Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/86

 find my family Well and much Gratified at finding I brought back David with me who has been ever since his arrival Employed in our office as is also John and I must say that they are as attentive and smart at their work as most young men and this is merely from being as young men ought to be kept Employed As certainly most Young Men are ruined by not being Kept Busy as Idleness is the Root of all evils With Best Wishes For your Wellfare I am My Dear John

Your Affectionate Cousin

John McLoughlin

Fort Vancouver 19th March 1843

My Dear Cousin

Your kind Epistle came to hand last fall and I am happy to learn that you are getting on so well both in your public & private life. It is with the greatest pain that I am under the necessity to relate the circumstance which led to the dreadful calamity which has befallen us by the murder of My Brother John he was shot on the night of the 20/21 April in his own Fort & by his own men. John was in Charge of a Post on the Coast within the Russian Territories consisting of 22 men Sir G Simpson on passing there last fall took his assistant from him to replace one that was going away from the adjoining Post and left John with a common man and a Boy as seconds to Manage the men and conduct the operations of the place; having regular watches set night and day, to watch the natives who are daily in search by some way or other to execute their vicious intentions of destroying the establishment or murdering the men yes I may say he was left alone in that solitary Post, surrounded on every side by dreary Mountains having its tops covered by perpetual snow and drowning its inhabitants by unceasing rains who would fain to live in such a dungeon like Country its Gloomy aspect would chill, even the breast of a most determined man Yet there it is & in that Situation My Brother was without a proper assistant given him on whom he might rely on his fidelity to battle against these sanguinary Villians and to guard themselves & property against the hostile intentions of the Natives I am bewildered how this affair will be brought to a proper conclusion as Sir G Simpson is such a dunce as to have formed his opinion