Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/104

94 To be placed in that position was a misfortune which only a good man could bear with patience. I was assured by Mr. Frank Ermatinger, the manager of the company's store at Oregon City, as well as by others, that Doctor McLoughlin had sustained a heavy individual loss by his charity to the immigrants. I knew enough myself to be certain that these statements were substantially true. Yet such was the humility of the doctor that he never, to my knowledge, mentioned or alluded to any particular act of charity performed by him. I was intimate with him, and he never mentioned them to me. When I first saw him in 1843, his hair was white. He had then been in Oregon about twenty years. He was a large, noble-looking old man, of commanding figure and countenance. His manners were courteous but frank, and the stranger at once felt at ease in his presence.

Mr. James Douglas, (subsequently Sir James, and Governor of British Columbia), was a younger man than Doctor McLoughlin by some fifteen years. He was a man of very superior intelligence, and a finished Christian gentleman. His course toward us was noble, prudent, and generous. I do not think that at that time he possessed the knowledge of men that the doctor did, nor was he so great a philanthropist. I regarded him as a just and able man, with a conscience and character above reproach. In his position of Governor of British Columbia, he was censured by Mr. John Nugent, of California, as I must think, without sufficient reason. Errors of judgment Governor Douglas may have committed, as almost any man would have done at times in his trying position, but he must have radically changed since I knew him, if he knowingly acted improperly.

It was most fortunate for us that two such noble men were managers of the company at the time of our arrival. Our own countrymen had it not in their power to aid us efficiently. Many of them were immigrants of the preceding season; others were connected with the missions; and, altogether, they were too few and poor to help us much. The company could not afford to extend to succeeding immigrations the same credit they did to us. The burden would have been to great. This refusal led many to complain, but without sufficient reason.

From Doctor McLoughlin and others I learned a great deal in reference to the manner in which the business of the Company had been conducted. At the time of the doctor's arrival in Oregon, and for many years afterward, the principal inhabitants were Indians, divided into various small tribes, speaking different languages. These Indians were mainly found upon the Columbia and its tributaries, and far outnumbered the hired servants of the company. The task of controling these wild people was one of great delicacy, requiring