LAST PHASE OF OREGON BOUNDARY 211
that he was threatened. Harper's reaction was to send 461 soldiers and several field-guns to take exclusive possession—a steam-hammer to kill a gnat. The truth seems to be that Harney took die prevailing hostile view of the Hudson's Bay Company (a view that was in a large measure shared by the British residents on Vancouver Island) and allowed himself to take stronger action than his instructions permitted. On the other hand, Douglas, but recently chief-factor for the Company at Victoria and apparently still willing to support the Company's aggressive policies, studiously refrained from committing acts that were technically wrong. He sent a magistrate to the island before Pickett landed, as the result of the pig-shooting, but the limit of the commission was "to warn off all persons who may attempt to assert any rights of occupancy as against the British Dominion." Specifically the justice was to be "most careful to avoid giving any occasion that might lead to acts of violence." This is far short of sole occupation by force of arms, and in any case Harney knew nothing of this commission when he issued orders to Pickett. After the seizure, Douglas was ready to fight; he ordered the naval force to respond to the call for help when the call should come from the civil authorities. Furthermore, the orders were explicit that the Americans were to be prevented from landing more troops.
This was war, and so it was understood at the time. Duncan George Forbes Macdonald, surveyor with the British boundary commission then on the spot, writing in 1862 declares:
"In this San Juan affair, let the people of England never forget how nearly we were thrown into all the horrors of war, at a time when the States were not, as now, disunited and helpless, by the intemperate policy of His Excellency Governor Douglas, who is Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Colony of British Columbia and its dependencies. But for the arrival of Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Baynes, K.C.B., at the eleventh hour, war with America was certain. This I know, having been upon the island when His Excellency's commands were re-
