Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/345



LAST STEP IN PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 317

was not always fair in its dealings. Yet facing- a real situa- tion they were compelled to recognize themselves economically dependent upon it and were not inclined to refuse the facilities it offered. Indeed the presence of the Hudson's Bay Company with its thorough organization for keeping in communication with the outside world was a great blessing to the early colo- nists, however grudgingly they may have recognized its value. By means of it they sent and received letters from their friends in the east. It served as a clearing house for commercial paper, its stores of manufactured goods were always complete, and it was ready to accept their surplus grain. Its mills ground the flour needed by the various settlements. There was a manifest advantage to these settlers to have the Company incorporated with them in a common government. It would not seem such an alien and hostile body attempting to crush out their very existence.

A third object of union would be found in the influence and control maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company over the hostile Indians that were to some extent a menace to the Willamette settlements. The Company traded widely with the Indians and had secured a certain measure of influence over them. It had shown no disposition to turn these Indians against the Americans, but it was manifestly to their interest to have a positive influence exerted upon these Indians to keep the peace. This desirable object was more certain to be secured if the Company became a definite part of the organ- ization responsible for maintaining order in the Oregon ter- ritory.

A fourth and perhaps the strongest of all the motives leading the Provisional Government to seek a union with the Hudson's Bay Company was that of poverty. The money necessary to keep a government going had thus far failed to materialize by means of taxing its citizens. The reluctance of the people to be taxed had led them at first to attempt to raise the needed expenses of government by means of voluntary subscriptions. This had proven a most miserable failure. No money was