THE VANCOUVER RESERVATION CASE. 221 by the Canadian Northwest Company, which was absorbed by the Hudson Bay Company in 1821. This company estab- lished its headquarters post on the Columbia six miles above the mouth of the Willamette. It was the policy of those who represented this corporation to hold the territory in which they operated, as a great hunt- ing preserve. Their factors were therefore ordered to dis- courage agriculture and to encourage trapping, while immi- gration was avowedly antagonized. This policy was distaste- ful to Dr. McLoughlin, their Chief Factor in the Northwest. Nevertheless he had to execute his orders with such mitigation of their severity as he could afford to make. Pro pelle cutem was the motto of the company, and one of the jests of the time was that the Hudson Bay people thought more of the skin of a beaver than of the soul of a savage. This cannot be deemed a just reproach, as the Hudson Bay Company was a commercial corporation and not an altruistic association. But if there ever was a man who rose above mercenary considerations Dr. McLoughlin was that man. Upon the resignation of the Church of England Chaplain in 1838, Dr. McLoughlin applied to the Catholic Bishop of Quebec to send him priests to act in that capacity. In compli- ance with this request, Fathers Blanchet and Demers were sent to him and duly installed as chaplains of the Vancouver trading post of the company. One of the remote consequences of this proceeding was the law-suit to which your attention is now invited. As these priests were assigned quarters within the stockade of the pest and paid a stipend of 100 a year, the Hudson Bay Company claimed that they were servants of the company and not carrying on an independent mission. It is in evidence for them that the Archbishop of Quebec ordered them to attend to the spiritual wants of the servants of the Hudson Bay Company and to establish a mission on the Cowlitz, a river emptying into the Columbia forty miles below the fort. These priests, and others who followed them, did establish missions on the Cowlitz, at French Prairie on the Willamette, at Nesqually on Puget Sound, and many minor
