ter from the slurs of government spies, saying "they have the same right to come that I have to be here, touching lightly upon the ingratitude of those who forgot to pay him their just debts, and the rudeness of those whom White mentions as making him blush for American honor.
But whether he favored the company s interests against the British, or British interests against the company's, or maintained both against the American interest; or favored the American interest against either, or labored to preserve harmony between all, the suspicions of both conflicting parties fell upon him and being forced to maintain silence, he had the bad 'fortune to be pulled to pieces between them Foreseeing something of this, feeling himself spied upon by the British government, as well as by Sir George Simpson, having a large property interest south of the Columbia, and being perhaps weary of a responsibility that with increasing years became increasingly burdensome, he tendered his resignation ashead of the company in Oregon, in the autumn of 1845, and took up his residence at Oregon City in the following spring,[1] with the intention of becoming an American citizen when the boundary question was settled, or his resignation was accepted. With the next spring came the news of the election of President Polk and the threat of war with England, causing him the greatest perplexity. Change his allegiance in time of war he could not, without forfeiting his estates in Canada, and perhaps his life as a traitor. Neither could he, in the event of war, retain his dearly held claim at .Oregon City. Then came Warre and Vavasour, as he well knew with no good intent toward him, while the political horizon grew no brighter. In his perplexity he took advice ot Burnett, then chief justice of Oregon, and Applegate, the man through whom the recent fusion of British
- ↑ Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 47; Holden's Pioneering, MS., 2, 3; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 30.
