This murderous attack upon travellers caused no small excitement at Fort Vancouver. An expedition was proposed to destroy the savages, but the scheme was not undertaken, and it was left for American settlers, miners, and United States troops to consummate the destruction of this tribe at a later date.
If John McLoughlin for political or commercial reasons, or Jason Lee for other cause, had thought to discourage the settlement of the Willamette Valley by independent parties from California or elsewhere, they must ere now have been convinced of the hopelessness of such an effort. McLoughlin, at least, was wise enough gracefully to accept the situation, and extend a helping hand—a conciliatory course for a time imitated by Lee with good results. As to Ewing Young, though Governor Figueroa in due time returned a letter of exculpation, explaining that the real thieves had attached themselves to Young's party, but on finding themselves suspected had deserted it; and though McLoughlin was willing to make amends, Young chose to remain sullen and unyielding, and employed his time in disseminating those anti-British monopoly sentiments which Kelley had so strongly expressed in their stormy interviews at Fort Vancouver. In this spirit, and rendered desperate by the social outlawry to which he was subjected on the part of both the fur company and the Mission,
Mercury, Feb. 11, 1876. George Gay was also an Englishman who left home in 1830 on a whaling voyage to the North Pacific. In 1832 he deserted with a whole boat's crew, in a California harbor, and after various adventures determined to join Kelley and Young's Oregon settlement. He took a farm in the Willamette, becoming a notable personage in his way, or as Wilkes calls him, 'a useful member of society,' but not at all an ornamental one. For a lengthy description of the man and his manners, see Wilkes Nar., U. S. Explr. Ex., iv. 382. John Turner was with Jedediah Smith when attacked by the Umpquas. At that time Turner had defended himself with a firebrand successfully, and on this occasion he resorted to the same means, laying about him like a madman, and being a large and powerful person, with equal success. He too became a resident of the Willamette Valley, though living in seclusion at some distance from the other settlers. White's Ten Years in Or., 114. The name of the fourth man who escaped to the settlements is not mentioned, though his arrival at Fort William is recorded in Lee and Frost's Or., 132.
