Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/650

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EXIT FORT VANCOUVER.
599

couver, and was factotum of the establishment, had been sent to the Cowlitz farm to superintend the affairs of the Puget Sound Company.

The ancient glory was departing from Vancouver. The Modeste remained through the winter, her officers amusing themselves as best they could. To add to their entertainment, they had the society of Paul Kane, a painter whom Sir George Simpson patronized; who studied Indian character, customs, and costumes, and wrote a book entitled Wanderings of an Artist, which contains much diversion and some instruction, though for the most part superficial. His visit was preceded by that of the Prussian naturalist, Teck, who sailed from Oregon to the Hawaiian Islands,[1] in the autumn of 1845. In the latter part of April 1847 the Modeste took her departure, and the company she came to protect were left, at a time when they were most assailed, to care for themselves, their rights under the former convention being at an end.

How the adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay succeeded in defending themselves from the disasters consequent on the inexorable outspreading of the great republic, the pages which follow will reveal.

  1. Hines' Or. Hist., 248.