Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/95

44 agent of the United States in disguise, one universal law of brotherhood embraced them all. Their charity sometimes went so far as to clothe as well as house and feed wandering stars of American wit, as in the case of Thomas J. Farnham, who visited Fort Vancouver in 1839.

Likewise there were other resources at hand. The annual ship brought books, reviews, files of newspapers; and the mail was brought overland by express from York Factory, Red River, and Canada. With every such arrival the leading topics of the time were discussed, more closely perhaps from the length of time before the next batch of subjects could be expected. Very early in Fort Vancouver life, owing to the relative positions of the two governments, British and American institutions and ideas were compared, and defended or condemned according to the views of the disputants. But after the advent of the first missionaries and settlers as an American element, these discussions became more frequent, and in fact developed a great deal of patriotism on one side, and a liberality not to be expected on the other. John Dunn relates that in those days, from 1834 to 1843, there were two parties at Fort Vancouver, patriots, and liberals, or philosophers. The British, or patriots, maintained that the governor was too chivalrous, that his generosity was thrown away, and would be unrequited, that he was nourishing those who would by and by rise and question his own authority, and the British right to Fort Vancouver itself. This party cited the American free trapper, and the advocates of the border lynch-law, as specimens of American civilization. They had no faith in American