doing business into Hudson Bay" gave them no license to cultivate the soil. When McLoughlin started his farm near his trading post and called it Fort Vancouver, it did not prove his contention that his license as fur trader implied a right to occupy all the land he wanted for live stock. The Williamson incident showed that the Hudson's Bay people were very helpless among free Americans on questions of law and called for much wise forbearance on both sides. There were few Americans in the settlement at the time of the incident; the worst had already shown his character; the other had betrayed himself by making threats, to Dr. McLoughlin's disgust, and to Dr. White's also. But whether strictly legal or not, the first few hundred thousand bushels of wheat produced from the soil of Oregon were produced under McLoughlin's generous plan.
It is a wild guess to say that the H. B. Co.'s trade in wheat and wheat flour from Vancouver aggregated 55,000 bushels for export during the last ten years of his rule at Vancouver, and there was no change in its business under Mr. Douglas except in the matter of extending credit to American immigrants as they passed Fort Vancouver; which they largely ceased doing; but even before this, wheat and flour could be obtained at farms created under McLoughlin's advice, at the Gervais mill in the French settlement, and on Tualatin Plains.
The first two years of Dr. McLoughlin's life at Oregon City were very nearly a full realization of his reasonable hopes. I say this, notwithstanding his uniform reticence as to what precisely was his hope. From all I ever heard of his opinion of what was to be the government of Oregon we have reason to believe that he thought that Oregon would ultimately be left to govern herself independently of either the United States or England; being, he always said, too far from either government to be successfully governed by either. This was also the view of President Jefferson. The writer had more than ordinary opportunities to learn Dr. McLoughlin's views on the subject of the future of Oregon's government between 1840 and 1845, although he never had personal conversation with
