Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/274

264 were trained athletes, often scholars, thoroughly versed in the tactics of their warlike business, entertaining socially, and hospitable, were rapacious and merciless in their dealings with rival traders. The story of the fur trade runs very differently after George Simpson became their head in America by the union of the two great English companies of Canada, and John McLoughlin took charge of affairs on the Columbia River in Oregon. The early prejudices of Oregon pioneers were chiefly an inheritance from their grandfathers, who had fought "Northwesters" and Indians of a previous generation on the Canada frontier, and finding some of that stock among the Columbia River traders were fain to fall to fighting them without much if any provocation. What would have become of the first missionaries and settlers had the British fur company with its stores of goods and its farm products not been found here? The fate of the overland expedition of Astor would have been theirs. It is true McLoughlin, who was practically the governor of Oregon, had been an officer of the Northwest Company, but he was one who on occasion could safely set at defiance his superiors in rank by shaming them into more civilized practices. The historian of Oregon should, I think, discriminate between the men who ousted Astor, and their successors, the Hudson Bay Company.

The losses and discouragements of Mr. Astor on the Pacific Slope were not permitted to interfere with his plans concerning the interior. Out of the wreck of several early trade organizations he created the Great American Fur Company, a part of whose history is the story told by Irving, Franchere, Cox, and others. The English-Canadian companies' system was one of forts. These they found necessary not only for the storage of their