EWING YOUNG AND His ESTATE 177
Suppose we take Dr. McLoughlin's own statement of the policy pursued in this matter: "Every settler had as much wheat on loan as he wanted to begin with, and I lent them each two cows, as in 1825 we had only twenty-seven head, big and small, old and young.
"If I sold they would of course be entitled to the increase, and I would not have the means to assist the new settlers, and the settlement would be retarded, as those purchasers who offered me two hundred dollars for a cow would put such a price on the increase as would put it out of the power of poor settlers to buy. This would prevent industrious men settling. For these reasons I would not sell but loaned, as I say, two cows to each settler, and in case the increase of set- tlers might be greater than we could afford to supply with cattle, I reserved the right to take any cattle I required (above his two cows) from any settler to assist new settlers.
"To the Methodist Mission, as it was a public institution, I lent seven oxen, one bull and eight cows with their calves." 5 In case the cattle died through some accident as poisoning, the persons holding them were not charged with their value.
Granting that this policy was fully justified in 1825, in 1837 it was still continued when the farm at Fort Vancouver had one thousand head of cattle and a proportional supply of other live stock. At the same time Slacum reports: "In the course of conversation with Mr. Lee, Young, and other settlers, I found that nothing was wanting to insure comfort, wealth, and every happiness to the people of this most beau- tiful country but the possession of neat cattle, all of those in the country being owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, who refuse to sell them under any circumstances whatever." 6 With this sore need of cattle by the Oregon settler, with cattle galore in California, with the presence of a natural and experienced leader pining for just such responsibility as that of the enter- prise of bringing a supply to Oregon, the combination that
5 Dr. John McLoughlin, Document among his private papers, printed in Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association, 1880, pp. 51-3.
6 Slacum's Report, op. cit. p. 196.
