242 T. C. Elliott. little later, with the Flathead country and the Spokane country, it is probable that he was also in service at those interior forts. In the spring of 1821 at London the principal owners of the Northwest Company and of the Hudson's Bay Company were compelled by circumstances to bury their differences and merge their interests in the form of what we would now call a trust. Right then began that "gigantic monopoly" to which the more pious of the American settlers in Oregon took such exception, but which, by the irony of fate, actually con- tributed more than any other one factor to the peaceable set- tlement of the "Oregon Question" in favor of the United States. This trust took the name of the older and larger of the two companies, and the news of its formation reached the Colum- bia in the fall of the same year. To the Northwesters actually in the service, both on the Columbia and in the Indian coun- try, this news caused chagrin and wonder. They had put forth their best efforts, and most of them had endangered their lives for the Northwest Company, and now it seemed to have been wiped out. Peter Skene Ogden evidently pro- posed to know where he stood as to future prospects, and the following year, 1822, he departed for Lower Canada and London, under leave of absence. Another reason may have taken him to England. His father had been obliged to relinquish active service as a "Jus- tice of the Court of the King's Bench" (to use the words of his will) 1 in 1818 and retire to England for medical treatment, and was in fast declining health. Perhaps the father longed for a sight of his youngest son and sent for him. At any rate, among the family papers appears a letter written in trembling hand at Taunton, England, addressed to Mr. Peter Ogden, London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill, London, as follows: ijudge Isaac Ogden was not Chief Justice at Montreal, as often stated.
