Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/69

Rh When the General Lane sailed from Oregon City with lumber and provisions, there were several tons of eggs on board which had been purchased at the market price, and which were sold by the captain at thirty cents a dozen to a passenger who obtained for them at Sacramento a dollar each. The large increase of home productions, with the influx of gold by the return of fortunate miners, soon enabled the farmers to pay off their debts and improve their places, a labor upon which they entered with ardor in anticipation of the donation law. Some of those who could arrange their affairs, went a second time to California in 1849; among the new companies being one of several hundred Canadians and half-breeds, under the charge of Father Delorme, few of whom ever returned alive, owing to one of those mysterious epidemics, developed under certain not well understood conditions, attacking their camp.

On the whole the effect of the California gold discovery was to unsettle the minds of the people and change their habits. To the Hudson's Bay Company it was in some respects a damage, and in others a benefit. The fur-trade fell off, and this, together with the operation of the treaty of 1846, compelling them to pay duties on goods from English ports, soon effected the abandonment of their business in United States territory. For a time they had a profitable trade in gold-dust, but when coined gold and American and Mexican money came into free circulation, there was an end of that speculation. Every circumstance now conspired to drive British trade out of Oregon