Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/24

12 difﬁculties that might have arisen in any of the trading posts, or agricultural settlements of ex-employees, were regular features of the early days, and were very effective.

The inability of the independent fur trader to compete with the English company, and the comparative advantage that the English subject had in the protection by his country's laws, naturally led to a feeling of dissatisfaction on the part of the American trader, and a belief that under the cover of a business enterprise the English civil government was gradually settling itself over the country to the exclusion of the American, whose interests and rights were equal according to the treaty of joint occupancy. That John Jacob Astor had not renewed his enterprise after the restoration of the fort at Astoria at the close of the war of 1812, was due to the refusal of the government, during Madison's administration, to guarantee his company the protection of the United States in case of trouble. Had that been done, company would have been in competition with company, and the conditions would have been more equal. As it was, however, the United States' interests were represented and her hold maintained only by such independent traders and trappers as ventured into the country, and usually failed of maintaining themselves for any great length of time.

It was such a condition of affairs that came to the knowledge of the people, and ﬁnally reached those channels where it gained entrance into our national policy. It was a signiﬁcant circumstance in the history of civil government in Oregon, that, in the winter of 1820 and 1821, four men were thrown together at a hotel in the