Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/29

 interests in 1840 on credit, and removed the cattle and other livestock to his grant on the Sacramento. The small schooner included in the purchase, he brought around by sea, renaming it Sacramento. The price, which included no land, was $30,000.

James Douglas, one of the governing council at Fort Vancouver, came to California in January, 1840, with the ship Columbia and a venture of goods. He had a conference with Governor Alvarado regarding the trapping parties of his firm, and notes in his report: "The first topic introduced was a delicate one relating to our party under La Framboise who have been for several years trapping in the Valley of Tulares.” Alvarado, on January 4, wrote the alcalde at San Francisco Bay to urge him to cause the withdrawal of La Framboise until a decision was reached. The terms of the agreement permitted the company to bring in thirty trappers at the principal ports of entry. The trappers must become Mexican citizens and conform to the laws of the country. The company was to pay a tax of two shillings sixpence on every skin taken. Douglas claimed no profit could be made unless the trappers were allowed to range the whole country, whereas Vallejo wished to restrict them to the territory west of the Sacramento. The matter seems to have been left in abeyance, with the result that the trappers ranged wherever possible, and the weak government did nothing.

Before returning north, Douglas negotiated terms by which the Hudson's Bay Company would be permitted to establish a post within the port of San Francisco; also that their vessels might engage in the California trade if put under the Mexican flag and their commanders naturalized. This agreement was approved by Chief Factor McLoughlin, and a commercial establishment was set up at Yerba Buena in 1841. The company confined itself in the main to wholesale trade.

Continued negotiations and arbitrations between the com-