I could wish, all the old remisences [sic] is simply impossible. In approaching such a subject I feel as I did when I went to Portland to buy goods, I was lost among the multiplicity of things. In reference to Dr [John] McLoughlin it should be borne in mind that Sir Geo Simpson was his bitter enemy and for all purposes of anoyance Sir Geo. was the Company itself What did those old English gentlemen in Fenchurch Street know about matters here? they simply trusted to Simpson. Ermatinger[1] was in the Co's. employ while at Oregon City—from thence he went home to London on a visit & to annoy the Doctor Simpson prevented his return hither where he had left his young wife & ordered him to be stationed at the Red River of the North. Wm Glen Rae was stationed at Yerba Buena now St Francisco until 44 or 45 this was broken up it seems to me to spite the Doctor. It is true the Company had advised the Doctor to discontinue improvements at Oregon City or any where south of the Columbia, and they ultimately threw the whole burden on the Doctor. I suspect Simpson was the agent in this, as he certainly was in dis countenancing the missionaries-the alteration in attentions to them was certainly the work of Simpson tho' its possible his sagacity showed him the work (the small wedge Mrs Victor) they were doing. I think I was at Vancouver longer and earlier than any one now in the country & tho not in the councils of the heads-still as a clerk and recorder in the letter Books and presence in office and at mess enabled me to comprehend a little.
Frank Ermatinger was a stout Englishman a jovial companionable man, rather addicted to the bottle—he married a Miss [Catherine] Sinclair a relative of Dr McLoughlins wife—she was a niece of the [James] Sinclair[2] killed at the Cascades. Ermatinger was rather too intimate with Dr McLoughlin to be pleasant to Sir Geo. he was at the head of the
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- ↑ Francis, often called Frank. For biographical information see Burt Brown Barker, editor, Letters of Dr. John McLoughlin written at Fort Vancouver, 1829-1832 (Portland, 1948), 306-307.
- ↑ Hudson's Bay Company trader in charge of Fort Walla Walla. See Clinton A. Snowden, History of Washington (6 vols., New York, 1909), III:348, 453; Weekly Oregonian (Portland), April 5, 1856, p. 2, col. 1.
