making him sponsor-general to a motley crowd of the vilest of the vile, whom the chaplain insisted on baptizing in his character of missionary, more than offset the dinners.
While Beaver baptized reluctant heathen, white red and mixed, in the intervals of his hunting and other amusements, Mrs Jane Beaver held herself scornfully aloof from the wickedness of private life at Fort Vancouver. When she had been present about six weeks, there arrived from across the continent two other white women, wives of missionaries also, who remained as guests of the company from September to November, and who soon made themselves acquainted with its social life, not in the manner of Mrs Beaver, but in a humble, kindly way, which won for them the deference of every gentleman from the governor down.
Finally, in January 1837, Mr Beaver had the satisfaction of celebrating the church of England marriage-service at the nuptials of James Douglas and Nelia Connolly. McLoughlin too thoroughly despised Beaver to submit to remarriage at his hand, but to quiet the scandal which the chaplain so loved to scatter in Europe, he had the civil rite performed by Douglas in his capacity of justice of the peace. Whereupon, in the nostrils of Mrs Beaver the social atmosphere of Fort Vancouver became somewhat purified of its aboriginal stench, though to the pure-minded and chivalrous gentlemen of the fort the Beavers were far more obnoxious than the aboriginals.
Beaver returned to England in 1838, having been an inmate of the fort a year and a half. His departure was hastened by an unusual outburst of the doctor's disgust. It was the chaplain's duty to forward a written report to the London council, which he was required to place in McLoughlin's hands before sending. On reading one of these reports, the contents so incensed the doctor that he demanded an explanation on meeting the writer in the fort yard. The reverend gentlemen replied: "Sir, if you wish
