him, and all the evidence was as above stated. The posthumous letter left by him shows him to have been a prudent man up to the time that he resigned his position as Chief Factor rather than use that position in any other way than as a Christian gentleman. He was doubtless aware that he was to be made the scapegoat of prominent members of the British Navy who had left the Great River of the West without the protection of a warship, for which he had appealed, until there were enough American rifles near the mouth of the Willamette to render the deck of the ship safer than the shore, should possession of said shore be disputed.
The difference between Sir George Simpson, as Governor of the H. B. Co. and Dr. McLoughlin, as Chief Factor of the same Company over the valley of the Columbia, was one of Trade Interests vs. Humanity. There were four distinct interests in the fur trade west of the Rocky Mountains on the Pacific Slope; the "Gentlemen Adventurers of England Doing Business into Hudson Bay," a capitalistic company directed from London; the "Northwest Company," with headquarters at Montreal, Canada, a combined capitalistic and co-operative company; the "Russian Fur Co. of Alaska," never plainly defined outside of Russia; and the American Fur Traders, often a voluntary association, but sometimes individuals with capital; in other cases poor men, free from association with others. This latter class, down to 1844, were called free trappers in American parlance, or free men by the Hudson's Bay Company's servants. There grew so much rivalry for territory between the servants of the English Company—the Hudson Bay—and the British-Americans of the Montreal company that the British Government compelled them to unite for humane reasons. To the terms of the union, Dr. McLoughlin, a partner in the Northwest Company, refused his signature, deeming the conditions unjust to workers in the field.
As to the Doctor's intent in locating his claim at the falls of the Willamette and naming his townsite Oregon City, his actions and his long-suffering against the feeling of his pro-
