Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/144

Rh There is no doubt that by forbidding the Canadian farmers to trade with Young, and himself refusing to sell to him, McLoughlin expected to drive from the country what he had been assured was a band of thieves, and so save trouble with the natives and injury to the settlers. But Young and Kelly gave to McLoughlin's conduct a different interpretation. Kelley said to Young, and all others who visited him outside the fort, that it was opposition to American settlement upon political and pecuniary grounds. He so placed the matter before Jason Lee, who, he says, often clandestinely left the fort that he might converse freely with him on his plans; but Lee had obligated himself to retard immigration to the country by accepting a loan from McLoughlin for the purpose of opening a farm which should be a supply establishment for other missionary stations yet to be erected.