crops on the Vancouver farm as a guide to their conclusions, which were favorable. At this same time he began giving small parcels of seed wheat to retiring engagees of the Company, and advising those in whom he had confidence who had married wives native to Oregon, to make homes on the land of Oregon instead of taking them back to the colder winter climate of Canada, where they would be socially aliens. To such of these men as were thrifty and orderly, he furnished seed grain and loaned two cows for milk and two steers for work. The cattle and the increase remained the property of the Company, and the care they received in return for the milk and butter was to some extent a protection against the wolves and panthers, for though the cows fought to> defend their calves many were killed.
Some Americans complained because the Doctor would not sell the Company's cattle, but he denied himself and his officers, and even refused to supply the British exploring fleet and was complained of in its report for so doing. It is highly probable that the Doctor's loan of cattle to his former engagees turned farmers by his advice, while refusing to sell beef to the British Navy, was an under-lying cause of the dilatory action of Admiral Seymour, who delayed sending the warships Modeste and Fisguard to the Columbia River and Puget Sound until it was too late and both McLoughlin and James Douglas had deemed it wise to join the American Provisional Government for safety of the Company's property. We know now, though we did not then, that Captain Parks and Colonel Vavasour located four proposed fortifications in Oregon in 1845, anc * that one, at Cape Horn, was to block the Pass of the Columbia. That the latter favored the slaughter of all Americans he openly stated, but he was not alone to count contingencies of a fight for Oregon: the American settlers at Oregon City were not ignorant of what might be done to Fort Vancouver with a brush pile and a brisk wind on a dark night, and we now know that Father De Smet dropped a wise word of caution to the Capt. of H. B. M. sloop of war Modeste, which lay off Vancouver.
