as before, and was hanged in the presence of
his people. Thus was the Indian taught to respect
the white man's law.
218

THE DISCO,TERY OF GOl
D

The disruption of this curious fabric was in the
end as sudden as it was complete. No other agency,
it may be safely said, than that which brought the
result to pass, could have achieved it with the saIne
unexpectedness and finality. That agency was the
discovery of placer gold. The incident belongs to
more than local history, the opening of the gold
fields of British Columbia being among the most
notable of those dazzling events which have flutter-
ed from time to time the financial capitals of the
world and opened new paths for the adventurous to
sudden and marvellous wealth.
As early as the régime of Blanshard, rumours of
the finding of gold had reached 'Tictoria from the
Queen Charlotte Islands. l\Iore in alarm than grati-
fication at the news, a brigantine had been des-
patched by the company to investigate. It dis-
covered quartz but no placers. In the follo\ving
year, however, expeditions from various quarters
landed on the islands; and on January 14th, 1852,
Douglas was able to report the definite discovery of
gold on the western coast. It appeared strongly
advisable to the governor at this juncture to pro-
hibit foreigners from landing on the new gold fields.
Several vessels, he pointed out to the colonial secre-
tary, had sailed from the United States, and more
were being outfitted on the California sea-board,
the crews being prepared to overCOlne opposition by
their numbers and the ease with \vhich reinforce-
ments of ad venturers might be obtained from San
219

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Francisco. Attention was also called to the hostile
attitude of the Indians. The Admiralty in reply
ordered H.l\I.S. Thetis to assert Her l\lajesty's
sovereignty over the islands; but it was decided not
to prohibit the vessels of foreign countries from
landing men and stores there. In l\lay of the same
year, Douglas accordingly thought it advisable to
report more fully on the matter. Seven American
ships, he informed Earl Grey, with between forty
and seventy men each, had arrived in Gold Har-
bour, four having returned after landing fifteen men
and erecting a blockhouse. "It is very certain," he
added, "that success will have the effect of attract-
ing crowds of adventurers from the American
settlements to the Queen Charlotte Islands, and it
will be no easy task to eject them when firmly
established." The admission of foreigners to the
gold fields of British Columbia was from first to
last, as will be seen, the cause of much disquietude
to the governor.
These and other representations bore fruit at the
close of the year, when Douglas received a com-
mission as lieutenant-governor of the Queen Char-
lotte Islands-" to meet the circuillstances of the
time." Power was by the same instrument granted
him to issue licenses, on the express understanding
that they did not give a title in the soil. He was
requested also to forward the names of persons who
might act as justices of the peace. Enclosed with
the despatch which bore these orders were copies of
220

THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS

letters which had been issued instructing the Ad-
miralty to protect British property and interests
from foreign violation and calling the attention of
the United States government to the actions of its
citizens on the Pacific. Douglas, on their receipt, at
once drew up a proclamation with regard to the
taking out of licenses, the conditions which he at-
tached to the latter being similar to those enforced
in New South '\T ales, the most important difference
lying in the fact that the fee in the Queen Charlotte
Islands was placed at ten instead of twenty
shillings.
In the excitement which follo,ved these develop-
ments, a number of expeditions made haste to the
islands. Five vessels were reported in l\Iitchell
Harbour at one time; and the hills 'were full of pro-
spectors. The end, ho\vever, was disappointment.
One quartz vein, seven inches in width and trace-
able for eight feet, contained in places twenty-five
per cent. of gold; but the hope of loading vessels
with the treasure was soon abandoned. From a
pocket on Gold Harbour, l\Ioresby Island, bet,veen
$20,000 and $25,000 were taken (or were reported
to have been taken) but more ,vas probably spent
in the mining of it than ,vas finally recovered. About
the same time Indians from the Skeena River
brought in nuggets to the cOlnpany's fort, but the
several expeditions that were sent out to locate the
sources met with failure. The whole movement died
almost as suddenly as it began.

221

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

The flurry with regard to the Queen Charlotte
Islands serves but as introductory episode in the
history proper of the gold fields of British Columbia.
These, as is well known to falne, lay on the main-
land, in the beds of the Fraser and Thompson
Rivers, from whose golden sands millions of dollars
,vorth of the precious metal was washed annually for
many succeeding years. Exactly how, when, or
where the finds were first made is uncertain, amid
the mass of legend offering on the subject. Gold
dust, according to one report, had been seen by the
company in the possession of the natives at Kam-
loops as early asI 852, though no suspicion ,vas awak-
ened at the time as to the wealth of'the neighbour-
hood. Gold, according to a letter of Douglas written
in 1860, was first discovered on the Thompson
River by an Indian a short distance below Nicom-
men. Quaffing from the stream, he saw a shining
pebble: it proved to be gold. Finlayson mentions
the discoveries of l\IcLean, the officer in charge at
I{amloops, as among the earliest incidents of the
gold - mining epoch. According to Anderson, the
first intimation that the company receiyed of the
existence of gold in the interior was in 1855, ,vhen
some particles of the metal were found by a
servant of the company who was idly washing a
pannikin of gravel near Fort Colville. The result
was the opening of diggings close by, which pro\'ed
only moderately remunerative. Later, in a version
of the story which accounts for the spread of the
222

EARL Y DISCOVERIES

.
news, some Canadians went over from Colville to
the Thompson and Fraser, found gold everywhere,
'vere followed by others, who in turn sent the
reports over Puget Sound to San Francisco. In
less than a year after, twenty thousand miners were
on their ,vay to the Fraser.
The first official mention of the discoveries was
made by Douglas to the home government in a
despatch dated April 16th, 1856. This had reference
to the finds on the Upper Columbia. That they were
not seriously regarded is shown by the fact that
the subject ,vas pennitted to rest until July 1857.
In the latter year, it appears, the Indians had ex-
pelled some parties of gold -seekers froln this region,
partly frOlTI a desire to retain the gold, and partly
because they feared that the operations of the gold-
diggers would prevent the salmon frolll ascending
the river. Later in the same year, however, Douglas
in a letter to Labouchère speaks of the Couteau
mines, so named from the natives of the Thompson
and Shushwap countries, as attracting attention,
though up to October 6th, 1857, only three hund-
red ounces of gold had been exported through the
agency of the company. Nevertheless, on the san1e
date as his letter, Douglas issued a proclamation de-
claring all gold in its natural place of deposit to be-
long to the Crown and that persons might not" dig
or disturb the soil in search of gold until authorized
in that behalf by Her 1\Iajesty's colonial govern-
ment. n The authorization in question was to be ob-
223

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

tained by payment of a license of 10s. a nlonth,
Douglas excusing his action in the matter by the
fact that he ,vas invested 'with command over the
district by the Hudson's Bay COlnpany, and that
he was the only representative of the Crown ,vi thin
reach. The cost of these licenses was raised to 21s.
before the end of the following January.
The irnmediate result of the policy of causing the
miners to pay tribute in this lnanner was to bring
them one and all to Victoria as the starting-point
for the new diggings. Coming a5 they did from
California by sea, Victoria was naturally the first
point of call; had no license been required, how-
ever, they might have gone through direct to the
Fraser. Though the effect upon a number was mere-
ly to cause a break in the journey, upon others, ow-
ing to transportation difficulties, a longer stay was
necessitated. During the spring and summer months
of 1858, the rush was extraordinary. Ocean steamers
crowded with gold-seekers arrived almost daily.
From a hamlet clustered about a Hudson's Bay
trading-post, ,rictoria sprang suddenly into a city.
No accurate record of arrivals was kept; but it has
been estimated that between twenty thousand and
twenty-five thousand persons passed through its
portals. Every trade, nationality and condition was
represented in that throng. From the Oregon coast
to San Francisco, men dropped the instruments of
their calling, hastily sold what could most readily
be converted into cash, left homes uncared for, and
224

THE RUSH TO THE FRASER

boarded the first nondescript carrier ,vhose prow
turned northward. Some who avoided the passage
by sea followed the coast by land, or attempted to
reach the goal through the mountain passes of the
interior. The gambler and the parasite followed in
their wake. California's population ,vas seriously de-
pleted; San Francisco was threatened with bank-
ruptcy. In Victoria the sound of the hammer was
incessant day and night. Buildings to the number
of two hundred and up,vard arose in six weeks. The
land office was besieged before daylight. There was
all but a food famine. Flour rose to $30.00 a barrel;
ship biscuit was not to be had; lumber brought
$100 a thousand feet; town lots sold at $1,000 per
foot frontage. 'Tictoria became immediately the
most important shipping centre of the coast, and its
docks were crowded with merchandise. Of the
promiscuous population that continued to pour in,
many remained in the city. Those in search of gold
pressed on to the Fraser,-in canoes, in improvised
sailing boats or in steamers, daunted by no dangers
and enduring the severest hardships. l\lany were
lost in the tide-rips, and of those that reached the
great river thousands were doomed to disappoint-
ment. The Fraser begins to rise in June, and does
not reach its ebb until the autumn. High water
covers the bars and renders placer mining im-
possible. SOIne of the more indomitable pushed on
at the risk of life to Hope and Yale, the head of
navigation. The great majority, however, turned
225

SIR .JAl\IES DOUGLAS

their backs on British Columbia and repaired again
to San Francisco. Those who remained met with
their reward. "Then the Fraser fell, the harvest
was rich. SOllIe $543,000 in gold was shipped out in
that year alone, and it is estilnated that the total
output was from $150,000 to $200,000 greater than
that amount.
The invasion of this wild and lawless multitude
presented a serious problem to Douglas, badly
equipped as he ,vas for maintaining order and en-
forcing the authority of his government. On l\lay
8th, 1858, he gives voice again in a despatch
to the fear 'which had so beset him at the time
of the gold discoveries on the Queen Charlotte
Islands-the fear of the foreigner who knew not
the cornpany. He admits the openings for trade
presented by the inrush, as well as the practical
iInpossibility of stemming so fierce a tide; yet he
cannot refrain, notwithstanding the peremptory
mandate of Lytton that it was no part of British
policy to exclude foreigners from the gold fields,
from casting about for means of regulation and
profit other than those that ,vent hand in hand with
a policy of unrestriction. One plan which he ven-
tured to suggest as asserting the interest of the
Crown at the same tilne that it assured a revenue
to the company, involved an arrangement \vith the
United States Pacific l\Iail Company whereby the
Hudson's Bay Company would enjoy a monopoly
of the trade on the Fraser River and receive a com-
226

VISIT TO THE l\fINES

pensation of two dollars per capita for each passen-
ger carried to the head of navigation, the steamers
to accept no passengers but those ,vho had paid for
licenses from the government of 'T ancouver Island.
The arrangement was to continue for one year.
Lord Lytton, however, promptly disapproved of
the conditions as too favourable to the company,
and as a matter of fact, the arrangement ,vas never
more than a project 'within the mind.
Shortly after the beginning of the influx Douglas
made a trip in person to the Inainland, ascending
the Fraser to Forts Langley, Hope and Yale.
At Langley a number of speculators had taken
possession of the land and were staking lots for
sale; unlicensed and contraband trading had also
sprung up. These Inatters were speedily righted. At
Fort Hope, the miners, prior to his arrival, had
organized a forln of government and had posted
regulations. These were replaced by rules pro-
claimed in the name of the governor of Vancouver
Island.
An incident is related of this trip ,vhich brings
into prominence the practical wisdom of the gover-
nor. Landing at Hill's Bar, he inquired concerning
the presence of a British subject, 'with a yie\v to
the appointment of a justice of the peace. The one
man indicated to him confessed to a lack of know-
ledge of the law, and recommended a versatile and
well-known foreigner to the governor's attention.
Impressed by the man's candour, Douglas declared
227

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

that if he knew the difference between right and
wrong his qualifications were sufficient, and he was
forthwith appointed to adrr1Ïnister the law.
In June, Douglas in a despatch to Lord Stanley
gave a detailed account of this journey. "Evidence
is obtained," he wrote, "of the existence of gold
over a vast extent of country situated both north
and south of the Fraser River, and the conviction
is gradually forcing itself on my mind that not only
the Fraser River and its tributary streams, but the
whole country situated to the eastward of the Gulf
of Georgia, as far north as Johnstone's Straits, is one
continued bed of gold, of incalculable value and
extent." In view of this, he proposed that the land
be thrown open for settlement, and that it be sur-
veyed and sold at a rate not to exceed 20s. an acre.
He pointed out, at the same time, that cOlnpen-
sation would have to be made to the Hudson's Bay
Company for giving up their rights of exclusive
trade.
It was in reply to this communication that
DOl'.glas received intelligence of a decision on the
part of the home government fraught with im-
portant consequences to himself and the country.
l\lention has been made before of the proceedings
of that select committee of inquiry which placed so
unfavourable a report regarding the Hudson's Bay
Company before the British parliament of 1858. In
Canada a similar investigation had been made with
a like result. This and the discovery of gold on the
228

THE l\IAINLAND COLONY

Fraser River had convinced the government of the
need of radical change, west as well as east of the
Rockies. On August 2nd, 1858, accordingly, an Act
was passed providing for the government of the
mainland of British America, from the 49th parallel
north,vard to the N aas and the Finlay, and from
the crest of the Rocky .l\Iountains westward to the
sea, including the Queen Charlotte and adjacent
islands with the exception of 'T ancouver Island.
One month later, the license of exclusive trade
granted to the l-Iudson's Bay Company for twenty-
one years from 1838, in so far as it covered the
territory above defined, was revoked, the govern-
ment re-purchasing the company's rights on Van-
couver Island for í,57,500. Of British Columbia (for
by that name it ,vas decided that the new colony
on the mainland should be known) it was proposed
that Douglas should be governor, the office to be
held in conjunction 'with his present post in Van-
couver Island. The condition was added that he
should sever all connection with the Hudson's Bay
and Puget Sound Companies. The additional salary
offered was at first í,1,000. Douglas expressed ap-
preciation of the honour and accepted the con-
ditions. "'Vith the consent of the Hudson's Bay
Company," he wrote, "I place my humble services
unhesitatingly at the disposal of Her l\lajesty's
gove;nment, and I will take early measures for
withdrawing from the company and disposing of
my Puget Sound stock, trusting that the allo\vance
229

SIR J..Al\IES DOUGLAS

as to salary froln Her l\lajesty's government will
be adequate to my support in a manner ,vorthy of
the position I am called upon to fill." The allow-
ance, in Douglas's opinion, ought to have been

5,OOO, his fortune having been impaired by his al-
most unrequited tenure of office in 'T ancouver
Island. The colonial secretary, ho,vever, did not
feel justified in assigning a larger sum than
1,800
at the time, though it was intÏ1nated that an
increase derived from local funds ".ould not be op-
posed if the revenue should warrant it.
Thus ended the long connection of the famous
chief factor and the company. Thus also died the
exclusive rights of the great monopoly in the
territory 'west of the Rocky l\Iountains. Douglas
belongs henceforth to the public life of the country,
and to that alone; while the company takes its
place in the ranks of private trading enterprises,
still powerful, and ,vith a unique part still to play
in the upbuilding of the country, but on no other
basis than that of equal privilege.

230

CHAPTER VIII

THE TWO COLONIES

I N an extended series of despatches addressed to
Douglas, bearing date July and August 1858,
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the colonial secretary,
set forth, amid a wealth of cOlnment, the principles
by which, under the watchful tutelage of the home
government, the early steps of the province of
British Columbia were to be guided. These formed
at once the constitution and the l\Iagna Charta of
the ne'v community. They occupy from many
points of view a remarkable place in the history of
the colonial institutions of Great Britain.
The main feature of the plan was that it placed
the entire functions both of government and legis-
lation in the hands of Douglas. A check ,vas
indeed provided in the form of a council, 'which
the governor was recommended to select as soon as
possible, and to which foreigners as well as British
subjects might be eligible. It ,vas also declared with
emphasis that the colony was expected to adopt
representative institutions at the earliest moment
practicable. But the effect of these provisions was
less real than apparent. The council was purely ad-
visory ; and the remoteness of the time when the
chaotic population of the mainland might be
capable of political organization served but to
231

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

emphasize the extraordinary powers that were en-
trusted nleanwhile to the go\yernor.
lVays and means 'were perhaps the second matter
to receive attention. It was thought that the ex-
ceptional resources of the country, including as they
did not only fertile lands (the leading element of
success, as Great Britain held, in all colonial settle-
ments), a magnificent system of harbours and
waterways, and that wealth in precious mineral
'which 'vas even now attracting immigrants on so
unprecedented a scale, would soon provide a
revenue. l\Ioderate duties on beer, wine, spirits, and
the other articles usually subject to such taxation,
as ,veIl as the sale of lands,-especially to'wn lots
for which high prices Inight be demanded,-were
regarded at the outset as preferable to any system
of mining licenses. The latter, however, were not
forbidden, the colonial secretary contenting him-
self ,vith a reference to the experience of Australia,
which had not been happy in this method of apply-
ing the principles of direct taxation.
Other provisions w'ere of a miscellaneous character.
The establishment of a seaport town and of a seat of
government were suggested. It was promised that
a party of Royal Engineers would be sent from
England to survey lands for settlement (the disposal
of which should be by gradual process), to open
roads and to choose sites for the cities above men-
tioned. An experienced officer was to be furnished
to assist in the formation of an adequate police
232

STATUS OF HUDSON'S BAY COl\fPANY

force. A collector of customs and a judge were also
promised. Arrangements for the transmission of
mails via Panama and the levying of postage were
authorized. In general, it was provided that the
country in various directions should be developed,
as soon as full reports concerning its resources could
be prepared by the governor or his assistants. Every
care was enjoined upon the governor not to
antagonize or irritate the mixed population now
swarming into the country. Especially was there
to be no jealousy of or discrimination against
foreigners, who were to be convinced in every
legitimate way that their interests would be pro-
tected by the government. Kindness towards the
Indians was commanded. Other instructions had re..
ference to the discouragement of speculation, the
granting of naturalization, and the making of ap-
pointments with a view both to efficiency and the
satisfaction of local feeling.
'rhe bearing of the new arrangement upon the
status of the Hudson's Bay Company, hitherto sole
overlord of the whole vast region, had been suffici-
ently indicated by the measure which revoked the
special privileges granted in 1888, 1849, and 1854.
Nevertheless it was thought advisable, in view of
the rccent past, to remind the governor ,vith some
particularity that at no time had these privileges
gone further than to guarantee exclusive trade with
the Indians of the Fraser River. Even before the
establishment of the colony, the company, it was
233

SIR JAl\tIES DOUGLAS

pointed out, had no right to exclude strangers; it
had no rights of government or of occupation of the
soil; it had no right to prevent or interfere with any
kind of trading, except with the Indians alone. The
British government, however, went even further in
its watchfulness than this explicit definition. " You
will pardon me if I enjoin on you a
inlperative,"
wrote the colonial secretary to Douglas, "the
most diligent care that in the sales of land there
should not be the slightest cause to Ï1npute a desire
to show favour to the servants of the Hudson's Bay
Company. Parliament will watch with jealousy
every pro,?eeding connected with such sales; and I
shall rely upon you to take e\Tery precaution which
not only impartial probity but delibernte prudence
can suggest, that there shall be no handle given for
a charge, I will not say of favour, but of indiffer-
ence or apathy to the various kinds of land-jobbing,
either to benefit favoured individuals or to cheat
the land revenue, which are of so frequent occur-
rence at the outset of colonization, and which it is
the duty of Her l\lajesty's governlnent, so far as
lies in them, to repress."
The man upon whom the weight of these im-
portant and lnanifold counsels was laid had at
least the entire confidence of the home govern-
ment. "I cannot conclude," wrote the colonial
secretary at the close of one of his despatches,
" without a cordial expression of my sYlnpathy in
the difficulties you have encountered and of my
234

POWERS OF DOUGLAS

sense of the ability, the readiness of resource, the
wise and lnanly telnper of conciliation ".hich you
have so signally displayed; and I doubt not that
you will continue to show the same vigour and dis-
cretion in its exercise; and you may rely with
confidence upon whatever support and aid Her
l\Iajesty's government can afford you." And again
with more particular reference to the future and
to the responsibilities entrusted to him in this ex-
traordinary manner: "These powers are indeed of
very serious and unusual extent, but Her l\Iajesty's
goyernment fully rely on your moderation and dis-
cretion. You are a\vare that they have only been
granted on account of the very unusual circum-
stances which have called into being the colony
committed to your charge, and which may for
some time continue to characterize it. To use them,
except for the most necessary purpose, would be, in
truth, to abuse them greatly. They are required
for the maintenance of British law and British
habits of order, and for regulating the special
questions to which the conditions of employment
and of the population lnay give birth."

To attempt, within ordinary limits, to describe
the somewhat elastic manner in which application
was made of the comprehensive scheme outlined
above, is to be plunged at once into a mass of in-
cident, each phase of which has both its own and
its reflected importance, but the heterogeneous
235

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

nature of which renders the topical method difficult.
The government of which Douglas fonned the em-
bodiment was in effect a means by which difficulties
might be met by competent authority as théy arose.
It was not expected to attain at once to system,
where even precedent had to be created. For this
reason it will be well to follow somewhat closely
for a time the movements of the governor himself as
he proceeded to the execution of his difficult task.
But first a \vord is needed as to the men and the
material \vhich were placed at his disposal, and the
general nature of the problem involved in the first
attempt at government in British Columbia.
To the command of the Royal Engineers, the
promise of which had been the most stirring note
of cheer in the despatches of the home govern-
ment and a detachment of which was on its way
to British Columbia within a few weeks, Colonel
Richard Clement l\foody had been appointed. He
bore, in addition, the title of chief commissioner
of lands and works, with a latent commission as lieu-
tenant-go\Ternor of the colony, in case of the inca-
pacity or absence of Douglas. That there might be
no misunderstanding as to the nature of his office and
its relation to that of the governor, his instructions
were to an unusual degree explicit. The governor,
it was explained, was the supreme authority in
the colony and his orders were to prevail as to the
spots at which aU surveys and other public \vorks
should be carried out. At the same time the duties
236

THE ROYAL ENGINEERS

of the commissioner were to be regarded as special
and not to be interfered with except under circum-
stances of the greatest gravity. The raising of a
revenue from land sales being of immediate import-
ance, the commissioner was urged to afford the
governor, without shackling the latter's discretion,
the benefit of his talents and experience in ensuring
this paramount object. Full reports were to be made
from time to time of the various resources of the
colony-its mines, its fisheries, the qualities of its
coal, the nature of its soil, and its maritime ap-
proaches-with a view to the immediate develop-
ment of the social and industrial welfare of the com-
munity. \Vith regard to the military employment of
his force, the utmost discretion ,vas to be used. "No
soldiers," wrote the colonial secretary to l\Ioody,
"are likely to be more popular then the Royal
Engineers, partly, let me hope, from their military
discipline and good conduct, and partly from the
civil nature of their duties in clearing the headway
for civilization. Thus, if not ostentatiously setting
forth its purely military character, the force at your
command will, nevertheless, when the occasion may
need its demonstration, do its duty as soldiers no
less than as surveyors . . . . . . . 'Vherever England
extends her sceptre, there as against the foreign
enemy she pledges the defence of her sword. It
seems meanwhile" he continued, "a good augury
of the coöperation of the colonists in any measure
demanding public spirit, that the miners themselves
237

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

are constructing a road, of which seven miles are
completed, and that they have organized themselves
into bands under leaders, thus recognizing discipline
as the element of success in all combined under-
takings. Each miner thus employed deposits with
the governor $25 as security for good conduct. I
need not add that a governor who could at once in-
spire confidence and animate exertion must have
many high qualities which will ensure your esteem
and add to the satisfaction with ,vhich you will co-
operate ,vith his efforts."
1"
he first contingent of the force, consisting of
twenty non-commissioned officers and men, left
England by the steamer La Plata on September
2nd, arriving at 'Tictoria in November. A second
follo,ved soon. In a third party, which sailed by the
clipper-ship Thames City around the Horn, ,vere in-
cluded three officers, a staff assistant surgeon, one
hundred and eighteen non-commissioned officers and
men, together with thirty-one women and thirty-
four children, the ,vhole in charge of Captain R. H.
Luard. .l\loody arrived in December. 'The La Plata
among its despatches to Douglas bore three of
special importance: the first including his commis-
sion as governor of British Columbia; a second em-
powering him to Inake provision for the administra-
tion of justice; and a third informing him of the
revocation of the charter to the Hudson's Bay
Company of 1838 with reference to territory on
the mainland west of the Rocky l\Iountains.
238

l\fATTHEW BAILLIE BEGBIE

Another appointment of the time, fraught with
even greater importance to the colony, was that
of l\latthew Baillie Begbie as judge of British
Columbia. He arrived in November 1858. Though
the office, strictly speaking, was judicial, he was in-
structed for the present to lend his assistance in the
fran1Ïng of laws and other legal business more pro-
perly pertaining to the functions of an attorney-
general, the first incumbent of that office, l\fr. G.
H. Carey, not being appointed until some time
later. Until his death in 1894, Begbie continued
from sheer force of character as ,,'ell as of intellect
to fill a unique and commanding place in the affairs
of British Columbia. Born in Edinburgh in 1819,
and educated at Can}bridge and Lincoln's Inn,
he succeeded to the office of chief-justice of the
united colonies of British Columbia and Vancou-
ver Island in 1866, Needham, the chief-justice
of the latter, who had followed Cameron in 18.58,
having been transferred to Trinidad. To Begbie,
perhaps more than any other man, the colony owed
the healthful ordinances, the liberal provisions of
governlnent, and the unbroken reign of peace and
order which it enjoyed almost from the moment of
its birth. There will be occasion on a later page to
notice at least one example of the practical states-
manship of this remarkable man.
W. \Vymond Hanley was appointed collector
of customs and Chartres Bre,v, who had served
with distinction in the Crimea, chief of the con-
239

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

stabulary. Travaillot and Hicks were nominated
assistant commissioners of Crown lands at Thomp-
son River and Yale, and ,1\7. H. Bevis, revenue
officer at Langley. The colonial secretary was
W. A. G. Young, and the treasurer, W. D.
Gosset. James D. Pemberton, the surveyor-general
of 'T ancouver Island, acted for a time in the same
capacity in British Columbia, with B. W. Pearse
as his first assistant. By October 27th, 1858, it
may be reInarked, the governor was able to forward
a report from Pemberton on the important subject
of the disposal of Crown lands which included a
proposal to use the 49th parallel as a base in all
surveys, with a suggestion that n1inerallands should
be held at !:1 per acre, town sites according to the
value of location, and agricultural lands at consider-
ably less.
On the subject of officers, in general, Douglas was
under instructions to nlake his selections, where
possible, in England, it being regarded as of "great
importance to the general social welfare and dig-
nity of the colony that gentlen1en should be en-
couraged to come from this kingdom, not as n1ere
adventurers seeking employment but in the hope
of obtaining professional occupations for which
they are calculated; such for instance as stipendiary
magistrates, or gold commissioners." A warning was
again added against favouritism to the employees
of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was again
declared that for the avoidance of all appearance of
240

EARL Y APPOIN1'l\fENTS

local preference" careful appointments should be
made in England." Up to June 30th, 1859, Doug-
las had recommended the following officers, among
others, in British Còlum bia, nearly every name in
the list having since passed into the history of the
community: \V. R. Spalding, as stipendiary mag-
ish'ate and justice of the peace at Queenborough;
Peter O'Reilly, Thomas Elwyn and H. :1\1. Ball to
the same offices at I
angley, Lillooet and Lytton,
respectively; Charles S. Nicoll, to be high sheriff at
Port Douglas; E. H. Sanders, as assistant gold
commissioner at Fort Yale; Charles Good, as chief
clerk in the colonial secretary's office; John Cooper,
as chief clerk of the treasury; W. H. l\fcCrea, as
clerk in the Custom House; A. I. Bushby, to be
registrar of the Supreme Court; Charles 'V ylde, as
revenue officer at Langley. In addition there were
resident at N e\v "r estminster, "'V. D. Gosset, trea-
surer; F. G. Claudet, assayer; and C. A. Bacon,
melter. In later years the number of applicants
for office coming from Great Britain, often with
influential letters of introduction, was a source of
no small embarrasslnent to Douglas.
It was indeed an extraordinary community to
which the offices of government were now to be
extended. Scattered along the reaches of the lower
Fraser or clam bering in widely scattered bands
over the mountainous divides in search of further
fields, not less than thirty thousand miners had
rushed into the district,--of a class, the most un-
241

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

bridled in the world. Of these, howe\Ter, scarcely
more than four thousand were left at the end of
the summer season, the difficulties of the high
water and of the terrific rapids and canyons of the
Fraser having driven out the rest. Another influx
occurred in October, but it was of small account
compared 'with the first. The bars began a few
miles above Hope, and on the thirteen which Jay
between that point and Y' ale t,vo or three thousand
men were digging in the sands. At Yale there 'vas
another seven or eight hundred. Tents and log
huts provided shelter. Provisions, once the first
rush was over, were fairly abundant at these lower
points. Bacon, salmon, bread, tea and coffee formed
the staple diet; and a good meal could be bought
for one dollar. .l\lilk and butter were unkno'wn. High
spirits prevailed save alnong the few whom the un-
accustomed hardships and deprivations 'were slowly
grinding to death. On the ,vhole, though the camps
held many a wild and abandoned character, acts
of lawlessness 'were singularly infrequent; but the
mass was as a smouldering fire ready to burst into
a flame of revolt on proyocation of its untmned
sense of justice. Aboye \T ale a different story was
told. Ingress barred by the tremendous "lower
big canyon" and "upper big canyon" of the Fraser,
and by the increasing savagery of the natives, only
the n10st reckless and determined had forced their
way thither. Still higher, on the Thompson, a few
who had crossed from the Upper Columbia by the old
242

SECOND VISIT TO TI-IE FRASER

trail of the Hudson's Bay Company, were fighting
slow starvation in the absence of stores and the
possibility of bringing in supplies. 'Vlth the excep-
tion of the scattered and delTIoralized fur traders
and the outraged and exasperated Indians, such in
1858 was the colony of British Columbia.
During his tenure of the double office, Douglas
was of necessity an itinerant governor of the main-
land colony, and in the record of his several visits,
set forth in ample detail in the reports which he
forwarded to the colonial office, a large part of
the early history of British Columbia is to be read.
The first of these visits has been already mentioned.
The second was undertaken in the September fol-
lowing his appointment as governor. A force of
marines from H.l\I. S. Satellite, then acting as
guard ship in British Columbia waters, n1ade ready
to accompany hiIn, in view of recent troubles with
the Indians; it does not appear, however, that the
contingent was made use of. The first place of call
was Fort Hope, the station at which the detach-
Inent of engineers not yet arrived were to be set at
work, and from which a road to Yale was urgently
needed. Some three thousand miners and traders
were huddled at the time about the stockade in
tents or huts. Provisions were scarce and dear, pork
and flour selling at one dollar a pound. Bad blood be-
tween the Indians and the whites had been aroused,
the improper sale of liquor being probably the chief
cause. Realizing the impossibility of stmnping out
243

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the traffic among the miners, Douglas determined
to turn it to the account of revenue by legalizing
it at the rate of $600 for a license. For selling
liquor to the natives the penalty was placed at $25
to $100. Town lots were largely demanded and no
difficulty ,vas experienced in disposing of a large
number under leases terminable at the pleasure of
the Crown, held at a monthly rental of 1:4 8s. pay-
able in advance on the understanding that the
holder would be allo,ved a pre-emption right of pur-
chase when the land was sold, in which case the
rent would count as part of the purchase n10ney.
Aliens lnight hold lands for three years, after which
they lnust become naturalized; failing, they would
either forfeit their holdings or be forced to convey
them to British subjects. The organization of a
police force proved impracticable owing to the high
wages prevailing, the earnings of the miners in the
neighbourhood, which fixed the standard, ranging
from !:1 to f:5 a day. So, too, the idea of a court-
house and jail was abandoned for lack of the sum of
1:1,000 which the erection would have required. A
justice of the peace and revenue officer, however,
was appointed, and a chief constable sworn in. J.\;Ir.
George Pearkes, the Crown solicitor for Vancou-
ver Island, who accompanied Douglas, Begbie not
yet having arrived, sat at the head of a comlnission
which brought various offenders to justice; a1nong
the latter a miner named Eaton who had murdered
a comrade was sentenced to transportation for life.
244

INAUGURATION CEREMONIES

The enforcement of such penalties in the absence
of any penal settlement and owing to the hea vy
expense of deportation was another of the difficul-
ties of Douglas. From Hope the governor jour-
neyed to Yale, visiting the different encampments
by the way. Here grants of land were made on the
saIne conditions as at Hope, a justice of the peace
appointed, together ,vith a chief constable at $150
per month. A. police n1agistrate was also appointed
at Lower Fountainville. The governor returned on
September 26th, having by his speeches and re-
forms' done much to create content among the
miners and to allay the irritation of the natives.
On November 17th an imposing party of offi-
cials left Victoria for the headquarters of the
new colony. The governor was in command, with
Rear-Admiral Baynes, Cameron, the chief-justice
of Vancouver Island, and Begbie, the judge of
British Columbia, who with several officers of the
Royal Engineers, had now arri ved; and their
mission was the formal launching of the colony of
British Columbia. They sailed in H.l\I.S Satel-
lite, with the Hudson's Bay Company's Otter in
attendance. "Tithin the n10uth of the Fraser, the
Beaver and the Recovery received the party, which
was landed at new Fort Langley. The day of the
ceremonial broke dark and lowering. A guard of
honour received His Excellency amid the firing of a
salute; and in the presence of about one hundred
persons assembled in a large room of the fort, the
245

SIR JAMES DOUGI
AS

weather rendering a meeting in the open impos-
sible, the oaths of office were taken, first by Begbie
as judge, and afterwards by Douglas as governor.
Proclamation was made of the Act establishing the
colony; of an instrument indemnifying the officers
of the government from any irregularities that
might have been committed during the interval
prior to the establishment of the Act; declaring
English law as the law of the colony; and revoking
the exclusive privileges of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. The governor did not leave the fort until
the following day, when a salute of fourteen guns
pealed forth in his honour.
It was expected that New Langley, or, as it ,vas
now called, Derby, where these simple rites had
taken place, would form the permanent capital of
the colony, and with that in view a survey of the
town 'vas made and a sale of lots held soon after
the departure of the governor. The upset price
was placed at $100, but so spirited was the bidding
that many of the lots brought from $200 to $400,
and some of choice locations as high as $750 each.
In all, the sum of $68,000 was realized from the
sale of about four hundred lots. ,V ork was begun
upon a barracks for the Engineers, and tenders
were invited for a court-house, a jail, a church and
a parsonage. A proclamation to authorize the levy-
ing of customs duties was issued. In the midst of
these and other preparations, however, Colonel
Moody with his second in command, Captain J. M.
246

NEW WESTl\IINSTER

Grant, arrived, and their report, on military and
other grounds, was unfavourable to Langley. It is
possible that the close proximity of a large block
of lands held in reserve by the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany nlay have had something to do with the
original choice. After a careful survey of the river,
the site of New 'Vestminster, some distance lower
do-wn and on the opposite bank, was approved, and
the purchasers of lots at Langley allo\ved to ex-
change them for locatioos in the new town. A dis-
pute arose as to the naming of the capital, l\loody
proposing Queenborough, Douglas Queensborough,
and Young objecting to both as a paraphrase of
Victoria. The difficulty was referred for settlement
to the queen who conferred on the place the title
by ,vhich it has since been known. In laying out
the town, a proposal that one-quarter should be
reserved for purchasers in England and other col-
onies was vetoed by the colonial secretary as n
stimulus to speculation by non-residents. In the
following June a satisfactory sale of lots took place
at X e,v "r estminster, three hundred and ten being
sold for $89,000. The largest sum paid for a single
lot was $1,925. In the meantime tenders for various
public buildings had been received, and" Sapper-
ton," the quarter chosen for the accomodation of
the Engineers, was already rising in a spot notable
for its romantic beauty.
Prior to this and inlmediately upon his arrival in
the colony, Colonel l\Ioody and the Engineers had
247

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

rendered prompt and excellent service in a matter
of a \vholly different nature. This was the affair of
Hill's Bar, the richest and most populous camp on
the river, and the headquarters for whatever dis-
content the restrictions of British law and govern-
ment had created in the breasts of the foreign
miners. Beginning in a quarrel of rival magistrates,
the matter was fast assuming the appearance of
an armed collision between the Yale and Hill's
Bar camps, the latter under the leadership of one

IcGowan, a notorious ex-judge of California, now
a fugitive from the vigilance committee of San
Francisco. Moody in response to a despatch threw
forward a company of Engineers to Hope, while a
hundred marines and blue-jackets from the Plum-
per and the Satellite were landed at Langley. "rith
Begbie and Li
utenant l\Iayne of the Plumper alone,
l\loody himself went on to Yale, 'with the object of
investigating in person the causes and true propor-
tions of the disturbance. The first church service in
Yale was held by l\Ioody during this visit. An un-
provoked assault by l\lcGowan during his stay
confirmed the opinion that occasion alone was
wanting for the whole community of miners to
break into open insu bordination. Under cover of
night, accordingly, the Engineers were ordered up
to Yale and the marines set in motion at Langley.
The vigour and celerity of the demonstration had
the desired effect. Apologies \vere tendered by
l\lcGowan and the incipient dissatisfaction was
248

ROADS

checked before it had time to gather. After a fur-
ther outrage 1trlcGowan fled the country. Though
not devoid of travesty, the incident was of whole-
some effect upon the scattered and irresponsible
community as showing at least the energy and
power of the government and its determination to
enforce good order.

Even prior to the coming of the Royal Engineers
and the establishment of the colony. the governor
had launched his famous undertaking of opening
up the country by means of roads, for which, if for
no other achievement, his administration merits the
supreme praise of efficiency. Here, as in so many
cases, Douglas's long and thorough training in the
needs and methods of the fur trade stood the col-
ony in good stead. "Tith Victoria as centre many
miles of excellent roadway had been built in the
neighbouring districts of Vancouver Island. When,
therefore, on the discovery of gold on the Fraser,
the need of roads became the problem of the hour,
no lack of official ,vill or understanding had to be
overcome. How this need was met in the earliest
instance has been already hinted at in the words of
the colonial secretary to l\loody. As an illustration
of the resourcefulness of Douglas and his complete
command of those rebellious forces which at the
time were all he had at his disposal-forces which
in less trained or skilful hands might have run
only in disorganized or harmful channels-the
249

SIR JA1.\IES DOUGLAS

building of the first trail to the Fraser diggings is
of more than passing interest.
To the miners ,vho had braved successfully the
dangers of the sea passage from California, there
still remained to surmount the swift and treacher-
ous current of the Fraser, narrowed into a torrent
above Yale. l\Ionopoly was soon to lay an added
tribute on the country's development, the foreign
owners of the steamboats plying on the lower
river having joined to raise the cost of transport
from !5 to !14 a ton, a charge that brought
the inhabitants above to the verge of starvation.
By the power of withholding the privilege of regis-
tration, however, this evil was in time corrected,
and the obstacles against ,vhich Douglas fought
in the present instance were those of nature alone.
From Yale, no other avenue was open to the mines
which lay beyond, than the rough and precipitous
footpath of the river's edge, where, on men's backs
to and fro over the cliff, the food and tools of the
miners had perforce to be conveyed. H ow to trans-
port supplies to the front around these difficulties
became at once the all-important question. To
some returning miners a route froln Anderson
Lake to I..illooet, thence by Harrison Lake and
river to the Fraser, ,vas shown by the Indians. The
distance was seventy miles, over a generally level
country. There were five hundred Ininers at Victoria
on their way to the diggings, restless and idle men
through the lack of easy transport. 'Vith instant
250

THE TRAIL 1'0 THE DIGGINGS

appreciation of the situation, Douglas adopted the
follo,ving plan for the construction of a pack road
by the route described. In consideration of a de-
posit of $25 and an agreement to work upon the
trail until it was finished, the Hudson's Bay Com-
panyat Victoria agreed to transport the miners to
the point of commencement on Harrison River,
feed them during the work. and at the end return
the value of their deposit in supplies at Victoria
prices. The combination of credit and coöperation
involved in the plan had been suggested by the
miners themselves and at once engaged their sup-
port. The work was speedily completed, and at the
end the men received their money back, their trans-
portation being reckoned a fair return for their
labour, while the company in addition to the tem-
porary use of the money deposited was left with a
toll road of infinitely greater value than the trans-
portation and provisions it had cost. Some dis-
agreement arose as to the point at which the sup-
plies covenanted by the company should be de-
lìvered, the men holding that the upper end of the
trail had been implied while the company declared
for the lower. This at the titne was an issue of some
importance, beans which cost It cents a pound at
Victoria being worth 5 cents on the lower Fraser
and $1.00 at the upper end of the ne\v road. The
dispute was ended by a compromise, the goods
being delivered in the middle. The home govern-
ment read a somewhat exalted lesson from this
251

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

achievement, as Douglas was often to be reminded.
If the settlers ,vould cOlnbine so readily in the con-
struction of a road, united effort it .was thought
lnight safely be reckoned upon in the formation of
a police, the establishn1ent of law, the collection of
revenue, and in the other efforts that might be
necessary to lnake life secure and the community
prosperous.
As it proved, this notable feat was but the pre-
lude of a general plan of road building which under
the existing conditions might justly be tenned
colossal. Roads followed the development of the
country everywhere; no difficulty or cost of con-
struction was permitted to stand in the ,vay once
the need was thoroughly demonstrated. A wagon
road from the Harrison to the Upper Fraser, an en-
largement in part of the first pack road, was built
in stages by the Royal Engineers in the two years
follo,ving their arrival. "The construction of the
Harrison or Lillooet road," ,vrote Douglas in 1861,
"has been the great source of expenditure this sea-
son, that work having cost the colony nearly

14,OOO. Large as the outlay may appear it very in-
adequately represents the value of this important
public work which has removed the difficulty of ac-
cess and the great impedilnent to the development
of the mineral regions of British Columbia." Hope
and Similkameen were also connected by a road
surveyed and built by l\Ir. E. Dewdney (after-
wards minister of the interior for Canada and
252

THE 'VAGON ROAD TO CARIBOO

still later lieutenant-governor of British Columbia),
in conjunction with l\Ir. "'\Valter l\Ioberley, C.E.
This road, as subsequently extended and known as
the Dewdney trail, passed through the southern in-
terior as far as Fort Steele in East K:ootenay, and
formed for many years a well-used route of travel.
Every season saw the cOlnpletion of several im-
portant reaches in these and other links of the system
which Douglas devised, all in accordance with a
comprehensive plan. But the crowning work of the
series was the completion of the great wagon road to
Cariboo. From Yale along the rocky canyons and
defiles of the Fraser, it wound past Lytton and the
Thompson by way of Ashcroft and the Bonaparte,
joining the road from I
illooet at Clinton, and form-
ing with other units of the plan a mighty artery of
travel deep into the heart of the gold country. Even
by present standards it was no mean feat of engineer-
ing. It opened a region of unexpected richness for
agriculture: how rich in gold it was to prove will
be referred to further on.
It would seeln that even larger plans than these
had crossed the mind of Douglas. The trail from
Hope to Kootenay, in his ambitious vision, might
one day cross the Rockies, meeting at EdlTIonton a
similar road built westward frol11 the Canadas, the
two to fonn a single great highway across the con-
tinent by which imn1igrants from the eastern
colonies might enter the country,-for Douglas
looked rather to Canada than to England for the
253

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

replenishing of the Pacific settlements. The dream
was realized more fully than even Douglas would
have dared to hope when, within twenty years of
his own achievements, an army of men were at
work upon the mountain section of the Canadian
Pacific Railway.
With the building of the system of communica-
tions of which the end was the opening up of
Cariboo, the work of the Royal Engineers was
finished. How large a part they had played in
the early history of the colony may have been sur-
mised from the few references given above that
show them in the forefront of the colony's early
development. Some feeling against their employ-
ment and the expense thereby incurred had arisen,
and in 1863 it was deemed advisable that they
should disband. Colonel l\loody and some twenty-
five of the force return
d to England under the
terms of their original agreement; the rest received
grants of land and became permanent residents of
the country.
In the record of official visits and reports that
throw a light upon the early history of the colony,
mention should be made of a notable journey taken
by l\Ir. Justice Regbie in the spring of 1859. Ac-
cOlnpanied by Nicoll, high sheriff of British Col-
umbia, and by Bushby, as assize clerk and registrar,
he proceeded by way of the Fountains to the
Upper Fraser, returning by the Lillooet route to
Langley. The points ,vhich chiefly impressed the
254

fATTHE'iV BAILLIE BEGBIE

judge were, the ready submission of the foreign
population to the will of the executive; the
preponderance of the Californian element in the
population; the richness, both auriferous and agri-
cultural, of the country; the need of fixity of
tenure for the promotion of agriculture; and the
total absence of means of communication, render-
ing industrial occupations of whatever sort, 'with
the single exception of gold-digging, practically
impossible. l\lore important, ho\vever, than his
observations upon the condition of the young
colony, Begbie established on this visit that
character for stern justice and utter fearlessness,
which left a lasting imprint on the progress of
British Columbia. IIis administration of the law
amongst those la \vless multitudes had all the force
and directness of the vigilance committee, with-
out its passion. A lawyer to the core, he could
do right in spite of law. He made himself the
guardian rather than the judge of British Columbia,
and he accomplished this result by his unflinch-
ing resolve that crime of no degree should go
unpunished. No region in all that wild and inac-
cessible territory was too remote for the strong
and searching arm of his justice, and the wrong
done to an Indian or a Chinaman met with as
pronlpt and sure requital as that done to a white
man. \Vith the kno\vledge gained in a few months'
time that in the hands of Begbie justice was swift
as it was inflexible, the battle of law and order
255

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

was already won, and the influence of the judge
throughout the colony became greater perhaps
than that of any other man.
It will be necessary, too, before leaving this per-
sonal chronicle, to notice the visit which Douglas
paid to the mainland colony in the autumn of 1859.
The tour included New Westminster, Langley,
Douglas, Hope, and Yale, and was extended
through the passes of the Fraser to Spuzzum and
the mining districts west of that locality. There
had been a decline in the number of miners since
the previous year, and the governor estimated the
entire white population of the colony at not more
than six thousand men. The absence of wives and
children was deplored. Ât the time, the exports of
gold from British Columbia were valued at !:14,OOO
monthly, but the estimate did not include the large
amount remaining in the hands of the miners. No
schools had yet been established. 'Vith regard to
the importance of agriculture as a factor nlaking
for stability and permanence, the governor's views
were pressed as follows: "The colony is yet des-
titute of one highly important element: it has no
farming class, the population being almost entirely
composed of miners and merchants. The attention
of the government has been very earnestly directed
to the means of providing for that want by the en-
couragement of agricultural settlers, a class that
must eventually form the basis of the population,
cultivate and improve the face of the country, and
256

POLICY OF THE GOVERNOR

render it a fit habitation for civilized man. The
miner is at best a producer, and leaves behind him
no traces but those of desolation; the merchant is
allured by the hope of gain; but the durable pros-
perity and substantial wealth of states is, no doubt,
derived froln the cultivation of the soil. Without
the farmer's aid British Columbia must ever remain
a desert-be drained of its wealth, and dependent
on other countries for daily food." The report also
referred to the road-building operations of the mo-
ment in the following terms which convey very
clearly the views of Douglas on the subject of his
greatest work: " The great object of opening roads
froln the sea-coast into the interior of the country,
and from New \Vestminster to Burrard's Inlet and
Pitt River, continues to claim a large share of Iny
attention. The labour involved in these works is
enormous; but so essential are they as a lneans of
settling and developing the resources of the country,
that their importance can hardly be over-rated; and
I, therefore, feel it incumbent on me to strain eyery
nerve in forwarding the progress of undertakings
so manifestly conducive to the prosperity of the
colony, and which, at the same time, cannot fail,
ere long, to produce a large increase in the public
revenue. "T e hope to complete the last section
of a pack road leading, by the left bank of the
Fraser, from Derby to Lytton, a distance of one
hundred and seventy miles, on or before February
1st next."

257

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

Inseparably associated with the early progress of
the colony, and especially with those great under-
takings to which reference has just been made-
great both froln their magnitude, the expenditures
which they entailed, and the necessities which they
met-was the vexing problem of finance. Here as
on other points that will come in due course to be
noted the governor and the home authorities were
not always in agreement. Douglas, under stress of
the immediate need, begged repeatedly for a grant
froln parliament, or, failing that, for a loan which
the colony might repay ,vhen it had received the
impetus which a wise expenditure would give to
the development of its resources. In addition to
roads, a seaport town, to render the colony with its
five hundred miles of seaboard less dependent upon
Victoria, was needed. For this purpose the governor,
taking into account the difficulty of access to the
Fraser, and looking forward to the time when
the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver
Island might be one, would have chosen Esqui-
malt, leaving the navigation of the Gulf of Georgia
to a class of small, safe and swift steamers. Light-
houses at least the colony must have. To Doug-
las, with the distrust of the foreigner which he
could never wholly dismiss, the military protection
of the colony was among the government's chief
responsibilities. The Satellite which was placed
on the coast-guard service in 1858 had been
almost immediately withdrawn, and though the
258

FINANCES

admiral of the Pacific squadron had given what
help he could, many boats had escaped the customs
and several unlicensed miners had found their way
to the diggings. The Royal Engineers, of course,
had other and lnore pressing occupations than that
of police duty. To these, and similar appeals, how-
ever, the colonial office had but one reply. It
seemed inexplicable to Downing Street that a coun-
try whose sands were of gold and whose population
had sprung up with such incredible rapidity should
find the question of a revenue difficult. In vain
Douglas pointed to the extraordinary difficulties
presented in the opening up of the country; to the
outflow of population, easily to be prevented if em-
ployment on the proposed works were available;
and to the narrow means that were at the colony's
disposal, especially in view of the high level of
wages and prices ,vhich continued as long as free
placer gold constituted the source of the country's
prosperity. He was met only with repeated com-
mendations to thrift and economy, it being left to
his own sagacity to suggest how that policy could
be exercised with the greatest safety. Again and
yet again it was enunciated that both British Col-
umbia and Vancouver Island must be self-support-
ing. He was at tÏlnes even reproached with the
slow progress made in road-building.
Over sanguine, it may be, the governor was, in
his estimate of the speed with which the colony
was likely to attain its full developlnent, and of the
259

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

extent to which its progress would be helped by
public works alone. Yet it is easy to perceive where-
in the task of Douglas without help from England
must have seemed as the making of bricks without
straw. In the end, however, the conservative policy
of the colonial office cannot be charged with hav-
ing retarded a healthy growth. On one point of
importance it was unquestionably right. The col-
ony had no cause to burden its finances with
the support of a military organization. The assis-
tance which the admiralty was able in a regular
,vay to afford proved entirely adequate to any need
of this kind that arose, and the principle that if
from England skill and discipline were sent the
colony should furnish the raw material of a force,
was at least well calculated to instil the habits of
self-reliance and freedom. So also, a suggestion that
a steamer should be supplied by Great Britain for
the conveyance of troops and stores on the Fraser
was abandoned without lnaterial inconvenience. To
the appeal for lighthouses, which involved an ex-
penditure of f.7,000, a favourable answer was given
-to the extent at least of one-half the cost and the
loan of the whole amount, the colonies to assume
the other moiety as a joint obligation.
On the whole it was an unmixed boon that
the influence of the home government, in so far
as it prevailed, was of this restraining character.
No feature of the rule of Douglas aroused more
lasting opposition than the lavish scale on which he
260

REVENUE

spent the income of the colony. It is true that very
great achievelnents could be pointed to. Lawless-
ness was effectually suppressed-or rather, as has
been seen, was never afforded the opportunity of
raising its head; a self-supporting postal department
was established; an assay office was founded and a
mint projected; the navigation of the Fraser and
Harrison rivers was improved; and, finally, com-
munication with the mines, even with those of the
remotest regions, was opened up and maintained on
the efficient scale that has been noted. It was not
to be supposed that results like these could be
achieved without a struggle. The customs tax of
ten per cent., and the license fees of the miners
formed, in addition to the proceeds of land sales,
the only sources of revenue. The taking out of
licenses, as might have been expected, was avoided
in every possible way by the miners, and the fees
paid only upon compulsion. An attempt to collect
a royalty on the gold output proved a failure, no
means being at hand to compel the miners to
announce their findings or to support the army of
inspectors which would have been required to make
an official surveillance effective. The whole led
Douglas at one time to suggest an entire remodel-
ling of the mining regulations under a plan by
which the gold-fields might have been treated as
Crown lands to be let in large or small allotments
at a fixed rental. As the regulations stood, how-
ever, under the Act proclaiIned in 1859, a not in-
261

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

considerable sum, despite evasions, was annually
reaped by the colony. Nevertheless the end of the
administration of Douglas found the colony bur-
dened with a yearly increasing debt, its loans
barely negotiable in the London market, and its
tax rate risen to nearly
19 per capita annually,
or about eight times the rate then prevailing in
Great Britain. Only by the most stringent econom-
ies in the years immediately following was the
credit of the community preserved, so that by 1871
the rate had been reduced to approximately f.5, or
by over two-thirds. On the other hand, it is to be
borne in mind that without the investments made
by Douglas the development of the interior would
undoubtedly have been retarded, while the control
of the government over the heterogeneous and
foreign population might have been weakened to
the point of danger.

The marked and plenary instructions of the col-
onial office with reference to the status of the
Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia, sug-
gest some mention of the subsequent career of that
corporation in the community with whose begin-
ning it was so closely identified. The present is an
appropriate connection in which to include a state-
ment of this character, for of all the relations which
the company bore to the colony those involving
the question of finances were the most provocative
of dispute, while the features of the rule of Doug-
262

STATUS OF THE COl\IPANY

las of which the government of Great Britain took
closest cognizance were those which concerned his
dealings with the company, his former master. The
financial problem resolved itself into the question
whether the colony should be responsible for the
debts contracted by the company in the initial
stages of its rule on Vancouver Island. The position
assulned towards Douglas by the imperial govern-
ment in the other matter had a very patent ex-
planation. Fronl his seventeenth year Douglas had
breathed no other atmosphere than that of the
great fur-trading monopoly. It was impossible that
he should see from any other point of view. If
specific instances were ,vanted, they ,vere furnished
by the acts with which on the first discovery of
gold in the Fraser Valley he had sought to impose
a tribute for the company on the development
which immediately set in. It will be remembered
that, on the occasion referred to, Douglas had pro-
claimed that for vessels other than those of the
company to navigate the waters of the Fraser ,vas
an infringement of the company's rights; and that
in a proposal which his governnlent vetoed he
would have bound the Pacific l\fail COlnpany to
carry the company's goods and no others. For acts
like these, the fact that his first cOlnlnission as
governor was held in conjunction with the office
of chief factor, was to blame, rather than Douglas
himself. But even when his direct connection
with the company had been severed, a spirit of
263

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

partizanship was bound to continue and to render
necessary the most stringent measures of preven-
tion. How that spirit wrought in the bosom of the
governor is well illustrated in a passage which
occurs in one of his later despatches, which shows
as much by its tone as by the words themselves,
his attitude to his master' of so many years:
"I will take the liberty," he wrote, "which I feel
satisfied you will under the circumstances excuse,
of correcting an erroneous impression which ap-
pears to pervade the public mind of England. I
allude to the often asserted opinion that the Hud-
son's Bay Company have made an unjust and op-
pressive use of their power in this country, a state-
ment \vhich I can assure Iler Majesty's govern-
ment is altogether unfounded. On the contrary, it
would be an easy matter to prove that they have
been of signal service to their country, and that the
British territory on the north-west coast is an
acquisition won for the Crown entirely by the en-
terprise and energy of the Hudson's Bay Company.
For, on commencing business operations in this
quarter the whole coast was held by foreigners, and
it is only since the year 1846 that the Hudson's Bay
Company have derived any real protection from
the license to trade, as until that epoch the trade
was open to all citizens of the United States, in
common with the Hudson's Bay Company. Per-
haps you will excuse me saying this much,_ as a
sense of justice leads me to exert the little influence
264

LATER HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

I possess in protecting from injustice men who
have served their country so well. At this moment
I am making use of Hudson's Bay Company's es-
tablishments for every public office; and to their
servants, for want of other means, I commit in per-
fect confidence the custody of public money."
As to the internal history of the company after
the lapse of its special privileges in 1859, a few
words will suffice. On the retirement of Douglas,
Dallas became the president of the Victoria board
of management, of which \V ork and Dugald l\fc-
Tavish were the other members, Ogden having
died in 1854. Work died in 1861, and as Dallas
had been moved to Rupert's Land, McTavish
succeeded to the command, with Finlayson and
Tolmie on his board of advisers. In 1870, l\Ic-
Tavish was tranferred to l\fontreal to fill a place
left vacant by the rise of Donald A. Smith in
the service, and James A. Grahame became the
head of the board. After Grahame, folIo'wed Will-
iam Charles in 1874, with Alexander l\fonro as
manager of lands. But the building of the Canadian
Pacific Railway, the inflow of population, and the
imposition of the Canadian tariff, revolutionized
the old conditions of the trade. Winnipeg be-
came the centre of the Western Department as of
other portions of the company's domain, the railway
permitting frequent visits from the chief commis-
sioner in charge. To-day a series of well conducted
retail stores in the leading centres of population as
265

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

well as in the outposts of settlement are all that
visibly remain, in the portions of the country that
have been .opened to industry, of the once all-
powerful domination of the company in British
Columbia.
A t least one result of the early rule of the
Hudson's Bay Company is so important as to
warrant special mention. It may be laid wholly to
its influence that the opening years of settlement
in British Columbia were free from the terrible
scenes of Indian outrage. How great was that
good fortune may be understood by a glance at
the mining history of California or the later
chronicles of other of the western states. To the
Indians of British Columbia the rush of 1858 took
on the form of an armed and unprovoked invasion
of their territory. As they had received payment
previously for their furs, so now they demand-
ed payment for the gold of their streams and
mountains. "Tithout the restraining influence of
the company, the product of nearly half a cen-
tury of intercourse centred now in Douglas as
the Indians' trusted friend of many years, a war
of extermination might easily have been launch-
ed against the whites, especially against the
domineering and aggressive immigrants from the
United States. Expeditions overland from Ore-
gon in the early days of the inflow had been har-
assed and the stragglers cut off. On the Fraser,
however, in spite of constant provocation from the
266

RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS

American miners, no outbreak occurred for some
time. An incipient collision was caused in 1858 by
the murder of two Frenchmen on the trail above
the canyons of the Fraser, but a band of miners
,vhich forced its way to the forks of the Thompson
put the enemy to flight and was followed by a
second detachment which concluded a treaty of
peace with over two thousand natives between
Spuzzum and the Thompson. Douglas, who was
on his way to the diggings at the time of the dis-
turbance, did not deem further action necessary.
He had on a previous occasion stood between
the miner and the Indian with an impartiality that
took count of provocation on either side. The
native leader, a man of unusual energy of character
and corresponding influence with his tribe, had
been taken subsequently into the service of the
government, where he proved exceedingly useful
in the settlement of other difficulties. The justice
of the governor, who rerninded the gold-seekers at
every turn that their position was one of sufferance
under Her
lajesty's government, that no abuses
would be tolerated, and that the law would protect
the Indian no less than the white man, was the
most effective instrument that could have been de-
vised in the interests of peace. In a short time the
Indians were engaged in the digging of gold in
perfect harmony with the other miners at wages
ranging from three to five dollars a day. Two mas-
sacres perpetrated by the Chilcotins in 1864 were
267

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

almost the only later outbreaks that occurred. In
other words, the fur trade had ceased to be, and
the company had bequeathed to the industry that
displaced it a docile and a useful native people.
One other gift, of curious interest to the ethno-
logist, the early traders handed down. Among the
first difficulties of the commerce of the north-west
coast, not the least was found in the surprising
number of the native languages. Within the limited
area of Oregon no less than t wel ve distinct linguis-
tic stocks, utterly dissimilar in ,vords and grammar,
were represented, while many of these were further
split up into dialects which often differed ,videly
from each other. All alike were remarkable for
harshness and obscurity of pronunciation and con-
struction, besides being spoken over a very restric-
ted space. To provide some common means of com-
munication became an immediate necessity, if bar-
ter were to be established at all. The result was
that a trade language, called afterwards the "Chin-
ook jargon," grew into existence. Though the
foreigners took no pains to learn the native langu-
ages, it inevitably happened that at N ootka, at first
the chief emporium of the trade, a few words of
the dialect there spoken became known, while the
Indians were made familiar with a few English or
Spanish expressions. When the trade shifted to the
Columbia, the Chinooks, quick at catching sounds,
acquired the new vocabulary, and the jargon in this
elementary form was in use among the natives at
268

THE CHINOOK JARGON

as early a date as the visit of Lewis and Clark in
1804. Later, the Chinook language was drawn upon
for additional words; the French-Canadian voy-
ageur added his quota; and the jargon assumed a
regular form, and became a means of general in-
tercourse. In 1840, it contained about two hundred
and fifty words, of which eighteen were of N ootka
origin, forty-one were English, thirty-four French,
and one hundred and eleven Chinook. By 1863 the
number had doubled. Rude and formless as it was,
it has been the source of great and varied benefits.
Trade was made possible by it, friendly intercourse
between the tribes was stimulated, many deadly
feuds eliminated, and early missionary endeavour
assisted. If not a model language, the jargon may at
least have served to point the way to some higher
invention for the uses of an advancing civilization.
The mention of the Indian and his jargon
leads naturally to the subject of the missionary.
How the Jesuits from Canada were among the first
in Oregon has been already stated. From that time
forward, the Roman Catholic Church has never
ceased to labour in the vast field of the Pacific
slope. Father Delners was on Vancouver Island
prior to 1846. Before that, he had visited the
Upper Fraser. When in 1847 he was made a
bishop, his diocese included not only British Col-
umbia, but Alaska as well. The first Protestant
church in the colony was built by the Hudson's
Bay Company at Victoria in 1855. The l\Iethodist
269

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Church sent its first missionaries to British Colum-
bia in 1859. Thomas Crosby, the greatest name
among them, arrived in 1862. Opening a school at
Nanaimo in 1868, Crosby had soon extended his in-
fluence over one hundred and eighty miles of the
coast, and over the Fraser valley as far as Yale. In
1874 he removed to Fort Simpson, whence in time
the field 'was extended over one hundred and fifty
miles to the north. A year before Crosby's arrival,
the Presbyterian Church had begun the work of
evangelization among the Indians and the miners.
Perhaps the lTIOst signal achievement of the mis-
sionaries was that of "Tilliam Duncan, a layman
sent out in 1856 under the auspices of the Church
of England .l\lissionary Society, to the savage
Tsimpsean tribes of the northern coast. At l\let-
lakahtla near Fort Simpson a thriving industrial
community sprang up where before the coming of
the missionary the most degraded natives of the
coast were given over ,vholly to violence and
superstition. Duncan's aims 'were evangelistic pure-
ly, and the collision which occurred ,vith his ec-
clesiastical superiors led to the removal of his col-
ony to Alaska after a prolonged and bitter contro-
versy. To the clergy of the Church of England
and of the l\1 ethodist Episcopal Church, who first
entered, the field of Inissionary labour in British
Columbia, Douglas assigned a church, school and
dwelling-house site forming a block of four building
lots, or about an acre of land in extent, in all towns
270

AFFAIRS ON VANCOUVER ISLAND

where they resided. He further recommended that
free grants of one hundred acres of rural land
should be made in aid of every cure in British Col-
umbia. The Duke of Newcastle, however, with
the experience of the Canadas in mind, while ap-
proving of the first arrangement, objected strongly
to the practice of making free grants as endow-
ments to livings.

While developments such as these were in pro-
gress in British Columbia, affairs on Vancouver
Island were not devoid of incident. 'Tictoria sank
with the back-wave of the excitement of 1858, but
rose again, this time on a more stable basis, with
the discoveries of 1860-61 in Cariboo. The assembly
met at leisurely intervals. l\Iatter for a lengthy
period of its debates was furnished in the proposed
organization of a joint stock company to supply
Victoria with water. Some useful wagon roads
were built in the neighbouring district. A registra-
tion act was passed. Education received some at-
tention. The miners temporarily resident in Victoria
were placated, chiefly through the personal tact
of the governor. With the increase in population
and the growth of political issues, the need for
newspapers was felt; and the British Colonist
was founded in 1858, soon ranging itself, under
the editorship of Amor de Cosmos, in an op-
position, not always consistent, to the governor
and the council. Among the early occasions of
271

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

this opposition was an incident which well illustrates
the temper of the times, the character of Douglas
and the nature of the rule which he maintained.
The legislative assembly of the colony had
originally held its sessions in a building belonging
to the Hudson's Bay Company, which served at
once for the meetings of the House and as the
offices of government. l\lore commodious quarters
becoming necessary, the governor proceeded to sup-
ply the want after the manner that seemed fitting.
On due thought, the land beyond James Bay com-
mended itself as a site, and a bridge was forthwith
thro"rn across to connect it with the city. As the
assembly was not asked for an appropriation (the
Hudson's Bay Company as the proprietors of the
island contributing the necessary funds under the
arrangement of 1849 with the home government),
its consent to the change was not deemed necessary.
It soon appeared, however, that the assembly did
not share this vie"r. Resentment at the governor's
attitude ran high, and, in a resolution passed to pro-
test against the removal of the buildings, the action
of Douglas was denounced as unconstitutional and
a breach of privilege. '-fhe governor's reply was
characteristic. The assembly had borne no share of
the financial burden involved in this or other
colonial improvements; as for the bridge, it was the
plain prerogative of the Crown to build bridges
wherever the public convenience demanded, pro-
vided that no private rights were invaded. He added
272

CLERGY RESERVES

an explanation of the reasons which had dictated
his choice of a site. The position of the governor,
under the existing constitution of the colony, was
impregnable, and the assembly had no alternative
but to yield. It may be added that time has set its
seal of approval on the governor's action; and the
present stately buildings of the province, erected in
1893, stand on the pleasant and convenient ground
that was selected by Douglas half a century ago.
Other matters which engaged the attention of
the island legislature in its early years were, the
legalizing of United States currency, the payment
of the liabilities of the colony, and the question of
clergy reserves. The first was a plain necessity. In
connection with the finances of the colony, the
assenlbly from the first refused to become liable for
the debts incurred during the régime of the H ud-
son's Bay Company, and the latter was left to
settle its claims with the home government. The
question of clergy reserves arose out of the orig-
inal agreement between the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany and its clergyman on the island. Under this
arrangement the major part (.g300 of a total of
!400) of the latter's stipend was to be derived from
the sale of public lands at that time under the ad-
ministration of the company. On the extinguish-
ment of the company's title in 1859, the question
of the continuance of this arrangement at once
arose. The appointment of the then incum bent of
the office had been intended, it appeared, as a per-
273

SIR JA
IES DOUGI
AS

manent one; and it was necessary therefore to pro-
vide for his emolument. There can be little doubt
that if it had not been for the prompt and almost
violent antagonism which 'vas 111anifested, the sit-
uation ,vould have drifted inlperceptibly into that
of a state-supported clergy. .1\. reserve in excess of
two thousand acres had been already set apart in
Victoria alone, and the appointment of a bishop
and two other clergymen authorized by the home
government. The House of Assembly, however,
refused without popular warrant to confirm the
continuance of the old arrangement; and in the end
even the grant of one hundred acres which it was
proposed to make to the clergyman of the com-
pany was reduced to thirty and transferred under
trustees to the local church. His salary was thence-
forth paid by the contributions of his congregation
alone, supplemented by missionary funds sent out
from Enghtnd.
Shortly after this signal service to the colony,
the first parliament of ,r ancou\'er Island was pro-
rogued, the date being November, 1859. The elec-
tions followed in .January, 1860, and the new
House, of thirteen melnbers, met about two months
later. Helmcken alone of the former assembly was
re-elected; and he ".as continued in the Speaker's
chair. The second legislature lasted until 1863,
when it was succeeded by the third House, which
in turn continued until the union of the two col-
onies in 1866.
274

THE SAN JUAN AFFAIR

To the period of the dual governorship belong
the more important of an extcnded series of nego-
tiations having to do with the interpretation and
enforcement of the Oregon boundary treaty con-
cluded in 1846. The San Juan affair (for by that
title the incident in question is usually known) had
its root, as will be understood, in times remote, and
its final solution was not reached until some years
after Douglas had closed his official career. It may
be dealt "rith in its entirety here, as, apart from its
intrinsic interest, it presents almost the sole view
of Douglas, in the higher sphere of international
politics, under stress of a delicate and at times
dangerous situation.
It will be remembered that by the treaty of
1846, the 49th parallel of latitude had been ac-
cepted as the boundary bet,veen the United States
and British territory from the Rocky l\Iountains to
the centre of the channel which divides Vancouver
Island from the mainland. From that point, it was
agreed, the line was to continue by the middle of
the channel southward to the Strait of Juan de
Fuca, by the middle of which in turn it should
proceed to the Pacific. Now, in the southern por-
tion of the Gulf of Georgia, below the point at
which the 49th parallel ceases as above to mark
the frontier, the Haro archipelago occurs; and as a
result of the configuration of these islands a choice
of passages was offered by which the boundary
might reach the lower waterway. At the time of
275

SIR JA
IES DOUGLAS

the treaty onIy two of these straits had been sur-
veyed: the Canal de Haro, so named, as the archi-
pelago itself was named, from the Spanish ex-
plorer,-a strait seven miles in breadth, between
the group and Vancouver Island; and the channel
to the east, of half the width, known as Rosario
Strait,-otherwise as Vancouver Strait, Ringgold's
Channel, or the Canal de FidaIgo. The question
immediately presented itself as to which of these
,vas intended to mark the boundary by the treaty
of 1846, the point involving the ownership of the
archipelago mentioned, made up of three large and
several smaller islands, of which San Juan, the most
valuable, contained about fifty thousand acres.
Though both nations, through over twenty years
of controversy, as wearisome as it ,vas long drawn
out, attempted to prove that a definite understand-
ing existed at the time the treaty was agreed to,
it is obvious that the language of 1846 left room
for dispute and that neither of the governments in
that year took cognizance of the exact path of the
boundary as it passed from the Gulf of Georgia to
the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
The various steps by which the issue became
sharply defined, covering in all the first ten years
of the dispute, were briefly as follows. About the
time of the founding of Victoria, and as a part of
the general policy involved in that development,
the Hudson's Bay Company had landed a number
of sheep and cattle on the Island of San Juan. The
276

TAXATION ON SAN JUAN

colony prospered, and within a few years' time not
less than several thousand head of liye stock, in-
cluding sheep, cattle, swine and horses, were in-
cluded in the company's establishment. A salmon
fishery also was erected in 1851, and the Americans
who had already begun to frequent the island were
warned to fish inshore. Thus matters remained for a
year longer, when the legislature of Oregon pro-
ceeded to organize the archipelago, without refer-
ence to any political significance which the opera-
tions of the British company might have, as a por-
tion of its domain. Again, in 1853, when the
territory of 'Vashington took form, the islands
passed, or were regarded by the continental author-
ities as passing, under the new jurisdiction. No out-
ward change in conditions, however, occurred until
1854 when an attempt to levy duties by the United
States authorities on stock imported by the com-
pany led to a sharp dispute between the latter
and the officer deputed to enforce the tax. This
brought Douglas for a brief time on the scene,
but had little effect beyond calling forth an idle as-
sertion of sovereignty on the part of each nation.
No actual collection was made at the time. In
1855, however, thirty or more sheep of the com-
pany were seized and sold at auction by the sheriff
of \Vhatcom County, Washington. This at once
brought the affair into international prominence;
and in 1856 commissioners were appointed by
Great Britain and the United States to examine
277

SIR JAMES DOUGI.lAS

into the data bearing thereon. Pending the ex-
pected settlement, by order of the Secretary of
State for the United States, no taxes were. en-
forced on San Juan, though the island was not
acknowledged as a British possession. A curious
amenity during these early years was the protection
cheerfully afforded by the company to the United
States officials from the roving bands of Indians
whose descents were always of peculiar danger
to the" Boston" frontiersrnen.
The commissioners appointed by Great Britain
were Captains Prevost and Richards of the Royal
Navy, the former of whom arrived in H.l\I.S. Sat-
ellite in June, 1857. The latter reached Victoria in
H.l\I.S. Plumper a few months later and at once
began an extended series of explorations and sur-
veys for the carrying out of which he had been
specially delegated. l\lr. Archibald Campbell, with
a staff of astronomers and engineers, represented
the United States. By December, 1857, six formal
meetings had been held by the commissioners, end-
ing in a complete disagreement. The treaty, as
interpreted by the British, demanded that the
channel constituting the boundary from the 49th
parallel southward should possess three characteris-
tics: (1) it should separate the continent from Van-
couver Island; (2) it should admit of the boundary
being carried through it in a southerly direction;
and (3) it should be a navigable channel. In the
light of these requirements, it was urged against the
278

THE ARGUMENrrS

Canal de Haro and in favour of Rosario Strait
that the former could not be said to separate Van-
couver Island from the mainland, seeing that the
separation was already effected by the other chan-
nel; that a line drawn through the Canal de Haro
must perforce run westerly for a considerable dis-
tance; that though the Haro channel answered to
the third demand, yet, from the rapidity and
variableness of its currents and its l
ck of anchor-
ages, it was less suitable for the navigation of
sailing vessels than Rosario Strait, which was the
channel followed by the vessels of the Hudson's Bay
Company since 1825. The occupation of San Juan
by the company for so many years was also held
to bind the island to the British colony. On the
other hand, the American commissioners contended
that of the several navigable passages connecting
the Gulf of Georgia with the Straits of Fuca, the
Canal de Haro was preëlllinent in width, depth,
and volume of water; that it was the one usually
designated on the maps in use at the time the
treaty was under consideration; that the other
navigable channels through the archipelago sepa-
rated mere groups of islands from each other; and
that the Canal de Haro, since it washed the shores
of Y. ancouver Island, was the only one that could
be said to divide the continent from that island.
The objection that the Canal de Haro would not
throughout its entire course carry the boundary line
in a southerly direction was not, in the American
279

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

view, well taken, seeing that the word "southerly"
was applied in the treaty equally to the Straits of
Juan de Fuca, the general course of which lay
north by west. In brief, it appeared to the United
States that the deflection of the boundary from the
49th parallel was sanctioned by the treaty with
the intention of securing Vancouver Island alone to
Great Britain and that with this broad principle
in view the archipelago should be considered as
belonging to the mainland and not to the great
coastal island.
Two years had been consumed in these and other
fruitless negotiations, for though a central passage
navigable to
hips had been discovered by the
British survey party and proposed to the United
States by way of compromise no tangible result
had followed. l\leanwhile a number of squatters,
consisting mainly of American miners on their re-
turn from the Fraser diggings, had settled on San
Juan Island. In the year 1859 they totaled some
twenty-nine, as opposed to nineteen servants of the
company. It was a collision between these diverse
local interests that brought on the nlost acute
phase of the dispute-a phase which but for the
conspicuous tact of the British authorities on the
spot Inight easily have plunged the nations into
war.
I t seems that an American named Cutler who
had settled on the island in 1859 was much an-
noyed by the depredations of a hog belonging to
280

,

TROOPS LANDED

the Hudson's Bay Company, and had shot and
killed the animal. Of the altercation which folJowed
various accounts have survived. According to one,
the arrest of Cutler and his relnoval to Victoria for
trial was threatened. At least it was demanded by
the company that a stipendiary magistrate should
be stationed on the island. The then commander of
the military department of Oregon was General
Harney, a popular but injudicious officer, whose
southern origin has led to the suspicion that on the
eve of the war of secession he would have viewed
with equanimity the sowing of strife between the
United States and England. 'fhe news of the
Cutler affair reaching his ears during a visit to San
Juan, he accepted the version most unfavourable to
the British authorities, and, without mandate from
'Vashington, transferred a company of his command
to the island, for the protection, as he alleged, of
its American citizens. Other detachments followed
until the troops on San Juan reached a total of
four hundred and sixty-one, with eight thirty-two
pounders. A request from the governor for the
withdrawal of the force met with a peremptory re-
fusal, in the first instance from Pickett, the officer
in charge, and afterwards from Harney himself.
A suggestion of a joint military occupation subse-
quently n1ade by Douglas was also refused in terms
that gave just grounds for indignation. At Victoria
the excitement was for a time intense and the pre-
sence of the Plumper, Satellite, Tribune and other
281

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

British ships of war, having on board a force greatly
superior to that which held San Juan, would easily,
under the provocation of the Inoment, have preci-
pitated an encounter but for the patience of
those in cOlnmand. Under the statesmanlike policy
that was adopted, only a single vessel at a time was
kept in San Juan harbour, for show of occupation,
while the rest were held at a safe distance. '
Vhen
the details of the affair reached 'Vashington, the
fruits of this forbearance were quickly reaped. An
official investigation was conducted on the spot;
Harney ,vas ultimately recalled; the officer ,vho
had given offence on San Juan was removed; the
American troops were f
r the Inost part with-
drawn; and an arrangement was entered into by
which a force of British equal in numbers to those
that were left were landed without opposition on the
island. For twelve years the joint occupation ,vas
continued alnid perfect hannony and good-will.
The dispute, thus stripped of the element of
danger, continued for a short time longer to en-
gage the attention of the British minister and the
secretary of state at VVashington, and then lapsed
into oblivion with the outbreak of the American civil
war. It revived for a moment in 1866; and in 1869
gathered so much notice as to suggest its refer-
ence to the president of the Swiss republic. It was
still unsettled, however, in 1871, when a joint high
commission met at Washington to consider this and
other questions affecting the relations of the United
282

FINAL SETTLEl\IENT

States and Great Britain in North America. After
a renewed discussion, as interminable as the first, it
was agreed that the ,vhole affair should be sub-
mitted to the arbitration of the German Emperor.
Prevost was again the British representative at
:Berlin, while Bancroft, the historian, acted for the
United States. Reports of experts were obtained
and the question was debated anew from every
standpoint.
"inally, the Emperor declared his
award in favour of the United States. The date
was October 21st, 1872. In British Columbia,
where the result was accepted with equanimity,
though not without keen sense of loss, the hand of
time had wrought many changes since the excite-
ment of 1859, and the colony was now a province
of the young Dominion.
In the annual message of President Grant in the
following year the award was hailed with special
satisfaction as leaving the two countries for the first
time in history without a question of disputed
territory on this continent. The remark was prema-
ture. It was only shortly after that the boundary
between Alaska and the Dominion was called in
question, to remain a subject of negotiations until
1908. The Behring Sea dispute, moreover, had still
to arise and run its fevered course until its settle-
ment under the Paris award of 1897.

I t is also to the later years of the rule of Doug-
las, and to the history at large of the two colonies,
283

SIR .JAMES DOUGLAS

that the wonderful story of Cariboo belongs. The
tale has been often told. I t is ,veIl worthy of
telling by the historian of British Columbia, seeing
that the Cariboo placers gave permanency, as the
Fraser and Tholnpson diggings had given fonn, to
the mainland colony. The bars of the Fraser, in
fact, began to fail within a few months of their
discovery. Population had no sooner reached its
highest flow than it began to ebb. This ,vas perhaps
inevitable from the very magnitude of the move-
ment. But into the spirit of the country, already
sinking, new vigour was instilled at the magic
bidding of gold. To the miners pushing on to the
remote and inaccessible headwaters of the Fraser,
where in their fancy lay the coarse metal of which
the lower diggings held but the sandy effluent,
the reward came in a series of finds that opened at
once a new era in gold-mining. In the autumn of
185D the first strikes on the Quesnel were reported.
Richer and richer discoveries followed, and in six
months the famous Cariboo rush of 1860 had
begun. The excitement drew upon a much 'wider
field than that of 1858, though it never brought
so large and tumultuous an army. From the ends
of the earth they came, by sea around Cape Horn,
by the Isthmus of' Panalna (this being the favourite
passage), and by caravan across the prairies. From
Canada the route lay by Chicago to St. Paul,
thence by water to Fort Garry, thence by the trails
of the fur traders, a desperately difficult journey, as
284

CARl BOO

the narratives of several parties attest. Rival agen-
cies of transport to the diggings fought for the
traffic; and frauds upon the ignorant abounded.
For five years the inflow, though varying, was
constant. .l\Iost important of all, the immigrants
counted many well fitted by birth and training to
give a solid basis to the country which was to be
theirs long after every creek of the north had
yielded up the lure that first attracted them.
The region thus forced upon the attention of
the world may be roughly described as the high,
,vooded plateau that lies between the sources of the
Fraser and the Thornpson and is contained between
the upper reaches of these waters as they move to-
,yards their junction. The Bear, the 'Villow, the
Cottonwood and the Quesnel, radiating from the
auriferous slate of the Snowshoe l\Iountains and
falling into the Fraser, are its four great rivers,
all alike famous from the wealth of the tributaries
on which the diggings of the new field were estab-
lished. It will be seen that the district penetrated
into the very heart of New Caledonia, where, since
the days of Conolly and Douglas, the Hudson's
Bay Company had held the even and prosperous
tenor of its ,va y: first under the command of
. Dease, famous for his discoveries on the Upper
Liard and for his A rctic voyages; later under
Ogden, wit as ,veIl as trader and organizer, al}d
destined, as we have seen, to a larger rôle in
Oregon; and at the last under l\Ianson, ,vho for
285

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGLAS

twelve years of diminishing profits held the reins of
power in that most desolate of all the company's
dominions. Needless to add, the rush into the Cari-
boo, overflowing soon after to Omineca and Cassiar,
sounded the death-knell of the fur trade, already
thrust back from the southern districts by the
events of the preceding years.
Apart from their richness, a radical change in
the method of working contributed not a little to
the success of the Cariboo placers. On the lower
Fraser, the rocker and the sluice alone had been
employed, and operations were confined almost
wholly to the surface. In the Cariboo, deep mining
was at once introduced; and by shafts, drifts, pumps
and hoists the gold -laden earth was brought to the
surface. So rich was the result that before the end
of the second year two million dollars worth of
coarse nuggets had been shipped to Victoria by the
fifteen hundred miners of the district, and Cariboo
had taken a secure place in history by the side of
Ballarat and the Sacramento.
I t would be impossible here to trace the steps by
which the various camps were opened and the
country stripped of its treasure. But the most
famous must at least be nalned. Each creek had a
history of its own. Quesnel Forks ,vas the earliest
locality to develop into a permanent camp. A party
of five with two rockers took out a hundred ounces
of gold in a single week, and mining at this point
continued for several years. On Cedar and Horsefly
286

THE CARIBOO CAMPS

Creeks, southern tributaries of the Quesnel, several
claims, among them the" Aurora," yielded equal
returns. The movement spread also in 1860 to the
Bear River. In January, 1861, came the extra-
ordinary finds on Antler Creek, followed in the
spring by those on the IIarvey, Keithley, Cunning-
ham and Grouse, all the latter streams flowing
from the north into the Quesnel. The rush now
overflowed to the 'Villow and the Cottonwood.
Barkerville sprang up on 'Villiams Creek in the
midst of a district fabulously rich, and has since
remained the centre of distribution in Cariboo.
The Lowhee and Lightning Creek camps followed.
In 1862 the number of miners had risen to five
thousand and the output to three millions. Both of
these totals were exceeded in 1863; but after 1864
population and gold alike began to decline. In
1867, however, there were still no less than sixty
paying claims in operation, and several of the mines
continued to produce for "many years. In Omineca
and Cassiar the excitement did not reach its height
until 1871 and had subsided by 1875; but in no
year were the results so extraordinary as in Cariboo,
from which in the first seven years alone an ag-
gregate yield of twenty-five millions was taken.
The gold occurred chiefly in a deposit of blue clay
underlying the beds of the creeks, many of which
might literally be said to have been paved ,vith the
metal. Individual earnings were astounding. Over
one thousand dollars a day were made by many. Six
287

SIR JAJ\iES DOUGLAS

hundred dollars to the single pan were recorded.
One pßrty took over seven hundred ounces in two
days, and in two months had heaped up a hundred
thousand dollars worth of gold. The difficulties were
correspondingly enormous. Joined to the inaccessi-
bility of the region, the shortness of the season and
the terrible severity of the winters, the periodical
floods and the depth at which the gold occurred
made the workings all but impossible to the aver-
age gold-miner. Prices in the early days, when
means of transportation in the winter ,vere limited
to dog sleds between Alexandria and Antler, rose
to an extraordinary level. Flour was $72 per barrel;
beans 45 cents per pound ; and bacon 68 cents per
pound. To this the end came with the construction
of the Cariboo wagon road. On the whole, it is be-
lieved that of the army which invaded Cariboo dur-
ing 1860-63 one-third returned with nothing, one-
third with moderate earnings and the rest with
independent fortunes. Terrific feats of endurance
were recorded of the men who under the spell of
the gold mania struggled against the tangled forests,
the yawning canyons and the precipitous mountains
covered with snow which made up the region;
struggled, too, against the starvation of body and
soul that was the n1Ïners'lot, bereft as they 'were of
kindly human intercourse, ruled by the law of the
beast, and in the end doomed either to disappoint-
ment, or, if success were won, to the folly or
viciousness that too often seemed its necessary part.
288

1'HE DUAL GOVERNORSHIP

Truly if the 'web of that story is of romance, the
woof is of tragedy. iT et it ,vas here the colony struck
root; and almost eyery name in its early annals,
excepting those of the fur traders, is associated 'with
the stirring history of the gold-fields of Cariboo.

It ,vas in the year in which the first decline in
Cariboo became apparent that the active connection
of Douglas with the administration of the two
colonies terminated. In the case of Vancouver
Island his commission lapsed through the efflux of
time in September, 1863. The occasion was marked
by popular demonstrations unmistakably sincere;
and the crowning honour of his career came in the
knighthood conferred upon him by the Queen. He
was succeeded by Arthur Kennedy, Esq., who
took up the duties of office in the following .l\Iarch.
In connection with the retirement of Douglas from'
the governorship of the mainland colony, which did
not occur until 1864, a number of incidents of first
importance in the history of the colony require to
be mentioned.
As early as 1861, the dual governorship had
caused dissatisfaction in British Columbia. Narrow
as was the authority of the assembly of V" ancouver
Island, it was at least a visible recognition of the
people's inherent right to govern. On the mainland
nothing of the sort existed, the governor being the
maker, as, with the assistance of the officials sent
from England, he was also the administrator, of the
28!)

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

laws. Sectional jealousy, especially that of the lead-
ing towns, rather than any deeply reasoned wish for
similar institutions, led to an agitation, and the
feeling eventually took form in a petition which
asked among' other things for the establishment of
a representative assembly. It will be of interest to
note what were regarded by the residents of the
lower Fraser as the chief grounds for criticism of
the manner in which their government was ad-
ministered. As described by Douglas himself in
his official report on the matter they were as
follows :
1. That the governor, colonial secretary and
attorney-general did not reside permanently In
British Columbia.
2. That the taxes on goods were excessive as
compared with the population (the latter being es-
timated at seven thousand, exclusive of Indians)
and were in part levied on boatmen, who derived no
benefit from them. The absence of a land tax was
also complained of.
3. That the progress of Victoria was stimulated
at the expense of British Columbia, and that no en-
couragement was given to shipbuilding, the leading
industry of New \Vestminster, or to the foreign
trade of the colony.
4. That money had been injudiciously spent on
public works, and that contracts had been given
without public notice, with the result that they
were subsequently sublet at a much lower rate.
290 I

DISSATISFACTION ON THE MAINLAND

5. That faulty administration had bee
made of
the public lands, several sections which had been
declared public reserves having been afterwards
claimed by parties connected ,vith the colonial
government.
6. The want of a registry office for the recording
of transfers and mortgages was pointed out.
The reply of the governor to the first of these
complaints was, that he had spared no exertion in
his divided duty to promote the interests of both
colonies, and that he had not consciously neglected
any opportunity of adding to the prosperity of
either. As for the other members of the executive,
their offices, if confined to British Columbia alone,
would be little better than sinecures. The taxation
of the colony as compared, for example, with that
of the neighbouring state of 'Vashington, was
not excessive, and had been spent on roads and
public works in a manner that had materially
reduced the general cost of living; moreover the
population including Chinamen was ten thousand,
or, including Indians (who, inasmuch as they were
becoming more and more consumers of imported
goods, were entitled to be classed with the other
inhabitants), some thirty thousand, so that the rate
was í2 per capita instead of f-7 I Os. as complained
of. The remission of duty on shipbuilding material,
it was pointed out, ,vould open the door to injustice
and discontent, and would do little good to New
Westminster as long as the timber business re-
291

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

mained a monopoly in the hands of a few persons.
Clauses four and five were declared to be wholly
unfounded. \Vith regard to the final grievance, a
measure providing means for the registration of real
estate, the governor promised, would be passed at
the earliest moment practicable, the delay having
arisen only through the peculiar difficulties of the
situation.
On the broad question of the adoption of repre-
sentative institutions, Douglas was of the opinion
that the fixed population of the colony was too
small and of too lnotley a character to render the
experiment feasible. The British residents were few
in number; there was no manufacturing or farming
class; the lumbering and salmon-curing industries
which to-day are so important in the Fraser valley
had not yet been called into existence; and the
traders who constituted the only body in the colony
which was not migratory had comparatively a small
interest in its development. As a matter of fact
New Westminster had in 1862 only one hundred
and sixty-four male adults, Hope but one hundred
and eight, and Douglas but thirty-three; and these
were the only centres which had definitely expressed
approval of the change. The governor's avowed in-
tention had been to proceed by degrees to the
establishment of popular institutions, through the
formation of municipal councils to serve as training
schools for the people prior to the adoption of the
larger idea of a colonial assembly.
292

VICTORIA

There was, in fact, a radical difference in the
position of the two colonies at this early time of
which the discontent on the mainland took too
little account. The island had the trades, profes-
sions and real estate of its inhabitants on which
to levy taxes. British Columbia had its gold alone;
and a duty on the supplies carried inland formed
its most obvious means of revenue. The imposition
of a tariff had the advantage also of arousing no
opposition from the miners, who were the sole
support of the colony, and whose requirements
in the way of roads rendered a large expendi-
ture necessary. A free trade policy, on the other
hand, was essential to Victoria, barred as the
city was from the mother country by distance and
from the United States by a hostile tariff, in order
that the British Columbia market at least might
fall to her share. She was the centre of population,
the seat of trade, the nucleus of colonization, and
the chief source of revenue in the British settle-
ments of the Pacific; to maintain this position it
,vas necessary that she should remain the general
marketing place of those possessions. The position
of the governor, therefore, if it afforded a unique
opportunity from the standpoint of the cplonies' in-
terests as a whole, was of no ordinary difficulty
in view of the opposing policies which it was his
duty if possible to reconcile.
The arguments ,vhich Douglas advanced on the
occasion of the discontent of 1861 did not ultimate-
293

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

ly prevail. 'Vhen the day of his retirement arrived
in 1863, the colonial office lost no time in deciding
that separate governors for the colonies were a
necessity. The decision may have been prompted
by the difficulty of securing an officer equal to
the task of Douglas; but it was still more largely
due to the inherent weakness of the original ar-
rangement. So, also, it was resolved that at least
the first step towards the adoption of representative
institutions must be taken without further delay.
The suggestion of Douglas that the end should be
reached through the formation of municipal councils
was not approved; but at least it was perceived,
though with a vowed reluctance, that the approach
to an elective assembly must be gradual. The
avenue which suggested itself was the organization
of a legislative council on a somewhat novel basis.
The power of nominating the council was to be
vested in the governor; but he was directed at the
same time to so exercise thàt power as to constitute
of the council a partially representative body. This
end, it was thought, would be secured if one-
third of the council was to consist of the executive,
one-third of magistrates from different parts of'
the colony, and the balance of representatives of
the people. The plan, it was admitted, did not over-
come the difficulties arising out of the migratory
nature of the population; but it was preferred with
its imperfections to any untried arrangement. The
matter of evolving a working plan for securing the
294

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNl\:lENT

popular representation,-whether by ascertaining
informally the opinion of the residents in each
locality, by bringing the matter before public meet-
ings, or (as in Ceylon) by accepting the nominee
of certain corporate bodies or societies,-was left
to the wisdom of the governor. To inaugurate the
scheme an extension of one year's time was made to
the commission of Douglas as governor of British
Columbia.
The fact that the truest interests of the colonies
lay in union was not overlooked by the government
of Great Britain in advising this arrangement.
Economy and efficiency of administration, the de-
velopment of political capacity, and the promotion
of commerce, called 'with one voice for solidarity. In
salaries alone the saving '\Tould have been consider-
able. In each, the governor received
3,OOO, and
the chief-justice
1,200. The colonial secreta1'Y re-
ceived in 'Val1couver Island
600, and in British
Columbia
800; the attorneys-general,
300 and

500, respectively; the treasurers,
600 and
7 50,
respectively; and the surveyors-general,
500 and
1:800, respectively. In addition, British Columbia
had a collector of customs at
650; a chief in-
spector of police at ëC500, and a registrar of deeds
at
500. Douglas in a despatch written a few
months before the end of his official term strongly
advocated union. For the time, however, local pre-
judices proved too strong; and Frederick Seymour,
formerly governor of Honduras, was appointed
295

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

to succeed Sir James in the governorship of British
Columbia.
In a previous chapter the words were given of
the address with which Douglas as governor of
,.,. ancouver Island opened the first assembly of
that colony. The speech with which he greeted the
first meeting of a representative body on the main-
land, is of no inferior interest as reflecting current
opinions and conditions. The date was January
21st, 1864. The withholding of popular institutions,
he declared, during the infancy of the colony, had
been prompted only by regard for its happiness and
prosperity. A vigorous prosecution of public works
was urged for the purpose of giving value to the
waste lands of the colony. For the increase of po pula-
tion public lands had been thrown open to settle-
ment, and every effort made to promote the de-
velopment of the country, though thus far with un-
satisfactory results. From the Indians, favourable
reports had been received; reserves based on a
maximum allowance of ten acres for each family
ha
been already set aside for them. The opening
of postal and telegraphic communications between
British Colulnbia and the head of Lake Superior
was foreshadowed. Appropriations for education and
religious purposes were recomlnended, with a dis-
claimer added of any desire to see an endowed
church in the colony. Finally, the expenditures of
the past year, amounting in all to ;tI92,860 (of
which 1:83,937 had been spent on roads and 1:31,615
296

THE UNION OF THE COLONIES

on civil establishment) were laid before the council.
The revenue to meet this was but 1: 11 0,000 of
which over half was derived from customs dues. Of
the deficit, f:65,805 had been met by loans, a sum
which stiUleft 1:17,055 to be accounted for, besides
an additional
10,700 due to the imperial govern-
ment for the expenses of the Royal Engineers. For
1864, the expenditures were estimated at 1:107,910
and the income at 1:120,000, though no provision
was made in the former for the maintenance of a
gold escort or for the erection of further public
works. The address concluded with an appeal to
the council for advice on this pressing problem of
finances.

It will be of interest to notice before leaving this
part of the subject the steps by which the union,
after over three years of further intermittent discus-
sion, was achieved. In the beginning the movement
was confined entirely to Vancouver Island, where
by the year 1865 it had gathered not a little force,
the assembly voting strongly in its favour and being
willing to leave the question of a constitution unre-
servedly to the home government. '"fhe relations of
council and assembly in the island colony had not
been altogether happy. There was no medium be-
tween the governor and the assembly, and the time
of the council was occupied for the most part in
correcting the mistakes and undoing the crude
legislation of the lower house. The decline of trade
297

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

which accompanied the exhaustion of the bars of
the Fraser, and the fact that the Cariboo mines were
never a poor man's diggings and therefore did not
attract In ore than a comparatively small population,
had also led in large part to the dissatisfaction felt
in Victoria, where the most of the supplies for the
mines 'were sold. Victoria, moreover, had had no
share in the important developments which followed
in 1864 the discoveries of the Kootenay district,
situated about five hundred miles due east of New
\Vestminster and yielding for a time during the
"Big Bend" rush, a total revenue to the public
treasury of not less than 1: 1,000 a week. The entire
supplies for these were secured by the way of New
Westminster or the Columbia. The mines even
attracted Inany from Victoria's best customer,
Cariboo.
On the other hand there were several reasons
why the mainland colony should for the time look
askance upon the idea of union. The year 1865 was
one of exceptional progress in the opening up of the
country. The trail from the Fraser to Kootenay,
surmounting three ranges of mountains and not
only affording access to the mines but establishing a
new route through the I{ootenay pass from the }>a-
cific to the Hudson's Bay lands beyond the moun-
tains, was in itself a work which might well infuse
self-confidence even into a struggling colony. By the
end of 1865 N e\v Westminster was connected with
the whole telegraphic system of the United States,
298

TERl\IS OF THE UNION

Canada and Newfoundland, and with Cariboo. The
constitution of 1863 had been successfully placed in
operation, the popular candidates being elected at
public meetings called by the magistrates. But the
real opposition to union lay in the rivalry of Victoria
and New "r estminster for the honour of being
chosen as the capital, and the fear which the latter
had of being supplanted by the older, wealthier and
more influential community. Being almost the sole
municipality which found a voice, New 'iV estmin-
ster was able for some time to combat successfully
all agitation for union. The upper country cared
little whether the colonies were one or separate.
But on the lower Fraser it came at last to be felt
that the uncertainty was interfering seriously with
progress.
In 1866, a petition in favour of union was signed
by four hundred and forty-five persons, and there
was probably a much wider feeling had it been able
to make itself heard. In the end the British govern-
Inent decided the question, and the authority of
the executive government and council of British
Columbia was extended over Vancouver Island, the
number of members of the council being increased
to twenty-three. The customs regulations of the
mainland colony were likewise extended to the
island. Other ordinances remained for a time as be-
fore. The original authority of the governor to make
regulations for peace, order and good government
was not restricted. The Act bore date of August
299

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

6th, 1866. A short time after, the attorney-general
of Vancouver Island introduced a bill for assimilat-
ing its laws with those of British Columbia. There
then remained only the question of the seat of
government-a rock which the Act of union had
discreetly avoided. Amid the violent altercations of
partisans, the choice fell on Victoria, and though
the bitterness of the defeat rankled long on the
mainland no effort subsequently availed to secure a
reversion of the decision.

The foregoing outline of the process by which
British Columbia, as we know it to-day, attained
its united form, has gone somewhat beyond the
time when the man who had brought order out of
the chaos and had been the chief agent in shaping
the progress of the colony in the course it has since
pursued, laid down the direction of its affairs. With
the setting in active motion of the forces which re-
sulted in union, Sir James Douglas passed from the
scene. It is a moment of solemnity, for communi-
ties as for individuals, when the past is cast off for-
ever. How large a part was Douglas of all that had
happened since the birth of the two colonies has
been sufficiently shown. But there was an added
reason why his retirement at this time was of no
ordinary significance, little though the change was
marked by outward or immediate results. The
spirit of that old time force, the Hudson's Bay
Company, which had been the first to conquer the
300

RETIREl\IENT OF DOUGLAS

tremendous barriers by which nature has divided
the Pacific slope from the rest of the continent,
which had subdued the intractable native, and had
opened the first pathway for civilization to the
western ocean, lived and breathed in Sir James
Douglas. It died only with his passing. The change
was for better things, as the future was soon to
show, but that this was possible is a tribute to
the wisdom with which the foundations had been
laid.
It is left to treat of the remaining years of
Douglas and to estimate the value of his work
and personality in the founding of British Col-
umbia. In connection with that task it will be
well to note in very brief review the leading
features of the later history of the colony, especially
those that have their visible root in the era of
colonial administration, in order the better to ap-
preciate the nature of that early planting from
which the present fruitful harvest has sprung.

801

CHAPTER IX

CONFEDERATION

A FTER toil,-rest. I
ong before the period of
his commissions had expired, Douglas had
Inade up his mind: his public connection with the
colonies must cease. Noone was more conscious
than he that his day of greatest usefulness was past,
and that his present office, if continued, would be
one only of increasing difficulties. For a place in the
new régime he had no inclination. Accustomed as
he had been to untrammelled rule, he could play
no part in the turmoil of reconstruction and divided
power which was now approaching, and which was
still to last for several years before the people of
British Columbia achieved entire control of their
administration.
The retirement of Sir .J ames Douglas from the
governorship of the two colonies was marked by all
those forms and ceremonies with which the man of
public affairs is wont to pass from the scene of his
activity, and which may mean much or little. There
had undoubtedly arisen a deep-rooted opposition to
the principle of irresponsible government in British
Columbia and to Douglas as the representative of
that principle. Yet in the mass of customary lauda-
tion with which his days of office closed, the note of
gratitude for the unequalled experience which he
303

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

had brought to the service of the country and for
the value of the work he had done was persistently
present, even in the minds of those who realized
most clearly the necessity for change. There were
banquets and processions, presentations of me-
morials and tributes of the press. The formula was
repeated in the respective capitals of the colonies.
At Victoria, two hundred of the leading citizens of
Vancouver Island took their seats at a dinner
in his honour; in New "r estminster, where settle-
ment was less compact, seventy-five. Both colonies
presented addresses signed by hundreds of their
inhabitants to the Duke of Newcastle, colonial
secretary, in which admiration of the governor
was warmly expressed. The legislature of Vancou-
ver Island declared its belief that the signal pros-
perity which the colony had enjoyed was "mainly
ascribable to the policy which His Excellency in-
augurated," the governor characteristically reply-
ing with an exhortation to harmony between the
executive and the legislature. So, likewise, the
council of V ancouver Island placed on record its
high estimation of the policy of Douglas "in origi-
nating and administering the government" of the
colony, of his appreciation of his duties and re-
sponsibilities, and of the moral qualities which had
adorned his actions and endeared him to the people
of the island. In Victoria, the universal respect in
which the governor was held had kindled into an
affection which was plainly manifest in the demon-
804

ADDRESSES OF FAREWELL

strations with which his departure was accompan-
ied. Twenty-two years from the time that the
natives of Camosun first saw the harbour ruffled
by the Beaver, Douglas passed through the streets
of the city he had founded on his last official
progress, the people thronging the way and crowd-
ing to grasp his hand as the guns of the fort pealed
their farewell salute. On the mainland, where he
was at one time regarded as the natural enemy of
the colony, it is of significance to quote the follow-
ing from an address which was presented at New
'Vestminster and which bore the names of over
nine hundred of the inhabitants:
"During the period His Excellency has been in
office, he has assiduously devoted his remarkable
talents to the good of the country; ever unmindful
of self, he has been accessible to all, and we firmly
believe that no man could have had a higher appre-
ciation of the sacred trust vested in him, and none
could have more faithfully and nobly discharged it
than he has.
"The great road system which Go'
ernor Douglas
has introduced into the colony is an imperishable
monument of his judgment and foresight. It has al-
ready rendered his name dear to every miner, and
future colonists will wonder how so much could have
been accomplished with such small means. The col-
ony already feels the benefit resulting from his un-
wavering policy in this respect, and year by year will
the wisdom of that policy become more manifest.
305

SIR JA
IES DOUGLAS

"During his term of office t.he laws have ever
been rigidly, faithfully and impartially adminis-
tered; the poorest man has always felt that in a
just cause he would not have to seek redress in
vain, and the country has in consequence enjoyed
a remarkable exemption from crime and disturb-
"
ance.
I t was in reply to this that Douglas uttered
the words that sum up, better than any other of
his own that have survived, the total of his en-
deavour as governor: "This is surely the voice
and heart of British Columbia. Here are no spe-
cious phrases, no hollow or venal compliments. This
speaks out broadly, and honestly, and manfully. It
assures me that my adn1Ïnistration has been useful;
that I have done 111Y duty faithfully; that I have
used the pO'wer of my sovereign for good, and not
for evil; that I have wronged no man, oppressed
no man; but that I have, with upright rule, meted
out equal-handed justice to all."
AInong the lnost persistent opponents of the
administration of Douglas was Àmor de Cosmos,
founder and editor of the Victoria Colonist. Few
names in western history are more widely known.
Beneath the eccentricity ,vhich was his most marked
outward characteristic, and of which the changing
of his nalne in that wild and free society was a
conspicuous example, lay a genuine public spirit and
a dogged resolution in resisting what he deemed
to be abuses. Born in Nova Scotia, where the fight
306

Al\IOR DE COSl\10S

for responsible government was early fought and
won, and by nature cOlnbative to a degree, he
found in the fonn of administration existing in
British Columbia, a condition which kindled ,vithin
him all that fierceness of political invective of
which he was the accomplished master. Here was
not only government without a legislature and
without a ministry, but government by a man as
autocratic by instinct and training as by the ordin-
ance from which his power was derived. To de Cos-
mos, not free from opportunism and seeking now
the pathway to his own future, Douglas waS the
mere embodiment of the Hudson's Bay Company's
influence carried forward into an era in which it had
no place, and in which it could \vork only for evil.
From the embittered warfare waged daily in the
columns of the Colonist, an organized party took
form in opposition to every act of the governor,
an opposition which was soon extended to the
mainland, and which was silenced only with the
inauguration of popular government in 1871.
Among the friends of the- retiring governor, de
Cosmos, therefore, could not be reckoned. His
tribute, accordingly, to the personal worth of
Douglas was of no ordinary value when in the
Colonist of October 13th, 1863, he wrote as
follows:-
" We have conceived it our duty, upon some
occasions, to differ from the policy pursued by
!vIr. Douglas, as governor of this colony, and we
307

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

ha ve, from time to time had occasion, as pu blic
journalists, to oppose that policy: we trust, how-
ever, that such opposition has at no time been
factious-personal to the governor himself it has
never been. If we have opposed the measures of
government, we have never, in our criticism of
the public acts of the executive head of that
government, failed in our esteem for the sterling
honesty of purpose which has guided those acts,
nor for the manly and noble qualities and virtues
which adorn the man. The intimate relations which
have so long existed between Sir James Douglas
and the people of Victoria will shortly undergo a
change, and we are quite sure that we echo the
sentiments of the public of Victoria in saying that
His Excellency will carry into private life the
honest esteem and hearty good wishes of all Van-
couver. His services to his country as governor of
these colonies will not be forgotten for many years
to come."
I t may be of interest to mention here that from
1863 until 1866 the desire for the annexation of the
colonies outrode all other sentiments in Vancouver
Island, and that de Cosmos himself was among the
most persistent advocates of unconditional union,
notwithstanding that the change involved for
the time the acceptance of administration by the
Crown.
The ceremonies of leaving office ended, Douglas
was free to carry out the dream of many years-a
808

VISIT TO EUROPE

voyage to Europe. There is little of public interest
in the journey; but a diary in which he kept a daily
record of his movements and impressions throws a
singularly valuable light upon his tastes and sym-
pathies, the variety of his information, and many
of his views on public affairs. Conspicuous through-
out are his affection for his family, the fervour of
his religious convictions, the characteristic love of a
Scotchman for his native country, and the wide
range of subjects in which he had an interest. Leav-
ing Esquimalt in l\fay, he sailed by way of Panama
for Southampton, the voyage as he covered it ex-
ceeding ninety-six hundred miles. The summer and
early autumn were spent in England and Scotland,
where he visited one of his daughters in the vicinity
of Inverness, and the rest of the year in France,
Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The
south of France, Spain and Italy were visited in
the opening months of the following year. In

Iarch he was in Rome, where the first attack of
an illness which was to give him much anxiety
was recorded. His active life in the open and
his severely regular habits had hitherto made dis-
ease unknown to him; the derangement of the
heart to which he finally fell a victim was con-
stitutional or perhaps induced by the strenuous
early life of the fur traders, many of whom though
vigorous in the extreme failed to reach old age.
But the mind of Douglas, even in Italy, was never
far away from the land to which he had given his
309

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

life. At Villetri, near Rome, on the 6th of l\larch,
he sees "rocky land covered ,vith brush, places
which recall the narro\v little vales between the
ridges of ,V ork's farm near 'Tictoria "; and again,
"a cloudy sky, a short sprinkling of rain, the low
springing grass, the daJnp earth and the brave little
daisy are not unlike early l\Iarch scenes in 'Tic-
toria." From Italy he passed again through Ger-
many to Paris where the ne,vs of the death of a
daughter plunged him in deep affliction. From
France he returned to I.Aondon and in a few
months more had arrived at 'V'lctoria, no longer
to bear an active part in public affairs.
The rest of the life of Douglas was unevent-
ful. In the management of his private fortune,
in constant reading, and in the out-door exercises
that had been his passion during the busiest part
of his career, the days 'went by. He died on
August 1st, 1877. The end came suddenly, though
not without premonition, from heart failure. The
funeral was a notable event in the history of the
province. Especially striking were the tributes of
the Indians to ,vhom he ,vas indeed the friend
they held him. His ,vife was laid by his side in
1891.

Before the day of his passing, Douglas had lived
long enough to witness not a little of the growth
which sprang directly from his sowing, and at least
the promise of that greater fruitage which the future
310

CONFEDERATION

was to yield. It will be well, before attempting any
final estimate of the man and his work, to turn for
a moment to the more important of the develop-
ments that followed his retirement from public life
and to the general course of progress since in
British Columbia.
On December 17th, 1867, the legislature of
British Colurnbia assembled for the first time at
Victoria. The influence of Seymour, who had suc-
ceeded to the governorship of the united colonies,
had hitherto retained for New Westminster this
coveted distinction. Having yielded in one matter,
the governor and the opinion which he represented
saw fit to bow to the majority in another and more
important. No sooner had the confederation of the
eastern colonies become an accomplished fact, than
the admission of British Columbia to the Dominion
of Canada was keenly debated. The governor op-
posed it. A small party which favoured annexation
'with the United States opposed it. The body of
office-holders opposed it vigorously. At the first,
the activity of these succeeded in shelving the
question. Nevertheless, as early as l\Iarch, 1868, a
resolution passed the council in favour of the union,
provided fair and equitable terms could be obtain-
ed. Public meetings at Victoria, Barkerville and
other points, soon after gave solid endorsation to
the project. The sympathy of the Dominion itself
was obtained, with special reference to the taking
over of the intervening territory. A confederation
311

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

league was formed and a convention held under its
auspices at Yale. Here, perhaps for the first time,
the movement found its full voice, the existing
form of government being denounced as a despot-
ism for which the only remedy was asserted to be
the ilnmediate admission of British Columbia into
the Dominion and the establishment of responsible
institutions.
But the most potent of all the arguments for
union was the promise which it held out of pro-
moting overland communication with Canada. This
it was that finally silenced the opposition of Sey-
mour. In any event, the death of the governor in
1869 led to the appointment of an avowed advo-
cate of confederation, Anthony l\Iusgrave, pre-
viously governor of Newfoundland, and with an
experience of administration gained in the West
Indies. A tour of the colony which the new
officer immediately undertook confirmed the view
that the overwhelming sentiment of the popu-
lation was in favour of confederation. On the
back of this came formal instructions froD1 Eng-
land that the governor should take such steps as
he properly and constitutionally could, either in
conjunction with the governor-general of Canada
or otherwise, to promote the favourable considera-
tion of the question. When the council, which had
been reconstituted in 1869, met for the session of
1870, l\lusgrave had a series of resolutions pre-
pared for its consideration. In a memorable debate
812

TERl\IS OF THE UNION
which began on March 9th, 1870, and lasted until
the twenty-fifth, the terms on which British Colum-
bia should become a part of the Dominion were
definitely detern1Ïned. On July 7th, the news was
received from Ottawa that the articles had been
agreed upon, the construction of' the transcon-
tinental railway guaranteed, and the delegates who
had been sent to present the claims of the province
already on their way home.
The provisions upon which British Columbia en-
tered confederation ensured in the first place that
the Dominion should assume all debts and liabili- .
ties of the colony, allowance being made for the
small amount of these compared with the original
indebtedness of the other provinces. For the sup-
port of the provincial government an annual sub-
sidy of thirty-five thousand dollars, with an ad-
ditional grant of eighty cents per head on an esti-
mated population of sixty thousand was promised,
the latter allowance to be increased pro rata until
the population reached four hundred thousand. Can-
ada was to defray all charges in respect to the sal-
aries of the lieutenant-governor and of the judges of
the Superior and County or District Courts-like-
wise of the department of customs, the postal and
telegraph services, the fisheries, the militia, the geo-
logical survey, the penitentiary, the marine depart-
ment, the care of the Indians and other matters ap-
pertaining to the general government. A fortnight-
ly steam mail service between Victoria and San
818

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

Francisco, and a weekly service with Olympia,
were to be maintained by the Dominion. But the
portion of the agreement which was of nlost
absorbing interest to British Columbia, was that
which set forth in detail the terms on which the
railway across the continent, now the dream of
every section of the community, should be built,
and which provided in brief that it should unite
the seaboard of British Columbia with the railway
system of Canada and that its construction should
be begun within two years of the date of union,
the province conveying the necessary public lands
along the line in trust to the Dominion govern-
ment. The Dominion also guaranteed the interest
for ten years on a maximum sum of !:100,OOO to
be expended on the construction of a graving dock
at Esquimalt. The new province was given three
seats in the senate and six in the House of Com-
mons. Finally, it was agreed that the constitution
of the executive authority and of the legislature of
British Columbia should continue until altered
under the British North America Act, it being
understood that the Dominion government would
consent to the introduction of responsible govern-
ment when desired by the people of British Co-
lumbia, and that it was the intention of the British
Columbia governnlent to mnend the existing con-
stitution of the legislature by providing that a
majority of its members should be elective. The
union was to take place on a date to be fixed by
314

REPRESENTATIVE INSTrrUTIONS

Her l\Iajesty on addresses from the legislature
of British Columbia and of the parliament of
Canada, the former being granted leave to specify
in its address the electoral districts for which the
first election of members to serve in the House of
Commons should take place.
The document containing the terms of union
reached Victoria on July 18th, 1870. l\Ieantime a
representative had been despatched to England to
secure the needed change in the constitution of the
colony and the guarantee of the imperial govern-
ment for the completion of the Canadian Pacific
Railway. For the election of the new council,
which for the first time in the history of the
united colonies was preponderatingly representa-
tive in character, the colony was divided into eight
electoral districts, consisting of Victoria City, Vic-
toria district, N anaimo, New Westminster, Hope,
Yale and Lytton, Lillooet and Clinton, and Cariboo
and l{ootenay. Of these, 'Tictoria city returned two
members. The elections were held in November,
and the council met in January, 1871. The chief
work of the session was, of course, the ratification
of the terms of union previously agreed upon. This
done, an Act was passed abolishing the council and
establishing a legislative assembly in its stead, the
latter to be elected once in every four years and to
consist of twenty-four members chosen by twelve
electoral districts. Thus it was effected that respon-
sible government should come into operation at the
815

SIR JAl\IES DOUGl
AS

first session of the legislature subsequent to the
union with Canada. A Qualification and Franchise
Act was passed and the council prorogued on
l\:Iarch 28th. On the same date, the resolutions for
the admission of the colony were moved in the
Canadian House of Commons, and, after a four
days' discussion, were adopted. On July 1st, 1871,
the first Dominion Day was celebrated in British
Columbia.
On the whole, the new province brought to the
Dominion a dower of no ordinary richness in the
way of accomplished development and of promising
outlook for the future. From the lavish expen-
ditures of the early years a system of retrenchment
and economy had been evolved, while the perman-
ent results of these expenditures remained. Roads
had been opened. Agriculture had been planted;
it was estimated that not less than one hundred and
twenty-five thousand acres, valued at from two
dollars and a half to five dollars per acre, were avail-
able for cultivation. rfhe mining industry of the
province was already famous throughout the world,
while it was known that not a tithe of its richness
had been revealed. Even manufactures were as-
suming importance. Trade had reached a volume of
over $3,400,000 a year. The labour market was in a
promising condition, unskilled workmen being in
good demand at wages of two dollars and a half
per day and upward. The Indian question had been
placed on a satisfactory basis. The Hon. J. W.
316

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY

Trutch, distinguished for many years past in the
councils of the colony, became the first lieutenant-
governor, under auspices that promised to the mind
of every inhabitant the beginning of a golden era
for the province.

But the union could not be real to British Col-
umbia until the railway-the tie on which so much
depended-was at least in visible process of realiza-
tion. In this, a grievous disappointment awaited
the province. For a decade and a half the delay in
the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway was
the leading topic in political, industrial an.d com-
mercial circles throughout British Columbia. A re-
ference to this phase in the development of the
province is necessary to complete the record of
confederation.
As early as 1858, when the discovery of the gold-
fields of the Fraser made the value of the country
known, the ambition of Great Britain to see planted
a chain of colonies which should cross the contin-
ent, bound by a single chain of railways, from Nova
Scotia to the Pacific, was formally acknowledged.
For ten years more, however, the enormous difficul-
ties, both of finance and of engineering, prevented
serious consideration of the project, and it was not
until the explorations of Viscount Milton in the
Rocky .l'flountains and the unceasing agitation of
Mr. Alfred Waddington had awakened public in-
terest, that the undertaking may be said to have
317

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

been brought within the realm even of the re-
motely practicable. In September, 1869, the Can-
ada Gazette contained a notice that application
would be made at the ensuing session of parliament
for a charter to build a railway from the Canadian
system to the foot of the Rockies; but this was
later acknowledged to have been only a part of
the campaign for the creation of an intelligent
public opinion on the subject. By 1870, however,
such measures were no longer necessary, the desir-
ability of the railway being no longer questioned,
and the proposition for its construction having
been accepted, in the way that has been described,
as an integral part of the bargain between British
Columbia and the Dominion. The line, it had
already come to be recognized, 'was almost as
necessary to the one as to the other; for if British
Columbia was thought to profit more immediately
by its construction, and in the discussions on the
subject bore always the aggressive part, an outlet
to the unoccupied territory of the "Test was no
less an urgent need to Canada if she was to prevent
her surplus population from continually overflowing
into the United States, and if in process of time
she was to be assured of an expanding market for
her produce.
But the signing of the articles of union did not
by any means allay the almost universal feeling of
distrust, not to say of alarm, with which the project
had been regarded from the first in Canada. To the
318

DELAY IN CONSTRUCTION

majority it seemed indeed that the Dominion had
essayed a task that was impossible. The feeling
was reflected in parliament where, in spite of the
strength of the government of the day, the con-
federation measure passed with difficulty and only
on the promise that the undertaking would be
left to private enterprise without involving further
additions to the taxation of the' country. This in
itself was a blow to the expectations of the people
of British Columbia; for it was clear that the
enormous expenses of construction and the scanty
earnings that could be counted upon for many
years in the service of so small and scattered a
population would prove but an indifferent attrac-
tion to capital. As a matter of fact, the limit
specified at confederation for the beginning of the
work, July 1st, 1873, expired before even the sur-
veys had been more than started.
The tangled skein of the dispute which forthwith
arose between the province and the Dominion, it is
unnecessary here to unravel. Throughout its con-
tinuance no real desire was apparent on the part of
British Columbia, if we pierce below the surface, to
exact the full legal penalty of a compact proved by
time and circumstances to be unjust. She had been
led, however, to regard the railway as the chief con-
dition of the union, and the railway she was deter-
mined should be built. If her attitude was local
and colonial rather than federal and Canadian, it
must be remembered that her assimilation with
819

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

the Dominion was the very point at issue. The
charge of breach of faith preferred by the province
was the subject of prolonged negotiations. After a
lengthy war by correspondence, l\Ir. J. D. Edgar,
afterwards Sir Jmnes Edgar, was despatched in the
spring of 1874 as a special agent of the Dominion
to Victoria. The result was but to bring the differ-
ences to a head, in the form of an appeal by the
province to the British government. The construc-
tion of two ri val lines, the Northern and the Union
Pacific, in the United States, added fuel to the
discontent. The award which followed, known as
the Carnarvon terms, was distinctly favourable to
British Columbia, in so far that it ensured the
building of the road, though it recognized that
the letter of the original agreement could not pos-
sibly be carried out. The award required that two
million dollars should be spent each year on the
construction of the road within the province from
the time the surveys were completed, the latter
to be pushed at once with all possible vigour; that
the railway should be completed and opened for
traffic between Lake Superior and the Pacific sea-
board on or before December 31st, 1890; and that
a telegraph line and certain wagon roads should
be constructed forthwith.
At the outset, it should be stated, an Act had
passed the Dominion parliament granting a subsidy
of thirty million dollars together with fifty million
acres of land for the construction of a railway
320

THE CARNARVON TERl\IS

from Lake Nipissing to the Pacific, and a charter
had been awarded to a company organized under
the leadership of Sir Hugh Allan. The episode
familiarly known as the Pacific scandal had fol-
lowed, and the company, finding it impossible to
raise the needed capital, went out of existence.
l\Iackenzie, on succeeding to the chaos which fol-
lowed the resignation of Sir John l\lacdol1ald's
ministry, having failed in the attempt to treat
directly with the provincial authorities and having
sought in vain to purchase calm by the passage of
a ne,v Pacific Railway Bill in 1874, found even in
the terms of the Carnarvon settlement an unex-
pected difficulty. In addition to the provisions
referred to, the award required the construction by
the DOlninion with aU possible despatch of a line
from Esq uimalt to N anaimo, the building of this
road having been offered by the previous govern-
ment to the province by way of offset for the
delay which had occurred in the carrying out
of the terms of the union. A bill which incor-
porated this feature of the award was passed by
the House of Commons, but was rejected by the
senate on the ground that the ternlS of union
did not call for any extension of the line to Van-
couver Island, and that, if the extension were
considered in the light of compensation, it was on
altogether too extra vagant a scale. The entire
question was thus thrown open anew to discus-
sion, and the negotiations which ensued served
821

SIR JAl\1ES DOUGLAS

but to widen the breach between the govern-
ments.
From the standpoint of British Columbia, the
attitude of the Dominion was now in open disre-
gard of the Carnarvon terms, as it had previously
been at variance with the articles of union. By
1876, neither the mainland nor the island road had
been begun, nor had the agreement relating to the
provincial section of the telegraph been carried
out, nor had a commencement been made of the
wagon road intended to facilitate the work of con-
struction proper. 'Videspread depression in trade,
it was claimed, had followed these delays, and the
development of the country had been greatly re-
tarded. On the other hand, the l\lackenzie govern-
ment now protested vigorously against the selec-
tion, agreed to by its prédecessor, of Esquimalt as
the terminus, a choice involving an expenditure of
seven nlillions and a half on Vancouver Island,
with a bridge across the narrows estÌ1nated to cost
twen ty millions more. I t was willing to offer
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or about
seventy-five dollars per capita of the white popu-
lation of the province, as indemnity for the de-
lay; but this had been refused. Moreover, during
the first four years of union, the Dominion had
expended in British Columbia twelve hundred
thousand dollars more than had been derived from
the province in revenue, though undoubtedly a
large portion of this was incidental merely to
322

AN ARRANGEMENT REACHED

the extension of confederation over the new ter-
ritory.
While the controversy continued thus, with
secession openly in prospect, Lord Dufferin, the
governor-general of Canada, paid a visit to the
new province, which, while failing of its avowed
object of reconciling the discordant elements, suc-
ceeded through his tact and adroitness in allay-
ing much of the irritation with which the sub-
ject had by this time corne to be associated and
which in itself formed no small obstacle to an
agreement. Nevertheless, for two years longer,
though the surveys were actively prosecuted, not
only was nothing done on the actual construction
of the line, but tenders were not even invited. In
September, 1878, accordingly, a formal threat of
separation was made by the British Columbia
legislature. Annexation with the United States
again became a subject of discussion in certain
quarters; and there was general discontent and de-
moralization. On the change of lninistry at Ottawa,
however, more conciliatory counsels were adopted;
surveys were rapidly conlpleted; Port l\foody on
Burrard Inlet was finally selected as the terminus;
and by 1880 all was in readiness for the fulfilment
of the railway clauses of the union. This had its
due effect in British Columbia. In 1881, the con-
veyance of twenty miles on either side of the line
to the Dominion was authorized, and with the
passing, on March 25th, of an Act providing
323

SIR JAMES DOUGI.lAS

that the Supreme Court of Canada and the Ex-
chequer Court or the Supreme Court of Canada
alone (according to the provisions of the Act of
Parliament of Canada known as the Supreme
and Exchequer Court Act) should have j urisdic-
tion in controversies between the Dominion and
the province, the actual union of the province and
the Dominion may be said to have been consum-
mated. The province continued to press in London
for perlnission to collect its own tariff of customs
and excise until through communication should
be established with the eastern provinces; but the
plea fell now on deaf ears and after a brief agitation
was allowed to die.
From this time forward the railway made rapid
progress. It had been decided, in 1878, that the
route should follow the valleys of the Fraser and the
Thompson. By 1880, when some sixteen and a half
millions had been expended on surveys and con-
struction as a whole, Sir .John l\lacdonald an-
nounced the formation of a syndicate by whom the
work would be completed. The Dominion, under
the contract, agreed to build the portion of the road
between Yale and Kamloops by the end of June,
1885, and that between Port l\loody and Yale
by June 1st, 1891. All was finally laid at rest
between the governments by the Settlement Act
of 1884.
Of the various terms of the agreement and of
the manner in which its provisions were carried
324

DIFFICULTIES OF CONSTRUCTION

out in the sections east of the Rocky Mountains,
no further mention is necessary here. Of the work
within the boundaries of British Columbia, how-
ever, the completion of which may be said to have
marked an epoch in railway construction as ,yell as
in the history of the province, the more extraordin-
ary features may be noted. Between Kaluloops
Lake and BUITard Inlet, where the road descends
the canyons of the Thompson and Fraser, the
contracts were undertaken at a cost approximat-
ing twelve million dollars, apart from rails and
fastenings. Ground was broken early in 1880. On
portions of the road it is probable that the difficul-
ties were greater than had ever before been encoun-
tered in railway building, except perhaps in Swit-
zerland and Peru. The cost per mile over a con-
siderable section averaged eighty thousand dollars;
in certain parts as much as two hundred thousand
dollars per mile was expended. In nineteen n1Ïles
near Yale, thirteen tunnels occur. Elsewhere in the
Fraser canyons the roadway was literally hewn
from the rock, men being lowered hundreds of feet
down the face of the precipice to blast a foothold.
At times over seven thousand labourers were em-
ployed, though the average was nearer four thous-
and. The enormous difficulties of forwarding sup-
plies and material were overcome with no less
marvellous skill. Even the rapids of the Fraser
were breasted by a steamer built for the purpose.
In the section of the railway which traverses the
325

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

Rocky l\lountains, scarcely less astounding feats
of engineering were required. By 1884, the track
had been laid from "Tinnipeg to the summit of
the Rockies, though there was still a gap of two
hundred miles between that point and Kamloops.
But the end was soon to crown the work. On Nov-
ember 7th, 1885, five years before the date required
by the Carnarvon ternls, the final rail was laid.
The last spike was driven by l\Ir. Donald A. Smith,
now Lord Strathcona and l\Iount Royal, a leading
director of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company,
and, by a fitting coincidence, the chief representa-
tive of the great fur-trading enterprise whose men
had been the first to enter the Pacific slope. It was
a grave moment in the history of Canada and the
British Empire. Henceforward east 'was west and
west was east in British North America, as nearly
as the hand of man could accomplish it. The gate-
way to the Orient had been opened at last by land.
How, on commercial grounds alone-though these
were not its basis-the undertaking begun anlid so
many doubts and fears has justified the vision of
its founders, is among the trite lessons of our his-
tory. In the creation of the prosperous city of Van-
COllver, to-day one of the leading centres of industry
in Canada, entrepôt of a trade that reaches to the
ends of the earth, ,vith clearings of over two hun-
dred million dollars, employing a tonnage of nearly
thirteen millions, and already numbering over sev-
enty thousand inhabitants, where a quarter of a
326

RAILWAY DEVELOPl\IENT

century ago was virgin forest, may be seen a typical
instance of what that great enterprise has accom-
plished for the province and for Canada.
I t will be of interest to notice here the further
steps that have been taken to open up the prov-
ince by means of railways. That Port l\loody
was selected by the Dominion as the terminus of
the Canadian Pacific Railway largely because it
rendered unnecessary the construction of the Es-
qui malt and N anaimo line as a condition of the
union ,vith British Columbia, there can be no
doubt. 'fhe effect ,vas long felt by Victoria and
Vancouver Island. In 1883, however, a contract
,vas entered into with another agency for the con-
struction of the line in question, the ,york to be
begun at once and to be finished by 1887. Thus,
,vith only a slight delay, the island was proyided
with a railway throughout its most thickly peopled
districts, and the line by a recent purchase forms
part of the system of the Canadian Pacific. Even
before the projection of this undertaking, the New
Westminster and Port l\loody, the Fraser River,
and the Columbia and Kootenay Railway Com-
panies, had been incorporated. The last, which
provided entrance to the Kootenay district from
the north, became in time a part of the important
system built westward by the Canadian Pacific
Company from the prairie section through the
Crow's Nest Pass, opening up a country whose mar-
vellous wealth in coal and mineral is now known
327

SIR JA
IES DOUGLAS
throughout the world. l\feanwhile the Great N orth-
ern Railway has crossed the border from the state
of Washington, connecting Vancouver with the rail-
ways of the United States and promising soon to
establish another and much needed outlet from the
Kootenays westward to the coast. But these re-
sults, substantial as they are, form but an earnest
of the progress which the immediate future holds,
when, to mention only the greatest of several
lines that are projected, a second and even a third
road from Canada, piercing the mountains of Cari-
boo and Cassiar, shall cross the province three
hundred miles to the northward of the Canadian
Pacific Railway and awaken those primeval soli-
tudes to settled industry. As an interesting note to
the foregoing, it may be stated that the system of
roads and trails begun by Douglas, and built and
maintained by the government, amounted in ] 900
to a total of over ten thousand miles.

The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway
marks from many points of view the beginning of
a new era in the development of British Columbia-
so far-reaching was its effect in affording' transport
for the growing industries of the province and in
bringing the country into touch 'with the outside
world. From a population of 36,241 in the year of
confederation, grown to 49,459 in the decade fol-
lowing, the province had become a comlnunity of
178,657 souls in 1900, the date of the last Dominion
328

AGRICULTURE

census, while the revenue has reached an estimated
total of $3,286,476 for the fiscal year of 1908, and
the import and export trade a total of approxi-
mately $40,000,000. A very brief indication of
the economic and industrial progress reflected in
these returns, and appropriate in the case of a
cOlnmu.nity whose history from the outset is prim-
arily a study in industrial development, is all that
may be attempted in this restricted space.
Agriculture, until recent years, cannot be said to
have attained importance as an industry in British
Columbia, though progress relatively has been very
rapid. In the decade of 1890-1900, the agricultural
area of the province increased, according to the
Dominion census, from 115,184 to 171,447 acres,
the latter representing a total value in agricultural
property of $33,491,978. This is less than one
per cent. of the entire area of the province, and the
returns do not enter into comparison with those of
Ontario and the north-west provinces. The reason
is to be sought in the heavily timbered nature of
the valleys, which, notwithstanding their fertility,
require capital for development in all but a few
sections, whereas the neighbouring prairies of the
north-west provinces have offered no resistance of
this kind, and have naturally been occupied more
rapidly. Large areas of British Columbia will be
available for agriculture only on the introduction
of irrigation. Hard wheat, moreover, is not grown
in the portions of the province as yet devoted to
829

SIR JA
iES DOUGLAS

agriculture. The advantages of the British Columbia
clÜnate, however, have given a special impetus to
fruit growing, and the orchards of Okanagan
are already known in the leading markets of the
world, not only for the quality of the fruit but for
the enterprise and skill of the grower. In 1901, there
were 7,430 acres in orchards, with some 650,000
trees; in 1906 there were 40,000 acres with 2,700,-
000 trees. Dairying and cattle raising also are, by
every indication, on the eve of an important future,
the present year exceeding any previous record in
the quantity and quality of the output. In 1900
there were seven cheese and butter factories in
operation; in 1906 there were nineteen. There are
ranches in British Columbia carrying ten and fifteen
thousand cattle, but the tendency is to break up
these larger holdings into farms. I
egislation has
kept pace with these developments, the laws for
the promotion of agricultural societies, Farmers'
Institutes, Co-operative Associations, Dairying As-
sociations, Boards of Horticulture, and various
lands, drainage, animals and cattle Acts, being
among the most advanced in the Dominion.
The fisheries of British Columbia, once the al-
most sole support of the native population and no
mean source of revenue to the Hudson's Bay
Company, are now a household word throughout
the world. Every species of salmon known to
the Pacific abound in its waters-the sockeye, the
spring, the cohoe, the humpback and the dog-
330

THE FISHERIES

salmon. The taking and preserving of these fish has
grown into the most distinctive, if not the greatest,
industry of the province. The mysterious four
years' absence of the sockeyes in the depths of the
Pacific, the teeming millions in which they return
to spawn and to die in the streams that gave them
birth, and the unique methods of capture and
manufacture, are familiar features. In 1897 and
1901, the two most productive years on record,
no less than 1,026,545 and 1,247,212 cases of
salmon ,vere put up in British Columbia. From
4,000 to 20,000 men are employed in the industry,
according to the season. Unfortunately, the pro-
vince is unable to reap the whole of the magni-
ficent harvest which her rivers yield. On their
return from the sea, the sockeyes pass for many
miles along the shores and islands of the United
States, where they are taken without let or hind-
rance by the canners of Puget Sound, who an-
nually secure a larger pack than British Colum-
bia herself and render any attempt at preservation
or regulation extremely difficult. But the salmon is
not the only food fish of British Columbia. Halibut
and herring yield an increa!:,ing return, the latter
under methods which promise a prosperous future.
'Vhale fishing, which in earJy days found the Sand-
wich Islands the most convenient centre, has as-
sumed great importance within the past two years
off 'Vancouver Island. For many years, also, Vic-
toria has been the headquarters of the sealing fleet
331

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

of Canada in the Northern Pacific, which yields a
considerable, though steadily decreasing, return.
From the pigulY efforts of the Hudson's Bay
Company in the sawing and marketing of IUlnber,
dependent almost wholly upon the demands of
the Russian and Northern Pacific trade, has
sprung up an industry that produces hundreds of
millions of feet annually and extends to Europe,
Asia, and South Alnerica, as well as meeting the
enormously increased demand arising from the set-
tlement of the Canadian prairies. Possessing per-
haps the greatest compact area of merchantable
timber on the North American continent, the
province, in the face of the general depletion, holds
her forest wealth as second only to her mines
. among her great natural resources, if the extra-
ordinary trade of 1906 and 1907 has not advanced
it to the premier place. A part from its abundance,
the magnificence of the growth attained by the
Douglas fir and the giant cedars of Vancouver
Island give an added value to the product, trees of
eight, ten and eleven feet diameter and three hund-
red feet in height, being not infrequently found.
Fires have occasioned an enormous and deplorable
waste, especially in the interior of the province
beyond the humid influence of the ocean; but in
this as in other respects the policy of the gov-
ernment has been enlightened, and under an im-
proved system of protection losses were never so
small as at present. What the general progress of
332

LUl\IBERING AND l\IINING

the industry has been, may be judged from the fact
that in 1888, the first year for which official statis-
tics are available, the number of mills in operation
was twenty-five, and the total cut 31,868,884 feet;
whereas in 1902 the number of mills had increased
to one hundred and five, and the annual cut to
281,945,866 feet, figures which have been nearly
doubled since the rapid settlelnent of l\fanitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta has created a new and,
for many years to come, a heavy market for the
products of the British Columbia forests. Up to
confederation it was estimated that the entire
ut
of the colony had not exceeded two hundred and
fifty million feet. l\Ieanwhile, the manufacture of
shingles has frequently reached half a billion yearly,
and the fleet required to transport the gro,ving
output to the foreign market has been lnultiplied
by several times.
But the leading asset of British Columbia has,
from the mOlnent of her birth in 1858, been looked
for in her wealth in mineral. The beginning of the
mining industry has been already described. It may
be said that in so far as placer mining is concerned,
the year 1863, with its total output of nearly four
millions in gold, has relnained the highest point to
which production has attained. Yet Cariboo in
1900 was still yielding $700,000, the new Atlin
district of the far north-west being the other
leading producer with a total of over $400,000.
But the days of the rocker and the sluice have
333

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

forever passed away, and the hope of the future
in these fields is in the great hydraulic processes,
established at enormous cost, which have already
been installed on the scenes of the excitement of
1860-5. The placers, however, now yield but a
small part of the annual harvest of mineral in
British Columbia. l\letalliferous lode mining, which
can scarcely be said to have been followed before
1891, and which now yields from the mines of the
Rossland, the Nelson, the Slocan and the Boundary
camps alone an annual product valued at $14,000,-
000, has become the great and foremost industry of
the province. In coal mining, the small beginning of
the Hudson's Bay Company on Vancouver Island
which has been duly noted and which in 1861
passed under the control of the " Vancouver Coal
l\lining and Land Company," has grown from year
to year until an annual production of over a million
and a half tons has been reached. In addition, the
fields of the Crow's Nest Pass began shipping in
1898, and have now a daily capacity of four thou-
sand tons, with almost unlimited resources in
areas to draw upon and markets to supply. Legisla-
tion of an enlightened character has accolnpanied
this great development. ]n 1877, child and female
labour undergroun
in coal mines was forbidden,
and in a series of enactments since, the safety of
employees has been guarded by every means
suggested by experience. The latest of these
enforce the eight hour day in the coal mines,
834

INDUSTRIAL PROBLEl\IS

metalliferous mines and smelters throughout the
provInce.
If lnanufacturing has had less incentive to growth
than the sister industries, the progress Dlade is far
from inconsiderable. In 1901 the Dominion cen-
sus showed a capital of $22,901,892 invested in
manufacturing in British Columbia, a total which
places the province fourth, after Ontario, Quebec
and Nova Scotia, in Canada. The session of the leg-
islature of 1908 has placed a Factories Act upon the
statute-book that constitutes perhaps the most ad-
vanced legislation of the kind in Canada to-day.
Industrial problelTIs of no mean order have fol-
lowed in the wake of this remarkable and steady
progress. In general, they have been those familiar
in communities where placer-gold or other great
natural resources are free to all. The spirit of buoy-
ancy, natural to a new and vigorous community, is
still reflected in the high prices of commodities and
in the high wages and shorter hours 'which "ride-
spread organization has been able to obtain for
labour. Population is less fixed than in older Can-
ada, and there is less of settled order in the general
industrial life. Nowhere in Canada have industrial
disputes been waged with greater bitterness and
violence than in British Columbia. This, however,
is but to say that the province, in spite of its
substantial achievements, is still in its infancy as an
industrial community, and that the impulse which
it obeys is western.

335

SIR JA1'.1ES DOUGLAS

The problem of Oriental labour is shared with
the rest of the Pacific coast. From the days of the
first rush of gold-seekers into the Fraser ,raIley, the
Chinese have been in the province. The first official
reference to their presence is found, in 1859, in a
report of the assistant g.old commissioner of the
district of Lytton, 'which 'was thought of sufficient
ilnportance to warrant transmission to the colonial
office. The first detachment numbered in the neigh-
bourhood of thirty. Trouble follo,ved almost Í1n-
mediately in their wake. The supplying of liquor
to the savages by the whites soon found a danger-
ous counterpart in their being furnished 'with arms
and ammunition by the Chinese, and when the min-
ers drove the latter away the result was to arouse
the open hostility of the Indians. The Chinese were
present in considerable numbers in the opening up
of Cariboo, working by their patient effort claims
that the white miner passed over in contempt. By
1881, they numbered 4,383. The period of the con-
struction of the Canadian Pacific Railway followed,
and by 1891 there were 9,129 Chinese in Canada.
But the heaviest influx began in 1895, between
which year and 1898 the average imlnigration of
Chinese amounted to 2,100 yearly. By 1901, the
total had reached 16,792, of wholn 14,376 accord-
ing to incomplete returns, remained in British
Columbia. A capitation tax of $50, later raised
to 8100, proved ineffectual to stem the tide. The
highest point of the movement was reached in 1900
336

ORIENTAI
Il\Il\fIGRATION

when over six thousand l\Iongolians landed in Brit-
ish Columbia between the months of January and
April alone. Thereupon a Royal Commission of en-
quiry,vas appointed by the Dominion governlnent,
in reply to a petition of the pro\yince, on whose re-
commendation the capitation tax was raised to
$500, since ,vhen the inflow has, until quite recent-
ly, wholly ceased. The ÏInmigrants are of the coolie
class entirely, and though not criminal are incapable
of assimilation, and live without family life in over-
crowded and unsanitary communities. The verdict
of the province at large is for the careful regulation
of the whole movement, though by the employers
of labour, especially those engaged in the extensive
works that accompany the development of a new
country, the cheap but inferior services of the
Chinese are in demand. 'fhe question of Japanese
immigration has arisen almost wholly in the past
decade. It may be said to have reached its solution
,vithin the past year as the result of a special
mission to .Japan of the
linister of Labour for
Canada. Still more recently the movement from
India has been restricted under an arrangement
concluded by the Deputy l\Iinister of Labour with
the government of Great Britain.
In this review of purely material progress no
mention has been made of the background of
provincial politics against which it has been carried
out. The truth is that the annals of political con-
troversy in British Columbia are not of widespread
337

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

interest. As in the days of Douglas, the issues that
have arisen have been of practical administration
almost wholly. For that reason, possibly, a lack of
leadership or even of constructive party organiza-
tion (marked contrast with the period of Douglas!)
has been a feature of the politics of British Co-
lumbia. As already mentioned, the building of the
Canadian Pacific Railway furnished matter for the
politicians of a decade, and the local issues which
arose in conjunction 'with the controversy with
the. Dominion were not always worthy of remem-
brance. Yet some exceedingly useful legislation has
been enacted, and in many respects the 'way has
been shown to the older provinces. Even in the
days of conflict 'with the Don1inion over the terms
of union, sufficient respite was obtained to allow
the original restrictions on the suffrage to be
abolished by a series of Acts dealing with qualifica-
tion and registration. After this, attention was paid
to municipal affairs, the administration of justice,
the providing of a revenue, the improvement of
communications, the establishment of a lands
policy, and other matters of vital import to the
development of the province.
Education may well demand a statement to
itself. A beginning, as we know, was made in the
Crown colony of ,r ancouver Island in the public
schools which 'were opened by the Hudson's Bay
Company in 1855, with the Rev. Edward Cridge,
the clergyman of the company, as the first honor-
338

EDUCATION

ary superintendent of education. Ten years after-
'wards, in 1865, a free school system was established
by the island assembly; but the population of
the mainland was still too sparse to admit of any
regular and organized system. Even on V ancou ver
Island the cost of schools did not exceed $10,000
per annUDl (the average pay of teachers being
$65.00 per month) and six of the eleven schools
established in 1865 had been forced by 1867 to
discontinue for lack of funds. By 1869, when the
united colonies passed legislation on the subject,
there 'were still only twelve schools in existence,
seven being on the island, while of a school
population estimated at two thousand, only three
hundred and fifty 'were at school. Teachers were
appointed without examination, and there 'was
no inspection. The end of this disorganized and
inefficient system caIne with the Act of 1872,
based largely, on the Ontario Act of 1846, but
modified to suit the immense area of the pro-
vince and the scattered nature of the population.
Under the improved conditions 'which immediately
followed, by 1874 there were over 1,200 names
on the various registers. By 1875 these had risen
to 1,685, the number of schools being forty-five and
of teachers fifty. At present the roll is over 78,000.
The consolidated Public School Act of 1876, the
Public School Act of 1879, and further amend-
ments and consolidations in 1885 and 1891 are
later milestones in the progress of education in the
339

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

province. The Victoria High School dates from
1876, and those of New Westminster, N anaimo and
Vancouver froln 1884, 1886 and 1890, respectively.
The crowning point of the system may be said to
have been reached in ] 906 with the establishment
of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of
Learning in British Columbia, in close affiliation
with one of the greatest of the universities of older
Canada, and 'with the passing of an Act in 1907
'whereby the University of British Columbia, first
prqjected in 1891, was granted a reservation of pro-
vincial lands for use at such time as it might be
thought desirable to proceed with its organization.
In 1908 that organization ,vas finally perfected
under special Act of the session.
Two important matters remain to be mentioned
in both of 'which the interests of the province
were prinlarily concerned, though the questions,
being international in scope, 'were dealt with by
Great Britain and the Dominion. These were
the controversies concerning jurisdiction in Beh-
ring Sea and with regard to the location of
the Alaskan boundary. The former arose from
the attempt of the United States to make of
Behring Sea a mare clausum, under the terms of
the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. Re-
lying on her interpretation of the Russian agree-
ments, seizures of a number of Canadian vessels
found sealing ,vithin those waters were made by
the United States in 1886, 1888 and 1889. On the
340

THE Al.ASKAN BOUNDARY

protest of Great Britain, the dispute was referred
to arbitration, and the award declared the seizures
to be unlawful, Russia having been proved never
to have made good her claim that the sea be-
tween Alaska and Siberia 'vas hers alone and
not a part of the great Pacific. The dispute con-
cerning the Alaskan boundary had been in pro-
gress for several years, and a joint commission
to locate the boundary had conducted surveys
during 1893-4. Here again the controversy pro-
per was one involving the interpretation of the
convention between Great Britain and Russia
in 1825. Did the line determining the thirty
miles of lisière provided for by the treaty go
around the inlets and interior waters of the coast
(including the Lynn Canal concerning which the
'widest divergence of views occurred and to which
the events arising out of the Yukon gold discover-
ies gave special prominence); or should it pass along
the summits of the mountain range nearest the
shore line, crossing all narrower waters? The de-
cision of 1903, arrived at after negotiations lasting
many months, and yielding nearly all to the United
States, still smoulders with the dissatisfaction
which it aroused in Canada. Nevertheless, with the
confidence born of power, the ending of uncertain-
ty has been accepted as a gain in British Colum-
bia, and the province is now enabled to bend her
energies, 'without disquietude as without vain re-
grets, to the splendid tasks of the future.
341

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

How, then, shall we of the present, looking
before and after, with knowledge of events of half
a century, pass judgment on James Douglas, the
man 'whose work and character make up the
early history of a region so great in itself (as time
has but begun to prove) and doubly great because
it brings to our people a share in the mighty
destinies of the Pacific?
Ijet us begin with a definition. Let us recall the
scale on which he wrought and something of the
essential nature of his task, and so preserve our
sense of proportion. It 'was not what one 'would call
a great scale; it 'was not, by several standards, a
great task. 'Ve are apt to be confused by the vast-
ness of the raw materials of statehood which passed
through his hands, and so forget the smallness of
the human part in its beginning, the few points
at which it touched its immense background of
nature, and the simple and elementary character of
the polity 'which first arose. Far off and isolated as
the colony was, and closely guarded by the sover-
eign power, here were no problems, save at widest
intervals, touching the rival interests of nations;
to make the obvious comparison with the eastern
colonies, there was here no feud of ruling races to
allay, no Family Compact to uproot, no Clergy
Reserve to divide, no complicated fiscal policy to
arrange. If difficulties such as these arose, even
in rudimentary form, they were settled apart from
Douglas, or their settlement deferred. He antedated
842

THE NATURE OF HIS TASK

the real political development of British Columbia,
and he dealt with no inherited conditions.
The truth is, he 'was almost 'wholly an admin-
istrator. Risen to be the leader of the great com-
mercial enterprise which had thrust its roots so
deeply into that virgin soil, the process of events
'which made him ruler under the Crown in British
Columbia 'was, 'when all is said, a change of masters
primarily. 'Vhile varying the ends to be attained,
and the means with which to secure them, it made
no vital alteration in those methods and principles
by which he had been wont to govern aU his
actions. The establishment of discipline and order
among the miners of the Fraser valley, the framing
of the rules by which the single occupation of the
inhabitants might be carried on, the building of
roads, the founding of cities, the financing of the
system as a whole-such were his practical cares.
It was as if some huge and novel enterprise,
reared upon the basis of a past that had van-
ished as if at a word, were placed for its develop-
ment in his charge, his powers unlimited in all the
multifarious concerns of management, but subject
in their larger action to the plans, the policy and
the approval of its original creator. The difficulties
and responsibilities of his position were indeed very
great; had they fallen into hands less competent,
had they fallen even into other hands at all, it
might almost be said they would have carried con-
fusion if not disaster to the colony. Yet 'with it all
343

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

the work of Douglas was that of a builder and
organizer, not that of an architect and creator in
the fashioning of British Columbia.
'Ve "rill do well, then, to remember that of
statesmanship in the broad and usual sense the
career of Douglas does not furnish an example.
How, in truth, should he have been a statesman?
From the days of his youth he had had to deal ,vith
naked fact-with the struggle first for bare ex-
istence, and later with the fierce and merciless
rivalry against which he had fought his "ray, step
by step and ,vith a stern enjoyment, until he stood
free and in full mastery of the huge concern to
which he had bound his fortunes. Alert and
studious as he "ras, there "ras still a great gulf fixed
between a training such as that and an apprentice-
ship to liberal statecraft. l\loreover, to repeat, it
"ras not to the exercise of statecraft he "ras called.
In the emergency of 18.58, Douglas had qualities of
a value to the country greater than any working
knowledge of the principles of constitutionalism.
From the school of forty years' service in the
Hudson's Bay Company he had derived an ex-
perience-minute as it was comprehensive, and
wholly "rithout parallel on the north-west coast-of
every problem of the British Columbia "rilderness.
That stern devotion to his duty, that perfection
of the organizing faculty, and that absolute n1astery
of detail which at all times characterized the mind
of Douglas, were a part of what the company had
344

HIS PERSONAL GIFTS

taught him. Gifts 'wholly personal were his tact,
his resourcefulness, his judgment, and the firmness
with 'which he could enforce his decisions. Aboy'e
all, he had the power, both by nature and by train-
ing, of ruling men. He was the one nlan of his time
and place of whom as much could be said. If, there-
fore, ,ve shall find hiIn often 'wrong in matters that
lay beyond his experience-narrow in his attitude
toward the foreigner, the British policy of no dis-
crimination being for long beyond his grasp; prone
to precipitation in certain phases of the affaÍr of
San Juan; mistrustful ever of popular government
(being, to a degree beyond that of the ordinary
idealist, a believer in benevolent despotism); opposed
even to confederation in his later years ;-and while
,ve shall have reason often to rejoice that the im-
perial curb was present in his administration; ,ve
shall never see him at a loss in any matter of the
actu::,J management of the colony or without the
courage of his convictions when he felt himself on
ground which was his own. And that is indeed
to praise him greatly. Confronted with an inrush
of the most ad venturous and irresponsible classes
in the world, rough and ungovernable 'when they
were not vicious, owning no law or authority save
that of their own rude customs, and powerful
enough to sweep all before them had they willed,
-the situation doubly embarrassed by the pro-
blem of the native races,- Douglas was able of
his own prestige and personality, without jot or
345

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

tittle of precedent whereon to base his action, to
turn aU to the upbuilding of the colony, estab-
lishing the law and sovereignty of Great Britain,
firmly maintaining order, organizing the new com-
munity on terms that 'won the support and con-'
fidence, where they might have looked only for the
enlnity, of the 'wild and uncouth masses which made
up the population, giving in short to the world at
large the spectacle of a gold-field ruled as it was
never ruled before, and laying the sure foundations
of a greater community to be. This 'was the crown-
ing achievement of Douglas carried out at no small
sacrifice of his own ease and fortune; never may we
cease to cherish appreciation of it.
I t is proper to add that no one was more con-
scious of his place in the political development of
British Columbia than 'was Douglas himself. At
sixty-one years old, in full possession of his powers,
with an experience of the country greater than that
of any other man, he chose to regard his public
career as ended, rather than to launch upon that
unknown sea on 'which the methods of all his past
'were to unlearn. For he 'was a product of the fur
trade, first and always. He ruled the colony as he
had ruled his company before. He could rule abso-
lutely, but he could not govern. Thus let him stand,
the greatest figure which the fur trade of Canada
ever gave to the order 'which came after it.
I t may be ,veIl to notice again. 'with this domin-
ance of the Hudson's Bay Company over the mind
846

DOUGLAS AND THE C01\fP ANY

of Douglas in view, a basis of attack that was
once of frequent use in the hands of his enemies.
He has been many times condenlned in that, while
governor of Vancouver Island and still in the chief
command of the company, he did not scruple to
turn his dual office to the sole advantage of the
commercial enterprise. But this is surely to misread
the situation. As a matter of fact, Douglas in his
capacity of governor and chief factor in one was
almost wholly the chief factor. It could not have
been otherwise. The British government was fully
cognizant and expected, probably, no more than
that the arrangement should secure, during an un-
settled and indeterminate interval, the recognition
of the imperial authority as supreme. This it did.
Even the illegal assumption of the control of the
Fraser in ] 858 tended to the imperial advantage,
though the more immediate object was the benefit
of the company. The subservience of the govern-
ment's interests was further emphasized by the
agreement which threw the expenses of administra-
tion upon the company. Anomalous as were the re-
lations thus created, they may not improbably have
saved the colony from greater evils. In any case
the charge of subordinating the interests of govern-
ment to those of the company so many times pre-
ferred by contemporary and later critics must be
laid at the door of the system rather than of Doug-
las. In the mainland colony no bitterness from this
cause arose. Notorious as was the singleness of pur-
347

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

pose with which the Honourable Company of Ad-
venturers trading into IIudson Bay pursued its
ends, and with which (so powerful was the influence
of that life of isolation and grinding discipline) it
was able to inspire its servants from the governor
down, no serious charge of favouritism was ever
brought home to Douglas once his relations with
the company were severed and he had pledged
himself to the sole service of the Crown. If he
never ceased to regard the company with that ex-
aggerated reverence which seems the inevitable re-
sult of having once risen in its service, this is only
to say that the force of nature was too strong for
him and that he could not rise superior to so subtle
and overwhelming an influence.
D pon the whole, however, if the testimony of
his own age be sought, it is greatly in his favour.
Of those whom he served, whether Crown or
company, the approval was never-failing. He was
indeed the most indefatigable, the most devoted,
and the most efficient of executive officers. The
confidence which the imperial government extended
to him, in the almost absolute power which it
placed in his hands, was of the highest of its kind.
1 t is not essential that we should attempt to fuse
the judgment of his other contemporaries. If he
won favour from those he served, it was not at the
expense of the mass of the people. Discontent
among the miners was not always silent, nor did
the attempt to levy tribute on their enterprise fail
348

HIS INFLUENCE WITH THE INDIANS

to encounter fierce resistance; yet with the adoption
of wiser counsels, as soon as he was free to do so,
Douglas gained a unique place in the miner's heart
for his even-handed justice and his strict protection
of their interests. But greater far as an achieve-
ment was the hold which he secured and main-
tained upon the Indians. To the simple nature
of the savage the gift of intuition has been added
in unusual measure. Noone more quickly recog-
nizes weakness; no one is readier to acknowledge
superiority. To win the Indian's confidence and
obedience requires not only constant tact and care,
it has need of a courage never known to waver and
of a strict integrity of purpose as the guiding prin-
ciple in every action. Especially was this the case
with the native races of British Columbia, who if
less warlike than their kindred of the plains,
ranked higher in all the moral qualities and were
proverbial for their honesty, their hospitality and
their chastity. Building upon the foundations which
the Hudson's Bay Company had established in
forty years of intercourse, Douglas attained much
more than the usual influence of trader and friend.
He became, as they called him, their father, to
whom under the slow and crushing weight of the
white invader they could look with the trustfulness
of children to temper, if he could not turn aside, the
bitterness of their fate. Thus by his personal author-
ity he gained what under other circumstances might
have cost the effusion of blood; and the colony saw
849

SIR JAl\IES DOUGLAS

none of the outrages that for years held the western
states in terror. Fear may at the first have formed
a portion of the awe which he inspired; but in the
end it was the justice and the kindliness of the
governor that won their confidence. By nature
crafty and suspicious, keen to resent intrusion, and
reticent of their strongest feeling, they never for
an instant questioned the perfect ascendency which
he had gained over their minds, even while they
saw their lands despoiled before their eyes or
snatched from their possession. Decimated though
they had been by the vices and diseases of civiliza-
tion, they were still in 1858, when they passed
beneath the British Crown, at least as strong in
numbers as the invaders who dispossessed them.
To the man who by the patient work of years
could hold in leash this formidable element, exas-
perated by a treatment which had often added
insult to injury, the debt of the young community
is not easily to be estimated.
In person Sir James Douglas was not of the
ordinary; the fact is of importance. It was a
personal rule he bore. Six feet and more in height,
but so well proportioned as not to seem beyond
the usual stature, erect in carriage, muscular,
measured and somewhat slow in his mO\7ements,
yet natural and graceful withal, he was easily the
most striking figure in the whole N orth- '-'Test.
As he grew older, says Bancroft, the long face
seemed to grow longer, the high forehead to grow
850

DOUGLAS AND J\lcLOUGHLIN

still more massive and the large and dear-cut
features to assume still bolder proportions, while
the firm and earnest purpose of the eyes and mouth
deepened into a seriousness akin to melancholy.
In a London thoroughfare as in a Canadian forest,
in a parliament of the nations as in a hut of the
fur traders, he would have fixed attention. Linked
with those outer traits were a reserve and dignity,
amounting often to hauteur, which a life-time of
command had made a part of the man. But the
cold and stern demean our, the slow, even lethargic,
manner, the formal and exaggerated courtesy, the
serious, not to say solemn, cast of thought, the
product of a widely Informed though not original
mind, expressed in a weighty, if not grandiose,
habit of speech, were tempered by a deep religious-
ness that breathed through all his actions and made
him to those who could pierce the inscrutable ex-
terior a revelation of sympathy and kindness. To
the people whom he ruled he was the personifica-
tion of justice clothed with power. In that wild
unsettled tÎ1ne, so s'wayed by the obvious and in-
stinctive, it was a happy setting for the qualities
demanded in a governor.
It has been the practice to compare him (not
at all points to his advantage) with l\IcLoughlin,
the other leader which the fur trade bred on the
Pacific slope; and the foil which the older man
presents to the younger and, it may be said, the
greater, has value of a striking kind in the at-
851

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

tempt to probe the inner recesses of the person-
ality of Douglas. Fashioned by the same life and
precepts, in the same iron mould of circumstance
and environlnent, inseparably wedded to ma-
terialism, there was inevitably much of similarity in
their character and in the manner in which they
achieved their results. In bent of mind, in outward
deportment, and in business methods, Douglas
copied largely from his master. Each nature, how-
ever, had qualities which marked it sharply from
the other. Temperamentally, l\IcLoughlin ,vas a
Celt; Douglas was a Saxon. l\lcLoughlin was quick,
impulsive, intuitional; Douglas was methodical,
conventional, exceedingly careful, and never to be
hurried. Without the warmth, the artlessness, the
spontaneity or the broad benevolence of l\lcLough-
lin, Douglas would win respect long before he
touched the affections. I t has been noted as a
characteristic difference that l\fcLoughlin could
flatter, but that Douglas could not, though in
diplomacy on a wider scale the latter was the
superior. l\lagnanimous and forgetful of self, l\lc-
Loughlin if he inspired fear and awe did so for his
masters; when his company's interests clashed
with his sense of humanity, it was the cOlnpany
and his own fortunes that had to suffer. Now
Douglas would be a party to no disloyalty however
virtuous; he never moved save toward success.
That was his duty as he saw it, and to duty he
could not be recreant. It is not that he ever failed
852

THE SUPRE!\IE VIRTUE

in justice, or in kindness where it was deserved;
but even righteousness and humanity were made
to yield their profit. \Vhen l\IcLoughlin fell, there
was no quixotic devotion to him on the part of
Douglas; he stepped into his place. If you were
asked why he should not, you would be puzzled
for an answer. You will never find Douglas in
the wrong; he was without the weaknesses of
which unworthiness is bred. His was a greater
intellect than l\lcLoughlin's, and he achieved a
greater destiny. N either ever did an ignoble act.
Side by side, as in life, their names shall go
down unsullied in the annals of the great north-
west.
I t comes, therefore, in the end, as we search
for the supreme virtue in the life and character
of Douglas, to a recognition of his plain effi-
ciency-that burning zeal, whatever the task in
hand, to do it in the way that shall be best, with
the sagacity to devise and the ability to carry out
the measures adapted to this end. Being what he
was, he would have risen to distinction, if not to
greatness, anywhere. He had the key that opens
every door, that of opportunity included. For how
can opportunity be created by any man save by
the preparedness and efficiency with which he faces
the ,vorld?
" A work is wanted to be done, and 10, the man
to do it!" Difficult and unexampled as was the
task of giving earliest form to British Columbia,
858

SIR JAIVIES DOUGLAS

the country itself produced the man who carried
it to a successful issue. The genius of Douglas \\?as
of our o\\rn ,vestern soil: let us remember that with
just pride. Let it be thought of happy augury to
the great province of the Pacific that in the most
dubious hour of her history she found within her-
self the leadership that brought her to safety and
enabled her to face her destiny unafraid.

354

INDEX

A
ABERDEEN, Earl of, 183
Addington, Henry, British com is-
missioner in the Oregon bound-
ary dispute, 154, 163
Ag-riculture, in British Columbia,
78, 113, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136,
185, 256, 316, 329
Alaska, trade with, 78. See also
Russia
Alaskan boundary question, the,
118, 283, 341
Alexandria, Fort, 98
Aliens, rights of, 244. See al
()
Foreigners
Allan, Sir Hugh, 321
Allarçon, explorer, 6
American Civil 'Var, 281, 282
Amor de Cosmos, 271, 306-8
Anderson, A. C., 117, 120, 186,
217, 222
Annexation with United States, dis-
cussed, 311, 323
Anian, strait of, 2, 9, 15, 19
Antler Creek, 287
Ashburton, Lord, 156
Ashlev, American trader, 134
Assembly, Vancouver Island, 208.
See also Legislature
Astor, John Jacob, 68
Astoria, 4, 64, 65, 71, 133, 148,
149, 150, 160, 161, 163
Athabaska Pass, discovered, 58
Aurora claim, the, 287

INDEX

B

BABINE, Fort, 98
Babines, the, an Indian tribe, 97
Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, Spanish
discoverer, 5, 91
Bancroft, Herbert H., quoted, 10.5,
198, 283, 352
Baranoff, Alexander Andreyevitch,
Russian governor, 43, 44, 45
Barkerville, 287
Baynes, Rear-Admiral, 245
Bear Lake, 104
Beaver, the, 178, 179, 180, 181, 185
Beaver Harbour, 204
Beg
ie, Sir Matthew Baillie, judge
of British Columbia, early Hfe,
appointed chief-justice of British
Columbia and Vancouver Island
in 1866, his work in the colony,
239; his journey to the LTpper
Fraser and his impressions, 254,
255; his stern and impartial jus-
tice, 255
Behring Sea dispute, the, 283, iJ40
Behring, Vitus, navigator, 39, 40
Billings, Joseph, 26
Blanshard, Richard, first governor
of the colony, 199; his tenure of
office, 203-5
Bodeg-a y Quadra, see Quadra
Bolduc, Jesuit missionary, 140, 178,
179
Bonneville, American trader, ]35
Boston, destruction of the, 37

357

SIR JAl\lES DOUGLAS

Boundary, Bee Alaskan boundary,
Oregon boundary, San Juan
affair
Bow River Pass, discovered, 58
Brew, Chartres, 239
Brigades, the, 82
British Columbia, origin of, 1;
name, 57; organization, 229; cou-
stitution of colony, 231, 232; in
1858, 241,242; dissatisfaction iu,
289-95; wealth of, at Confedera-
tion, 316; later progress iu, 311
et seq.
Broughton, Lieutenant, explores the
Columbia, 24, 34, 161
Buchanan, President, 156

C
CABRILLO, Spanish explorer, 6
Cadboro, the, 116, 180, 185, 188
Calhoun, represents the United
States on the Oregon boundary
question, 156, 164
California, coasted, 6, 7, 12, 15;
garrisoned by Spain, 13; Russia
in, 44; Hudson's Bay Company
in, 125-7
Callicum, native chief, 27
Cameron, David, first chief-justice
of the colony, 200, 217
Camosun, Indian village, 175, 176
Campbell, Archibald, United States
commissioner on the A I ask a
boundary question, 278
Campbell, Robert, explorer, 123-5
Canada, cession of, 62
Canadian Pacific Railway, 313, 315,
317-27
Canneries, the British Columbia,
331. See a180 Fishing
858

Canning, Stratford, rep re s e n ts
Great Britain on the Oregon
boundary dispute, 154
Capital of British Columbia, selec-
tion of, 246, 299, 300, 311
Cariboo, 254; gold discovered in,
271, 284-9, 298
Cariboo wagon road, the, 253
Carey, G. H., 239
Carnarvon terms, the, 320, 322
Carriers, the, 97
Carver, Jonathan, 19, 56
Cassiar, 286, 287
Castlereagh, Lord, 150
Cavendish, Sir Thomas, English
sailor, 8
Cedar Creek, 286
Charles, 'Villiam, 265
Chilcotin Indians, 97, 267
China, emporium for furs, 22; trade
with, 70
Chinese, 291, 336, 337
Chinook j!lrgon, the, 268
Clark, see Lewis and Clark
Clatsop, Lewis and Clark at, 67
Clayoquot, 33
Clergy Reserves, 270, 271, 273, 274
Clover Point, 177
Coal mining, 78, 190, 334
Colnett, Captain, explorer, 22
Colonist, the, newspaper, founded,
271, 306, 308
Colonization, progress of, in Amer-
ica, 2, 12. See also Settlement,
Immigration
Columbia River, seen by Heceta,
14; discovered by Gray, 24; de-.
scended by Thompson, 58
Columbia, voyage of the, 23, 24
Colville, Fort, 116, 222

Committee of House of Commons
on Hudson's Bay Company, 201-3
Confederation, 311 et seq.
Conolly, '\ïlliam, chief factor, 99
Conolly, Fort, 104
Constitution of British Columbia,
231
Contiguity, as a claim to lOVe-
rei
nty, 163
Convoy, the, 136
Cook, Captain James, English navi-
gator, 14, 19; arrives on the
north-west coast of North Amer-
ica (1778), 20; explores the coast
from the 45th parallel to the
Arctic Ocean, 20, 21; killed in
the Sandwich Islands (1779), 21 ;
mentioned, 50, 148, 160
Cook's Inlet, discovery of, 21
Cooper, James, 197, 204
Co-operation, in road building, 238,
250, 261
Coppermine River, discovered, ðl
Coronada, Francis
o Vasquez de,
Spanish explorer, 7
Cortez, 6
Cosmos, Amor de, Bee Amor de
Co
mos
Cottonwood River, the, 287
Council, established on Vancouver
Island, 204, 207; of British Co-
lumbia, established, 294; abolish-
ed, 315
Cowlitz River, agriculture on the,
130, 301
Council, legi
lative, of British Co-
lumbia, 231, 294
Couteau mines, the, 223
Cowichans, the, Indian tribe, 182
Crosby, Thomas, 270

INDEX

Crown lands, 240, 291
Crow's Nest Pass coal mines, 334
Crow's Nest Pass Railway, 327
Cunningham Creek, 287
Currency, United States, legalized,
273
Customs duties, see Duties, Tariff,
Taxation
Cutler, American settler on San
Juan, 280, 281

D

DAIRYING, 330. See a!".o Agricul-
ture
Dallas, A. G., son-in-law of Douglas
and governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company at \Vinnipeg, 103, 200;
president of the Victoria board of
management, 265
Dease, H.B.C. factor and explorer,
285
Dease, Fort, 124
Debt, colonial, 262. See also Fin-
ance
Demers, Rev. Father, Jesuit mis-
sionary, 141, 269
Déné Indians, 97
Derby (New Langley), 246
Dewdney, E, minister of the in-
terior for Canada and later lieu-
tenant-governor of British Co-
lumbia, 252, 253
Dewdney trail, the, 253
Discovery, as a claim to sovereign-
ty, 159, 160
Dixon, Captain, fur trader, 22
Douglas, Sir James, his place in
western history, 84-6; character.
istics, 87-9; birth, parentage and
education, 91-3; joins the North-
359

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

West Company, 93-4; in New
Caledonia, 96t 99, 100-9; his
marriage, 103; is sent to Fort
Vancouver, 110, 112, 113; activ-
ities there, 121-2; in California,
126; succeeds McLoughlin, 144;
founds Victoria, 175-80; removes
to Victoria, 188; his relations
with Blanshard, 203; appointed
governor of Vancouver Island t
205; nature of his rule, 207-8;
summons a legislature, 209 j his in-
aug-ural speech, 211-16; adminis-
tration of justice, 218; his reports
on g-old discoveries, 219,220,222,
223t 228; his relations with the
miners, 226; visits the .Fraser,
227; appointed governor of British
Columbia, 229t 230; his powers,
231,234,235; appointments, 240;
second visit to the Fraser t 243,
244; sworn in as g-overnor, 245,
246; builds the first trail to the
digg-ings, 249-5:2; sub se que n t
roads, 252-4; third visit to the
Fraser, 256t 257; his financial
policy t 258-62; his attitude to the
Hudson's Bay Company, 263,
264, 346-8; his disputes with the
Vancouver Island assembly, 272,
273; the San Juan affair, 275-83;
retires as governor of Vancouver
Island t 289; dissatisfaction with
dual governorship, 289t 290; his
views 011 representative govern-
ment for British Columbia, 292-4;
opens the British Columbia as-
semblYt 296; retires from gover-
norshipofBritish Columbia,300-7;
visits Europe, 308-9; his death,
860

310; review of his work and char.
acter, 342-54:
Douglas, Captain William, 27, 28
Douglas fir, the, 332
Drake, Sir Francis, 7, 8, 16, 147
Dufferin, Lord, 323
Duncan, Captain, 22
Duncan, 'Villiam, Church of Eng-
land missionary, 270
Dunn, John, 117
Durham, Fort, 122
Duties, import, 232, 291

E

EDGAR t SIR JAMES, 320
Edinburgh Review, the, on Oregon,
170
Education, 215, 271, 296, 338, 339
Election, first, on Vancouver Island,
210, 274
Electoral distriets, B.C., 315
Elisa, Spanish explorer, his attempt
to explore the strait of Juan de
Fuca, 25, 26
England, see Great Britain
Esquimalt t 175
Essington, Fort, 118
Etoline, Adolphus, Russian g-over-
nor, 45, 122
Expenditures, public t 216, 258, 295.
See also Finance

F
FACTORIES ACT t the B.C. t 335
Fidalgo, 26
Financial condition of British Co-
lumbia, 216, 258, 262t 295. See
also Revenue
Finlayson, Roderick, chief factor of
the Hudson's Bay Company, 117;

with the force that took posses-
sion of Fort Stikine, 122; takes
charge at Fort Camosun, 181-3;
appointed head accountant of the
,"Testern Department, 188-9; in-
cluded in Douglas's council of
advisers, 207; member of the first
British Columbia council, 217
Finlayson, Lake, 124
Fishing, ill New Caledonia, 101,102;
at Langley, 116, 129, 136, 330
Florida treaty, the, 153. 165
Fonte, Admiral de, 19, 22
Foreigners, status of, 219, 220,231,
255, 258
Forts, plan of Hudson's Bay Com-
pany's, 82
Fox, Charles James, 32
Frances, Lake, discovered, 124
Franklin, Sir John, 103
Fraser, Simon, operations in New
Caledonia, 59; descends the Ta-
couche Tesse, 60, 61; as..,urnes
command of the Red River De-
partment, 98; his death, 98
Fraser, Fort, 98
Fraser route, the, 186
Free trade, on Vancouver Island,
293
French Revolution, the, 17, 31
Friendly Cove, Spanish settlement
at, 26; visited by Meares, 26, 27
Fruit growing, 330
Fuca, Juan de, voyage of, 8, 9
Fur trade, in sea-otter, 22; status
of, 161, characteristics of; 73-82.
See al80 Hudson's Bay Company

G
GALIANO, Lieutenant, 3ð

INDEX

Gallatin, representative of the United
States ill the Oregon boundary
dispute, 151, };).!, 158, 161, 170
Galvez, Spanish governor, 13, 15
George, Fort, 98
George, Fort (Astoria), 149
German Emperor, arbitrator in the
San Juan affair, 283
Ghent, Treaty of, 149, 151, 16.5
Glenora, Fort, 121
Gold, discovery of, in California,
189; on the Fraser, 208, 221-8;
in Queen Charlotte IslandEl, 219;
yield of, 256. See also Cariboo
Gold Harbour, 221
Gold Mines Act of 1859, 261
Gordon, Hon. John, 183
Goulburne, representative of Great
Britain on the Oregon boundary
dispute, 151
Grahame, James A., 265
Grant, President, 283
Grant, UT, Colquhoun, 196
Gray, Captain, of Boston, 23; dis-
covers the Columbia River, 24,
57, 148, 160, 161
Great Britain, in the Pacific, rights
of, on north-west coast, 7,10, 11,
16, 18, 29, 30, 61, 148. See also
Chap. V, øeriatim
Great Northern Railway, 328
Greenhow, American historiogra-
pher, 155, 169
Grey, Earl, 220
Grouse Creek, 287

H
HALKETT, Fort, 123
Hanley, "T. 'Vymond, collector of
Customs, 239

361

SIR JA1\IES DOUGLAS

Hanna, James, first trader in sea.
otter, 22
Harmon, 98
Harney, General, commander of the
military department of Oregon,
281,282
Haro archipelago, the, 276, 277,
280
Haro, Canal de, 276, 279
Harvey Creek, 287
Hearne, Samuel, 61, 63
Heceta, Spanish explorer, 14, 67,
148
Helmcken, J. S., speaker of the
leg is I a ture and son-in-law of
Douglas, arrives in Victoria, 189;
member for Esquimalt, 210, 217;
re-elected to the parliament of
Vancouver Island, 274
Hill's Bar, Douglas at, 227; affair
of, 247, 248
Hindu immigration, 337
Hope, voyage of the, 25
Hope, Fort, 186
Hope, miners at, 227
Horsefly Creek, 286
Hours of labour, in mines and
smelters, 334
Howe's Pass, discovered by Thomp.
son, 58
Hudson's Bay Company, traders
and explorers of, 4; it rules the
interior, 12; explorers on behalf
of the company, 61; absorbs the
North-\Vest Company, 73, 162;
leading characteristics, general
system and policy, 73-8
; some
prominent members of, 83-6; ex-
tension of trade, 114 et aeq.; tries
to secure a foothold in California,

362

125-7; its relations with the Puget
Sou n d Agricultural Company,
] 29-31; its policy with the United
States settlers, 143-5; its acquisi.
tion of Vallcouver Island, colon-
ization and civil government, 191-
205; its officers elected to the
first parliament 0 f Vancouver
Island, 217; its license in British
Columbia revoked, 229, 233; a
warning against favouritism, 240;
its relation to the colony, 262;
its internal history since 1859,
265,266; the San Juan affair, 275-
83; Douglas's forty years service
in, 344, 346, 347, 349
Huskisson, representative of Great
Britain in the Oregon boundary
dispute, 154, 163

I

IMJlIIORATION, to Oregon, 138-43,
156, 192; to Vancouver Island,
195-206; Oriental, to British Co.
lumbia, 336-8
Indians, encounters with, by early
traders, 37; relations with, 79, 80,
214, 220, 233, 243, 266-7, 296;
Douglas's influence over, 350
Industrial developments, early, 78;
later, in British Columbia, 329-35
Ingraham, American explorer, 25

J

JAPANESE immi
ration, 337
Jargon, the Chinook, 268
Jefferson, Thomas, character of, 64;
policy of, 65, 66, 67, 169
Jesuits, the, 3, 12; in Oregon, 138;
in British Columbia, 269

J e sup, G e n era I, report of, on
Oregoll, 163, 164
Juan de Fuca, Spanish explorer, 8,
9, 22
Justice, administration of, in British
Columbia, 215,216, 217, 255

K
KAMLOOPS, 98, 222
Kamtchatka, fur trade in, 38
Keithley Creek, 287
Kelly, of Boston, his scheme of col-
onization, 135, 136
Kendrick, Captain, 23, 24
Kennedy, Arthur, a p poi n t e d
governor of Vancouver Island,
289
Kennedy, John E., member of Van-
couver Island's first assembly,
210, 217
Kootenay district, first explored by
Thompson, 58
Kootenay trail, the, 253, 298
Krusenstern, Russian navigator,
his explorations, 46

L

LABOUCHÈRE, British colonial secre-
tary, 209, 210
Labour, condition of, in British Co-
lumbia, 316; in mines, 334, 335.
See also 'V a
s
Langford, Captain, bailiff of the
Puget Sound Company, 199; his
grievances, 199, 200; elected a
member of Vancouver Island's
first assembly, but, lackin
the
necessary qualifications, is dis-
placed, 210, 211
Laílgley, conditions at, 227

INDEX

Langley, Fort, 116, 245
La Pérouse, French naval officer,
25
Ledyard, John, 68
Lee, Jason, 137, 140
Legislature, opening of, in Van-
couver Island, 212-6; in British
Columbia, 315
Lemaire, Dutch navig-ator, 5
Lewis and Clark, their expedition
to the mouth of the Columbia,
64, 160; in command of Jeffer-
son's great expedition across the
continent, 60-9, 148
Liard, River, ascent of the, 123
Liard, Fort, 123
Library, the first, in British Co-
lumbia, 1 I 7
Licenses, liquor, 244; mining, 261
Lighthouses, 258, 260
Lightning Creek, 287
Lillooet road, the, 252
Liquor, sale of, 243, 244
Lots, price of, 244, 246, 247
Louisiana, passes to Spain, 13;
ceded to France, 63; boundaries
of, 64; purchase of, 63,64, 66, 67,
150, 153, 167, 168
Lowhee Creek, 287
Lumbering, 128, 332
Lytton, Lord, 227, 231

M
MACDONALD, SIR JOHN A., 321, 324-
Mackay, J. "T., 211, 217
Mackenzie, Alexander, prime min-
ister of Canada, 321-3
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 51, 52;
traces the Mackenzie River, 53;
crosses to the Pacific, 54, 148
368

SIR JAl\fES DOUGLAS

McGowan, ex-judge of California, a
participant in the Hill's Bar af-
fair, 248-9
McKay, 83, 95, 187
McLean, quoted, 106, 222
McLeod, Fort, 97
McLeod, John, ascends the Liard,
123
McLoughlin, Dr. John, 84, 94, 95,
Ill, 114, 139-42, 144, 187, 351,
352
McLoughlin, Jr., John, 122
McLoughlin, Fort, 117, 178
McNeill, Captain, 117, 176
McTavish, Dugald, 265
Magellan, Fernando, Portuguese
navigator, 6
Mails, transport of, 233. See al80
Postage
Maldonado. Pedro Nunez, 6
Manson, Donald, in command of
Fort McLoughlin, 117; with Tol-
mie founds the first circulating
library on the Pacific coast, 117,
118; rules in New Caledonia for
twelve years, 285, 286
Manufacturing, in B r i tis h Co-
lumbia, 335
Maquinna, native chief, 27
Marchand, Etienne, explores the
north-west coast, 25
Marco Polo, Venetian traveller, 2
Martinez, Estevan J osé, 13, 28
Meares, Captain, 22, 26, 27, 28
Melaspina, Spanish explorer, 25
Mendoza, Spanish explorer, 6
Metlakahtla, 270
Mexico, conquest of, 3, 6, 6; agree-
ment of Hudson's Bay Company
with, 126, 127 .
864

Michaux, André, 68
Milton, Viscount, 317
Mines, gold, Bee Gold
Mining, regulation of, 261; progress
of, 333
Missionaries, 2, 114; in Oregon,
136-42; in British Columbia, 269
Mitchell Harbour, 221
Moody, Colonel, 236, 238, 247, 248,
252, 254
Monroe, Alexander, 265
Monroe, doctrine, the, 154, 167
Moresby Island, gold on, 221
Morice, Father, quoted, 107
Muir, John, 190, 210, 217
Mumford, Fort, 121
Musgrave, Anthony, a p poi n t e d
governor, 314

N

NAHANAIS, Indian tribe, 97
Nanaimo, 190, 191
Napoleon, mentioned, 17, 18
Needham, Chief-Justice, 239
Nelson, Fort, 123
New Albion. 8
New Caledonia, 56, 97-9, 160. See
also Cariboo
Newcastle, Duke of, 271
New Langley, 246
New Westminster, 247, 292, 298
Nez Percés, Indian tribe, 136, 137,
139
Nicommen, gold at, 222
Nisqually, agriculture at, 131
Nootka, discovered by Cook, 20;
trade at, 268
Nootka affair, the, 26, 27, 28, 31,
32, 35, 36, 160, 166
North American Fur Company, 134

North- West America, launching of
the, 28
North-'Vest Company, the, traders
and explorers of, 4; its organiza-
tion, object and success, 5], 52;
three noted ewployees of, 57 et
seq.; its connection with the
Pacific Fur Company, 70, 71;
absorbed by the Hudson's Bay
Company, 73
North-".est passage, search for
the, 13, 17, 19, 50, 51. See aMO
Anian, Strait of, and Chapter It
8e1'iatim

o
OGDEN, P. S., 120, 126, 187, 265,
285
Qkana
n, 186
Omineca, gold in, 286, 287
Oregon, origin of the name, 56;
possession of, 62; Eettlement of,
138-43
Oregon boundary, 143, 145, 147-
74, 275. See aMo San Juan
affair
Oreg-on City, 187
Oregon River, reported by Carver,
19, 57
Orient, short route to the, 2, 6,
17
Oriental immig-ration, 336-8
Overland discovery, 49 et 8eq.
Owybee, the, 136

P
PACIFIC Ocean, early voya
es in, 3,
4, 12, 18 et seq.
Pacific Fur Company, 68, 69, 70,
71, 134, 152

INDEX

Pacific Mail Company, 226
Pakenham, British Ambassador to
the United States, 156
Pambrun, 99
Parker, Presbyterian missionary,
137
Parliament buildings, at Victoria,
272
Peace River, ascended by Mac-
kenzie, 54; by Fraser, 59
Pearkes, Geor
e, 244
Pelly River, discovered by Camp-
bell, 124
Pemberton, J. D., 210, 240
Perez, Juan, 13, 14, 148
Peru, conquest of, 3, 5
Pilcher, 135
Pitt, 'Villiam, 31
Pizarro, Francisco, Spanish ad-
venturer, 5
Political conditions, in British Co-
lumbia, 337, 338
Polk, James K., 157
Population of British Columbia,
291, 294, 328, 329
Porcupine River, 125
Portlock and Dixon, fur traders,
discover the separation of the
Queen Charlotte group from the
mainland, 22
Portugal, ri
hts of, in America, 10,
27
Postage, 233, 313, 314
Prescription, right of, 167
Prevost, Captain, 278, 283
Prices at Victoria, 225; at the Fraser
di
ging-s, 242, 243; of lots, 244,
246, 247; in Cariboo, 288
Prince of "'ales Island, 118
Prince \Villiam's Sound, visited by
865

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS

Quadra, 15; discovered by Cook,
21
Printing, first on Pacific coast, 138
Promishleniks, the, 41
Public lands, administration of, 291.
See also Crown lands
Puget Sound Agricultural Com-
pany, 129-31
Puritans, the, 3

Q
QUADRA, BODEGA Y, voyage of, in the
Sonora, 14; represents Spain in
the N ootka affair, 32, 33; death
of, 34
Qualifications of electors, 209, 210
Queen Charlotte Islands, visited by
Perez, 14; by Portlock and
Dixon, 22; by "Tilliam Douglas,.
28; gold discovered on, 219, 220
Queensborough, 247
Quesnel, Morris, 60
Quesnel, River, gold discovered on
the, 284, 285, 286
Quimper, Lieutenant, 25, 148

R
Raccoon, the, 149
Rae, 'V. G., 122, 127
Railways in British Columbia, 327.
See also Canadian Pacific Rail-
way
Reciprocity Treaty, 213
Reformation, the, influence of, on
colonization, 2
Renaissance, the, influence of, 2
Representative government, on
Vancouver Island, 208; in British
Columbia, 292-4. See also Legis-
lature

366

Revenue, 297
Revillagigedo Islands, discovered, 6
Richards, Captain, 278
Roads, building of, 238, 243, 24!),
257, 305, 328
Robinson, representative of Great
.Britain in the Oregon boundary
dispute, 151
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, 134
Rocky Mountain Portage, 97
Rosario Strait, 276, 279
Ross, Charles, in command at Fort
McLoughlin, 117; dies in com-
mand at Fort Camosun, 181
Ross Settlement, the, 44
Royal Engineers, the, their duties,
232; commanded by Co Ion e 1
.Moody, 236; arrive at Victoria,
238; take part in the Hill's Bar
affair, 247-9; they build a wagon
road from Harrison to the Upper
Fraser, 252; and the Cariboo
road, 253, 254; their work com-
pleted, they disband, 2,1')4
Royalty on gold proposed, 26]
Rupert, Fort, 190
Rupert, Prince, of England and
Bohemia, 73
Rush, representative of the United
States in the Oregon boundary
dispute, 151, ]54
Russia, occupies Alaska, 4, 12, ]7,
32, 37-46; trade rivalry with,
114-19; treaties with, 128, 153
Russian American Company, or-
ganized, 43, 45

S
ST. ELIAS, Mount, sighted by
Quadra, 15

INDEX

St. James, Fort, 98
Salmon, see Fishing
Sandwich Islands, visited by Cook,
21; by Vancouver, 34; trade
with, 78, 184
San Francisco, Hudson's Bay Com-
pany at, 127
San J uan affair, the, 275-83
Santiago, voyages of the, 13, 14,
15
"Sapperton," 247
Sealing, 331
Sea-otter, 21, 22, 40, 148
Seaport, to be established, 232, 258
Sekanais, the, Indian tribe, 97,
104
Selkirk, Fort, 124
Settlement Act of 1884, 324
Settlement of new territory, 159;
of Vancouver Island, 195-205
Seymour, Frederick, a p poi n t e d
governor of British Columbia,
29.5, 311, 312
Siberia, conquest of, 17, 38; fur
trade in, 38
Simpson, Fort, 116, 120
Simpson, Fort, on the Liard, 125
Simpson, Sir George, 109, 127
Skag'Ïts, Indian tribe, 182
Skeen a River, gold on the, 221
Smith, Donald A., (Lord Strath-
cona), in the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, 265; drives the last spike
of the C.P.R., 326
Smith, Jedidiah, Am e r i can fur
trader, 126, 133, 134
Songhies, the, Indian tribe, 177
Sonora, voyage of the, 14, 15
Sovereignty of new territory, how
acquired, 1õ9

Spain, conquers Mexico and Peru,
3, 5; national character of, 4, 11;
early voyages of, õ, 6; claims of,
in the New'Vorld, 10j colonial
policy of, 11; activity of, 13, 14,
15, 25, 26, 29, 3.5, 147, 148, 153,
165. See also Florida Treaty,
Oregon boundary, Louisiana
Spaulding, American missionary to
Oregon, 137, 140
Staines, Rev. R. J., chaplain to the
Hudson's Bay Company, 188, 189
Stikllle, occupation of the, 119,120,
121
Stikine, Fort, 122
Strathcona, Lord, see Smith, Donald
A.
Stuart, John, 60, 98
Stuart Lake, discovered, 98

T

TACOUCHE TESSE, discovered by
Mackenzie, 54; descended by
!<'raser, 59
Taku, Fort, 121, 122, 178
Tariffs, 232. See also Revenue
Taxation, 290, 291. See also Revenue
Telegraphs completed, 298
Texas, 164
Thompson, David, õ7; his dis-
coveries, 58
Tipping', Captain, 22
Tod, John, of Fort .McLeod, 99,
100, 105, 204
Tolmie, \\r. F., in charg'e of Fort
Ic-
Loughlin, 117; with 1\1 a n son
founds thp first circulating library
on the Pacific coast, 117, 118
Tonquin, the, voyage and destruc-
tion of, 37, 71

367

SIR JAl\:1ES DOUGLAS

Town sites, 240, 244, 246
Trade, early expansion of, 114;
growth of, 184, 316
Transportation, see Roads, Rail-
ways, Canadian Pacific Railway,
etc.
Treaties, between England and
Russia, 118, 120, 121; wit h
l\1exico, 127. See also Florida,
Ghent, Utrecht
Treaty rights in Oregon, 165, 166
Trutch, Hon. J. 'V., first lieu-
tenant-governor of British Co-
lumbia, 3
6
Tsilalthach, Indian chief, 182
Tsoughilam, Indian chief, 182
Tyler, President, 156
Tzoelhnolle, a Fraser Lake Indian,
105-7

u

ULLOA, ANTONIO DE, 6
Umpqua, Fort, 132
Union of the colonies of British
Columbia and Vancouver Island,
29.5, 297 -300
United States, explores the north-
west coast, 18, 23, 61. See a180
Oregon boundary, San Juan af-
fair, California
University of British Colq,mbia, 340
Utrecht, Treaty of, 10

V

VALDEZ, Lieutenant, 35
Vancouver, city of, 326, 327
Vancouver, Fort, 110, 113, 132, 187
Vancouver, George, English navi-
gator, 17, 19; appointed British
commissioner in the Nootka af-
fair, 32, 33; explores the whole
368

north-west shore line, 34; hi!
friendship with Quadra cement-
ed in the naming of "Quadra
and Vancouver Island," 35
Vancouver Island, naming of, 35;
acquired by Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, 191-206; conditions in, 271-
3, 293. See a180 Chap. VII, seri-
atim
Vanschouten, Dutch navigator, 6
Victoria, founding of, 146, 175-8;
growth of, 198, 224, 271, 290,
298; selected as capital, 311
Vizcaino, Sebastian, Spanish navi-
gator, 12, 13, 35, 148

W
W ADDDlNGTON, ALFRJl.:D, 317
\V
es, 244, 267, 316
War of 18J2, mentioned, 71, 149
'Vebster, Daniel, 170
West, Rettlement of the, 65
'Vestern Department of the Hud-
son's Bay Company, defined, 76-
8, 265
"r estern history, beginning of, 1
'Vhaling, 184, 331
'Vhitman, Presbyterian missionary,
137, 138, 187
Willamette, agriculture on the, 130;
Lee on the, 137; government
erected on the, 143
Willow River, gold on the, 287
\Vinnipeg, becomes centre of \Vest-
tern Department, 265
'V ork, John, his expedition into the
wilds of Oregon, 132; member of
the Victoria board of manage-
ment, 265
W rangell, Baron, 45, 120

Wyeth, American trader, 135

Y

YALE, J. M., 99; in command at Fort
George, ] 05
Yale, Fort, 186

INDEX

Yates, Joseph, 210
Yerba Buena Cove, 127
York boats, 82
Yukon, Fort, 125
Yukon, River, descended by Camp.-
bell, 124, 125

369

MAKERS OF CANADA

F
5054
. M34
v. 20

AUTHOR

Sir James Douglas

TITLE
I I

H.JæR3 OF CANADA

Sir James Douglas

F
5054
.1--134 "
v.20