Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/937

Rh for a meeting house, and the rest used for the storage of grain. Robert Moore, who had bought his land claim of the Indians, was chairman, and George W. Le Breton, who came with Couch in the brig Maryland in 1840, was secretary. Mr. Moore wanted to locate the capital at Linn City, a level space below his Robin's Nest on the other side of the river, but the matter was deferred. After a week of strenuous work, the committee rested, and on July 5th, in a mass meeting of the citizens of Oregon at Champoeg, their articles of compact were ratified. The laws of Iowa, a single copy of which had found its way across the plains, were adopted as the laws of the provisional government of Oregon. Joseph Meek, a popular mountain man, was elected sheriff, and moved at once to Oregon City, where a quilt hung over his cabin door on the west side of the river.

In the meantime, in March, 1843, a petition was drawn up and signed by sixty-five leading citizens against Dr. McLoughlin, charging many deeds of oppression and wrong to the settlers; that the doctor as head of the Hudson's Bay Company had no right to an American claim; that he could build mills and saw lumber with cheaper labor and undersell the settlers; that he refused to allow the company's vessels to bring goods from the Sandwich Islands for settlers; that he refused to sell cattle to Americans, and other things, all of which were answered serially by the doctor who was simply following out his line of duty as head of the company. It was always a fixed principle of the Hudson's Bay Company to undersell anybody who came in their way, and never on any account to permit the use of their vessels by competitors. The settlers did not recognize themselves as competitors, but the doctor did so recognize all merchants and manufacturers who interfered with the profits of the Hudson's Bay fur traders.

As Indians for untold ages had fought over the falls, so now the whites were battling for this point of vantage. The Americans said that Dr. McLoughlin had taken claims at other strategic points and built trading houses for the Hudson's Bay Company. They did not understand joint occupancy to mean a monopoly of trading privileges among the settlers. Judging by the laws of their own country, the Americans did not consider Dr. McLoughlin personally a settler when he continued to remain at Fort Vancouver and did not himself occupy his land claim. They could not imagine the head of the Hudson's Bay Company as a private citizen. That he had chosen a claim at the falls and began improvements there meant simply that he was holding it for the company. As a chief factor of the company he necessarily represented the company. They, as American citizens, were working for American interests. He is an Englishman, was believed to be working for English interests. The conflict was inevitable.

Dr. McLoughlin was between two parties and distrusted by both. As an Englishman, Americans questioned his motives. As a benefactor of Americans, the English fur company compelled his resignation and dropped him from their service. Even after he left the company in 1845 and moved to his Oregon City land claim, those who had lived there first could not forget, and never did forget, that they had been bona fide settlers several years before his arrival. This, then, was the politics of 1843 and succeeding years.

None too soon was the provisional government established, for as early as August, 1843, boats of every description, canoes, batteaux and rafts came paddling up the Willamette with the new overland emigration, a thousand people with families and herds of cattle. The town could not shelter them all, camps were set up along the river bank, and Mr. Moss went up and down ringing a hand-bell calling the people to dinner where he had set up a half-faced barracks to feed the people. This was the beginning of Moss's hotel and of his fortune. Dr. McLoughlin, who had helped many at Vancouver, came up to Oregon City in his anxiety and assisted them in every way in his power. He also now had a Hudson's Bay Company store there and trusted them for goods when they could not pay, as also did Abernethy and Pettygrove. Every door was open, beds were laid on every floor, and in workshops and in the half