Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/300

 and thirty dogs for food. On July 14, 1814, they reached Fort William, headquarters of the Canadian North- West Company, encompassed by well cultivated grain fields under promising crops of "barley, pease and oats." Franchere notes the successful cultivation of potatoes at Astoria, also the farming and livestock extending west from Fort William towards Winnipeg, and the strife already beginning for the food from the field.

We hear or see little history of Astoria, or Fort George, for ten years after Franchere's narrative leaves it. The replacement of the American flag only causes a laugh by the occupiers in 1818, but a historical event is never a proper subject of laughter. Ten years' time was needed to compress the Canadian North-West Company into union with the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company. Then Astoria was restored, but called Fort George. The Company was now filled with men of business education, from North Britain largely, but there was heed for the most capable man they had to supervise the field service of the Oregon country, and it found him in Dr. John McLoughlin, chief trader at Fort William on Lake Superior. He was chosen chief by an association "which was composed and controlled by very active, practical and forceful men." I choose and endorse the words of F. V. Holman. Dr. John McLoughlin was chosen in 1821 to rule over such men at Fort George, or Astoria, and came to the appointment in the fall of 1824. The laborers were chiefly Canadian French, trappers and voyageurs, with a few Scottish Highlanders and less Hawaiian Islanders. The Scots were best for individual trust, and in directing Kanakas handling lumber or wheat; the French to catch and care for fur and peltries. There never were men more docile to do and to endure movement by land or water, fatigue, cold or hunger.

A comparison of the songs used in their traffic will do. A few lines by Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, will give the spirit of the Canadians: