With the exception of drinking, no objection seems to have been made to the Modeste's officers or men.[1] Captain Baillie rarely left his ship; but the younger officers, besides giving theatrical entertainments, horseraces, balls, and curling matches, visited among the settlers wherever invited, and attended a ball given at Oregon City, in honor of Washington's birthday, by H. M. Knighton, an immigrant of 1845, who was the second marshal of Oregon under the provisional government, and sergeant-at-arms of the house of representatives in the winter of 1846. The editorial notices received of these amusements were studiedly
- ↑ The officers of the Modeste were Thomas Baillie, captain; T. M. Rodney, T. G. Drake, and T. P. Coode, lieutenants; G. J. Gibbon, master; John Gibson, surgeon; J. M. Hobbs, purser; A. A. D. Dundas, mate; A. Gordon, asst. surgeon; A. T. De Horsey, J. Montgomerie, Charles Grant, and R. T. Legge, midshipmen; Thomas James Clarke, G. Pearce, master's assistants; J. White, clerk's assistant; J. Hickman, gunner; J. Stevens, boatswain; Wm Ellicott, carpenter. Or. Spectator, Feb. 5, 1846. Roberts says these officers were fine fellows, and that the men could not be induced to desert by the temptation of 640 acres of land, the ship losing but one seaman during a stay in the river of more than a year. McLoughlin also says: 'I am convinced that it was owing to the Modeste being at Vancouver, and the gentlemanlike conduct of Captain Baillie and his officers, and the good discipline and good behavior of the crew, that the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company have had less trouble (though they have had a great deal more than I suspected) than they would have had, and which certainly they have done nothing to incur, but everything they could to avoid.' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser., 16, 17. One of the midshipmen of the Modeste was afterward Admiral De Horsey. Rodney, 1st lieutenant, was grandson of Admiral C. R. Rodney. Drake, 2d lieutenant, was the author of Lines to Mary and other similar effusions published in the Spectator. Roberts' Recollections, MS., 38–9.
History of Oregon first appeared. On the termination of that journal, what was left of the material of the Spectator was taken back to Oregon City. The authorities through which I have followed the course of Oregon's first press are Portland Oregonian, March 25, 1854; Olympia Columbian, Sept. 10, 1853; Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, March 18, 1854; Parrish's Or. Anecdotes, MS., 5, 6; Lane's Nar., MS., 5, 6; Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, p. 72; Portland Weekly Oregonian, Dec. 26, 1868; Olympia Transcript, Dec. 26, 1868; Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 333; Applegate's Views of Hist., MS., 50; Brown's Willamette Valley, MS., 34; Pickett's Paris Exposition, 10; Or. City Weekly Enterprise, Dec. 19, 1868; Solano (Cal.) Herald, Jan. 9, 1869; Olympia Wash. Standard, Jan. 2, 1869; Niles' Reg., lxx. 340–1; S. F. Alta, March 15, 1855; Sac. Union, April 10, 1855; Portland West Shore, Nov. 1878. The general news chronicle in the Spectator was usually at least 6 months old, and was obtained from papers brought out by the annual immigrations, from the Sandwich Island papers brought over in chance sailing vessels, or through the correspondence and mail of the fur company, which arrived once or twice a year overland from Canada, or by the aunual vessel from England. But the intelligence conveyed was read as eagerly as if the events had but just transpired, and by the extracts published, it is easy to gather what kind of news was considered most important.
