useful and perhaps dangerous occupation for so restless a settler. If Young would help civilization and the settlers in this matter, perhaps the settlers and civilization might help Young.
"I found," observes Slacum, "that nothing was wanting to insure comfort, wealth, and every happiness to the people of this most beautiful country, but the possession of neat-cattle, all of those in the country being owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, who refused to sell them under any circumstances whatever."[1] This oft-repeated charge, in the tone of sufferers from tyranny and injustice, it may be as well to explain. McLoughlin asserts that in 1825 the company had but twenty-seven head of cattle of any age or size. So precious were these that they were allowed to multiply without the slaughter of a single animal. As late as 1839 the company declined to furnish with beef the surveying squadron of Sir Edward Belcher, who complained of this refusal on his return to England.[2] The policy of the fur magnates could not therefore be called an anti-American restriction. McLoughlin reasoned that if he sold cattle to the settlers they would be entitled to the increase, and he would be deprived of the means of assisting new-comers, and the interests of the coast retarded. If two hundred dollars, which was offered, were paid for a cow, the purchaser would put such a price on the increase that the settlers could not buy. He therefore thought it better, while cattle were still few in the country, to lend to every settler cows and oxen to make him comfortable, though he was not made rich, and all to share alike, while the herds suffered no diminution.[3]
Jason Lee, Ewing Young, and others so represented the benefits of cattle to them that Slacum made a proposition to carry to California in the brig Loriot
