Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/232



224 DR. McLoucHLiN TO SIMPSON

felt we would not be allowed the necessary latitude to carry on the business in the manner it ought to be conducted, but in 1839 when you mentioned to me that we ought to enter in that business, I agreed and made out a requisition by your direction, and in compliance with my instructions sent the out- fit in charge of Mr. Rae whom you appointed to it in 1841 , It is true I ordered a house to be purchased at St. Francisco because we could not get one to rent, and it would have cost much more to build a house than what we paid for the one we bought and you will see by the accounts current of the out- fit, it has cleared 1848.5.7 after paying [for] the house and the duties on the inventory for both which it takes no credit, and deducting 40 per cent from the outstanding debts which is much better than I expected considering the situation Mr. Rae was placed in and proves that the business is much better than you supposed.

11. By your 17 Paragraph you say you forward ten men as recruits for the Department, and in your 18th para, you write, "We are of opinion that there are as many in the De- partment as you can employ" to which I will revert bye and bye ; and that you "see by the books that no fewer than [sic] ten officers and 149 men were stationed last winter at Vancouver." True, as you state, there were ten officers and 149 men on the books winter 1842/43 and our winter establishment always will appear large from this circumstance: that in the winter we have all the recruits from the other side and every year you will find in the books men who have left for Oahoo and other places, and when the busy time comes we seldom have two- thirds and sometimes not one half of the men who appear in the winter in our books, and this at the sickly season when sometimes half of the people are laid up in the hospital by the fever, so that it [is] only with the utmost difficulty we get through our work. Last summer, our first week in harvest we had one hundred and seven men, of these seven men were in the hospital ; and the last week we had forty-seven in hospital, and last year was the healthiest summer we have had since