Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/34

 or native; and attempt of England and France to take possession of the country; or war between Mexico and the United States. English schemes of colonization, with the alleged approval of Governor Micheltorena, were being formed. Larkin warned the United States government that the importance of the Hudson's Bay Company had been greatly underrated, and that there had been an application on its behalf for a large grant of land, but whatever may have been its plans in this respect, hunting operations in California seem to have been abandoned after this year.

Affairs in the company's base at Fort Vancouver were in a disturbed state. The influx of American settlers had started. The right of the company to rule the country was being questioned. The English ship of war Modeste was stationed at the fort by request of the company's officers in case the dispute over the boundary should ignite the Americans to action and threaten destruction of the company's property. A feud of long standing between Sir George Simpson and Dr. John McLoughlin was approaching a crisis. Dr. McLoughlin wrote a "broadside” to his superior, resigned from the company, removed to Oregon City, south of the Columbia, and applied for American citizenship. Personal and land claim aspects of the dispute need not be considered, but certain paragraphs in the letter throw considerable light on the affairs of the company in California. Dr. McLoughlin, in answer to an open criticism from Sir George Simpson, replied in self defense:

In your 9th paragraph you write—“I am sorry to observe the southern or Bonaventura party have made very poor hunts arising as much from the impoverished state of the country as from their late arrival at the hunting grounds which by good management might have been avoided."

As to you writing the expedition ought to have been dispatched sufficiently early as to benefit from the whole hunting season I am surprised that you write so as the appointment of an officer to head the party was made by council and consequently the expedition had to wait until Mr. Ermatinger had closed the business of the Snake country and had arrived here. ... Mr. Ermatinger objected to proceed in charge of the expedition and you spoke to him about it; but to revert to the party it was equipped in the autumn of 1842 and placed under com-