ada were extended over British subjects in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, but this was never enforced so far as Russians or Americans were concerned. Even a Canadian could not be dealt with in Russian territory.[1] But jealousy of the Canadian jurisdiction led the Americans to appoint as justice of the peace among themselves, in 1838, David Leslie. So that without any legal authority whatever Leslie was dispensing justice in the Willamette Valley at the very time that he and Farnham complained that there was a justice of the peace at Fort Vancouver, in what the company held to be British territory, and he actually tried a British subject for theft not long after.[2]
Farnham's report on the country itself was not pleasing to the colonists, who spoke of him with disrespect after the publication of his Travels.[3] He disparaged the climate, which was too dry in eastern and too moist in western Oregon; he found the forests, where they existed, too heavy, and in other places not heavy enough; and the mouth of the Columbia unfit for the purposes of commerce.[4] Holding these opinions, it is no wonder that he departed from the country without attempting to carry out the purposes for which the Peoria company was formed.
- ↑ An example of this want of jurisdiction in Russian America was furnished shortly after Farnham was in Oregon. McLoughlin's son John was sent to Fort Stikeen, where he was placed in charge. But he was young, and did not know how to manage his men, one of whom murdered him. When Sir George Simpson visited the company's posts in 1841–2 he arrested the murderer, who was a Canadian, but did not know how to bring the criminal to justice, as neither Canada nor Russia had any court of criminal jurisdiction in the country. He took the criminal to Sitka, but as the crime was not committed there, nothing could be done with him. Simpson's Nar., ii. 182; Hist. Northwest Coast, this series.
- ↑ This was in 1841. A canoe, in which were some of the goods of Mr Kone's family, was upset in the Willamette River, and a box containing some of Mrs Kone's clothing, coming ashore, was picked up by a Canadian, whose wife, an Indian woman, appropriated it to her own use. This led to the arrest and trial of the responsible party before the missionary judge.
- ↑ Niles' Register, lviii. 242. Wilkes, in his Narrative, iv. 388, says they were dissatisfied with his not putting the memorial, and his letter to the secretary of war, into his book. Gray, in Hist. Or., 186–7, is very abusive of him, and says he was expelled from the Peoria party, which, according to Holman, one of the seceders, is not true.
- ↑ 27th Cong., 3d Sess., Sen. Doc. 102.
