Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/180

170 From this the interest of the Company in the boundary question becomes sufficiently apparent. This corporation, so typical a product of the Commercial Revolution which has played so large a part in determining the economic structure of modern society, from its headquarters in London was exercising powers of invisible government, retarding a diplomatic settlement, while in the regions concerned it was exercising powers that were not invisible to retard civilization generally and the settlement of farmers in particular. Perhaps after such a statement a word of explanation is necessary. While the Hudson's Bay Company was a sinister influence behind so many of the difficulties of northwestern development it was not because of any extra measure of original sin in the Company or its officials, but simply because of the nature of its operations. The story of its transactions presents the tangled web of good and evil common to all human stories.

This is not the place to do more than note a few of the chief events leading up to those we have specially to consider. Dr. John McLoughlin built Fort Vancouver on the banks of the Columbia River in the years 1824 and 1825 and remained long enough in charge of that station and exercised his power so wisely as to earn, even among the American pioneers, the title "Father of Oregon". The fort was the headquarters of the Company on the Pacific and the center of an extensive and lucrative business, not only with the natives for furs but with the settlers who began to arrive very soon after the establishment of the fort, and who by the forties were entering in considerable numbers. In 1843 the Company saw fit to build a depot and fort at Victoria, then known by its native name of Camosun, at the southern end of Vancouver Island. This was destined to supersede Vancouver as the principal station. The reasons for the change are not far to seek. The boundary question could not be postponed very much longer as American settlers were present in such force in the Willamette Valley by 1841 as to take preliminary steps toward the formation of a