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British Columbia Historical Books Collection
Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918
"Imprint varies: vols. 8, 14, 16-17, 22-26, 29-32, 34-39 published by the History Company of San Francisco. The list of authorities quoted in each volume includes mss. now in the Bancroft Library. The Works with changed t.p.'s and binder's titles and without the first five volumes, were published under the title History of the Pacific States of America. For the period up to the 1840s, it is necessary to consult all the volumes relating to the northwest Pacific. Bancroft's histories have been bitterly attacked on grounds of prejudice and failure to give adequate recognition to contributing authors. " . .. produced in a literary factory ... the work of many hands, they are spotty in quality": - Phil Townsend Hanna in Zamorano 80. "As time passes and prejudice drifts into obscurity, these works become more strongly entrenched each year. For scholars and investigators they will always remain the greatest source of authority": - Cowan. Contents: vols. 1-5. Native races.- vols.6-8. Central America. vols. 9-14. Mexico.- Vols.15-16. North American states and Texas.- vol.17. Arizona and New Mexico.- vols. 18-24. California.vol.25. Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.- vol.26. Utah.- vols.27- 28. Northwest coast.- vols.29-30. Oregon.- vol.31. Washington, Idaho and Montana.- vol.32. British Columbia.- vol.33. Alaska.vol.34. California pastoral.- vol.35. California inter poculi.- vols. 36-37. Popular tribunals.- vol.38. Essays and miscellany.- vol.39. Literary industries."-- Strathern, G. M., & Edwards, M. H. (1970). Navigations, traffiques & discoveries, 1774-1848: A guide to publications relating to the area now British Columbia. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 13
xxxi, 792 pages : maps(one folded), table ; 23 cm
application/pdf
THE WORKS OF HTTBEKT HOWE BANCROFT. THE WORKS HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. VOLUME xxxn. HISTORY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. 1792-1887. SAN FRANCISCO: THE HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1887. An ARNO PRESS book published in cooperation with McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY New York Toronto London Sydney F85-I V. 3% 6\rc! Manufactured in the U.S.A. ARNO PRESS, INC. Library of Congress Catalog Card #67-29422 PREFACE. More than a century elapsed after a charter was granted by Charles II. to Prince Rupert and a company of seventeen others, incorporated as the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, before the first trading posts were built among the almost unpeopled solitudes of British Columbia, or, as the Mainland was then termed, New Caledonia. And yet it was but an accident that the construction of these little picket-fenced enclosures did not lead to the acquisition by Great Britain of an empire no less valuable than is now the dominion of Canada. In 1579, Sir Francis Drake anchored in the bay that still bears his name on the coast of,California, and, in behalf of his sovereign, took possession of the country, which he called New Albion, this, name being afterward applied to all the territory northward from Drake's Bay almost to the Columbia River. Long before the first American settlers, bringing: with them their flocks and herds, had crossed the, snow-clad mountains which form the eastern boundary of Oregon, forts and trading posts had been established in the valleys of the Umpqua and the Willamette. Toward the north the English claimed, by right of discovery, (?) PREFACE. the country in the neighborhood of Nootka Sound. Finally, in 1840, a proposition was considered by the manager of the Hudson's Bay Company to purchase the Ross colony, established by the Russians on the coast of New Albion. That the bargain was not concluded was probably due to the fear of troublesome complications with the United States. Thus to the right of discovery and prior occupation in the far northwest would have been added the right of purchase, and if, at the time of the gold excitement, a few years later, the English had gained a foothold in the country, it is probable that they would have laid claim to a part of the territory ceded by Mexico to the United States in 1848. Originally a mere portion of the vast game preserve of the Hudson's Bay Company, little has been handed down to us of the early records of British Columbia, although that little forms perhaps the most interesting portion of its history. Among the sources whence I have derived the information that I now lay before the reader, are valuable manuscripts handed to me by some of the principal actors in the events which they describe j as, Roderick Finlayson, James Deans, and Alexander Caulfield Anderson. For other portions of my narrative, I have also depended largely on manuscripts, all of which have received due mention in this volume. In 1856 gold was discovered in the bed of the Fra- ser River, and in 1857 the San Juan Island difficulty was approaching a crisis. It was probably due in part to both of these causes, and also to the fear that New Caledonia, already largely occupied by Americans, might be absorbed into the territory of the United States, that, in 1858, an act was passed by the parlia- PREFACE. vii ment of Great Britain to provide for the government of British Columbia, by which name was known thereafter the domain of England on the western mainland of North America. And now the reign of the great monopoly had come to an end. In the following year Vancouver Island was constituted a separate colony, and so remained until 1866, when, on account of the enormous expense of maintaining the machinery of government among a handful of people, the two dependencies were merged into one. Between 1862 and 1871 gold was shipped by the banks of British Columbia to the value of more than $16,650,000, while the amount of treasure carried away by miners from the several districts cannot be estimated at less than $6,000,000. But though rumor of golden sands and gold-bearing river-beds seldom fails to attract hordes of fortune-hunters from all quarters of the globe, such an element forms by no means a desirable addition to the population of a young, ambitious, and thriving colony. As in California, in Australia, and in New Zealand, the wealth thus acquired was seldom turned to good account; and little of it remained to enrich the country whence it was gathered, those who collected it becoming not infrequently a burden on the more staid and industrious portion of the community. To British Columbia flocked a heterogeneous gathering of adventurers from the eastern and western states, from Spain, from Mexico, from California, from China, and from Australia. Thus the necessity for some stable form of government to control this lawless and turbulent population made all the more welcome to the settlers who had established there a permanent home the organization of the two colonies as a province of the dominion of Canada. m PREFACE. As to geographical position, British Columbia has the same advantages over the Pacific states and territories as the eastern provinces enjoy over the states bordering on the Atlantic. As St John's in Newfoundland is nearer by some hundreds of miles to the great commercial ports of northern Europe than is the city of New York, so Victoria is nearer to the great seaports of western Asia than is the city of San Francisco. Not least among the factors that contribute to the wealth of British Columbia is the construction of the Canadian Pacific railroad, completed in November 1885, at the expense and risk of the Dominion government. On the line of its route, and at points nearer to the Pacific than to the Atlantic seaboard, are immense tracts of fertile land, certain erelong to be occupied as farms and cattle-ranges, while mineral deposits of untold value await only the capital needed for their devolopment. Until the completion of this road, the commerce of the province was comparatively insignificant; but that a portion of the rich traffic between Europe and Asia will eventually pass through this territory, is almost beyond a peradventure. Compared with the riper development of California, Oregon, and other Pacific states and territories, British Columbia is yet only in her infancy; but that a brilliant future awaits this province may safely be predicted. As capital and labor are attracted to the country, and both can be obtained at reasonable rates, the Mainland will be more fully explored, and its valleys and plains made fit for settlement. Although the agricultural area is somewhat restricted, it is nevertheless sufficient to maintain a very considerable population; and that population will increase, slowly per- PREFACE. haps and unsteadily at first, like the ebb and flow of an advancing tide, there can be little doubt. Mines, of which not even the outcroppings have yet been touched, will be made to unfold their hidden treasures, commercial resources still latent will be developed, and the farmer will gather from the unwilling soil abundant harvests. Already fleets are being despatched from harbors which a few years ago were unoccupied. Already the province ships to South America, to China, and to Australia her timber and spars; to California, her coal; to English ports, her fish, her silver and lead; and to all the world, her gold; receiving in return raw produce and provisions from the United States, manufactured goods from England, and luxuries from Europe and Asia. But in reviewing the condition and prospects of British Columbia, we must look beyond her limits, and consider her as linked with her sister colonies, with Vancouver Island as one with herself, and with the dominion of Canada, of which she is the youngest member. The completion of the overland railroad has riveted yet more closely the bonds which unite all British subjects, wherever their lot is cast, and the anticipations held forth in the speech from the throne, when first the Mainland was declared a colony, have already been measurably fulfilled. " I hope," said her Majesty, "that this new colony on the Pacific may be but one step in the career of steady progress, by which my dominions in North America may be ultimately peopled, in an unbroken chain from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by a loyal and industrious population." CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME. CHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. PAGE The Spaniards on the Coast of British Columbia,—Perez, Heceta, and Ar- teaga—Expedition of James Cook—Hanna—Maurelle—La Perouse —Portlock and Dixon—Guise—Lowrie—Barclay—Meares—Gray— Kendrick—Martinez— Haro— Colnett—Douglas—Elisa—Quimper— • Galiano and Valdes—Bodega y Cuadra—Vancouver. 1 CHAPTER H. GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. Eastern Parallels—Configuration of North-western America—British Columbia Coast—Puget Sound—Vancouver Island—Queen Charlotte Islands — Climatic Sections of the Mainland — New Caledonia— Heights of Land—The Columbia and Fraser Plateau Basin—Skeena and Stikeen—Oregon, Washington, and Idaho—Northwest Coast Climates—The Temperature of Various Localities—Fauna and Flora —The Aborigines—Attitudes of the Fur-traders and Settlers toward the Natives—Peaceful Regime under the Great Monopoly—The Chinook Jargon.. 32 CHAPTER m. OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. 1841. Aboriginal British Columbia—Forts and Fur-traders—Systems of Communication—Inherent Power of Civilization over Savagism—Fur- trading Districts—Stations—Missionary and Agricultural Settlements —Interior Forts—Coast Stations—The British and the Russian Fur Companies—The Hudson's Bay Company's Circulating Library— Joint Occupancy of the Northwest Coast by England and the United States—The Treaty Dividing the Domain—The Northwest Coast Immediately Prior to the Beginning of British Columbia History Proper (2d) xii CONTENTS. —Visit of Douglas to the Several Posts—Sitka and Etholin—Quarrel between Douglas and McNeill—Survey of the Stikeen and Tako Region—References for This and the Preceding Chapter „. 52 CHAPTER IV. CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. 1842. Necessities of a Northern Metropolitan Post—Encroachments of Settlers on the Columbia—The Dividing Line—Growing Importance of Agriculture—The Question of Locality—A Northern Rendezvous for Whalers—The Southern End of Vancouver Island—Its Advantageous Position—Douglas Surveys the Harbors—Camosun and Esquimalti Compared—Report of Douglas 78 CHAPTER V. FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. 1843. Expedition from Fort Vancouver—Source of Agricultural Supplies—The Cowlitz Country—Embark on the Beaver—Visit to the Clallams —Anchor in Camosun Harbor—Beauties of the Surroundings—Aboriginal Occupants—Selection of a Site—Two Points Attract Attention—Location Settled—The Jesuit, Bolduc—His Conference with the Natives—The Fort-builders Begin Operations—Portentous Signs —Bolduc Celebrates Ma3s—He Visits Whidbey Island—Douglas Departs for Tako—Abandonment of That Post, and also of Fort Mc- Loughlin—Return of Douglas to Camosun with Reinforcements— The Stockade Erected—Arrival of the Cadboro—Ross Placed in Command—Departure of Douglas with the Beaver and the Cadboro.... 92 CHAPTER YE. AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN 1844. Death of Commander Ross—Roderick Finlayson—Sketch of his Career— At Forts Tako and Simpson—Bibliographical Note on his Manuscript—His Character—First Cargo of Live-stock—The Savages Make Game of the Cattle—Redress Demanded and Refused—War Declared—Tsoughilam and Tsilalthach with their Allies Attack the Fort—Strategy of Finlayson—Bloodless Victory—The Pipe of Peace is Smoked—Descriptions of the Fortress—Warre and Vavasour— Berthold Seemann—Finlayson's Letter—James Deans—His Character and Manuscript—Interesting and Minute Description of the Fort —Under Orders of Douglas Fort Camosun was Built without a Nail. '. CONTENTS. xiu CHAPTER VII. CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. 1845. JPAGK Extermination of Savage Nomenclature—Camosun Becomes First Albert, and then Victoria;—Food Supply—Douglas' Motto, 'Great Ends from Small Means'—Wooden Ploughs and Rope Harness— A More Liberal Economy Sometimes Profitable—Outward-bound Ships from England now Come Directly Hither—Whaling Fleets— The Mission of the America—Captain Gordon as a Sportsman—Hospitality at Fort Victoria—' Fifty-four Forty or Fight'—More Vessels of War at Victoria—Also Surveyors and Appraisers of Territories —The Northwest Coast not Worth Fighting for—Adventures of Paul Kane—Fort Victoria in Early Days 117 CHAPTER Yin. THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. 1846. Kamloop—The Old Fort and the New—The Romance of Fur-trading— The Lordly Aboriginal and his Home—John Tod, King of Kamloop —His Physique and Character—Lolo, a Ruler among the Shushwaps —Who and What He was—His Kingdom for a Horse—Annual Salmon Expedition to the Fraser—Information of the Conspiracy—Lolo Retires from before his Friends—Tod to the Rescue—One Man against Three Hundred—Small-pox as a Weapon—A Signal Victory —Chief Nicola Measures Wits with Mr Tod1-And i3 Pound Wanting. 134 CHAPTER IX. Anderson's explorations. 1846-1847. Necessity of a New Route between the British Columbia Seaboard and New Caledonia—Must be Wholly within British Territory—Anderson Proposes Explorations—Authority and Means Granted—Biograpical and Bibliographical Note of Anderson and his Manuscript History—Sets out from Alexandria—Proceeds to Kamloop—Thence Explores by Way of Anderson and Harrison Lakes to Langley—Returns by Way of the Coquihalla, Similkameen, and Lake Nicola—Second Expedition along Thompson and Fraser Rivers—Back by Kequeloose and the New Similkameen Trail—Report and Suggestions 157 CHAPTER X. YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. 1848-1849. Establishment on the Fraser at the Landing of the Sachincos—James Murray Yale—Causes Which Led to the Building of Fort Yale— CONTENTS. PAGE Orders Given Interior Traders to Break their Way through to Lang ley—Three Brigades Join for That Purpose—The Route Chosen not Satisfactory—Anderson's Proposal—Building of Fort Hope—A New Route Attempted—It Proves Worse than the First—Joseph W. Me- Kay on the North Coast—Sharp Practice between English and Russian Traders—The Constance in Northern Waters—Effect in British Columbia of the California Gold Discovery—Bags of Gold-dust at Fort Victoria—The Excitement in the Interior 171 CHAPTER XI. ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. 1849-1852. A New Factor, Coal—The Existence of This Mineral Known from the Earliest Times—Pacific Coal-fields—Discovery at Beaver Harbor— The Quackolls and the Fort McLoughlin Blacksmith—Tolmie Appears—The Notable John Dunn—Warre and Vavasour Report the Discovery—Which Attracts the Attention of Government—Fort Rupert Built—Muir and his Scotch Miners Arrive—Another Arrival —Examinations and Tests—Failure at Fort Rupert—Discovery of Coal at Nanaimo Harbor—Another Blacksmith Story—McKay to the Proof—Muir Moves from Fort Rupert—Fort Nanaimo Built— Visit of Douglas—Minor Discoveries ' 185 CHAPTER XII. CR0.WN GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND TO THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY. 1849. Spirit of Monopoly—The Adventurers of England More Jealous of British Subjects than of Foreigners—Colonization to be Retarded by Favoring rather than by Opposing It—The Grant Solicited as Early as 1837—Woes of the Monopoly—Failure to Obtain the Grant at This Time—Fur-hunting and Settlement Antagonistic—The Liquor Traffic—The Company Apply for the Grant—Startling Proposal— Influence of United States Acquisitions on British Pacific Territory —Piety a Plea for Power—The Fur-trade and Colonization Again— The Draft Perfected—The Mainland—Preamble and Grant—Conditions of Grant—Differences of Opinion respecting the Wisdom of the Measure 202 CHAPTER XIH. THE COLONY OF VANCOUVER ISLAND UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY REGIME. 1849-1859. Prospectus and Advertisement for Colonists—Qualifications of the Company for Colonizing—Objections Raised—They were Fur-traders— And yet They had Ships and Money—The Puget Sound Company CONTENTS. xv PAGE would have a Share—No Easy Matter to Please All—Land One Pound an Acre—The Scheme a Foreordained Failure—Price of Land too High—The Gold-fields of California One Cause of the Failure- Vancouver Island in Parliament—The Earl of Lincoln, Lord Elgin, and Mr Gladstone on the Situation—New Attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company in Relation to the Natives 223 CHAPTER XIV. TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. The Doctor and the Divine—Robert J. Staines—A Man of Frills—His Interview with the King of the Hawaiian Islands—The Man Mistaken for the Master—His Arrival at Victoria—Mud—Parson and School-teacher—Mrs Staines a Most Estimable Lady—Quarrel with the Company—Joins the Settler's Faction—He Cultivates Swine— The Settlers Steal his Pigs—Hot Litigations—His Sad End—The Doctor-Colonist—John Sebastian Helmcken—His Physique and Character—Enters Politics—Accepts Office under the Governor— Discovers his Mistake—And Becomes a Supporter of the Monopolists 238 CHAPTER XY. SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 1849-1857. What are Settlers?—Not Fur-traders—Nor Coal-miners—Nor yet the Nootka Diplomatists—The Mainland not Included in the Colonization Scheme—The Mormons Cast an Eye upon the Island—Woman, Red and White—The Monopolists Seize McKenzie, Skinner, McAu- ley, and Parsons—Bona Fide Settlers Obliged to Take What They can Get—W. Colquhoun Grant—His Settlement at Soke Harbor—Lease to Thomas Munroe—Grant Sells Soke to the Muirs—James Cooper, Sailor, Trader, and Agriculturist—Builds One of the Many First Vessels—He Takes up Land at Metchosin—Thomas Blenkhorn— The Harpooner, Norman Morrison, and the Tory Bring Settlers— The Town of Victoria Laid out—Wails from Fort Victoria—James Deans Arrives—Baillie and Langford—Progress of Settlement 247 CHAPTER XVI. GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. 1850-1852. James Douglas Nominated by Sir John Pelly for Governor—Earl Grey Refuses to Appoint Him—Richard Blanshard Chosen—His Arrival a»t Victoria—Reads his Commission—Visits Fort Rupert—Relative Attitudes of the Governor and the Fur Company—Ruler of the Queen's Wilderness—Settlers and Subjects—No Material for a Council—Nomination of Council Postponed—John Sebastian Helmcken xvi CONTENTS. Appointed Magistrate at Fort Rupert—The Murdered Deserters- Character of Blanshard—His Unpleasant Position—Heavy Expenses and 111 Health—What the Settlers Think of It—Blanshard Appoints a Council, Resigns, Shakes the Dust from his Feet, and Departs from the Island—James Douglas Appointed Governor 263 CHAPTER XVII. JAMES DOUGLAS. Birth and Education—Enters the Service of the Northwest Company— Friendship of McLoughlin—Opportunity—What He should Know— His Life in New Caledonia—Overcome by Love—Meets and Marries Nelia Connolly—Establishes Fort Connolly—His Attention to Business and his Strict Obedience—Becomes Chief Trader—Then Chief Factor—Visits California—Accountant and General Superintendent of Forts—Active in the Establishment of Fort Victoria—His Coldness toward Emigrants—Quarrels with McLoughlin—Removes to Victoria—Is Made Governor—And Knighted—Visits Europe—Physique and Character—Douglas and McLoughlin Compared , 285 CHAPTER XVHI. THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. 1851-1859. Reconciliation of Antagonistic Elements—The Terms of Settlement Unjust and Impolitic—The Inauguration of Government Premature— No Governmnent but the Best Government—Continuance of the Domination of the Monopoly—The Puget Sound Company—Proviso ions of the Crown Grant in Regard to Government—Expiration of the First Five-year Term and Renewal—The Offices of Governor and Magistrate at First United—Illegality of Delegating Imperial Authority to a Colonial Governor in Council—Organization of a House of Assembly—Farcical Performances of the First Legislators— The Wild Beasts and Savages Survive the Result—Touching Display of Family Affection in the Manipulation of Government Affairs —Douglas Compelled to Relinquish Some Portion of his Honors and Emoluments * 310 CHAPTER XIX. THE JUDICIARY. 1853-1859. The Questions of Vancouver Island Government and.Justice in Home Political Circles—There is No Money in It—And therefore They may Safely be Left to Themselves—Blaushard, the First Governor, Likewise the First Judge—Douglas as a Man-tamer and Measurer of Retribution—The Thetis and the Trincomalee Expeditions—Bloodless CONTENTS. xvii PAGE Victory over the Cowichins—The Brighest Virtue of James Douglas— David Cameron Made Chief Justice—His Antecedents, Duties, and End—His Successors, Needham and Begbie—Revenue—Land and Liquor—The Mighty Power of Rum 329 CHAPTER XX. THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. 1858. Gold! Hail All-powerful and Most Worshipful 1—Its Presence not Secretly Known to the Fur-traders—Discovery on Vancouver Island —On Queen Charlotte Islands—On Skeena River—In the Cascade MountainSkOf Washington—At Colville—At Kamloop—On Thompson River—On Fraser River—The Tidings Spread—The Matter Laid before Government—Effect on California—Rush to the Mines— Routes and Methods of Transportation—Whatcom versus Victoria— Trail-making—Overland Expeditions—Licenses and Imposts—Effect on the Fur-traders 341 CHAPTER XXI. DEATH OF THE MONOPOLY—THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ESTABLISHED. 1857-1858: Shall the Charter be Renewed?—Discussion of the Question in Parliament—Referred to a Select Committee—Who Think the Charter should not be Renewed—Gold as a Revolutionist—Douglas Stands by for England—Late Fur Factors—Dugald McTavish—William Charles—The Hudson's Bay Company's License of Exclusive Trade with the Natives of the Mainland Revoked—Repurchase of the Island of Vancouver by the Imperial Government—Change of Company Organization—Canada Purchases Rupert Land and the Northwest Territory—Liberal and Humane Policy of the Company in Regard to Gold-seekers and Speculators 376 CHAPTER XXH. GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. 1858-1863. Authority at Victoria Disregarded by the First Comers—Douglas Looks into Affairs—What the Natives Think of It—Douglas as Law and Magistrate Maker—Indian Wars—Overtures of the Imperial Government to Douglas—Revenue—Loan—Public Lands—Miners' License —The British Cry Economy—Putting Things in Order—The Unauthorized Acts of Douglas Legalized—Arrival of British Vessels of War—Men of Authority Appear—The United States Represented —Inauguration of the Governor at Langley—The Moody-McGowan Affray—New Westminster Founded—Officers of the New Government—Smuggling 3S? Hist. Beit. Col. 6 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXHI. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 1856-1880. x • • T!i 2PAGHB Justice without Form—Inauguration of the Judiciary System—Jurisdiction of Canadian Courts Withdrawn—Pearkes Drafts a Plan for the Mainland—Lytton Refers the Matter to Begbie—The Gold-fields ■ Act—Appointment of Matthew Baillie Begbie—On Uniting the Courts Disestablished and Reorganized—Needham Declines to Retire—Two Courts Both Supreme—Character of Begbie—He Assists Douglas in Organizing Government—Justice at Cariboo—Jurors Rebuked—Stipendiary Magistrates—Justice at Kootenai and Met- lahkatlah — Convict Labor—Nobles along the Border—Vigilance Committee 1 419 CHAPTER XXIV. ERASER RTVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. 1858-1878. New Developments in the History of Mining—Character of the Mines— Mining Towns—Sluicing at Hope and Yale—Routes to the Diggings —Steam on the Fraser—Boats Ascend to Hope and Yale—Extension of Mining Area—Rush to Lytton—Roads—Prospectors Push Northward—Bars Named—Field—Region Round Lilloet—Fountain, Canoe, Quesnel, and Thompson Mines—Quartz on Cherry Creek—The Mines of the Fraser Valley—Character of the Dry-diggings—Terrace Composition—Gold Distribution and Yield 438 CHAPTER XXV. GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. Cariboo Region—Its Deposits—New Mining Era—Golden Dreams— Early Developments—Roads and Mountain Trails—The Great Prospectors—The Influx—Quesnel River Mines—Horsefly and Quesnel Lake—Keithley and its Town—Harvey and Cunningham Creeks— Antler Creek Riches—Grouse Creek 475. CHAPTER XXYI. MINING IN CARIBOO. 1863-1882. Rise of William Creek—Rich Discoveries—Large Yield—Decline—Deep Mining—Marysville Lead—Drainage Operations—Richfield—Mosquito and Mustang Creeks—Outskirt Placers—Lightning Creek— Van Winkle—Decline and Revival—Lowhee—Caaon Creek and its Quartz—Character of Cariboo Veins—Summary of Yield—Cariboo Life—The Low and the Intellectual 495 CONTENTS. x*x CHAPTER XXVII. UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. 1864-1882. PAGE Columbia River Deposits—Fine-gold Theory—Ancient River-beds- Early Diggings—Kootenai Excitement—Wild Horse Creek—Saskatchewan Expedition—Perry Creek—Hydraulics—Subordinate Districts, Forty-nine Creek, Mooyie River—Big Bend—Routes and Influx—French, McCulloch, and Carnes Creeks—Later Exploration— Extent of the Auriferous Region—Terrace Gravels—Rock Creek— Okanagan and Similkameen Districts. 520 CHAPTER XXVin. GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. 1861-1882. Omineca Country—Peace River Prospected—Government Expedition— Prospecting Chase—Vitale Creek—Omineca Overrated—Germansen- Creek—Sluicing—Manson and Lost Creeks—Finlay River—The Skeena and Coast Placers—Prospects of Settlements—Cause of Decline—The Stikeen Explored—Thibert's Discovery—Cassiar Placers i Lake Tributaries 543 CHAPTER XXIX. COAL. Coal-bearing Formations East and West—California, Oregon, and Washington Fields Compared—British Columbia Coal-bearing Formations —Bituminous, Lignite, and Anthracite—Brown's Localities—Richardson's Trough—Beaver Harbor—Quatsino Harbor—Nanaimo—The Nanaimo Coal Company—The Vancouver Company—The Wellington Company—Progress of Development at Nanaimo—Dunsinuir's- Adventures—The Nanaimo Stone Quarry—The Harewood Mine— Workings of the Vancouver Colliery—Queen Charlotte Islands Anthracite—Attempted Development of the Mines—Brown and Richardson's Visits—Claudet and Isherwood's Analyses—Comox and Bayne Sound—Developments—Discoveries on the Mainland—Minis* ters* Reports—Statutory Regulations—Summary ... 565 CHAPTER XXX. UNION AND CONFEDERATION. 1863-1871. A Legislative Council Organized for British Columbia—Inaugural Address of Governor Douglas—A Meek Response—Separate Rulers Appointed for the Two Colonies—A Cordial Leave-taking—Review of Douglas' Administration—Regime of Frederick Seymour—Excessive CONTENTS. PAGE Taxation—Union of the Colonies—The British North America Act- Anthony Musgrave Governor—British Columbia a Province of the Dominion—A Legislative Assembly Substituted for the Council— Condition of the Province—Indian Policy of the United States and of Great Britain 582 CHAPTER XXXI THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DEFFICULTY. 1854-1872. The Archipelago de Haro—San Juan Island Occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company—Customs Dues Demanded for the United States— Commissioners Appointed—Their Arguments—Indian Trouhles— The Affair of the Hog—A Military Post Established by General Harney—Arrival of British Men-of-war—And of the U, S. Steamer Massachusetts—Protest of Douglas—Harney's Reply—Landing of U. S. Troops—Casey's Trip to Esquimalt—Its Result—A Compromise Offered by Lord Lyons—Attitude of President Buchanan—General Scott Ordered to the Pacific Coast—Negotiations—Harney Recalled—Arbitration and Decision 605 CHAPTER XXXH. THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 1871-1874. The Tide of Westward-bound Migration—Reasons for and against the Railway Project—The Bill Carried in the Commons—Resolution Passed by the Canadian Parliament—Policy of the British and Canadian Governments—Preliminary Surveys—The Hugh Allan Contract—A Modest Demand—The Contract Annulled—Change of Administration—James D. Edgar's Negotiations—Their Failure and its Cause—Mackenzie's Railway Scheme—Objections to his Project. 640 CHAPTER XXXIH. THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 1874-1885. 'The Carnarvon Terms—Their Acceptance—Defeat of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Bill—The Provincial Legislature's Petition to her Majesty—Rejoinder of the Dominion Government—Visit of the Earl of Dufferin—His Speech at Victoria,—Threats of Secession—A Second Petition to the Queen—Proposed Annexation to the United States—One More Petition—Contract with the Syndicate—Engineering Difficulties—Port Moody—Reasons for its Selection as the Terminus—Completion of the Line—A Costly Undertaking—The Road Built as a National Highway, 661 PAGK CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIY POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. 1870-1886. The Victoria and Esquimalt Railway—Protest of the Mainland Popula- lation—The Carnarvon Club—Secession or the Carnarvon Terms— Defeat of the Elliott Ministry—A Lively Debate—The Legislature Votes for Separation—Discontent in the Capital—Cornwall Appointed Chief Magistrate—Government of British Columbia.—The Suffrage—Proceedings of the Legislature—The Judiciary 696 CHAPTER XXXV. SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. 1861-1886. Victoria.—The Ubiquitous Chinaman—Esquimalt—Nanaimo—The Victoria Coal, Mining, and Land Company—New Westminster—Langley— Lytton—Savona's Ferry—Kamloop—Clinton—Barkerville—Yale— Indian Missions and Missionaries—Metlakathla—Forts—Indifference of the Provincial Government—Civilization of the Native Tribes— Churches—Charitable Societies—Public Schools—Journalism—Libraries 707 CHAPTER XXXVT. INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. 1880-1886. Agricultural Areas—Public Lands—Stock-raising—Fruits—Fisheries— Salmon-canning—Manufactures—Gold-mining—Coal-mining—The Alaska Boundary—Exports and Imports—Comparison with Other Provinces—Banking—Insurance—Shipping—Inland Navigation— Revenue and Expenditure—Public Debt—Comparison of Customs Returns—Elements of Prosperity—Biographical—Bibliograhical..... 740 Index 775 AUTHORITIES QUOTED IN THE HISTORY OE BRITISH COLUMBIA. Ab-sa-ra-ka, Home of the Crows. Philadelphia, 1868. Allen (Alexander), Cariboo and the Mines of British Columbia. MS. Anderson (Alexander Caulfield), Dominion at the West. Victoria, 1872; Handbook and Map to the Gold Region. San Francisco, 1858; Notes on the Indian Tribes of British North America. In Historical Mag., March. 1863, 73; Notes on North Western America. Montreal, 1876. Anderson (Alexander Caulfield), North-West Coast History. MS. Anderson (James), Letter to Sir George Simpson. • In Lond. Geog. Soe., Jour., xxvi. 18. Annals of British Legislation. London, 1856 et seq, 4to. Applegate (Jesse), Views of Oregon History. MS. Armstrong (A. N.), Oregon. Chicago, 1857. Arrowsmith (John), Map of the Provinces of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. London, 1859. Astoria, Or., Astorian, Marine Gazette. Atlantic Monthly. Boston, 1858 et seq. Ballantyne (Robert M.), Hudson's Bay. Edinburgh, 1848 Ballou (William T.), Adventures. MS. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of Alaska. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of California. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of Nevada. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of Northwest Coast. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of Oregon. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), Native Races of the Pacific States. New York, 1875. 5 vols. Bancroft (Hubert Howe), Popular Tribunals. Bancroft Library MSS. Scrap-books containing classified notes used in writing Bancroft's works. Bancroft Library Newspaper Scraps, classified under the following headings: British Columbia, Fisheries, Shipping and Navigation, Trade and Commerce. Bancroft's Hand-Book of Mining. San Francisco, 1861. Barkersville, Cariboo Sentinel. Barrett-Lennard (C. E.), Travels in British Columbia. London, 1862. Bayley (C. A.), Vancouver Island Early Life. MS. Begbie (Matthew B.), Journey into the Interior of British Columbia. In Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxi. 237. Blanshard (Richard), Vancouver Island. Despatches, 26 Dec. 1849 to 30 Aug. 1851. New Westminster, n. d. Bolduc (J. B. Z.), Letter to Mr Cayenne, 15 Feb. 1844. In De Smet's Or. Missions, 51. (xxiii) xxiv AUTHORITIES QUOTED. Bowles (Samuel), Across the Continent. Springfield, 1866; Our New West Hartford, etc., 1869. British Columbia Agricultural and Horticultural Society. Reports. Victoria 1873 et seq. British Columbia, Guide to the Province^of. Victoria, 1877. British Columbia, Memorial in Connection with the Omineca Road Petition, n. pi., n. d. British Columbia Milling and Mining Company, Prospectus. Victoria, 1878. British Columbia Mining Stock Board. Constitution. Victoria, 1878. British Columbia Public Documents cited in my notes by their titles and dates, the title consisting of 'British Columbia,' followed by one of the following headings: Acts; Collection of Acts, Ordinances, and Proclamation; Consolidated Statutes; Correspondence on the Custom Stations between Victoria and Kootenay; Expenditure; Indian Land Question; Journals of Legislative Assembly; Journals of Legislative Council; Lands and Works; List of Voters; Minister of Mines' Reports; Ordinances; Overland Coach Road; Papers Relating to Affairs—Further Papers; Public Schools; Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages; Sessional Papers; Statutes. British Columbia Railway Question, .Opinions of the English Press. Victoria, . ,1877- British Columbia Sketches. MS. British North America. London, n. d. British North American Provinces, Correspondence respecting the Proposed Union—Further Papers. London, 1867, folio. British North-West American Emigrants Settlement Association, n. pi., n. d. Brown (R. C. Lundin), British Columbia—An Essay. New Westminster, 1863; British Columbia, The Indians and Settlers at Lilloet. London, 1870. Brown (Robert), Geographical Distribution on Coal Fields of N. Pacific Coast. Edinburgh, 1869; On the Formation of Fjords, Canons, Benches, etc. In Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., xxxix. 125; Vancouver Island Exploration. Victoria, 1864. Browne (J. Ross), Lower California. See Taylor; Report upon the Mineral Resources of the States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains. Washington, 1867; Washington, 1868; San Francisco, 1868. Bulfinch (Thomas), Oregon and El Dorado. Boston, 1866. Burnett (Peter H.), Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer. New York, 1880. Burnett (Peter H.), Recollections of the Past. MS. 2 vols. Butler (W. F.), The Wild North Land. Philadelphia, 1874. Caldwell (Robert), The Gold Era of Victoria. London, 1855. California Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the. S. F., 1858 et seq. Canada, Handbook of Information for Intending Emigrants. Ottawa, 1877. Canada Public Documents cited in my notes by their titles and dates, the title consisting of ' Canada' followed by one of the following headings: Addresses of Governor; Agriculture; Canal Enlargement; Census; Coal Trade; Customs; Debates of the House of Commons; Estimates; Extradition of Prisoners; Geological Survey, Selwyn (A. R. C), Director; Reports of Progress, etc.; Immigration and Colonization; Inland Revenues; Insurance; Interior; Lake Superior and Red River Settlement; Lights; Marine and Fisheries; Message Relative to the Terms of Union; Meteorological Magnetic; Militia; Navigable Streams; Northwest Mounted Police; Postmaster General; Public Accounts; Public Works; Secretary of State; Statistics; Trade and Navigation. Canadian Pacific Railway, Sandford Fleming, Engineer in Chief. Correspondence relating to. n. pi., n. d.; Maps and Charts; Papers connected with the awarding of Section Fifteen. Ottawa, 1877; Reports 1872 et seq. Ottawa, 1872 et seq. AUTHORITIES QUOTED. xxv Canadian Parliamentary Companion, 1874. Montreal, 1874. Cariboo, The Newly Discovered Gold Fields of British Columbia. London, 1862. Cariboo Quartz Mining Company, Memoranda. Victoria, 1878. Cartography of the Pacific Coast. MS. folio. 3 vols. Chicago Academy of Sciences, Transactions. Chicago, 1869 et seq. Chinook Jargon, Dictionary of. Olympia, 1873; Portland, 1878; Victoria, n.d.; Vocabulary. San Francisco, 1860. Chittenden (Newton H.), Travels in British Columbia and Alaska. Victoria, 1882. Churchill (J. D.), and J. Cooper, British Columbia and Vancouver Island. London, 1866. Claudet (F. G.), Gold. New Westminster, 1871. Columbia Mission, Occasional Paper. London, 1861; Pastoral Address. n.pl., 1864; Reports 1864 et seq. London, 1864 et seq. Compton (P. N.), Forts and Fort Life. MS. Cook (James), Troisieme Voyage a l'Ocean Pachlque en 1776-80. Paris, 1785. 4to. 4 vols. Cook (James), Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1776-80. London, 1784. 4to. 3 vols, plates in folio; London, 1784. 4to. 4 vols; Phila. 1818. 2 vols. Cooper (James), Maritime Matters. MS. Cooper Gold and Silver Mining Company, Memorandum. Victoria, 1878. Cornwallis (Kinahan), The New El Dorado. London, 1858. Courterey (H. C.), British Columbia Mines. MS. Cox (Ross), Adventures on the Columbia River. London, 1831. 2 vols; New York, 1832. Cridge (E.), Characteristics of uames Douglas. MS. Crosby (H. R.), The San Juan Difficulty. In Overland, ii. 201. Dallas (A. G.), San Juan, Alaska, and the North-West Boundary. London, 1873. Dalles (Or.), Mountaineer. Dawson (George M.), General Note on the Mines and Minerals. n.pl., 1877; Note on Some of the Most Recent Changes in Level of Coast, n.pl., 1877; Notes on. the Glaciation of British Columbia. In Canadian Naturalist, vol. ix., no. 1; Report of Explorations in British Columbia. In Canada Geological Survey, 1875-6, 233; Superficial Geology of British Columbia, n.pl., 1878; Travelling Notes on the Surface Geology of the Pacific Coast, n.pl., 1878. Deans (James), Vancouver Island. MS. De Cosmos (Amor), British Columbia Governments. MS. De Cosmos (Amor), Speech on De Horsey's Report, Feb. 18, 1878. Ottawa, 1878; Speech on Esquimalt Graving Dock and Canadian Pacific R. R., Feb. 21, 1878. Ottawa, 1878. De Groot (Henry), British Columbia; its Condition and Prospects, etc. San Francisco, 1859. De Smet (P. J.), Letters and Sketches. Philadelphia, 1843; Missions de l'Oregon. Gand, n.d.; Oregon Missions. New York, 1847; Voyages aux Montagnes Rocheuses. Lille, 1859; Western Missions and Missionaries. New York, 1863. Directories, British Columbia and Victoria, Howard and Barnett; Victoria, Mallandaine. Dodge (Richard Irving), The Plains of the Great West. New York, 1877. Douglas (Sir James), Addresses and Memorials upon the Occasion of the Retirement of. Victoria, 1864. Douglas (Sir James), Diary of Gold Discovery on Fraser River. In Douglas' Private Papers. MS. Douglas (Sir James), Journal, 1840-1. MS. Douglas (Sir James), Official Correspondence. In Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 317. xxvi AUTHORITIES QUOTED. Douglas (Sir James), Private Papers. 1st and 2d series. MS. 2 vols. Douglas (Sir James), Voyages to the North West Coast. In Id. Journal. Douglas (William), A Summary Historical and Political of the British Settlements in North America. London, 1755; Voyage of the Iphigenia. In Meares' Voy. Edit. Lond., 1790. Downie (W.), Explorations in Jarvis Inlet and Desolation Sound. In Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxi. 249. Dunn (John), History of the Oregon Territory. London, 1844; The Oregon Territory and the British N. American Fur Trade. Philadelphia, 1845. Edinburgh Review. Edinburgh, 1802 et seq. Elisa (Francisco), Voyage 1791, Extracts from. In Papers relating to Treaty of Wash., v. 176; also in Reply of the United States, 97. Evans (Elwood), Re-annexation of British Columbia to the United States. Olympia, 1870. Evans (Elwood), Fraser River Excitement. MS. and Scraps. Evans (Elwood), History of Oregon. MS. Evans (Taliesin), British Columbia. In Overland, iv. 258. Ferry (J. M.), and G. J. Wright, Map and Guide to Cariboo Gold Mines. San Francisco, 1862. Fery (Jules), Gold Searches. MS. Findlay (Alexander G.), Directory for the Navigation of the Pacific Ocean. London, 1851. Finlayson (Roderick), Vancouver Island and Northwest Coast. MS. Fitzgerald (James Edward), Charter and Proceedings of Hudson Bay Co., with Reference to Vancouver's Island. London, 1849. Fleming (Sandford), Memorial of the People of Red River to the British and Canadian Governments. Ottawa, 1863. See Canadian Pacific Railway. Forbes (Charles), Vancouver Island; its Resources and Capabilities. Victoria, 1862. Foster (J. W.), The Mississippi Valley. Chicago, 1869. Franchere (Gabriel), Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America, 1811-14. Redfield, 1854. Fraser (Simon), First Journal from April 12 to. July 18, 1806. MS Fraser (Simon), Letters, 1806-7. MS Fraser (Simon), Second Journal from May 30 to June 10, 1808. MS. Fremont (John C), Narrative of Exploring Expedition to Rocky Mountains. New York, 1849. Gibbs (George), Indian Affairs, Report on, March 4, 1854. In Pac. R. R. Repts., i. 402. Good (John B.), British Columbia. MS. Good (John B.), St Paul's Mission, n.pl., n.d. Goodyear (W. A.), Coal Mines of the Western Coast of the U. S. San Francisco, 1877. Grant (George M.), Ocean to Ocean. Canada, 1873; Toronto, x877. Grant (W. C.), Description of Vancouver Island. In Lond. Gteog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 268; Remarks on Vancouver Island. In Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., xxxi. 208. Gray (W. H.), A History of Oregon, 1792-1849. Portland, 1870. Greenhow (Robert), History of Oregon and California. Boston, 1844; London, 1844; Boston, 1845; New York, 1845; Boston, 1847. Grover (Lafayette), Oregon, Notable Things. MS. Hakluyt Society. Hudson's Bay, Geography of. London, 1850. Hancock (Samuel), Thirteen Years' Residence on the Northwest Coast. MS. Hansard (T. C), Parliamentary Debates from 1803. London, 1812-77. [S. F. Law Library.] Harmon (Daniel Williams), Voyages and'Travels in the Interior of North America. Andover, 1820. AUTHORITIES QUOTED. xxvii Harnett (Legh), Two Lectures on British Columbia. Victoria, 1868. Harper's New Monthly Magazine. New York, 1856 et seq. Harvey (Arthur), A Statistical Account of British Columbia. Ottawa, 1867. Harvey (Mrs Daniel), Life of John McLoughlin. MS. Hayes (Benjamin), Scrap Books, 1850-74. 129 vols. Mining. 13 vols. Hazlitt (William Carew), British Columbia and Vancouver's Island. London, 1858; Great Gold Fields of Cariboo. London, 1862. Hector, Mining in the Upper Columbia River Basin. Hines (Henry Youle), Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition. Toronto, 1859, folio; Canadian Red River Expedition, etc. London, 1860. 2 vols.; Papers relative to the Exploration of the Country, Reports of Progress. London, 1859, folio. 2 vols. Hines (Gustavus), Oregon and its Institutions. New York; Oregon: Its History, 0 m.xdon, etc. Buffalo, 1851; Voyage round the World. Buffalo, 1850. Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries. Boston, etc., 1857-69. 15 vols. Hittell (John S.), The Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast. San Francisco, 1882. 4to. Honolulu, Polynesian, 1857 et seq.; Sandwich Island News, 1846 et seq. Hooper (W. H.), Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski. London, 1853. Horetzky (Charles), Canada on the Pacific. Montreal, 1874. Howard and Burnett. See Directories. British Columbia and Victoria. Howison (N. M.), Report on Coast, Harbors, etc., of Oregon 1846. [30th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Miss. Doc. 29.] Washington, 1848. Hudson's Bay Company, Extent and Value of Possessory Rights. [Montreal, 1849]; Plans Referred to in the Report from the Select Committee. London, 1857; Report from Special Committee. London, 1857; Return to an Address, 16 March, 1857. n.pl., n.d. Hudson's Bay Company's Charter and License to Trade. Papers relative to. London, 1859. Hudson Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Companies, British and American Joint Commission. Montreal, etc., 1868. 4 vols.; Evidence for the United States. Washington, 1867; Memorials presented to the Commissioners April 17, 1865. Washington, 1865; Supplement and Appendix to Arguments in Behalf of the U. S. n. pi., n. d. Hunt's Merchant's Magazine. New York, 1839 et seq. Imray (James F.), Sailing Directions for the West Coast of N. America. London, 1868 Isbister (Alex. K.), A Proposal for a New Penal Settlement, ^.ondon, 1850. Isherwood (B. Mm Report of Experiments on Coals of the Pacific Coast. [42d Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 206.] Washington, 1872. Jarves (James J.), History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands. Boston, 1843; London, 1843; Honolulu, 1872; Boston, 1844. Johnson (R. B.), Very Far West Indeed. London, 1872. Joly (H. G.), Report on Forestry and Forests of Canada. In Canadian Agricultural Report, 1877,1. Kane (Paul), Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of N. America. London, 1859. Kingston (W. H. G.), Snow-shoes and Canoes. London, ».tc, 1877. Kirchhoff (Theodor), Reisebilder und Skizzen. N. Y., 18/ 5-6. 2 vols. Kmght's Scrap Books, A Collection of 40 volumes. Langevin (H. L.), Report on British Columbia. Ottawa, 1872. Langley (Henry G.), Trade of the Pacific. San Francisco, 1870. Lee (Daniel), and J. H. Frost. Ten Years in Oregon. New York, 1844. Levi (Leone), Annals of British Legislation. London, 1856-68. 18 vols. Lewis (Philip H.), Coal Discoveries in Washington Territory. MS. xxviii AUTHORITIES QUOTED. Lewis (Herbert George), Reminiscences in British Columbia Sketches. MS. Lewis (Meriwether), and William Clarke, Expedition. to the Sources of the Missouri and Pacific Ocean, 1804-6. Philadelphia, 1814. 2 vols.; New York, 1842. 2 vols.; Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and across the American Continent. London, 1814. 4to; London, 1815; numerous other editions. Lockington (W. N.), Notes on Pacific Coast Fish and Fisheries. n.pl. 1879. Log of the Sir James Douglas. In Canadaj Marine and Fisheries. 1876-7. London, Chronicle, Morning Post, Punch, Spectator, Times. London Geographical Society, Journal. London, 1831-70. 40 vols. Lord (John Keast), The Naturalist in Vancouver's Island, etc. London, 1866. 2 vols McClellan (R. Guy), The Golden State. San Francisco, 1872. McDonald (Archibald), Canoe Voyage from Hudson's Bay to Pacific. Ottawa. 1872. McDonald (D. G. Forbes), British Columbia and Vancouver Island. London^ 1863; Lecture on British Columbia. London, 1863. McDonald (W. John), Narrative. In British Columbia Sketches. MS. McDonald (J. L.), Hidden Treasures. Gloucester, 1871. Mcfarlane (James), The Coal Regions of America. New York, 1873. Macfie (Matthew), Vancouver Island and British Columbia. London, 1865. Macgregor (John), Commercial Statistics. London, 1850. 5 vols. McKay (James William), Recollections of Hudson's Bay Company. MS. Mackenzie (Alexander), Voyage from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, 1789-93. London, 1801. 4to; New York, 1814. Mackenzie (E.), Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive'View of cne U. S. etc. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1819. $8 McKinlay (Archibald), Narrative of a Chief Factor of Hudson Bay Company. MS. « McLean (John), Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson Bay Territory. London, 1849 McLeod, Peace River. See McDonald (Archibald), Canoe Voyage. McLoughlin (John), Private Papers, 1825-56. MS. Macoun (John), Geological and Topographical Notes. In Canada, Geol. Survey, 1875-6, 87; Report on Botanical Features of the Country. -In Id., 110. Mallandaine. See Directory, Victoria. Malte-Brun (V. A.), Precis de la Geographie Universelle. Bruxelles, 1839. 6 vols. Martin (R. Montgomery), History of the British Colonies. London, 1835. 5 vols; The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island. London, 1849. Marysville (Cal.), Appeal, Telegraph. Mathias (Franklin), Fraser and Thompson River Gold Mines. In Olympia Pion. and Dem., May 14, 1858. Matthew (J. H.), The North-West Boundary. In Overland, vi. 297. Matthieu (F. X.), Refugee, Trapper, and Settler. MS. Mayne (R. C), Four Years in British Columbia. London, 1862; Report of a Journey in British Columbia. In Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxi. 213. Meares (John), Voyages made in 1788-9 from China to the N. W. Coast of America. London, 1790; Id., 1791. 2 vols.; other editions. Milton (Viscount), History of the San Juan Water Boundary Question. London, 1869. , _ . Milton (Viscount), and W. B. Cheadle. The North West Passage by Land. London, 1865. Mining' Magazine. New York, 1853 et seq. Minto (John), Early Days of Oregon. MS. Missionary Life in the Nineteenth Century, Pictures of. London, 1858. Moberly (Walter), Journey to Gold Mines. In Victoria Gazette, Feb. 17,1859. AUTHORITIES QUOTED. xxix Moffat (Hamilton), Journal of a Tour across Vancouver Island to Nootka Sound. In Pemberton's V. L, 143. Morgan (Lewis H.), The American Beaver and his Works. Philadelphia, 187S. Muir (Michel), Recollections. In British Columbia Sketches. MS. Nanaimo, Free Press, Gazette, and Tribune. Nevada (Cal.), Gazette, Journal. Newberry (J. S.), Origin of Prairies. In American Scientific Assoc, Trans., 1866. New Tacoma, North Pacific Coast Times. New Westminster, British Columbia Examiner, British Columbian, Dominion Pacific Herald, Government Gazette, Mainland Guardian^ New Republic Journal. New York, Herald, Journal of Commerce, Methodist, Sun, Times, Tribune. Niles'Register. Baltimore, etc, 1811-49. 76 vols. Nind (Philip Henry), Report of Diggings on Antler Creek. In British Columbia Further Papers, iv. North American Review. Boston, 1819 et seq. North Pacific Review. San Francisco, 1862-3. 2 vols. Northwest Boundary, Discussion of, etc. Washington, 1868. Ogden (Peter Skeen), and James Douglas, Letter respecting Coal in Vancouver Island; In Martins, H. B., 37. Olympia, Echo, Columbian, Pioneer and Democrat, Puget Sound Courier, Transcript, Washington Standard. Olympia Club Conversazione. MS. Oregon City, Enterprise, Oregon Argus, Spectator. Ottawa Times. Overland Monthly. San Francisco, 1868-75. 15 vols. Overland Route, Report from a Select Committee. St Paul, 1858; Sketch of the Proposed Line. London, 1858; Ottawa, 1871. Pacific Railroad Reports. Washington, 1855-60. 4to. 13 vols. Palliser (John). Papers relative to the Exploration of British North America. London, 1859. 4to; Further Papers. London, 1860. 4to; Index and Maps. London, 1865. 4to. Palmer (H. Spencer), Report on the Harrison and Lilloet Route. In London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxi. 224; Report of a Journey of Survey from Victoria to Fort Alexander. New Westminster, 1863; Report on Portions of the Williams Lake and Cariboo Districts. New Westminster, 1863. Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, vol. v., Berlin Arbitration. Washington, 1872. Parker (Samuel), Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains. Ithaca, 1838; Id., 1840; Auburn, 1842; Id., 1846. Peace River Mines, History of. In Victoria Weekly Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870. Pemberton (J. Despard), Facts and Figures relating to Vancouver Island. London, 1860. Perkins (James H.), Annals of the West. St Louis, 1850. Petermann (A.), Mittheilungen aus Justus geographischer. Gotha, 1872. Pioneer (The). San Francisco, 1854-5. 4 vols. Poole (Francis), Queen Charlotte Islands. London, 1872. Portland Newspapers, Advertiser,' Bulletin, Commercial, Commercial Reporter, Deutche Zeitung, Herald, New Northwest, Oregon Herald, Ore^ gonian, Pacific Christian Advocate, Standard, West Shore. Post (Aaron), Statement. In Victoria Gazette, July 4, 1858. Quarterly Review. London, 1809 et seq. Rattray (Alexander), Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Lond., 1842. Rawlings (Thomas), The Confederation of the British N. American Provinces. London, 1865. xxx AUTHORITIES QUOTED. Red River Settlement, Correspondence Relative to the Recent Disturbances in. London, 1870. folio. Remy (Jules), and Julius Brenchley, a Journey to Great-Salt-Lake City. London, 1861. 2 vols. Reply of the United States to the Case of the Government of Her Britannic . Majesty, n. pi., n.d. 4to. Richards (George H.), The Vancouver Island Pilot. London, 1864. Richardson (James), Report on the Coal Fields of the East Coast of Vancouver Island. In Canada, Geol. Survey, 1871-2, 73. Richardson (Sir John)* Arctic Searching Expedition. London, 1851. 2 vols. Ritz (Philip), Great Northern Interior. MS. Roberts (George B.), Recollections of Hudson's Bay Co. MS. Roseburg, Pantagraph, Plaindealer. Ross (Alexander), Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon. London, 1849; The Fur Hunters of the Far West. London, 1855. 2 vols. Rowe (G.), The Colonial Empire of Great Britain, pt. i. London, n.d. Sacramento (Cal.), Bee, Record, Record Union. Salem (Or.), American Unionist, Capital Chronicle, Mercury, Oregon Statesman, Willamette Farmer. San Bernardino (Cal.), Guardian. San Francisco Newspapers, Alta California, Call, Chronicle, Coast Review, Evening Bulletin, Herald, Mining and Scientific Press, News Letter, Post, Scientific Press, Times. Sawney's Letters: or Cariboo Rhymes. 1864-8. Seattle (Wash.), Intelligencer, Pacific Tribune, Puget Sound Dispatch. Seemann (Berthold), Narrative of the Voyage of H. M. S. Herald, 1845-51. London, 1853. 2 vols. Selwyn (A. R.' C). See Canada Geological Survey. Seward (W. H.), Speeches on Alaska, Vancouver, and Oregon, Aug. 1869. Washington, 1869. Simmonds (P. L.), Sir John Franklin and the Arctic Regions. Buffalo, 1852. Simpson (Alexander), The Oregon Territory. London, 1846. Simpson (Sir George), Narrative of a Journey round the World. London, 1847. 2 vols. Snyder, Letter from Yale, Aug. 17th. In Victoria Gazette, Aug. 24, 1858. Sproat (Gilbert Malcolm), British Columbia. London, 1873; London, 1875; Canada and the Empire. London, 1873; Scenes and Studies of Savage Life. London, 1868. Steilacoom (Wash.), Puget Sound Express. Stuart (Granville), Montana as it is. New York, 1865. Stuart (John), Autograph Notes. Torres, 1842. Sutro (A.), Review of Fraser River, etc. In San Francisco Bulletin, Aug. 27, 1858. Swan (James G.), The Haidah Indians of Queen Charlotte Island. Wash., 1874. Swan (James M.), Colonizations. MS. Tache (Macgregor), Sketch of the Northwest of America. Montreal, 1870. Tarbell (Frank), Victoria, Life and Travels. MS. Taylor (Alexander S.), Historical Summary of Lower California. In Browne's Min. Res. Taylor (James W.), Northwest British America. St Paul, 1860. Tennant (Thos.), Nautical Almanac, Tide Register, etc. San Francisco, 1877. Thornton (J. Quinn), Oregon and California in 1848. New York, 1848, 2 vols. Thornton (J. Quinn), Oregon History. MS. Tod (John), New Caledonia. MS. Tolmie (William Fraser), Canadian Pacific Railway Routes. Victoria, 1877. Tolmie (William F.), Puget Sound and Northwest Coast. MS. AUTHORITIES QUOTED. Townsend (John K.), Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains. Philadelphia, 1839. Truman (Benjamin C), Occidental Sketches. San Francisco, 1881. Trutch (Joseph), Complimentary Dinner to, April 10, 1871. Montreal, 1871; Map of British Columbia, 1871. Turner (Wm M.), Gold Hunting on Queen Charlotte's Island. In Overland, xiv. 167. Umatilla, Columbia Press. Umfreville (Edward), The Present State of Hudson's Bay. London, 1790. United States Exploring Expedition. [Wilkes.] Philadelphia, 1844-58. 4to. 17 vols.; folio. 8 vols. United States Government Documents; Bureau of Statistics; Commerce, Foreign and Domestic; Commerce and Iflavigation; Commercial Relations; Indian Affairs. Vancouver (Wash*), Independent Registeu. Vancouver Island, Copies or Extracts of any Despatches on Subject of Establishment of a Representative Assembly. London, 1857. folio; Exploration, 1864. n. pi., n.d.; Returns to three Addresses. London, 1849. folio; Supreme Court of Civil Justice, Order in Court constituting. Victoria, 1865; The Necessity of Reform. Victoria, 1859. Victor (Frances Fuller), All over Oregon and Washington. San Francisco, 1872; River of the West. Hartford, 1870. Victoria, British Colonist, Cariboo Sentinel, Chronicle, Express, Gazette, Press, Standard. Vowell (A: W.), British Columbia Mines. MS. Waddington (Alfred), The Fraser Mines Vindicated. Victoria, 1858; Overland Route through British North America. London, 1868; Sketch of the Proposed Line of Overland Railroad. Ottawa, 1871. Waldo (Daniel), Critiques. MS. Walla Walla, Statesman. Warre (Henry), and M. Vavasseur, Report, in Martin's Hudson's Bay. Weed (Charles E.), Queen Charlotte Island Expedition. MS. Westminster Review. London, 1824 et seq. White (Elijah), Ten Years in Oregon. Ithaca, 1850. Whymper (Frederick), Travel ana Adventure in Alaska. New York, 1869. Wilkes (Charles), Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition. Philadelphia, 1844. 4to. 3 vols.; Philadelphia, 1845. 5 vols.; London, 1845. Wilson (Elizabeth), Recollections. In Oregon Sketches. MS. Wilson (William), Dominion of Canada, etc. Victoria, 1874. Winthrop (Theodore), The Canoe and the Saddle. Boston, 1863. Woods (W. H.), Correspondence from McCaw's Rapids In Puget Sound Herald, May 14, 1858. Work (John), Journal, 1824. MS. Wright, Cariboo. In Overland, iii. 524. Yale, British Columbia Examiner. s HISTORY OF BEITISH COLUMBIA. CHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. The Spaniards on the Coast op British Columbia—Perez, Heceta, and Arteaga—Expedition of James Cook—Hanna—Maurelle—La Pe- rouse—portlock and dlxon—guise—lowrie—barclay—meares— Gray—Kendrick—Martinez—Haro—Colnett—Douglas—Elisa— Quimper—Galiano and Valdes—Bodega y Cuadra—Vancouver. The history of British. Columbia comprises six distinct eras. First, the discoveries, claims, disputations, and diplomacies relative to the ownership and division of the domain, commonly referred to as Nootka Affairs. The second epoch begins with the coming of the fur- traders by land, by way of Peace River, first the people of the Northwest Company, hard followed by servants of the Hudson's Bay Company; and continues until 1849, when colonization and colonial government begin on Vancouver Island. The third term, during which the Hudson's Bay Company are still everywhere dominant, ruling Vancouver Island in the queen's name, and the Mainland in their own name, lasts until 1858, when the gold discovery overturns the existing order of things, and raises the Mainland into a colony. The fourth historic period, during which there are two colonies and two governors, concludes with the union Hist. Beit. Col. 1 (1) 2 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. of the Island and Mainland under one colonial government in 1866. The affairs of the consolidated colony constitute the fifth era^ terminating in confederation with Canada in 1871. " What follows may be called, at this present writing, the sixth and last period. For more than three hundred years after the beginning of European occupation on the North American Pacific seaboard, its largest island remained practically untouched. Jt is true that since Cortes built vessels at Zacatula for South Sea explorations, Fuca and Maldonado had made their hypothetical observations of the Anian opening, had told the much expectant world the wondrous tale of the long looked for ocean highway, found at last, which should let pass vessels through the continent, straight from Europe to India, which passage, indeed, this monster isle would seem somewhat inconveniently to obstruct; it is true, that some two hundred years after these reputed first discoveries of the Spaniards, navigators had surveyed the Island's shores, that British, Russian, and American trading-vessels had anchored in its bays and inlets, and that on its seaward side many strange scenes, many thrilling tragedies had been performed—it was. there that occurred the first pitched quarrel between Spain and England for the territories adjacent; and there the Boston and the Tonquin were captured, and their crews massacred—yet all who hitherto had come had gone their way, leaving to the aboriginal tenants their sea-skirted domain in all its primeval quietude* More than any happening thus far on the Northwest Coast, more than the later bluster at Fort Astoria, or the bristling at Stikeen, the seizing and sending to San Bias of two English vessels by Martinez, in 1789, and the planting of a Spanish battery at Nootka caused commotion among the bellicous nations of Europe, as has been fully shown in iny History of the Northwest Coast. SPAIN, ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND RUSSIA. 3 Perez, Heceta, and Cuadra had explored and taken possession of the Nootka country for Spain in 1774-9, at which time there were no signs of European occupation in this vicinity. James Cook, who touched at Nootka in 1778, and La Perouse, who visited the coast in 1786, brought to the knowledge of the world the unappropriated wealth of furs which floated in these waters, and the arrival of the Russians on Cook's Map, 1788. American shores. For several years this source of wealth remained untouched, though much ill feeling was caused among rival claimants. In 1788 Spain was induced to send Martinez and Haro northward, and later occurred the disputes at Nootka, all of which have been fully related in previous volumes of my works.1 England had offered twenty thousand pounds to the British subject who should discover and sail through 1 Besides the History of the Northwest Coast, see early volumes of History of Oregon, History of California, aud History of the North Mexican States. 4 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. any passage uniting the Atlantic and Pacific, north of the fifty-second parallel. Under instructions carefully to examine the coast north of latitude 65° only, James Cook strikes the shore of Drake's New Albion just above latitude 44°, coasts northward giving names to capes Perpetua, Gregory,2 Foulwreather, and Flattery; closes his eyes to the River Columbia and to Fuca Strait, pronouncing them non-existent;3 and enters an inlet which he names King George Sound, but which the natives call Nootka.4 Skins of the bear, fox, wolf, deer, polecat, marten, raccoon, and sea-otter are brought by the guileless savage, who is eager for brass and iron, caring nothing for glass beads, thereby showing his knowledge of metals, and his appreciation of their value. Continuing his search for a strait northwestward, the illustrious navigator departs from the coast, wilfully oblivious of the existence of the great islands and entrances adjacent.5 Following Cook, Captain Hanna crosses from China in 1785, and again in the following year he appears in 2 Arago. 3 Which seems a little singular; for though his search proper for inter- oceanic communication did not begin at this point, yet being on the coast for the express purpose of finding round or through it a passage by water, we should hardly expect to find the famous discoverer passing by the mouth of the Columbia while writing of the discoveries of Martin de Aguilar in 1603: ■ It is worth observing that in the very latitude where we now were geographers have been pleased to place a large entrance or strait, the discovery of which they take upon them to ascribe to the same navigator; whereas nothing more is mentioned in the account of his voyage than his having seen, in this situation, a large river, which he would have entered, but was prevented by the currents.' Still more strange is it when off Cape Flattery, with a strait under his very eyes, he should press northward, saying: 'It is in this very latitude where we now were that geographers have placed the pretended strait of Juan de Fuca. But we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least probability that ever any such thing existed.' Cook's Voy., ii. 261-3. Considering his mission, Captain Cook's survey of the coast in these latitudes was certainly superficial. By chance he was correct in his conclusions, though it would have been in a little better taste to have avoided the supercilious strain in which he pronounces the discoveries of the Spaniards forgeries. 4 Between what he calls Point Breakers, which he places in latitude 49° 15', and what he calls Woody Point, which he places in latitude 50°, 'the shore forms a large bay, which I called Hope Bay; hoping, from the appearance of the land to find in it a good harbour.' Cook's Voy., ii. 264. 5 ' We were now passing the place where geographers have placed the pretended strait of Admiral de Fonte. For my own part, I give no credit to sxich vague and improbable stories, that carry their own confutation along with them.' Cook's Voy., ii. 343. It is but fair to add, that when in this latitude a gale obliged him to keep well out to sea. PORTLOCK AND DIXON". 5 the Sea-Otter, and conducts a profitable trade with the natives of Nootka.6 And now is formed the King George's Sound Company, which is to monopolize the Northwest Coast fur-trade; and there come to the coast in 1787, by way of the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska, Captain Portlock with the ship King George, and in the Queen Charlotte George Dixon, the latter visiting and giving names to Cloak Bay, Hippa Island, Dixon Strait, and Queen Charlotte Islands, at which last named place alone he secures eighteen hundred and twenty-one fine otter-skins. Then arriving off Nootka, he sails away without entering.7 This same year we find another quite successful English trader at Nootka Sound in the ship Imperial Eagle, Captain Barclay,8 who coasts to Barclay Sound, giving his name to the place, sends thence a boat's crew into what was later named Fuca Strait, after which, dropping below Flattery, some of his men are murdered near where a portion of Bodega y Cuadra's crew in 1775 suffered a like fate. The following summer, Meares arrives in the Felice, and after erecting a house at Friendly Cove,9 in Nootka Sound, and leaving there a party to build a vessel, he proceeds southward, visits the village of 6 Captain Guise, in the Experiment, was also there in the summer of 1786, as well as Captain Lowrie of the ship Captain Cook, from which latter vessel the surgeon, an Irishman named John McKey, being ill was placed on shore, where he remained for more than one year. He was stripped of his clothing by the natives, and made to conform to their customs. He learned somewhat of their language, j made frequent incursions into the interior parts of the country about King George's Sound, and did not think any part of it was the continent of America, but a chain of detached islands.' The man and his opinions, however, were derided by the navigators. The following year, 1787, the Prince of Wales, Captain Colnett, the Princess Royal, Captain Duncan, and the Imperial Eagle, Captain Barclay, were at Nootka. 7 In his preface Dixon scourges Maurelle for failing to do what Cook failed to do; he is elated, himself, for having made the discovery of Queen Charlotte Islands, for which, indeed, he is entitled to all praise. It was, however, only surmise with him, as he never circumnavigated the island. Its complete separation from the mainland was ascertained by Duncan the following year, who called the isles adjacent, as was then the fashion, from his ship, Princess Royal Archipelago. See vol. i. p. 180 for Dixon's map. 8 Written also Berkely. 9See Greenhow's Or. and Cal., 151. 6 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGER. Wicananish in Clayoquot Sound, which he names Port Cox,10 passes on to the entrance of Fuca Strait— so named by him—and down the coast to Destruction Island,11 Shoalwater and Deception bays, and capes Disappointment and Lookout,12 off which latter point he turns and retraces his course to Barclay Sound, which he enters, and anchors in a bay to which he gives the name of Port Effingham.13 There the natives bring to him a plentiful supply of salmon, shell-fish, wild onions, and the fruits of the forest. Under the first officer, Robert Duffin, the long-boat with twelve men is sent to explore the strait, and enters several coves and harbors along the southern shore of Vancouver Island to trade. After sailing some thirty leagues, far enough to perceive that the water to the east-north-east increased rather than diminished,14 the party is furiously attacked by natives in two canoes, and driven back wounded to the ship; after which Meares returns with his ship to Nootka, where, not long after, the Iphigenia, Captain Douglas, and the sloop Washington, Captain Gray, arrive. The new vessel is christened the Northwest America,™ and launched. 10 \ In honor of our friend John Henry Cox, Esquire.' 11 Where was situated the I village of Queenhithe,' and some seven miles distant I the town of Queenuitett,' whose inhabitants were man-eating people. The country round Cape Flattery he calls Tatootche, and the island Tatoot- che Island. Having carefully searched for the Rio de San Roque of the Spaniards, he might now safely assert that no such stream exists. 12 To which he gives their names, as well as to Cape Shoalwater, south of the entrance, and to Mount Olympus. This coast he calls New Albion, following Drake and Cook. 13 f The port is sufficiently capacious to contain an hundred sail of ships, and so fortunately sheltered as to secure them from any storm. The anchorage is also good, being a soft mud, and the watering place perfectly convenient.' Meares' Voy., 172. u f Such an extraordinary circumstance filled us with strange conjectures as to the extremity of this strait, which we concluded, at all events, could not be any great distance from Hudson's Bay.' Meares' Voy., 179. 151 Being the first bottom ever built and launched in this part of the globe.1 Meares, Voy., 220, gives a full-page illustration of the launching of this craft amidst the flying of flags, the boom of cannon, and the shouts of the savages. In the background is the two-story house erected for the use of his men while engaged in building the vessel, and in the distance, round a high rocky promontory, is seen the Indian village, with the sloop Washington anchored in front of it. MEARES AND GRAY. 1 _ || Quicksand JBay ^C .Lookout Meares' Map. 8 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. While yet are lying at Nootka the Iphigenia, Felice, and Northwest America, which in due time take their departure, a vessel from Boston enters the harbor, the Columbia, Captain Kendrick. This vessel and the Washington winter at Nootka, 1788-9.16 On his way up the coast, Gray had been attacked by the natives at Tillamook Bay. Meanwhile, violent measures were adopted by the Spaniards, and directed against the British traders at Nootka, the distempers of which reached Madrid and London, and culminated in the Nootka convention, 1790. The fortification erected at Nootka by Martinez in 1789 was temporarily abandoned before the end of the year, but not before the arrival of Gon- zalo de Haro and the seizure of the Argonaut, Colnett commanding, the Iphigenia, which had returned to Nootka in charge of William Douglas, the Northwest America, and the Princess Royal, for attempting to found establishments within Spanish dominions. Martinez sent two of his prizes to Mexico, while Haro in the San Carlos prosecuted discoveries. The following spring, Nootka was reoccupied by the Spaniards under Elisa, who established there a Spanish settlement, for which supplies were brought from San Bias by the Californian transports. This same year, 1790, Manuel Quimper, commanding the Princesa Real, one of the three vessels under Elisa, sailed from Nootka the 31st of May to continue the exploration possibly begun by Haro in Fuca Strait the year previous. Touching at several points on the 16 On Meares' map the entire seaboard from Fuca Strait to Alaska is laid down as an island, or a group of islands, called the Northern Archipelago and Princess Royal Islands, west of which are the 'Queen Charlotte's Isles, so named by Captain Dixon in 1787, first discovered by captains Lowrie and Guise in 1786;' and on the eastern side, 'sketch of the track of the American sloop Washington, in autumn 1789,'while beyond to the eastward is still 'the sea,' and yet farther j land seen. I On his way up the coast, Gray had attempted to enter the Columbia, but failed; and the following summer, while yet in command of the Washington, he had explored the eastern shore of Queen Charlotte Island, which he called Washington Island. Then, taking command of the Columbia, Gray returned to Boston; and in a second voyage to» the Northwest Coast entered and named the Columbia River. MANUEL QUIMPER. 9 south-west side of the Island before visited by trading- vessels, on the 11th of June he entered and named Port San Juan, where he remained four days. Thence continuing, he passed two points, which he called San Eusebio and San Antonio, and entered Soke Inlet, which he named Revilla Gigedo in honor of the viceroy of Mexico. Landing, he made short excursions in various directions, and, following his instructions, on the 23d of June he took formal possession of the country for the King of Spain. Contrary windswept him in this port until the 28th, when, setting sail, he Quimper's Map. continued east-south-east, and passed the present Beecher Bay, and the same day entered betwreen three or four inlets a beautiful harbor which he named Elisa.17 "Afterward Pedder Bay. 'El mismo dia se levaron y navegando por rumbos prdximos al lessueste, costearon dos grandes ensenadas y entraron por entre tres 6 quatro islillas y otra grande inmediata a la tierra hasta hallarse dentro de una bella bahia que llamaron de Elisa, en donde anclaron y fueron los pilotos al reconocimiento de aquellos parajes pr6ximos.' Quimper, Segundo Reconocimiento de la Entrada de Fuca, in Viages al Norte, MS., No. 11. The text of the original is here quite confusing, and but for the appendix, which somewhat modifies and explains it, one might suppose the voyagers to have now reached Esquimalt Bay. But by noticing the direction sailed, the time occupied, and by a careful comparsion of the relative latitudes given—Elisa being placed one minute farther south than Revilla Gigedo, while the next 10 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. On the 30th, the vessel proceeded round to Royal Bay, which Quimper called Solano; and the same day he moved the ship up into Esquimalt Harbor, which he named Yaldes. While there the vessel lay at anchor, Quimper sent out in small boats his pilots, who, five leagues to the eastward, discovered besides several islands a broad passage extending toward the west- north-west, and losing itself in the distance This passage or strait was called Haro, in honor of his sailing-master. It was observed that a short distance to the eastward of Valdes Bay, or Esquimalt, was another bay, which they pronounced " a port of good shelter, water, and wild seeds for which the Indians came in canoes from the other side of the strait." This was Victoria Harbor, to wThich Quimper gave the name of C6r- doba.18 While there the natives brought fruit and roots, not having skins to trade. Indeed, says Quimper, they did not need to kill animals for food, their rich soil providing them abundance; and as for clothing, the tribes contiguous, even as far away as the mouth of Fuca Strait, were glad to bring furs, and give them in exchange for these natural products, of which they regularly laid in a winter's supply. This quiet life, moreover, seemed to make these savages loss ferocious than their beast-killing neighbors.19 On the 4th of July, Quimper crossed with his vessel to New Dungeness Point, which he named Santa Cruz, and behind which he anchored, calling the place Quimper Bay.20 Soon the natives appeared with anchorage, which we shall find to be the entrance to Esquimalt Bay, is several minutes north of Elisa, or Soke Harbor—the positions of the several stations become quite clear. 18 Cordoba Bay as laid down on modern maps is misplaceaj that is, if intended as the Cordoba Bay of Quimper. First, it does not correspond to the well-sheltered port described by Quimper; nor does it appear that either Quimper or his pilots ever entered Haro Strait so far. 19 See Native Races, i. 174-207. \ En cuya demora hallaron un puerto que Uamaron de Cordoba de apreciables abrigos, aguas, y semillas silvestres de que salian provistas algunas canoas de los puertos que se hallan fuera del seno.' Quimper, Segundo Reconocimiento de la Eritrada de Fuca. 20 i El mismo dia por la tarde anclaron al abrigo de unapunta que Uamaron de Santa Cruz, donde encontraron un abrigado puerto de poca agua propi* TAKING POSSESSION. 11 mussels, fish, deer meat, mats, skins, tanned leather, and feathered blankets to trade. The pilots, starting out in small boats, and exploring eastward, came to an admirable harbor,21 which they called Bodega y Cuadra, with an island in front of it. The nature of Admiralty Inlet, which he called Ens3nada de Caa- mano, was mistaken, and from this point, along the land running northward, they saw two openings, which they named Fidalgo and Deflon.22 Then they returned to the vessel. On the 18th, Quimper set sail for Nootka, but by reason of adverse winds was obliged to enter Valdes Bay, where he remained three days, when he again weighed anchor, and coasting the southern side of Fuca Strait towrard its entrance, on the 24th came to Neah Bay, which he entered, naming it Puerto de Nunez Gaona.23 Solemnly again on the 1st of August, amidst discharges of musketry and artillery, he took possession of the country, washing without fail to secure it all; and after repairing his vessel and sounding the bay, on the 3d he sailed away for Nootka, but being prevented entrance by a gale, he proceeded to Monterey. The explorations of Quimper served only to whet the interest of the Spanish authorities, and to confirm the belief in an interoceanic strait in this quarter, The very next year, accordingly, Elisa received orders to complete this survey, and at once prepared the San Carlos, of sixteen guns, and the schooner Horcasitas, of seven. He left Nootka in May with the intention of seeking the sixtieth parallel, and thence to follow the coast southward to Fuca Strait, but the winds continued contrary, and he was obliged to sail direct for the Strait. Leaving the schooner on May 27th, to examine Carrasco Inlet,24 he proceeded with the San para las embarcaciones pequeflas, y alii tomaron posesion llamandolo de Quimper.' Segundo Reconocimiento de la Entrada de Fuca. 21 Port Discovery. 22 The former was evidently the present Rosario Strait. 23 The native name was Quinicamet. 24 Barclay Sound. 12 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. Elisa's Map. SURVEY OF HARO STRAIT. 13 Cdrlos to Cordoba Harbor. On May 31st, the armed launch wras despatched under Verdia, the second piloto, to explore Haro Strait, but returned the same day with the report that a fleet of canoes had surrounded the launch, and made such hostile demonstrations that the crew had been obliged to resort to fire-arms. Observing more Indians on shore preparing to reen- force the enemy, Verdia deemed it prudent to return, after having sunk a big canoe and killed several natives. In view of this contretemps, Elisa resolved to wait for the return of the schooner before sending out another expedition. She arrived twelve days later, with an account of the archipelago and branches of the Carrasdo Inlet. The examination of the interior channels had been effected for three leagues only, owing to the stormy weather and the hostility of the Indians, who had on three occasions to be intimidated with grape-shot, fired at a high range so as not to injure them. Elisa now instructed Piloto Jose' Maria Narvaez to take the schooner and launch, with thirty sailors and eight Catalonian volunteers, and make a four days' minute examination of the Haro Strait. He set sail on June 14th, and entered the strait along the western shore, with the intention of afterward letting the vessels explore one of the sides each; but on reaching a group of islands above the present Cordoba Bay, this idea was found impracticable. An anchorage was sought for the night close to the east shore of Vancouver Island, evidently near the present Coal Island; and the next morning Narvaez steered eastward, toward the large opening which had been noticed the day before. After passing several islands, he was obliged to enter for a few hours into the small harbor of San Antonio.25 The same morning, he entered to 25 'Reconoci un buen puerto aunque pequeJio pues lo mas largo de el tiene una y media millas, y lo mas ancho una, pero resguardada de todo viento.. .y • se halla situado en lo mas sur de la isla de Sayas.^ Elisa s Voyage, 1791, in Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, v. 176. This is clearly Bedwell Harbor on Pender Island. 14 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. examine the present Plumper Sound, and then rounded East point on Saturna Island,26 to behold spreading out before him, as far as his eyes could see, a very wide canal. This being the most important discovery made so far, he resolved to name it in honor of the patron saint of the expedition, El Gran Canal de Ntra Sra del Rosario, la marinera. the Gulph of Georgia of Vancouver.27 Narvaez explored this canal very nearly to the mouth of Johnstone Strait, noting a number of places on his map, and among them the entrance to Nanaimo harbor, which he names Wenthuysen, Tejada Island, and the mouths of Fraser River.28 The exploration in Fuca Strait and adjoining waters- terminated on August 7th, when Elisa, withdrew to seek remedies for his scurvy-stricken crew and the failing larder. He himself had been confined by sickness during the greater part of the time.29 Galiano and Valdes in the ships Sutil and Mexi- cana leave Mexico soon after to prosecute discoveries round Vancouver Island, which expedition we shall encounter later. By the terms of settlement which followed the disturbances at Nootka, Spain was tc restore all property seized, and England was neither to navigate nor to fish within ten leagues of any spot occupied by Spaniards; elsewhere the navigation of the Northwest Coast should be free to both powers. And in the execution of these terms, commissioners appointed on either side were to meet at Nootka for the settlement of British claims. George Vancouver,30 being about to sail for the- 26 Marked as Pta de Sta Saturnina on Elisa's map. 27 \ En el medio de el se distinguia como a perder de vista un pequefio cerro, a moda de Pan de Azucar, siendo advertencia que los estremos 6 nuntas de tierra que forman este canal es serrania muy elevada, cubierta de nieve.' lb. 28 These are marked as openings between some islands, but behind them, on the continent, is laid down a wider inlet, Boca de Florida Blanca, which the Spanish explorers of the following year identified with Burrard Inlet. 29 Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, 2. . 30 At this time lieutenant, afterward post-captain in the British navy. He had served as midshipman with Captain Cook during his second and third I BODEGA Y CUADRA AND VANCOUVER. 15 Pacific on an exploring tour, is commissioned to act for England, and Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Cuadra, for Spain. Vancouver appears upon the coast, near Cape Mendocino, in the sloop of war Discovery, with the armed tender Chatham, Lieutenant Broughton, master, in April 1792, which was the month following the departure of Bodega y Cuadra from San Bias with the Santa Gertrudis, Activa, and Princesa. Coasting northward, and scattering names freely on the way, Vancouver calls Trinidad Head Rocky Point; next, Point St George, "and the very dangerous cluster of rocks extending from thence, the Dragon Rocks," also St George Bay, followed by Cape Orford, in honor of his "much respected friend, the noble earl," and Point Grenville,81 ''after the Right Honorable Lord Grenville." The points Meares named he recognizes, and among them Cape Disappointment and Deception Bay, though like the others he passes unobserved the entrance to the Columbia River, which otherwise would certainly have had another name, and perhaps another history. As Vancouver nears Fuca Strait he meets the ship Columbia, Captain Gray, who is astonished at the stories told of him in England, that he " had made a very singular voyage behind Nootka," in the sloop Washington. True, he had seen Dixon entrance, and had passed into Fuca Strait some fifty miles, where he had been told by the natives of an extensive opening to the northward, but he had returned where he had entered. In latitude 46° 10', he had discovered the mouth of a river, "where the outlet or reflux was so strong as to prevent his entering it for nine days."32 He had passed the winter at Clayoquot Harbor, where he had erected a fortification, naming it Fort Defiance, and had built a vessel, calling it the Adventure, which voyages. After serving in the West Indies and elsewhere, he died in England in 1798, while the narrative of his voyages was passing through the press. 31 Meares, Voy., 169, gave the same name to a headland just above Cape Lookout. 32 See Vancouver's Voy., i. 215. 16 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. he had sent to Queen Charlotte Islands. After which parley, each sails his way. Passing between Tatooch Island and a rock to which is given the name of Duncan, the Resolution and Discovery enter Fuca Strait, and on the 30th of April anchor near a "low sandy point of land, which from its great resemblance to Dungeness in the British Channel," Vancouver calls New Dungeness. The lofty mountain toward the north-east, "discovered in the afternoon by the third lieutenant," is in compliment to him called Mount Baker. Surveying thence in small boats, Protection Island, Port Discovery, into which the ships are moved, and Port Townsend are seen and named, the last "in honor of the noble marquis of that name." An inferior point receives the name of an inferior person, Hudson. Some difficulty is experienced in obtaining fresh water, but the country is pronounced charming, with every move new beauties appearing. The 7th of May, Vancouver embarks in the Discovery's yawl, with his launch and the Chatham's cutter, with a five days' supply of stores. Dining at Port Townsend, the cliff adjacent seemingly composed of indurated clay is called Marrowstone Point, while the round snowy peak that glistens in the south-wrest is called Mount Rainier "after my friend Rear-Admiral Rainier." Oak Cove and Hazel Point are so named on account of the trees there; Foulweather Bluff, because the weather changes when passing it. Hood Canal is entered, and named "after the Right Honorable Lord Hood;" upon the land and its people comments are passed, and the commander returns to the ships. Leaving now the Chatham with instructions to Broughton to make observations in that vicinity, and then to follow, on the 18th Vancouver enters with the Discovery the inlet he calls Admiralty, and the next day orders a party in the launch and cutter, under Peter Puget, lieutenant, and Joseph Whidbey, master, to precede him, discover, and reuort, while with more GEORGE VANCOUVER. 17 Vancouver's Map, No. 1. Hist. Beit. Col. 2 18 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. comfortable leisure he sounds the channel, makes short excursions, examines strange sights, and bathes in new beauties. While thus engaged, on the 23d' Port Orchard is seen, and the next day named "after the gentleman who discovered it." Broughton now appears with the Chatham and informs Vancouver that to the north of Port Discovery is an archipelago, beyond which is a large arm of the sea. Impatient of delay, on the 26th Vancouver sets out in the yawl, leaving orders with Broughton, should Puget and Whidbey return, to have the arm running easterly examined. The result is the discovery and naming of Vashon Island, "after my friend Captain Vashon of the navy," and "to commemorate Mr Puget's exertions," Puget Sound being applied only to the southern extremity of Admiralty Inlet. Next the explorers enter that arm of the inlet extending toward the north-east, and on the king's birthday, the 4th of June, take formal possession of the coast country, and so call the place Possession Sound. The open water beyond the islands is called the Gulf of Georgia, and the continent adjacent and extending southward to the forty-fifth parallel, New Georgia, "in honor of his present Majesty." The western arm of this branch of Admiralty Inlet is called Port Gardner, "after Vice-Admiral Sir Alan Gardner," the smaller eastern one, Port Susan.33 Penn Cove is so named "in honor of a particular friend." Passing northward out of Admiralty Inlet, Point Partridge, directly opposite Penn Cove, and Point Wilson, "after my much esteemed friend Captain George Wilson of the navy," and Deception Passage are named. Sending frequent parties in boats and on shore in various directions, the expedition continues through Rosario Strait, which, however, is not here 33 Vancouver's conception of the character and extent of these sheets of water was quite erroneous, and modern maps almost exchange their relative names and positions. In proof of which we have later in this narrative, Deception passage leading into Port Gardner. YanoofvetiV Map, No. 2. J 20 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. So named, touching en route at a bay which they call Strawberry Bay, on the shore of an island which, "producing an abundance of upright cypress," they name Cypress Island, and passes on by Bellingham and Birch bays, and points William, Francis, Roberts, Grey, Atkinson, Gower, Upwood, and Scotch Fir to Burrard and Jervis canals and Howe Sound, where are Passage and Anvil islands. The usual sound reasons are generally given in the naming, such as "in compliment to my friend Captain George Grey of the navy;" Roberts "after my esteemed friend and predecessor in the Discovery;' "after*Sir Harry Burrard of the navy;" "in honor of Admiral Earl Howe;" "in honor of Admiral Sir John Jervis;" and so on. Indeed, it were well for one coveting easy immortality to be a friend of Captain Vancouver's about this time, the aboriginal owners and occupants being, like earlier Spanish navigators, wholly ignored in this naming.84 At anchor, near Point Grey, on the 2 2d of June, Vancouver being then out on a boat excursion discovers two Spanish vessels of war, the brig Sutil, and the schooner Mexicana, Galiano commanding the former and Valdes the latter, both captains in the Spanish navy, sent by the viceroy of Mexico to continue Spanish discovery through Fuca Strait. They had sailed from Acapulco in March, and from Nootka early in June, had entered Fuca Strait and anchored in the Puerto de Nunez Gaona, now Neah Bay. There they found the Princesa, under Salvador Fi- dalgo, who had orders to plant in that vicinity a Spanish establishment similar to that at Nootka. Thence they crossed to C6rdoba,25 or Victoria, which they pro- 3* Sarah, Mary, and Susan must have been early inamoratas, or else relatives of the commander and his friends. 35 It being not absolutely certain that this port is Victoria, the C6rdoba of Quimper, I will give the author's own description of the place ' El Puerto de Cordoba es hermoso y proporciona buen abrigo a los navegautes; pero en el escasea el agua, segun vimos, y nos informo Tetacus; el terreno es muy de- sigual, de poca altura, y como maniiiestan las cercanias de poco espesor la SUTIL Y MEXICANA. 21 nounced a beautiful harbor, but lacking water. From Nunez Gaona they had brought, to Cordoba, Tetacus, a chief of that country, whose village they visited; but the natives were suspicious owing to the cannonading inflicted during the previous year by the schooner Saturnina in defence of the launch of the San Cdrlos, which had accompanied her. On the 10th of June, they left Cordoba, crossed the channel, and anchored on the east side of San Juan Island,36 such being the name it bears on their map. Thence passing through the strait south of what they called GuSmes Island, now Lawrence Island, to the mainland, they proceeded northward to Point William, which they called Point Solano, and anchored in the northern part of Bellingham Bay, which they named Seno de Gaston.37 There they grounded, and so remained a few hours, when continuing their course through Canal Pacheco, east of Pacheco Island, now called McLoughlin Island, they hugged the shore of the mainland past Birch Bay, which they called En- senada del Garzon, and entered Boundary Bay, naming Peninsula de Cepeda and Punta de San Rafael.38 While seeking to pass Point Roberts, not having yet met Vancouver, they encountered Broughton in the Chatham, and after exchanging courtesies, Galiano and Valde's continued close to the shore, until, as they approached the mouth of Fraser River, they noticed the water assume a different color, but before they could discover the river, they were carried by the current out into the strait, and were forced to seek anchorage for the night on the other side, which they found at a place called by them Anclage, on Galiano capa de tierra que hay sobre la piedra. Sin embargo es fertil, estd cubierta de arboles y plantas, y estas producciones son quasi las mismas que las de Nutka, abundando mas los rosales silvestres.' Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, 42-3. 36 Their narrative says San Juan Island, but it was probably Lopez Island where they came to anchor, as in their map the two islands are joined. 37 All this, of course, was before Vancouver had been there. 38 The former applied to Point Roberts, and the latter to the northern point of Drayton Harbor. The present Boundary Bay is laid down on their map as Ensenada del Engafio, so called on account of their failure to find there a passage into the gulf of Georgia, marked on their map as Canal del Rosario. 22 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. Island. Continuing, on the 15th they entered what they called Portier Inlet, discovered the islands adjacent, and, returning the same way, coasted the eastern side of Valdes Island,39 seeking Point Gaviola, failing to find which they rounded Gabriola Island, and entered through Wenthuysen Channel a port called Cala del Descanso, now Nanaimo. Landing, they obtained water and provisions from the natives, after which, on the 19th they embarked for the opposite side of the strait, which they reached the following day, anchoring off Point Grey, which they call Punta de Langara. Very affable and polite are these strangers thus meeting in the strange waters behind Nootka, who are so ready on occasion to cut each others throats. The English invite the Spaniards to join expeditions. Each with liberal courtesy shows the other what he has found. Galiano is surprised that Vancouver did not discover Fraser River; for the Spanish explorers who had the previous year passed along this coast, had observed between points Roberts and Grey an opening which was either an inlet or a river, and which they located on their map, calling it Canal de Floridablanca,40 and the present Spanish captains as they but now approached their present anchorage had noticed that the water thereabout was almost fresh, and that in it w7ere logs and debris floating, sure evidence of a stream near by. Vancouver, in common with other explorers, had passed the Columbia without observing it, under circumstances reflecting no great credit upon his expedition, and now he is greatly chagrined no less in being unable to discover large rivers, after their existence has been told him, than that the Spaniards should have been before him at all in these parts.41 He wonders how they can go 39 Some modern maps give two islands the name Valde*s, this being the more southern. 40 i Named by one of their officers Rio Blancho, in compliment to the then prime-minister of Spain.' Vancouver's Voy., i. 314. 41 ' I cannot avoid acknowledging,' he writes, Voy., i. 312, 'that on this occasion I experienced no small degree of mortification.' ' En el aiio anterior MOVEMENTS OF THE SPANIARDS. 23 Galiano's Map. 24 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. .so far and accomplish so much in a craft so ill suited to voyages of discovery/2 As regards the discoveries of the Spaniards before him in these parts, Galiano shows him a map on which is laid down, besides much other new information, Tejada Island and Rosario Strait.43 Vancouver is- also informed that Cuadra awaits him at Nootka. Then the Spaniards dine the English, and the English dine the Spaniards, amidst profound punctilios; after which they continue their explorations for a time together, the Spaniards making now and then an excursion in one direction and the English in another. On the 23d of June, entering Burrard Inlet, called by them, on their map, Canal de Sasamat, the Indian name of the place, and in their text, Floridablanca, indicative of the supposition that the stream "they found flowing into it was the true canal or river of their predecessors, mistermed Blancho by Vancouver, and later Fraser River, the Spaniards pass by Howe and Jervis inlets, already examined by the English, and the combined fleet sails on through Malaspina habian visto nuestros officiates del departamento de San Bias a" alguna dis- tancia esta parte de costa, y no devisando lo mas baxo de ella habian creido que las tierras inmediatas a Punta de Langara y la Peninsula de Cepeda fuesen dos islas situadas en la boca del Canal de Floridablanca; asi las colocaron en su carta.' Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, 64. 42 i They were each about 45 tons burden, mounted two brass guns, and were navigated by 24 men, bearing one lieutenant, without a single inferior officer. Their apartments just allowed room for sleeping-places on each side, with a table in the intermediate space, at which four persons, with some difficulty, could sit, and were in all other respects the most ill-calculated and unfit vessels that could possibly be imagined for such an expedition.' Vancouver's Voy., i. 313. 43 Vancouver evidently misread this chart, as he calls the island Favida, and places on his own map the 'Canal de Neiestra Senora del Rosario,' or if we would choose between the bad Spanish of the map and that of the text, the 'Canal del Neustra Signora del Rosario,' between Tejada Island and the mainland. Now it was the Gulf of Georgia itself to which the Spaniards gave the name Canal del Rosario, and not to the narrow passage between Tejada Island and* the mainland, which latter they called Malaspina Strait, the name it now bears. It were possible, as it is indeed the fact, that the Canal del Rosario of the Spaniards has been crowded down by the Gulf of Georgia of the English into the narrow channel at its southern end between the San Juan Islands and the mainland; but we should hardly expect to see our lady of Rosario making at one leap such distance as from Tejada to Fidalgo Islands. Compare Cartography P. C, MS., iii. 124. The present Rosario Strait is called on early Spanish mapa Canal de Fidalgo. It was in 1849 that the British admiralty made this change. JAMES JOHNSTONE. 25 Strait, and anchors in the archipelago at an island called by the Spaniards Quema,44 the English naming Point Marshall and Savary Island on their way. It is here agreed by the combined fleet to send out three boat expeditions, the Spanish under Valdes to proceed northward into the opening called by him Canal de la Tabla,45 misnamed by modern map-makers Toba, the English under James Johnstone, an officer on board the Chatham, to enter the long narrow passage to which was subsequently given his name, wrhile Puget was to survey what, by reason of the bleak earth and lowering opaque sky, Vancouver was constrained to call Desolation Sound. Galiano also goes out, and finds what he calls Canal del Arco, now Homfray Channel, which extends from Punta Sarmi- ento46 to Canal de la Tabla. East of Punta Sarmi- ento Galiano finds an inlet ending in two branches, to which he gives names, to the southern Malaspina, and to the eastern Bustamante. Many of the inlets hereabout are entered and named by both the Spanish and English; thus the Punta de Magallanes of Galiano is the Point Mudge of Vancouver, the Brazo de Quintano of Galiano is the Bute Inlet of Vancouver, the Brazo de Salamanca of Galiano is the Loughborough Canal of Vancouver, and so on. The world has indeed progressed when we behold in this far-away wilderness the representatives of two great European powers laboring side by side for the extension of knowledge, vying with one another in their noble efforts of discovery. Such a sight had never before been seen in these parts. The 3d of July, Johnstone is sent a second time into the narrow passage w^hich he had found, and in company with Swaine passes through it to within full view of the ocean.47 44 Probably Cortes Island. 45 On account of a wooden table carved in aboriginal hieroglyphics found there. 46 Called by Vancouver Point Sarah. 47 'In the atlas of La Perouse, 1786, No. 29, Scott Islands, at the northern end of Vancouver Island, are called Res de Sartine; Dixon calls them Beres- 26 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. The Spaniards in their crazy craft being unable to keep place with the finer vessels of the English, Galiano politely requests Vancouver to proceed and leave him behind, which he does. Vancouver then follows Johnstone's track to the ocean, naming Point Chatham, Port Neville, Call and Knight canals, Broughton Archipelago, Deep Sea Bluff, Fife Passage, points Duff and Gordon, Mount Stephens, Wells Passage, Boyles, and other points. In Queen Charlotte Sound, so named by Wedgborough, captain of the Experiment, in 1786, the Discovery runs on a rock, but finally escapes without damage. The names Smith Inlet and Fitzhugh Sound, given by James Hanna in 1786, and Calvert Islands, by Duncan, are recognized and adopted by Vancouver, After entering Fitzhugh Sound, where the vessels get aground, the expedition proceeds to Nootka, where it arrives the 28th of August, being waited upon by a Spanish officer with a pilot, who conducts it into Friendly Cove. After parting from Vancouver at Valdes Island, Galiano and Valdes passed northward into Johnstone Strait, through Canal de Cordero, naming the Ensen- ada de Ali-Ponzoni, the present Frederick Arm; Canal de Ola vide, the channel running between Valdes and Thurlow Island; the Bahias del Can6nigo y de Flores; Canal de Retamal, the Call Canal of Vancouver; Brazo de Vernaci, the Knight Inlet of Vancouver; Canal de Balda, at present Thompson Sound; Brazo de Baldinat, corresponding to Bond Sound. Westward from the last-named place is Canal de Pinedo, now Tribune Creek. The Johnstone Strait of Vancouver, Galiano and Valdes call Canal de Descubierta. The present Broughton Straits is named by them Canal de Atrevida. Reaching the ford Isles; Map, Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, Isles de Lanz. Cartography P. C, MS., iii. 230. Ihis was certainly among the first points seen in this vicinity; so that Johnstone there found himself near what was now one of the world's highways. The islands on the eastern side of the northern end of Vancouver Island are on the atlases of both Vancouver and the Sutil y Mexicana, as the islands of Galiano and Valdes.' 1 GALIANO AND VALDES. 27 Vancouver's Map, No. 3. 28 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. harbor where Fort Rupert stood later, they call the place Puerto de Guemes. Then rounding the northern end of Vancouver Island they sail for Nootka. Grace, mercy, and peace continue the order of the day. Vancouver offers to-salute the Spanish flag if Bodega y Cuadra will return the compliment with an equal number of guns, which offer is gracefully accepted, and so from either side thirteen guns bellow forth honors. At anchor here beside the Spanish brig Activa are Vancouver's store-ship Dcedalus, and the Three Brothers, a small merchant brig from London, commanded by Lieutenant Alder of the navy. Beside the chiefs of Spain and England his aboriginal majesty Maquinna is conspicuous; but when, arrayed in robes of Adamic simplicity, he attempts to board Vancouver's vessel and is repulsed, the quality of his savagism being unknown, he is very angry at the English, but is mollified and made gracious by the Spanish commandant. The representatives of the august rival powers now eat much together, and talk in genuflections. The Chatham is hauled on shore and repaired. Galiano and Valdes enter the port the 1st of September. Letters pass, and deep diplomatism is in order. To whom shall belong the several shanties on this barbarous coast is of primary importance to civilization. It is unnecessary to follow here the subtile logic of these ship-cap tains; the subject is exhausted in another place. Suffice it to say, in aught saverarbanity and obeisance they cannot agree. Bodega y Cuadra is ready to draw the line on this shore between Spain and England; Vancouver's orders extend only to taking possession of his Majesty's huts. Jointly to glorify themselves, and likewise to make immortal the brotherly love which swells the breast of both commandants in their distinguished disagreements, Vancouver proposes, and Bodega y Cuadra serenely smiles acquiescence, that the great island whereon they now sit shall forever be known as CUADRO AND VANCOUVER. 29 Cuadra and Vancouver Island.48 The Spanish armed ship Aranzazu, Caamano, commander, enters the port the 8th of September. Other vessels here and elsewhere on the coast come and go, some trading, some waiting on the incipient settlements at Nootka and Neah Bay, all jealously watching each other—an English and an American shallop are on the stocks at Nootka; a French trader is on the coast; besides the Spanish vessels named are the Gertrudis, Concepcion, Princesa, and the San Carlos; further, the Fenis and St Joseph and the brig Hope are mentioned. And now at Nootka, Bodega y Cuadra solemnly possesses the Spanish huts, and Vancouver solemnly possesses the English huts; the questions involved are referred to home arbitrament; then the several squadrons sail each their way leaving the bland Maquinna, with bloody appetite new-whetted, as formerly lord of all. J On his way to San Francisco, Vancouver names Mount St Helens, "in honor of his Britannic majesty's ambassadors at the court of Madrid," and sends Whidbey in the Dxdalus to survey Gray Harbor, and Broughton in the Chatham to examine the Columbia, his attempt to enter the latter with the Discovery having failed. Yet twice again before returning to England, Vancouver appeared upon the Northwest Coast; once in April 1793, Broughton meanwhile sailing for home, and again in April 1794, after spending portions of both winters on the southern coast and at the Hawaiian Islands/9 As Hitherto, wrherever he went he found 48 Both commanders were well aware that in thus giving so large a body of land their joint names, and so recording it in the text and on the maps of the expeditions of Vancouver and of Galiano and Valdes, one, and but one, would remain, and that would depend entirely as to which nation the territory fell. 49 In the expedition of 1793, Vancouver visited and named Cape Caution; Burke Canal, ' after the Right Honorable Edmund;' Fisher Canal, * after a much respectei friend;' points Walker, Edmund, Edward, and Raphoe; King Is<- land, J after the family of my late highly esteemed and much lamented friend, Captain James King of the navy;' Port John, Dean, Cascade, and Muscle canals, and Restoration anl Poison coves; then ho entered Milbank Sound, so named by Duncan, and gave the name of his third lieutenant to Cape Swaine, 30 SUMMARY OF EARLIEST VOYAGES. in almost every instance that the Spaniards had been before him. From this time down to the final abandonment of this part of the coast by the Spaniards, and the plant- after which names were given to Gardner Canal, points Hopkins, Cumming, Hunt, andPearce, Hawkesbury Island, Cape Ibbetson, Pitt Archipelago, 'after the Right Honorable William Pitt,' Stephens Island, ' after Sir Philip Stephens of the admiralty,' and Grenville Canal. Canal del Principe was navigated and named by Caamafio. Some of the other places seen and named by Vancouver in this voyage were Brown Passage, [ after the commander of the Butterworth;' Dundas Island, j after the Right Honorable Henry Dundas;' Point Maskelyne, \ after the astronomer royal;' Point Ramsden, ' after Mr Ramsden, the optician; j Cape Fox, | after the Right Honorable Charles James Fox;' Point Alava,. ' in compliment to the Spanish governor at Nootka;' Slate Islet; Point Nelson, ' after Captain Nelson of the navy;' Point Sykes, ' after one of the gentlemen of the Discovery;' points Trollop, Fitzgibbon, Lees, Whaley, Escape, Higginsr Davidson, Percy, and Wales, the last named in honor of his schoolmaster; Burrough Bay; Traitor's Cove; Revilla Gigedo Island; Behm Canal; Cape Northumberland; Portland Canal; Moira Sound; Wedge Island, ' after the surgeon of the Chatham;' Walker Cove, ' after a gentleman of the Cluailuim;' Bell Island; ' after Mr John Stewart, one of the mates,' Port Stewart; points Le Mesurier, Grindall, Rothsay, Highfield, Madan, Warde, Onslow, Blaquiere, Howe, Craig, Hood, Alexander, Mitchell, Macnamara, Nesbitt, Harrington, and Stanhope; Bradfield Canal; Prince Ernest Sound; Duncan Canal; Bushy Island; Duke of York Islands; points Baker, Protection, Barrie, Beauclerc, Amelius, St Alban, Hunter, North, Frederick, Buck, and Borlase; Conclusion, Coronation, and Warren Islands; Cape Pole; Cape Henry; Affleck Canal; Duke of Clarence Strait; Englefield Bay; Prince of Wales Archipelago; Cartwright Sound; and Cape Decision, the last having been given on making up his mind that the earlist reputed discoveries of the Spaniards were fabulous. The continent between Desolation Sound and Gardner Canal he named New Hanover, to the northward of Gardner Canal as far as Point Rothsay, New Cornwall, and to the northward of New Cornwall as far as Cross Sound, New Norfolk. These with New Georgia and New Albion completed a very pretty stretch of new dedicated continent, extending from Lower California to Alaska. To this, illustrious navigator be the further honor of inflicting from his endless vocabulary the nameless names of personal friendships upon the places visited by him in his voyage of 1794 as follows: Point Macartney, Sullivan, Ellis, Harris,. Cornwallis, Kingsmill, Hobart,Vandeput,Walpole, Astley, Windham, Anmer, Coke, Styleman, Salisbury, Arden, Hugh, Gambier, Pybus, Napean, Wood- house, Bingham, Sophia, Frederick, Augusta, Townshend, Gardner, Samuel, Parker, Marsden, Retreat, Bridget, St Mary, Seduction, and * after the seat of my ancestors, Couverden;' Chatham Strait, ' after Lord Chatham;' Cape Addington, [ after the Speaker of the House of Commons;' ports Camden, Malmesbury, Houghton, Snettesham, Mary, Conclusion, Althrop, and Fi- dalgo; Prince Frederick Sound; Cape Fanshaw; Holkham Bay; Douglas Island, Stephens Passage, Barlow Cove, Seymour Canal; Cape Edward; King. George the Third Archipelago; Berners Bay; Lynn Canal; points Dundas,. Wimbledon, Lavinia, Latouche, Manby, Fremantle, Pellew, Pakenham, Pigot, Nowell, Culross, Countess, Waters, and Pyke; Knight Islands; Digges Sound; Wingham Island; Cape Spencer; Passage Canal; Cape Puget; Hawkins Island; Bligh Island; and points Elrington, Bainbridge, Bentinck, Wifc- shed, Campbell, Mackenzie, and Woronzow. I think we may safely say that no one man ever gave so many geographical names, which remained permanently placed as Vancouver; I wish I might truthfully add that no one ever exercised better taste in the execution of such a task. Among the names given by the Spaniards in this region, and for the most part iespected by Van- GENERAL TRAFFIC. 31 ing of the post of Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, by the Americans, in 1811, many ships of various nations coasted Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands and the adjacent mainland, chiefly for purposes of traffic with the natives, and after and along with them the adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, first in vessels only, and then with all the paraphernalia for permanent establishments, further allusion to which is not necessary in this connection. couver, were the Canal de Revilla Gigedo, as represented on the chart of Caamano Estrecho de Fuentes, Puerto del Canaveral, Entrada del Carmen, Cape de Chacon, Isla de Zayas, Cabo Caamano, Puerto del Baylio Bucareli,. discovered by Bodega y Cuadra in 1775, Cabo de San Bartolome, Puerto do Valdes, the Puerto Gravina Fidalgo; but, as a rule, the names given by Russian and Spanish explorers who had preceded Vancouver in these parts were in his re-naming ignored. CHAPTER II. GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. Eastern Parallels—Configuration of North-western America—British Columbia Coast—Puget Sound—Vancouver Island—Queen Charlotte Islands—Climatic Sections of the Mainland—New Caledonia—Heights of Land—The Columbia and Fraser Plateau Basin—Skeena and Stikeen—Oregon, Washington, and Idaho— Northwest Coast Climates—The Temperature of Various Localities—Fauna and Flora—The Aborigines—Attitudes of the Fur- traders and Settlers toward the Natives—Peaceful Regime under the Great Monopoly—The Chinook Jargon. Having thus sufficiently refreshed our memory as to the earliest appearance of Europeans in these parts, before proceeding in chronological order with the affairs of British Columbia, I do not. regard it time lost to take a general survey of the condition of things at this juncture throughout the north Pacific slope; for although the careful reader of that part of this history entitled the Northwest Coast must have some knowledge of the present state of affairs, another glance, as at a picture of the whole, cannot fail to give a clearer and more lasting idea of the country at the beginning of what may be termed British Columbia history proper. California is opposite Spain; Oregon and Washington are on the parallels of France; British Columbia is in the latitude of Great Britain; as the world is round and revolving, there is no reason why one side of it should be better than another. Nor is it. Civilization is harder upon soils than savagism; and the steppes of Bussia and Siberia, though perhaps some- (82) PROMINENT FEATURES. 33 what more densely occupied, and with somewhat more advanced indigenous populations, are neither so attractive nor so virgin as the prairies, lake lands, and river and mountain districts of northernmost America. Each hemisphere has its freezing eastern side, and its warmer western side, thanks to the modifying ocean streams which come sun-beaten from the tropics; and for the rest, there is little to choose; that little, however, always being in favor of what each of us may call our own country. The Northwest Coast, if we comprise within the limits of that term the territory from California to Alaska, and between the Rocky Mountains and the ocean, is more varied in its configuration, some would say more grandly beautiful, than the opposite eastern plains. The rock formations of the former are more disturbed; the region is mountainous, with a high irregular plateau between two principal ranges, subordinate plateaus intervening in places between subordinate ranges, and all having in the main the general trend of the coast. Thus dropping the appellation of the great continental chain which binds the two Americas from Alaska to Patagonia, and adopting local nomenclature, we have for the representatives of the Bitter Root Mountains of Idaho, taken collectively, the Purcell, Selkirk, Columbia, Cariboo, and Omineca mountains of British Columbia; the Cascade Range is a continuation of the Sierra Nevada; Vancouver and Queen Charlotte islands are a continuation of the Coast Range; the great plateau region of the Columbia, the Fraser, and the Skeena rivers is a continuation of the Utah and Nevada basin. Western British Columbia is essentially mountainous, breaking on the border into innumerable islands and ocean inlets, presenting a bold rocky front, heavily timbered to the water's edge. Exceedingly beautiful and very grand is the water system of Puget Sound, and the labyrinth of straits, inlets, bays, and islands all along the coast of British Hist. Beit. Col. 3 34 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. Columbia. And while St Lawrence Gulf and Lake Superior are wrapped in biting cold, roses sometimes dare to bloom here, and green pease and strawberries to prepare for their early gathering. The island of Vancouver presents a mountainous- interior, subsiding at either end, and at places along its eastern side. The shores are exceedingly picturesque, bold, rocky, and rugged, broken on the western side into numerous bays and inlets like those of the mainland, with intervening cliffs, promontories, and beaches, while on the northern and eastern sides the absence of ocean indentations is remarkable. The island is generally wooded, the borders with fir, back of which are hemlock, and the mountains with cedar. Between the ridges which cross and interlace are small valleys affording but moderate agricultural facilities; but on the southern and eastern border there are extremely fertile tracts susceptible of easy cultivation, the open spots offering the first attraction to settlers. Lakes, streams, and water-falls everywhere abound, though the rivers are none of them large. The Queen Charlotte Islands are mountainous, like all adjacent lands; and while there are tracts, particularly around the border, which might be successfully cultivated^ it is more to the mineral resources here embedded that we must look for profitable returns. East of the high interior of Moresby Island is a flat belt growing alders. All these islands are densely wooded, cypress and spruce being prominent, with redundant undergrowth. The climate is mild and moist; the natives are light-complexioned, intelligent, courageous, and cruel. Still following the allr-compelling mountains, the mainland of British Columbia may be divided into three sections, the first comprising the coastwise strip between the ocean and the eastern slope of the Cascade Range, extending back, for instance, on the Fraser as far as Yale; the second, a parallel strip RANGES AND PASSES. 35 whose eastern boundary line would be upon the western side of the Cariboo Mountains, and cross the Fraser, say at Alexandria; the third extending thence to the Rocky Mountains. Dense woods containing trees of gigantic growth, pine, fir, and red-cedar, characterize the first section, the low alluvial deposits about the rivers and inlets being covered by jungle, with here and there poplars, alders, balsam, and aspen, and sometimes meadows of coarse nutritious grass, all the products of rich soils and copious rains. Upon the drier surface of the second section a different vegetation appears. Indeed, the presence of cacti, artemisia, and kindred shrubs beyond Lytton are significant of a hot as well as a dry climate. In place of the massive forests and redundant flora of the seaboard, we find an open country, hills, pastures, and grassy vales, with intervening forest belts. Less suited to agriculture, except in the more favored spots, more wooded, yet still with vast luxuriant pastures, is the third section. On the great plateau stretching far to the north from the branch bends of the Fraser, the climate is much more severe than between Cariboo and Kamloop. On the other side, toward the south and east, the temperature is much milder, particularly between Colville and the Dalles, where lies the great Columbia cactus-bearing desert with occasional bunch- grass oases. The mountain passes are usually blockaded in winter; yet in June, where lately rested ten or twenty feet of snow the ground is flower-spangled, and the forests flush with the bursting green of the sweet early foliage. Crossing the grim Stony range from the east at Peace River, which stretches its branches far and wide within the summit line of the continental ridge, and steals for the eastern slope the waters of the western, the first Scotch explorers found themselves in a labyrinth of minor ridges whose blue lakes, among the pine-clad steeps, brought to mind the lochs and bens of their old highland homes; so they called 36 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. the place New Caledonia as elsewhere I have mentioned. Approaching McLeod Lake the mountains put on a more stupendous aspect. Mackenzie found the temperature there from 30° above to 16° below zero; and though the ground was covered with snow, the gray wren and mountain robin, the latter arrayed in delicate fawn with scarlet belly, breast, and neck, black wings edged with fawn, variegated tail, and tuft-crowned head, came out hopping, and singing, and eating, as though the dreary prospect only stirred in them a higher happiness, just as adversity sometimes brings sweet music from otherwise dumb humanity. In this boldly swelling country of New Caledonia the scenery is varied. In the forests the cedar, fir, and hemlock assume magnificent proportions, while the copses, separating plains and open undulations, give pleasing variety to the eye. It is singularly and beautifully watered. Rivers mark out the region in natural districts often silver-edged with long narrow lakes, which glisten in the sunshine like the waters of paradise. There are many heights of land round which cluster snow-clad peaks, parting the flow of waters, parting twin drops, sending one to the Pacific and its brother to the Atlantic; sending one to mingle with the brine of the Mexican Gulf beneath the vapor-beating sun, and another to be locked throughout the ages in the icy embrace of the Arctic Sea. All along the continental range are such heights of land, and at many points along the north-western table-land. Between the tributaries of the Saskatchewan and those of the Columbia; between the tributaries of Peace River and those of Fraser and Skeena rivers; between the streams flowing into the Fraser all along its course and" those which feed the Columbia on the one side and the Bellacoola and Skeena on the other, there are multitudes of these heights of land, not to mention the ridges dominating the rivulets running OKANAGAN AND KOOTENAI. 37 to the Stikeen and Yukon, or to the Mackenzie. He who camps upon the narrow isthmus joining the lofty continental mountains and dividing the high rolling seas of hill and plain on either side, may fill his kettle from the limpid source either of the Saskatchewan or the Columbia. But more than this, and most remarkable of anything of the kind on the planet, at that grandest of Rocky Mountain passes, the Athabasca, is a little lake called the Committee's Punch Bowl, one end of which pays tribute to the Mackenzie and the other to the Columbia. The plateau basin of the Columbia and Fraser rivers comprises thickly timbered uplands interspersed with woodland and grassy valleys bordered by pine- dotted hills rolling gently upward from limpid lakes and boisterous streams. There are few deserts or worthless tracts, and in the forests but little underbrush; the country is one vast pasture; prairie and forest, valley and hill being covered with nutritious grass. In the Okanagan River district we find indications of that sandy waste which hence extends southward as the great American desert to Mexico. The lake country from Chilcotin to Fort Fraser and beyond is generally open; the river region to the north and east of the Cariboo Mountains between Fort George and Yellowhead Pass is thickly wooded, with few if any open spaces. Northward only the hardier vegetation is able to endure the summer night frosts. Between forts Kootenai and Colville, the trail winds along lakes and streams from whose borders rise moun- tains of black rock hidden beneath the dun pine foliage, which, mirrored in the transparent waters, turns them to lakes and rivers of dark and fathomless depths, while the setting sun tips with gold the summits of these gloomy sierras. Tired travellers do not always take the most hopeful view of the wilderness through which they toil. Thus Sir George Simpson finds the Kootenai country "rugged and boggy, with thick and tangled forests, 38 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. craggy peaks, and dreary vales, here and there hills of parched clay where every shrub and blade of grass was brown and sapless as if newly swept by the blast of a sirocco, with occasional prairies and open swards interspersed with gloonry woods or burning pine forests." Passing over the Fraser basin, Johnson exclaims: ■ Of all the dismal and dreary-looking places in the world the valley of the Thompson River for some fifteen or twenty miles from its mouth would easily take the palm! We have thought the canons of the Fraser rugged enough, but here was naught but rocks, whereon even the hardy fir refused to vegetate.'" Their vocabulary is scarcely sufficient for the mighty fissure of the Fraser, whose waters gathered from scores of lakes and tributary streams dash through gorges and between high perpendicular rocks in successive cascades and rapids, with here and there brief breathing-places. "The Fraser River Valley," writes an observer, "is one so singularly formed, that it would seem that some superhuman sword had at a single stroke cut through a labyrinth of mountains for three hundred miles, down deep into the bowels of the land." Again: "At no point of its course from Ques- nelle to Lytton is the Fraser River less than twelve hundred feet below the level of the land lying at either side of it; and from one steep scarped bank to the other is a distance of a mile." Another standing at Lytton says: "Here, along the Fraser, the Cascade Mountains lift their rugged heads and the river flows at the bottom of a vast tangle cut by nature through the heart of the mountains." Yet "along the Nach- arcole River there will be found a country admirably suited to settlement, and possessing a prairie land of a kind nowhere else " found in British Columbia. In the Skeena and Stikeen countries, which give rise as well to the rivers of their respective names emptying into the Pacific, as to the waters which take their freezing flow round by the Macken- THE SPOKANE COUNTRY. 39 zie to the Arctic, the wildest and most romantic scenery is found. Mountains of stone and ice are there, and glaciers equal to any of Switzerland—giant glaciers and infant glaciers, Methusalehs and mud- born. Ascending from the sea, through the pine- covered belt, through spruce, hemlock, and balsam, willow, alder, and cottonwood, which at every step becomes more broken and the trees more scattering, the traveller finally emerges into a fit home for pitiless fate, glittering, cold, inexorable bowlders, and snow succeeding snow, and bowlders in mountain melange, limitless variety in limitless unity, here and there cut into sections by ice-ploughed canons and chasms. That which was originally the bunch-grass country of eastern Washington is now famous for its grain- growing properties; for though the atmosphere is dry, water lies near the surface. The intersecting mountain ranges, and the deep-gorged water channels of eastern Oregon, are less favorable to agriculture than the rolling plains on the northern side of the Columbia. And along this belt far to the north, and high above the sea, the sheltered valleys afford ample re. turns to the husbandman. At Fort Alexandria, with an altitude of fourteen hundred and fifty feet, and at other places a thousand feet higher, forty bushels of wheat to the acre are not uncommon, and other products in proportion. The lower slopes of the snow-topped mountains of Idaho are furrowed with streams which clothe the foot-hills in sturdy forests and the high prairies in rich grasses. Nestling below the level of the plains are warm, quiet valleys, protected alike from the arid winds of summer and the cold blasts of winter; and on winter pastures the snow seldom remains long. Larch, cedar, fir, and pine thickly overspread the Bitter Root Mountains. The Walla Walla Valley, with its bright, winding streams, fringed with cotton- wood, presents a pleasing picture. North of the Spokane the country is wooded, and much of the soil 40 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. arable. The Flathead country is warm, with good arable land predominating. The well watered and alluvial Willamette Valley, being alike free from the periodical aridity of California, the desiccating winds of eastern Oregon, and the general gravelly character of Washington soils, is peculiarly adapted to crop-raising and fruit-growing. For many years the Yakima country, now known to be one of the most fertile wheat-fields in the world, was regarded as fit only for grazing. Thus the highest agricultural facilities of Oregon and Washington are reversed; those of the former lying west of the Cascade Mountains, and those of the latter on the eastern side of that range. Let each, therefore, be duly thankful. Not that western Washington need blush for its resources, for although the surpassing fertility of the Willamette soils fails on crossing the Columbia and entering the more gravelly plains of the Cowlitz and the region round Puget Sound and Admiralty Inlet, yet when this old ocean-bed emerged from the waters with it came coal and iron, and in due time grand forests arose on the margin of beautiful waters, and crept up the Olympian heights to the line of summer snow. The climates of the Northwest Coast are many and variable, but all are healthful, and by far the greater part agreeable. Considering the surface covered, there is a remarkable absence of marshy plains, miasma, malaria, and consequent ague. Here, as elsewhere, elevated districts are cold, but not so cold as in many other places. A very severe winter in New Caledonia, such as happens once in ten years, may be as severe as a very mild winter in Canada, but not more severe. The Cascade Range marks the two great climatic divisions, both the heat and the cold on the eastern side being greater than on the western. East of this range the climate is dry; on the western slope it is HEAT AND COLD. 41 wet, the humidity increasing toward the north. Summer is hot, and winter cold, on the eastern side; on the western, summer is lovely, some days warm and bright, some rainy, and winter never severely cold. Temperatures vary of course with latitude, altitude, and distance from the sea; but throughout the whole of this region there are comparatively small portions not habitable by man, while by far the greater part is salubrious and delightful. The well protected valleys are seldom subject to extremes of weather, being free from strong winds and heavy falls of snow, and in the dry crystalline air of the higher plains even a low fall of the thermometer is easily endured. The rivers of the east are often blocked by thick ice almost down to their mouths, but navigation on the lower waters of the Northwest Coast is seldom impeded. The rivers of the upper interior freeze in winter, but on the elevated plains Snow is seldom more than eighteen inches deep, and when the sun and spongy wind look in upon the valleys, frosty coverings vanish as if by magic. Heat and cold are both more endurable by. man in a dry than in a wet atmosphere. Add to this the fact that the western sides of continents are warmer than the eastern by reason of the warm air and ocean-currents thrown upon them, and we may perhaps understand why the mean temperature at Fort Dunvegan, so called from the castle of the McLeods built among the cold bleak rocks of Skye one thousand feet above the sea, differs little from that of Quebec, whose altitude and latitude are much lower. And yet Dunvegan can scarcely be called west of the mountains. Though bordering upon the high latitudes, the climate of British Columbia is more. British than hyperborean. The traveller in crossing the mountains from the east may find the same clouds arraying the one side in snow and ice, and dropping gentle rain upon the other. Indeed, along the border of the ocean as far as the Aleutian Archipelago nature is always in a melting mood. 42 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. As far back as Idaho and Montana the modifying influences of the Japan currents are felt, spring, summer, and autumn there being delightful, while winter is less severe than in Iowa, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. It is only on the higher elevations that the cold is extreme, or the snowfall heavy. Both the country and climates of Idaho and Montana are well adapted to wool-growing and horse and cattle raising. The mean winter temperature at Virginia, Montana, is not far from twenty-five degrees above zero. Some parts of British Columbia are better for grazing purposes in winter than the elevated pastures of Idaho. Birds fly south when snow comes; but we find the stock-raisers of Idaho driving their cattle for winter pasturage into British Columbia, the low snow- less valleys of Idaho being too small to accommodate them, while the Columbia basin above Colville is more hospitable than the winter-wrapped upper plains of Idaho. Sproat calls it the climate of England without the biting east wind, f There can be no doubt," says Palmer, of the royal engineers, " that in point of salubrity, the climate of British Columbia excels that of Great Britain, and indeed is one of the finest in the world." Winter on Vancouver Island is not severe, and summer is charming. Rain is plentiful, particularly during winter; snow seldom lies long on the lower levels. The climate here is similar to the mainland seaboard, with insular peculiarities. On the coast the temperature is seldom over 80° or under 20° Fahrenheit. The temperature at Stuart Lake is subject to sudden variations, though these are exceptional. Wild fruits flourish and ripen there, even the susceptible service-berry blossom being seldom blighted. The hollows thereabout are subject to occasional hoar frosts in summer, which do not appear on the sunny slopes. Here, as elsewhere in British Columbia, enthusiasts point to the humming-bird as proof of a GAME. 43 genial climate; yet I can hardly insist, as some of the old Hudson's Bay Company's servants would almost have me do, that the winter climate of New Caledonia is wholly free from inconvenient cold. On the upper Fraser winter is capricious, intense co7d coming and going suddenly. Round the rugged Cariboo Mountains snow falls freely. Extremes are rare on the upper Columbia, snow seldom remaining long. The climate here is as delightful as the scenery is grand. Everywhere - north of San Francisco Bay, and along the coast as far as the sixtieth parallel, were found grizzly bears, the grassy flats at the mouth of rivers, and the rank vegetation on the banks of inlets, where berries were abundant, being their favorite haunts. For some reason they did not seem to fancy Vancouver Island as a dwelling-place, though their black brethren were there in superabundance, as well as on the mainland. Even more ferocious in this region than the grizzly was the brown bear, which seemed to prefer the interior to the coast. On the island and mainland were elk, black-tailed deer, and reindeer, the cariboo of the voyageurs in the northern mountains of New Caledonia. In the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains were mountain-sheep, moose-deer, and wood-buffalo. The fur-bearing beasts, whose skins constituted the chief branch of commerce on the Northwest Coast, were brown, black, and grizzly bear; beaver; badgers; silver, cross, and red foxes; fishers; martens; minks; the gray and spotted lynx; musquash; sea and land otters; panthers; raccoons; black, gray, and coyote wolves, and wolverines. The natives of Vancouver Island speared salmon, and caught herring, halibut, cod, sturgeon, and whales; they hunted the bear, wolf, panther, elk, deer, marten, mink, beaver, and raccoon. On all the large streams of the mainland, salmon were plentiful from early spring to late summer. They ascended the Fraser seven hun- 44 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. dred miles. From staple food of the natives, salmon became at an early day with the Hudson's Bay Company an article of commerce. Oysters and crabs were common on the sea-shore. The eulachon, or candle- fish, is famous in these parts; sardine, anchovy, haddock, and dog-fish also may be mentioned. Birds of song are less conspicuous than birds of beautiful plumage. Grouse are common on island and mainland. Then there are quails, ptarmigan, pigeons, geese, ducks; and snipe. Thus we see in this northern west, save upon the briny border, a land of bright skies and buoyant airs; of forested mountains and fertile plains'; of placid bays, large rivers, silvery lakes, and prismatic waterfalls; of coal, and iron, and gold, and other exhaust- less mineral wealth; of fisheries, and agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing facilities; with soils, climates, and scenery equal to any of Europe, equal to any on earth. What shall hinder empire, evolution, and all that elevates and ennobles, aiding man here to assert his completest sovereignty? I can say but a word here regarding the aboriginal nations inhabiting these parts, but must refer the reader to the work set apart for that subject. The first volume of the Native Races of the Pacific States contains descriptions of the several peoples as first seen by Europeans, and their manners and customs, and in the third volume will be found something of their mythologies and languages. Nor have I space to enter at length upon the attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company toward the natives, their treatment of, or policy concerning them. These matters will be found fully explained in the History of the Northwest Coast. This much I can say, however, by way of reminding the reader of what is therein stated. Probably savagism was never so deftly and delicately stripped of its belongings, and laid away to rot, as in British THE NATIVES. 45 Columbia. Never from beginning to end was there a single outbreak or massacre of any importance, save along the seaboard, and these were seldom directed against the resident fur-traders. Why was this, when the United States border was everywhere deluged in blood ? Surely these northern nations were naturally as fierce and vindictive as any south of them. The answer is—Business. The natives were needed for hunters. They had nothing of which the respectable European wished to rob them; so their possessions were left for a time unmolested. When the company wanted their land, as a matter of course they took it; but at first they required only the skins of their wild beasts, and these the natives must secure and. bring to them. The natives of the seaboard were regarded with fear by all sailors. As a rule, and especially to strangers, they were exceedingly dangerous, as their capture of the Boston, the Tonquin, and other vessels abundantly proves. Often the traders fed them on firewater, and in return the demonized savages caught and killed them whenever they felt able. In early times, rapine and murder along this coast was the normal condition of things. Against every attempt at settlement the natives fought desperately. And why should they not resist ? From time immemorial their fathers had held the land; and the sea was theirs, kindly yielding them food and clothing. They could not ask their gods for more, unless it should be to make them always drunk. The officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company were as much gentlemen by instinct in their treatment of Indians as in their treatment of civilized men and women. < Hence it was, when General Joe Lane, whilom governor of Oregon and United States senator, as he was once riding toward Nisqually, was heard to exclaim regarding the natives thereabout, "Damn them! it would do my soul good to be after them.!" his hearers could not understand it. 46 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. Such words could never have fallen from the lips of a McLoughlin or a Douglas. It was a species of bloodthirsty brutality totally beyond the comprehension of men who had learned to look on these children of the forest as men of like creation and nature as themselves. For the trial of the Indians hanged at Steilacoom for the killing of Wallace at the Nisqually post, jurymen were brought all the way from Oregon City. Well may we say that therein was much hollow form for a little show of justice, when we are told that three or four of these men, during their deliberations, rolled themselves in their blankets, and before composing themselves to sleep remarked, " Whenever you want an Indian hanged, awake us." But this was intelligent and humane conduct in comparison with much that occurred in the Anglo-American occupation of the western United States. I admit that neither what were called good men nor the government were wholly responsible for the wholesale butcheries * of men, women, and children for crimes which they never committed; and yet, whenever I am obliged to allude to the subject, I can but notice this difference in the treatment of the Indians. The frequent hostility of the Indian does not originate in savage malignity or natural blood-thirstiness, but in righteous retaliation for endless provocations. I Many a night," writes one by no means sentimental in such matters, "have I sat at the camp-fire and listened to the recital of bloody and ferocious scenes, in which the narrators were the actors and the poor Indians the victims; and I have felt my blood tingle with shame and boil with indignation to hear the diabolical acts applauded by those for whose amusement they were related." Unfortunately for the poor savage, in his divinely preordained extinction, it was ordered that he should be often brought into contact with those who sought- to save his soul and those who destroyed his body. RELIGION AND COMMERCE. 47 How much better for him would it have been if the missionaries had directed their efforts toward improving the hearts and morals of the desperate and brutal border men, the knaves and vagabonds who spent their lives in informing upon and insulting the natives, and on the first slight appearance of defence or retaliation on the part of the Indian, in slaughtering him. Better a thousand times had the missionaries spent their lives in converting these men, for they needed regeneration far more than did the savage. Wherever the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company had the country entirely to themselves, there was little trouble with the natives. Their management of them was perfect. They treated them, first of all, as human creatures, not as wild beasts. They were to them the children, not the enemy of civilization. In their intercourse they were humane, in their dealings, honest. Offences were followed by justice, not by revenge. No attempt was made to fasten upon them the religions or moralities of civilization; though gross cruelty and inhumanity among themselves were severely frowned upon, they were left to marry ad libitum or not to marry at all, and to worship the gods of their creation after their own fashion. But the moment competitive traders came in, all this happy state of things was changed. Fiery draughts of intoxication were placed to the lips of the savages, no less by the benevolent and dignified adventurers of England than by the heedless Yankee skipper and the border desperado. Commerce levels all moralities. Whenever even the most bitter rivalry was confined to large and responsible companies, the savage was not much the sufferer; indeed, his importance was often thereby greatly magnified, and the artless aboriginal was by no means slow to make avail of this increased purchasing power of his peltries. But in sections where free trappers and irresponsible border men obtained permanent foothold, 48 GENERAL VIEW OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. rapine, murder, and exterminating war were sure to follow. While treating all foreigners with politeness, and while ever ready to rescue the distressed of any nation, the Hudson's Bay Company were exceedingly jealous of interference in their trade. They would not have their prices changed, nor their hunters demoralized, if by any possibility they could prevent it. Compacts were often made with the Russians and with the captains of American vessels trading on the coast, not to deviate from the company's tariff, and not to sell liquor to the natives, which promises were not always kept. . In the Fort Simpson journal, under date of November 1, 1836, I find entered: "Captain Snow, of the bank Lagrange, saluted the body of a Siniseyan chief who died of small-pox, with five guns, and now he is getting all the trade of the tribe—a contemptible Yankee trick." Twenty years previous to this entry, a fight occurred between an American coasting vessel and the Chilcats, in which one hundred of the latter were killed. When the Hudson's Bay people established Fort Tako, the Chilcats treated them with marked suspicion. "It is rather too bad," writes Douglas in his journal, "to hold us responsible for the sins of others, particularly of a people to whom we are indebted for no interchange of good offices." The natives early learned 'to distinguish the King George men from the Bostons, not by dress, but by features and speech, and to the no small disparagement of the latter. Nor did the Hudson's Bay Company exert themselves to promote good-fellowship between their dusky proteges and American traders. Yet I am very sure that no violent or unfair steps were ever taken by officers of the company to rid themselves of interlopers. They would tell the natives to beware of them, to have nothing to do with them, and that was all. Though ready on the instant to draw, the Hudson's JUST TREATMENT?. 49 Bay Company were slow to use their weapons on the natives. The punishment of insolence or other petty offence was to knock the offender down, and the officers, from governor to clerk, prided themselves on their superior skill in the manly art. "However expert the Indians may be at the knife, or the spear, or the gun," says Simpson, " they are invariably taken aback by a white fist on their noses." An offence was seldom allowed to go unpunished, and the company were as ready to do justice as to exact it. "It was a general rule," says Tod, "to mete to the Indians justice. They would bring sometimes two or three hundred dollars' worth of furs; they could not count more than ten. I would always try to make them count for themselves by explaining how to do it; but they would always trust us to count" It is a great mistake to fling all aboriginal men and women into one category and damn them as savages. As elsewhere on this planet there are good Indians and bad Indians, honest men and tender-hearted women, as well as thieves and murderers. I have at hand scores of remarkable instances illustrative of the honesty and humanity of the natives of British Columbia. So reconciled to civilized supremacy did they become under the just treatment which they received, that whereas at first, in this or other regions, white men could traverse the country only in bands of thirty or forty, a single person belonging to the all-powerful fur company, or having its protection, could now go and come at pleasure anywhere in British Columbia, passing in safety through the lands of scores of tribes hostile to each other, as one whose life and property were things sacred. Their nobler nature was easily worked upon; many of them would scorn to do things which white Christians practise on one another without remorse of conscience. They loved honor and power; Chinamen and negroes they regarded with supreme contempt. Half- breeds have not proved a success. Hist. Beit. Col. & 50 GENERAL VIE^7 OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. The statement of an intelligent officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, as to their policy with regard to the natives, may be better than mine. A. C. Anderson devotes considerable space in his manuscript History of the Northwest Coast to this subject. The great fur companies of British America, he says, owe their success to the rigid discipline maintained among their servants, and the exercise of prudence and humanity in their transactions with the natives. Offences and insurrections were nipped in the bud by such cool audacity on the part of the superior race, as to excite at once admiration and fear in the breast of the savage. Punishment of crimes was swift and sure; but it was inflicted only on the guilty. To guard against surprise, almost all stations were surmounted by stockades, with armed bastions at the opposite angles. Against desultory outbreaks these forts were proof, but not against well organized attack; but by holding the balance of power among contending chiefs the fur-traders were almost always able to prevent formidable attacks. Anderson regards the missionary operations among the aborigines as no less injudicious than unsuccessful. Peace, therefore, we may conclude characterized the intercourse of the resident fur-traders with the natives, and that friendship was absolutely essential to traffic. An attache* of the company sufficiently offending was dismissed the service; this the savages knew, though it seldom happened. It was sometimes exceedingly difficult, however, for the trader to preserve his patience. The natives of New Caledonia were often uncouth and rude, surly, lazy, and to strangers in small parties, insolent and quarrelsome. Yet there were the gentle Shushwaps, the jolly Carriers, the knightly Cayuses, and others with like good qualities, whose lives might preach perpetual sermons to congresses of philosophers. There were the filthy little civil and faithful Kootenais, the brave and stately Pend d'Oreilles, and the fierce Nehannes above A TRADE JARGON. 51 Stikeen, whose female chief rescued Mr Campbell in the winter of 1838-9, and treated him with much kindness. There was Nicola, chief of the Okanagans, and ever the champion of the right; his neighbor, King Wanquille, of the Shushwaps, patriarch and philanthropist, and old King Freezy of the Songhies, the last of a dynasty running down the centuries. This last-named chieftian was a character. Indeed, all Indian chiefs are notable men, else they would not be chLfs. King Freezy loved obedience, and commanded it. He loved wives, of which at one time he had no less than fifteen, and he commanded them. It was a favorite pastime of his to cut off a wife's head, and one in which he indulged so often, that in 1859 he had but six left. He died in 1864, and was duly lamented by the sorrowing survivors of the faithful fifteen. To facilitate communication between Europeans and the natives of the Northwest Coast, with their numerous dialects, a trade language was adopted at an early day, called the Chinook jargon, being for the greater part a mixture of Chinook, French-Canadian, and English words, with perhaps a few additions from the Hawaiian and Spanish languages. This jargon varied ^somewhat with the various tribes, each contributing for local use some of the words of their own language; but for the most part it was the same among all the tribes of a very wide area, and was adopted for general use, not only between whites and Indians, but between the different tribes themselves. Of the aboriginal languages the Chinook was taken as the base, owing to the fact that the Chinooks about the mouth of the Columbia were the first to come into intimate and continuous intercourse with Europeans. After the building of Fort Astoria the jargon rapidly spread toward the east and north. CHAPTER III. OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. 1841. Aboriginal British Columbia—Forts and Fur-traders—Systems of Communication—Inherent P6wer of Civilization over Savagism Fur-trading Districts—Stations—Missionary and Agricultural Settlements—Interior Forts—Coast Stations—The British and the Russian Fur Companies—The Hudson's Bay Company's Circulating Library—Joint Occupancy of the Northwest Coast by England and the United States—The Treaty Dividing the Domain— The Northwest Coast Immediately Prior to the Beginning of British Columbia History Proper—Visit of Douglas to the Several Posts—Sitka and Etholin—Quarrel between Douglas and McNeill —Survey of the Stikeen and Tako Region—References for This and the Preceding Chapter. British Columbia in 1841 was a silent wilderness. Its lords were natural, healthful, and free. Its wild beasts, birds, and fishes were multitudinous and fearless. Its forest-plumed hill-sides and its ravines whispered ceaselessly their soft psalmody; its plains and transfixed billows bared their breasts to the coveted warmth of the all-embracing sun; while its snow- silvered mountain-tops, each a savage Olympus, marked the earth's limits to the dusky intellects within their embrace, and shed a dazzling radiance over the happy hunting-grounds of the Invisible. Nature's perfect work was here; inexorable as everywhere; now warm and kind and beautiful; again cold, cruel, ghastly. Yet the nations of this domain were doomed; the sheltering forests and the innumerable forms of life that animated them were impregnated with the poison of progress; for already the subtle, unfelt clutch of civilization was on the land. (52) INLAND NAVIGATION. 53 These little picketed enclosures appearing, at intervals of two or three hundred miles, like secluded foxholes in boundless prairies—what are they? To the unenlightened vision of the thoughtless red man they are magazines of celestial comforts, arms which give the possessor superhuman power in war and in the chase; containing implements of iron and steel whose cunning causes even nature to blush; woven wool which wards off cold, disease, and death; glittering trinkets whose wealth raises wrinkled imbecility above the attractions of youth and talents; and above all, tobacco and that blessed drink of heaven which, indeed, can minister to a mind diseased, while placing the body for a time beyond the reach of pain. To their builders, and to the white race everywhere, these solitary and contracted pens have a far different signification. They are depots of compressed power, dominating the land and all that is therein; they are germs of the highest human type, which shall shortly spring up and overspread the wilderness, causing it to wither beneath its fatal shade. The system of communication between Montreal and Hudson Bay and the tributaries of the Arctic and the Pacific was quite complete. Along the main rivers, along the links of waters, where lakes and • streams succeeded each other so as to form a continuous line of travel, having the greatest amount of navigable waters with the shortest portages and the least possible amount of land travel, were chains of posts with outposts, subordinate establishments or feeders on either side on all the minor streams, and in, localities off the main chains wherever peltries were to be profitably purchased. Twice every year over all these lines of communication passed regular brigades or expresses bringing into the central posts the furs on hand, and carrying back fort supplies and trading goods. The Columbia River and the Saskatchewan with its two branches, and the chain of lakes to the 54 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. eastward, have ever been the arteries of travel in the Hudson's Bay Company's territories. Canoes and horses were chief among the aids of transportation. When these failed, the backs of voy- ageurs and natives were employed. Sometimes in winter the ubiquitous fur-buyers flitted hither and thither on sleds and snow-shoes, often finding themselves among the tree-tops forty feet from solid ground. And most fortunate were they if they could hold to their course, avoid precipitous banks and chasms, and keep themselves above the snow instead of being buried under it. Where shall we see more forcibly displayed the power of trained and enlightened intellect over the uncultivated mind and bestiality! Scattered in small bands over an area equal to one half of North America, in the midst of ferocious savages. outnumbering them a thousand to one, these few individual white men held absolute sway; having first brought their own passions under obedience to mind, they imposed obedience upon the passions of these wild and lawless inhabitants of the forest. This living and laboring in savage countries was attended by many dangers and peculiarities which became as a second nature to these hardy and courageous men. Nor was the influence altogether that of civilization upon savagism. To no small extent the traders and voyageurs became so far imbued with nature as to marry aborigines and adopt many primitive customs. Even the Oregon settlers of 1831-4 became half-savage in some of their ways; the women, for example, being unable to procure cloth for dresses, adopted the caliquartee, or cedar-bark petticoat of the natives, the fibres being twisted into cords, or frayed from the waist to the knees. This with a piece of green or scarlet baize over the shoulders completed the costume. The men were glad to get a shirt, with sometimes a blanket. The servants of the fur companies were always comfortably clad, the GENERAL DIVISIONS. 55 capote, or hooded cloak, being conspicuous. A uniform was worn at first, but afterward was laid aside. In domestic economies, even in personal bearing and mode of speech, the traders copied largely, though evidently unconsciously, from their aboriginal friends. Like the Indians, the fur-traders were remarkable for graphic diction whenever their habitual reticence allowed their oral powers full play. Now and then a fur-governor from beyond the mountains illumined nature by his presence, on which occasion traders everywhere were tremulous with excitement, and the denizens of the forest spellbound as the mighty man passed by. On the consolidation of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies in 1821 the upper interior was known to the fur-traders as the Columbia district. Three years later we find Archibald Macdonald, then clerk of one of the Thompson River posts, drawing a map, "with much detail and wonderful correction," as his editor, McLeod says, in which the territory between the Columbia River and the Arctic Ocean was laid down as the Thompson River district. Soon after, and while yet the whole region north of California was generally designated as the Oregon territory, the New Caledonia district was portioned off in the interior, and on the coast we find, following the fency of Vancouver, and beginning at Mount St Elias, New Norfolk, New Cornwall, New Hanover, New Georgia, and New Albion, the last named reaching down to San Francisco Bay. New Georgia lay between Nootka Sound and the mouth of the Columbia River, and New Hanover next above to Queen Charlotte Island. In early times all the country north of California, all the region drained by the River of the West, as well as the seaboard was called Oregon. It was then a mystic land, a region of weird imagery and fable. In the spring of 1832 there was not a single United States settler in all the Oregon territory. It was 56 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. during this year that American emigration to- Oregon began. Certain French-Canadian families, formerly servants or retainers of the Hudson's Bay Company, with the fatherly advice and assistance of John McLoughlin, had previously opened farms in the rich valley of the Willamette and on the banks of the Columbia. It was the French who were first in Oregon, who had been first in the Mississippi Valley, who had been foremost in Canada, and who at one time had dominated four fifths of North America; it was the humble descendants of this chivalrous race who first opened for cultivation these lands primeval, and paved the way for the harder-headed Anglo- Saxon. On Twiss' map, London, 1846, Oregon extends from latitude 42° to 54° 40' west of the Rocky Mountains. It includes the Queen Charlotte and Vancouver islands, and all the mainland drained by the Fraser and Columbia rivers. McKinlay divides the country west of the Rocky Mountains into two districts : the Columbia, extending to Utah and California; and New Caledonia, reaching from Thompson River to the Russian possessions. Were this ever officially the case, such partition did not so remain long before the territory was redistricted. Says Anderson: " The extent of New Caledonia may be briefly indicated as comprising the tract watered by the Fraser and its tributaries from the Rocky Mountains and Coast Range down to the point about twenty miles below Alexandria, now known as Soda Creek." Then comes the Thompson River district. Vancouver's territorial nomenclature was never put into practical use, nor were the fur company's districtings officially retained after the erection of British Columbia into a province. British Columbia to-day embraces broadly all lands and islands west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains lying between Washington and Alaska. In 1839 the Willamette settlement, begun ten years previous by a retired servant of the Hudson's Bay THE VARIOUS POSTS. 57 Company, numbered fifty-four men, and about as many farms. There were four other stations of American missionaries, one at the Dalles, one at Walla Walla, one on the Clearwater, and one at Spokane. Five vessels performed the coast service. Paul Fraser was in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's establishment at Umpqua when the influx of Americans was so great as materially to jeopardize the interests of the fur-traders in that quarter. Upon a continental apex not unlike that in the vicinity of the national park which separates the waters of the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado, stood Fort St James, the capital of this western Caledonia. Old Mr Harrison once commanded there, and so did young James Douglas before honors and titles thickened around him. Its site was the south-eastern end of Stuart Lake, and it was the central figure of a cluster of forts. Twenty-five miles south-westerly was Fort Fraser; sixty miles south-easterly was Fort George; eighty miles north-easterly was Fort McLeod, and one hundred miles north-westerly was Fort Babine. Southward from this highland flow the waters of the Fraser; northward and westward the Skeena; northward and eastward Peace River winding through the Rocky Mountains and thence onward to the frozen ocean. Later for a time in charge of the New Caledonia department, was Chief Factor Ogden, whose headquarters were at Fort St James on Stuart Lake. On Lakes Fraser, Babine, and McLeod were forts of the same names. Fort Thompson was on the Kam- loops River; and from Fort Alexandria on Fraser River, the station of a chief trader, the northern brigade took its departure going north. At McLeod Fort, where the genial wide-mouthed Tod used to welcome governors to an empty larder, was one of the most prolific fur-fields. Before Tod at this post was Peter Warren Dease, and after Tod was Mr Mc-> 58 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. Intosh, subsequently shot by the savages. The post at Babine was built by Chief Trader Brown in 1826-7. In charge of Fort Langley was Yale; Rae was at Yerba Buena, and Simpson at the Hawaiian Island agency Wilkes counted "six permanent establishments on the coast and sixteen in the interior, besides several migratory and hunting parties." Kootenai and Flathead were outposts of Colville, and yielded annually forty packs of peltries; Chilco- tin sent in four packs, and Alexandria from twenty to thirty packs. Fort St James was a profitable station, sending down yearly furs worth in London £50,000, if we may believe Wilkes, which I for one do not, especially when coupled with the statement that only twenty-five cents in goods was there paid for a beaver- skin worth at Fort Vancouver ten times that sum. It was only one year prior to the date of this chapter that Samuel Black, while in charge of Kamloops, was killed by a nephew of Wanquille. Some few of the company's posts, like the missionary establishments of California, became subsequently the nuclei of little settlements, particularly those in gold-producing parts. Every year the chief factor or chief trader having charge of a district would 2:0 to Fort Vancouver and thence conduct a brigade of supplies to his distributing depot, employing for that purpose boats, men, and horses according to the nature of the region traversed. From Fort Vancouver to Fort St James, for example, the transport was made by boats to Okanagan, and thence to Kamloop and Fort Alexandria by horses, in bands of from two hundred to three hundred. From Fort Alexandria to Fort St James merchandise was conveyed in canoes. It was a hazardous occupation, as I have said, a large amount of imperfectly guarded property being constantly exposed to the cupidity of the savages, to say nothing of the dangers of navigation. The portages made arduous the voyage up the Columbia, and ROUTES OF TRAVEL 59 the land travel between Okanagan and Kamloop was particularly rough. The distance from Fort Vancouver to Kamloop, following the sinuosities of rivers and trails, was seven or eight hundred miles, though supplies were carried in this direction more than twice that distance. Kamloop was the capital of the Thompson River district proper. The fort was compact and well palisaded; and within the stockades, standing at a little distance, there was room enough for the largest horse brigades together with their accoutrements. To the eye of the inhabitant of these lonely wilds, whether white skin or red, the arrival of the horse brigade was a thrilling sight. Through the deep ravines, round precipitous mountain-sides, and over hills and plains they had come; sleek, fat animals, usually perfect in form and color, bearing the burdens which had been carefully brought so far, from beyond continents and seas, and all to be laid at the feet of the lordly savage. The stations on the coast were Fort Langley and Fort Simpson, the former the first sea fort in British Columbia, the latter tremblingly erected among some of the wickedest savages upon the coast. Then there were Fort McLoughlin on Milbank Sound, and Fort Tako on the Tako River, Yet, so well was the matter arranged, that a footing was obtained without fighting for it, and an almost impregnable fortress was erected. By the aid of these two establishments, which were regularly served from Fort Vancouver, first by the schooner Cadboro, Captain Simpson, and subsequently by the steamer Beaver, the indomitable More engineer, American opposition was finally driven from the coast. Plying the wilderness of water betwee i forts Vancouver and Tako, sometimes venturing 1 oldly out to sea, sometimes creeping more prudently through the labyrinth of islands and canals between Nisqually and Sitka, these historical craft of the Northwest Coast 60 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. came and went, playing no insignificant part in the great work of human overturnings hereabout. At first a few goods had been brought over the mountains from eastern ports. But so difficult and expensive was this mode of transport that it was soon abandoned, and all supplies for the western slope were brought from England to Fort Vancouver round Cape Horn. The coast trade was confined to the coast tribes, and had nothing to do with the inland trade conducted by the old route from Fort Vancouver up the Columbia to Okanagan, Kamloop, and Fort St James. Communication with the coast ports was had at first by schooners sailing regularly from Fort Vancouver, and subsequently by the company's steamers. This coast trade was at the first not profitable, but was persevered in for many years at a heavy loss, in order to clear the shore forever of Boston ships and Boston men. Between these two lines of traffic intervened the Cascade Range, an obstacle to free commercial intercourse which might have been overcome by the company had they chosen to do so. But this partition wall was not without its benefit, separating as it did interior tribes from the influence and opposition of foreign traders along the coast. Prior to the discovery of gold in California, which raised no small commotion throughout all the Columbia and New Caledonia regions, John Lee Lewes, conspicuous among all the officers of the company for dashing dress, held command at Fort Colville. He was succeeded in 1848 by Alexander C. Anderson. Besides fine personal appearance, Lewes possessed many good qualities. Indeed, since Northwest rivalry had so sharpened wit, the. service enforced the appointment only of able and energetic men. Where strength of mind and body were so essentially requisite favoritism went for less than it did formerly FARMS ESTABLISHED. 61 In my History of the Northwest Coast I have stated that in the lease of a portion of the Russian territory to the Hudson's Bay Company for a term of ten years from 1809, afterward increased several years more, it was stipulated that during such occupation the Russian American Fur Company, should purchase all their European goods from the Hudson's Bay Company, who, also, alone were to supply such agricultural products as the several Russian posts and vessels should require. Now the Russians were hearty eaters, and not over-fond of work. Exercise sufficient for an appetite they could get by beating their poor seal-hunters, the Aleuts and Koniagas, who likewise grew hungry under the process. Even these latter raised little or no produce. But whence were to come the fruits of the soil upon which the Hudson's Bay Company had promised to feed them? Some little planting had been done at Colville, Fort Vancouver, and the'Willa- mette and Cowlitz valleys, but barely sufficient for the company's own requirements. The British fur-hunters were but little more inclined to agriculture than were the Russian traders. There were these points of difference, however, between the two: the former had suitable soil and climate with enterprise and thrift to exercise upon it, all which the latter lacked. At all events, before making their bargain, they were supposed to have sufficiently weighed results, and would in due time furnish the provisions agreed upon. Some they could get from California, some from the Hawaiian Islands; but such in the main was not their purpose. They preferred to develop home resources. To this end the management determined to open other farms upon the banks of the Columbia, and in the rich Willamette Valley; for which purpose, during the same year of 1839, English and Scotch farmers were brought from Canada across the mountains, and placed in the several most favorable parts of the 62 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN.. country. Likewise French Canadians and half-breeds retiring from the service of the company were encouraged to settle upon lands, the best of which were to be had without asking, and become tillers of the soil. In the vicinity of Fort Vancouver, and elsewhere, the areas of agriculture were soon greatly enlarged, and grist-mills erected for making the several grades of flour required for the Russian American trade. More sheep and cattle were being driven up from California, and the Sandwich Islands swine were permitted rapidly to increase. The plains near Fort Nisqually were turned into sheep and cattle ranges, and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company was inaugurated. Hence it was not long before wheat, flour, butter, pork, and other articles in no considerable quantities were ready for shipment to the Russian posts, not alone of the American, but of the Asiatic coast, and four barks of eight hundred tons each were built in London for the exportation of Hudson's Bay Company's produce. Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour report: "At Nisqually, near the head of Puget Sound, is the farm of the Puget Sound Company, commenced in 1839, and supported chiefly by the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company. They here cultivate wheat and potatoes, etc., but the magnificent range of rich prairie country between the shores of Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains to the east are chiefly used as pasturage for the immense herds of cattle and sheep, the greater number of which were brought from California in 1840-1." Operations here were under the management of W. F. Tolmie for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, an offshoot of the Hudson's Bay Company. Anderson and Niell did the honors at this post upon the occasion of the visit of the United States exploring squadron in 1841. It was then in the full beauty of growing fields and well-kept gardens, with a fine dairy attached. Crops were raised by the company at. Fort Van- A CIRCULATING LIBRARY. 63 couver until 1850, but after 1846 the farms declined, and the Russian Company contracts, which, prior to that time had been filled from Fort Vancouver, were afterward shipped from Oregon City and Champoeg, the necessary produce being obtained by purchase. W. F. Tolmie states that he first met Mr Anderson at Milbank Sound in December 1833, where he replaced Anderson as clerk. There, in connection with Chief Trader Donald Manson, he "conceived the idea of establishing a circulating library among the officers of the company. Anderson, on reaching Fort Vancouver, ventilated the matter. It was readily taken up by Dr McLoughlin and Mr Douglas. A subscription library was formed which did much good for about ten years, soon after which time it was broken up. The officers subscribed, sent the order for books and periodicals to the company's agent in London; the books were sent out, and as everybody had subscribed, they were sent to all the forts throughout the length and breadth of the land. The library was kept at Fort Vancouver, subscribers sending for such books as they wanted, and returning them when read. Finally the books were divided among such of the subscribers as cared about having them. The Hudson's Bay Company, by their ships, sent out the Times and other leading papers for circulation. This was the first circulating library on the Pacific Slope, extending from 1833 to 1843." It should be borne in mind that the territory west of the Rocky Mountains and north of California was at this time held by agreement in joint occupancy by Great Britain and the United States. That the partition line must be drawn somewhere and shortly was well understood. Some little ill-will had been engendered between the subjects and citizens of the two powers thus brought into anomalous contact. Both sides claimed a right to occupy the territory, though 64 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. neither knew much about it It was bad blood only that was stirred; it was ignorance and stupidity only that became blatant. When the not most reliable or refined element in the United States, poverty-stricken, with barefooted and bareheaded wives and children, and teams of bony oxen and empty wagons straggled through the mountains, the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company behaved most nobly. They fully believed their right to the territory as good as that of the others. Though holding under the stipulated terms of joint occupancy, their domination in these parts had been from the beginning absolute and continuous. They inherited from the Northwest Company, who bought from the Pacific Company, which latter was supposed to be an American incorporation, though made up almost wholly of foreigners. Between the shock-headed, dirt-becoated, tobacco - spitting, and swearing ox-drivers from the United States border and the educated and punctilious business men of the fur monopoly there was a marked contrast, and the latter, I say, behaved nobly. There was much in this immigration to exasperate them. The interlopers, as from their standpoint they could but regard them, had come to spoil their trade, to drive away the game, to demoralize the natives, and to take the land for cultivation. Even if they did not so declare, such would be the inevitable effect. And yet they were kindly treated, and fed and clothed, as we have many times seen in the pursuance of this history. And I hold it churlish in any American, or in any man, to deny McLoughlin, Douglas, Work, and Og- den, and all the rest of these fearless, warm-hearted, open-handed, and clear-headed Scotch, Irish, and English men, their full meed of praise. It is not a question that turns upon the relative merits and demerits of the nations; such discussion I leave entirely to the stump-orators and long-eared logicians on either side. I deal only with men; and it Lmatters not one whit with me the accidents of color, creed, or country, FUR-HUNTERS AND SETTLERS. 65 The representatives of the two nationalities, thus meeting in oppugnant interests in the new Northwest, were of totally different classes, and in reviewing their character, they cannot be justly placed upon the same plane. Among the self-sacrificing pioneers of the Pacific there were many intelligent, high- minded, and honorable men and devoted women, who, it is scarcely necessary for me to say to the reader of the previous volumes of this history, are worthy of every honor, every gratitude that history and posterity can give. Yet none of us can deny that among the emigrants were ignorant and ill-mannered men and slatternly women, who in their attitude and dealings compared unfavorably with first-class business men trained to strict accountability from boyhood. Says my friend Elwood Evans, ever ready enough to do battle for his country: "It was a motley settlement, indeed, if we consider the caste to which each settler belonged, or the influence which brought him thither. There were the Hudson's Bay Company and its retainers, holding almost exclusive possession of the country, insidiously retarding and discouraging American settlement, and destroying by its policy of trade every American enterprise. Here, too, were the discharged or retired servants of the company, located in the country by its permission, and over whom it yet exercised controlling influence, men of every variety of color and nationality. Here and there were Americans who had dropped out of and remained behind the various companies and expeditions which had been crushed out or supplanted by the great monopoly of trade enjoyed by the Hudson's Bay Company, of necessity entertaining no very kind feeling toward the company, nor friendship for its studied and persistent attempts to convert Oregon into a British province. Then came the missionary colonies with denominational castes, each imbued with a leading principle, true to themselves, yet zealous to outvie in evidences of successful labor their rivals in Hist. Brit. Col. 5 6G OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. similar services; soon after whom, and last of all, followed the American emigrants proper, men, women, and children, seeking homes for themselves and their posterity, each in proper person asserting faith in the American title to Oregon, and jDrepared to struggle against every effort and influence which would wrest the country from the United States. Such was the Oregon of that period, and it is difficult, indeed, out of these heterogeneous elements, each having its own peculiar history, to present an intelligible and intelligent view of affairs." The treaty of 1846, which drew the dividing line between American and British territory on the Pacific, befitting in my mind the history of Oregon rather than the history of British Columbia, has been fully analyzed in a previous volume. Its effect upon the interests of United States settlers was primary and immediate; its effect on the fur-traders was to remo Te their operations farther to the northward. Nor shculd the fact be lost sight of in any discussion of the differences arising between the fur-traders and the settlers, that the Hudson's Bay Company was by no means a free and full representation of the British nation. They were simply an incorporated commercial association, acting for themselves, solely in their own pecuniary interests, and were as deadly opposed to opposition from people of their own nationality as from those of any other nation. I cannot do better, in concluding this general view of the Northwest Coast at the beginning of British Columbia history proper, than to give a resume of the doings of James Douglas immediately antecedent to the opening of operations on Vancouver Island; that gentleman being then not only foremost in north- coast fur affairs, but rapidly rising to sole rulership in the commercial and political interests of Pacific British America. The information here given is epitomized from his journals of 1840-1. DOUGLAS' JOURNAL. 67 Leaving Fort Vancouver the 22d of April 1840, Douglas passed round by the Cowlitz to Nisqually, where he learned of the total destruction of Fort Langley by fire. The object of the present expedition was the occupation of the Stikeen post, lately leased from the Russians, and the building of another establishment on the Tako River, also within Russian territory. The destruction of Langley at this juncture was ill-timed and inconvenient, depending as they were on that post for salt provisions, which it was now too late to obtain from any other source. The lessors of the hyperborean domains, therefore, must depend alone upon the ravens of their religion, as they had often done elsewhere, to feed them. Douglas could but remark in passing on the early depopulation of the Cowlitz country, for of the once numerous inhabitants there now remained but sixty men. He attributes the cause to ague and the mysterious ways of providence. The first ague summer, says Plomondo, one of the first to settle there, was in 1830, when "the living sufficed not to bury their dead, but fled in terror to the sea-coast, abandoning the dead and dying to the birds and beasts of prey. Every village presented a scene harrowing to the feelings; the canoes were there drawn up upon the beach, the nets extended on the willow boughs to dry, the very dogs appeared as ever watchful, but there was not heard the cheerful sound of the human voice. The green woods, the music of birds, the i busy humming of the insect tribes, the bright summer sky, spoke of life and happiness, while the abode of man was silent as the grave, and like it filled with putrid, festering carcasses." All hail, sweet sympathizing friends; providence, civilization, and the ague await your coming to reap alike rich harvests in the more virgin north. Proceeding from Nisqually in the steamer to Langley, Douglas there found Yale busy erecting a new 68 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. stockade. Twenty men from the steamer were loaned the fort-builders for a short time; after which the vessel continued its way, taking in wood and water at the north end of Tejada Island, buying fifty beaver- skins from the saucy natives of the Comux village off Point Mudge, who were yet unreclaimed by Christianity and undisciplined by civilized ague, and anchoring in McNeill Harbor on the 8th of May. Opening trade with the Quackolls from Cheslakee, twenty sea-otter and seventy beaver were bought. Continuing, a few skins were traded at Port Bull; 500 bushels of potatoes, 500 pieces of cedar bark, and thirty cords of wood were taken on board at Fort McLoughlin, and on the 14th Fort Simpson was reached. Thence by way of Stikeen, Douglas went to Sitka and talked with Etholin, the Russian gov- . ernor, about their territorial bounds and trade, which questions were satisfactorily settled. Each might buy provisions anywhere, but furs only within their own territory. A tariff was agreed upon for the Indian traffic, and some furs were exchanged between themselves. Permission was granted the Hudson's Bay Company to buy sheep at Bodega provided the sanction of the California authorities could be obtained, but not otherwise. The Russians offered to sell Bodega for $30,000, with 1,500 sheep at one and a half dollars cash, and 3,000 cattle and horses at ten dollars each. Etholin had sugar enough to last him four years, but he would take some blankets, and agree to furnish two hundred pairs of Finland shoes at ^ve shillings each. Douglas offered to grind part of their wheat into fine flour, but Etholin replied that his people did not use much fine flour. The question of selling arms and alcohol to savages was opened and closed without effecting anything; the Sitka people did so love liquor, and arms were essential to successful hunting,. As to next year's supply of provisions. the Russians would want one hundredweight of butter; if they did not sell Bodega, they could there cure DOUGLAS AND ETHOLIN. 69 all the beef they would require, they would receive grain in California if the Hudson's Bay Company would pay the freight to Sitka. Thus these dignitaries dickered, each holding the other's business methods in contempt. Douglas here growls over several pages. The two Russian establishments visited by him were crowded with lazy and idle officers and men. It was bad, the appointing of naval officers to the command, who knew nothing of the service; it was bad having officers wholly unqualified for business undertakings, whose term of service was only five years, and who drew pay from both the government and the fur company. Fifteen vessels were kept constantly afloat in the Russian service, and six thousand dollars were expended annually for provisions. The seal islands were not so productive as formerly, and they were now obliged to pursue a course of nursing, only fifteen thousand of the superfluous young males being now allowed to be killed annually. Twenty-five thousand beaver and otter were traded each year, at a net profit not to exceed twenty per cent on the capital employed. Their furs were mostly exchanged on the China frontier for teas, at the rate of seventy-five roubles, or fifteen dollars, for otter, and fifteen roubles for beaver. In all which Douglas doubtless was right. Returning to Stikeen, a misunderstanding arose between Douglas, commander of the expedition, and McNeill, captain of the steamer, a brief account of which will best illustrate the mutual relations and duties of these officials in the company's service. The hours of labor were from six to six. In taking on wood, Saturday, the 30th of May, Douglas, being anxious to expedite affairs, ordered work continued until nine o'clock at night. The captain disliked to drive the men so hard, lest they should complain, and reasonably, as it was against the rules of the ship. Prayers were held on Sunday between one and two, and after further resting until four, Douglas 70 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. ordered the wooding to proceed, the captain remaining ashore all day in an ill humor. Next morning McNeill was more angry than ever, and on encountering Douglas in the cabin, addressed him in an agitated manner. "Mr Douglas, if you interfere with the duties of the ship, I will leave her as soon as we get to Fort Simpson." "In what instance sir have I interfered with the ship's duties ?" "In various ways." "You would oblige me, sir, by more explicit information. It was certainly never my intention to do anything on board this ship to diminish the respect due to you. However, in my ignorance of naval routine, I may have inadvertently trespassed on some point of etiquette, and I wish you to point it out, that I may avoid it in future." "The mate, an hour ago, asked me whose orders he should obey—yours or mine." "Call him. Sir, why did you put such a question to the captain?" "Because you gave me several orders yesterday when the captain was ashore." "Did I ever tell you, sir, to disobey the captain's orders?" "No, sir." "Well, sir, you have acted very improperly, and in a manner more becoming an inmate of the forecastle than a gentleman and an officer." "Very well, I will go away." "Go to the devil, sir, if you please." | Captain McNeill, I refuse duty," exclaimed the mate, as he left the cabin and went on deck. Douglas followed him, and ordered him back to the cabin The mate moved slowly and reluctantly. Douglas was very angry. Seizing in his powerful grasp the collar of the mate's jacket, he shook him as he would have done a school-boy. EXPLORATION OF THE TAKO. 71 "Would you lay violent hands on me?" shouted the mate. Instantly remembering himself, Douglas released his hold, and the man marched quietly into the cabin. Douglas then assured the officers that he had no intention of interfering with their duties, but should he deem it necessary at any time to issue orders, they must be obeyed by every person in the company's service, master and mate included. Mr Work was now in charge of Fort Simpson, and Rae of Stikeen. While at the former place a few days, the ship Vancouver arrived, whereupon Douglas was perplexed what disposition to make of the vessels, which were needed at once at the Columbia for general service, and there upon the north coast to assist in making ready the new establishments. He finally concluded to send both the sailing vessel and the steamer to deliver the outfits at Stikeen and Tako; thence to proceed to Sitka, returning to Simpson, when, if Work deemed it necessary, he might ship his furs to Fort Vancouver, meanwhile landing the outfit for Fort McLoughlin, and touching on the coast below for trade, that is to say, if a vessel unprovided with boarding-nettings, as was the Vancouver, might do so with safety. This plan Douglas proceeded to put into immediate execution, still retaining his place on board the Beaver, with Roderick Finlayson of the party. Arriving at Stephens Passage on the 17th of June, in the afternoon of the same day he set out with two armed boats and twenty men to explore the Tako River to a distance of thirty-five miles, where his instructions informed him was to be placed the post of Tako. Three days were occupied in this expedition. The higher elevations everywhere were covered with ice and snow, the lower level with green grasses and flowering plants in full bloom. So strangely beautiful was it, so singular the contrast between the heavenly desolation and the earthly paradise, that Douglas called it Eden. Yet so swift and dangerous was the cur- 72 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. rent, moreover being blocked by ice during the winter, that Douglas finally decided not to place the fort far up the river, but to build it where an intelligent native had directed him, some twenty miles south of Point Salisbury. Pickets and block-houses were quickly thrown up, and a salute fired on the fourth of July announced the guns in place. Trading began, but it was not wholly satisfactory, the savages being so absorbed in dealing in slaves, who were brought from a distance and used in commerce as a sort of currency, that they had but few skins left to buy whiskey with. Arrived at Tako the 12th of August the Cadboro, bringing news from all the coast stations. • Discharging and receiving her cargo she soon set sail on her return voyage, Fort Vancouver being her destination, while Nisqually was that of the Beaver. Before leaving these parts Douglas made a short cruise into the neighboring inlets to exhort the savages to bring their skins to Tako and buy some tobacco and blankets with them, and not waste them on filthy human beings. A lengthy account is given in his journal by Douglas, of the occurrences at the several stations during his return trip, which it is needless for me to reproduce. Year after year the company's vessels, with but little variation and with few incidents worth recording, coasted up and down, supplying the stations, and trading on the vessel's deck where no posts were established. During the following winter, 1840-1, Douglas visited California to purchase grain and send overland to the Columbia a large herd of live-stock. Much has been -written on the climates, physical features, natural wealth, aborigines, and occupation of the Northwest Coast. I have given in the two preceding chapters but an outline. A volume would not exhaust the subject. I am obliged, therefore, to refer those desirous of further information upon the subject to other works, among which after my Native Races of the Pacific States and the former volumes of this History of the Pacific States, I may mention the following: A. C Anderson, who in his Northwest Coast, MS., 228-32, discusses the climates of Stuart Lake and of Victoria, and de- AUTHORITIES ON PHYSICAL FEATURES. 73 votes a large part of his prize essay ou The Dominion of tlte West to the geographical features of both islands and mainland. On the configuration and climate of Vancouver Island, see Forbes' Essay, 62, the harbors particularly; Pemberton's V. 1., 148, 150, on timber; Moffat's- Jour., in Id., 146, 149, natural products; Horetzhy's Canada on tJie Pacific, passim; Hibben's Guide B. C, passim, on both islands and mainland; Mac- donald's Lecture, 43-4; Hazlitt's B. C, 217-18; Poole's Queen Charlotte Islands, 58-61, for a good description of the harbors of Vancouver Island and the mainland opposite; Martin's H. B., 32-5, copying Warre and Vavasours Report, for physical aspect and resources of the island; Brit. N. Am., 306-9, for game, timber, fish, fur, and coal. Victor says, Oregon, 254, that there is but little good land on the island, though sheep-raising is carried on largely. The wealth of. the island is in its timber, coal, and fisheries; probably gold, copper, and salt might be remunerative. Grant, London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 268-320, gives a full description, remarking that the soil is * rich where there is any.. .the singular system of inland seas by which it is environed teems with fish of every description,' and that it is a fine seat for a colony. For the western side, see the voyages of Meares, Dixon, Cook, Sutil y Mexicana, Vancouver, and for the interior, the journeys of Mackenzie, Lewis and Clarke, Fraser, Stuart, Simpson, Franchere, Cox, and others, and also the several geological, geographical, and road and railway explorations. McLeod, Peace River, 5-6, states that the rivers and lakes north of Cariboo are seldom frozen after March, even on the plateau. Harmon in his Journal, 191, calls attention to the raid of the far reaching branches of Peace River upon the waters of the western side of the continental water-shed, both Findlay and Parsnip rivers, before their junction, running along the western base of the mountains with their stolen moisture, as if in search of a passage through. Rattray, V. I., 22-54, has a long chapter on the climate of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, its salubrity and variations, the force of winds, temperature, rainfall, barometric ranges, with tables and chart. Also 73-T an article on timber, its produce, uses, and value. Good, B. C, MS., 53-114, gives a long description of a trip up the Fraser by steamer to Yale and thence by road to Clinton. An eloquent and graphic description is given of the country, its topographical features and scenery, particularly of the Kamloop, Nicola, and Okanagan districts. Indeed, I might give volumes of description from the hundreds of writers on the subject, every one of whom has. something to say of the country that he has either seen or heard of. I have scarcely space in this volume for reference even, and therefore will condense as much as possible, and omit all but the more important. On general features and climate, see further, Langevin's Rept., 40-4; Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 27, 36, 113; Macfie's V. I. and B. C, chap, ii.; De Smet, Miss, de I'Or., 144, where an account is given of the twelve voyageurs swallowed in the Dalles des Morts in 1838; Greenhow's Or. and Cal, 27-9; Butler's North Land, 193; Fraser's 2d Jour., MS., 3; Umfreville's H. B., passim; Gladman in House Com. Rept., 1857, 390-2; Chicago Acad. Sci., i. 61-78, more especially with reference to the geology of the Mackenzie River; Hines' Or. and its Instit., 7, and Hines' Ex. to Or., chap, xvi; Dodges' Plains, passim; Macdonald's: B. C, chap, i.-iii.; Absaraha, chap, iii., on Dakota* Taylor's Northwest Am 74 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. MS., 47, 65; Niles' Register, xvi. 235; Dalles Mountaineer, April 4, 1868; Mackenzie's Hist. Topog., 314-15; Cox's Adv., ii. 360-92, about New Caledonia; Tlwrnton's Or., i. chap, xix; Parker's Tour, chap, i.; MaUe-Brun, PrScis de Giog., vi. 310-14, compiled from Vancouver, Lewis and Clarke, and others; Richards' V. I. Pilot, 1-255; Findlays Direct. N. W. Am., 392-436; Imray's Sailing Direct. N. W. Am., 233-45, 261-312, 357-60; Rowe's Colon. Emp., i. 117-29, 134-7; Tolmie''s Puget Sound, MS., 13-14, on Committee's Punch Bowl. Burnett in his Recol, MS., i. 115-16, tells about one Black Harris, atrapper, who claimed to have discovered a petrified forest in the Rocky Mountains, on first coming in sight of which he had supposed it a beautiful grove of gum timber, \ and so sudden had been the petrification that the green leaves were all petrified, and the very birds that were there singing in the grove were also petrified in the act of singing, because their mouths were still open in the petrified state.' Black Harris must have been reading the Arabian Nights; but stranger than the story of the forest is the fact that so sensible a man as Governor Burnett should half believe it. The ignorance of politicans concerning this country is painfully apparent, when we see congressman like Mr Baylies as late as 1826, men who claimed knowledge sufficiently extraordinary and accurate to warrant a printed communication of the same to congress, coolly asserting the existence of five establishments subordinate to Astoria, one I at the mouth of Lewis River, one at Lanton, a third on the Columbia, six hundred miles from the ocean at the confluence of the Wantana [sic] River, a fourth on the east fork of Lewis River, and the fifth on the Multnomah.' Lewis and Clarke were not favorably impressed with the country. It was a dreary time they had of it. At the mouth of the Columbia they saw little land that they thought fit for cultivation, and the account they gave was such that, for twenty years after their visit, Oregon was regarded an almost desert region fit only for fur-bearing animals and hungry savages. So says Jesse Applegate in Saxtons Or. Ter., MS., 142. Continuing our lists of references there is FrancMre's Nar., 229, on the Columbia region; Victor's Oregon, one of the best works extant for general description; Townsend's Nar., 67, who says of the Wind River Mountains: 'This chain gives rise to the sources of the Missouri, the Colorado of the west, and Lewis River of the Columbia, and i3 the highest land on the continent of North America,' which last assertion he was somewhat premature in making, as he had not measured all the elevations; IT. S. Ev. H. B. Co. Claims, 35-45, 67, on the soil of Idaho; Fremont's Ex., 274-6; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 8-27, 73, for scenery on the Columbia and Cowlitz; Ross* Fur Hunters, i. 34, 70, 358, ii. 80-3, 360, for Okanagan, Grand Conte, Falls of the Columbia, and New Caledonia; Simpson's Journey, i. 150-5 et seq., et passim; Howard and Burnett's Direct., 1863, 192-3; Dawson on Mines, 1-3; Overland from Minnesota to Fraser River, passim; Harnett's Led., 42-5; ChurcUU and Cooper's B. C, 4; Selwyn's Geol. Sur. Rept., passim; Complon's Ab. B. C, MS., 1-3; De Groot's B. C, 6, 8; Canada Hand Book, 52; Joly's Rept. on Forestry in Ag. Rept," 1877, 1-20; Waddington's Overland Route, 15; RawUngs' North Am., chap, viii., ix.; McLellan's Golden State, 632; Johnson's Very Far West, 94; Palmers North Bentinck Route, passim, on Williams Lake and Cariboo; Isbister's Proposal, passim; Hist. Mag., March 1863; Land and Work'a WRITERS ON THE NATIVES 75 Rept., 1865; Jour, and Sess. Papers, B. C, 1873-4; Mallandaine's First Vic Direct., 18; Nevada Jour., June 11, 1858; Harmon's Jour., passim; Dunn's Or., passim; Remy and Brenshley, Jour., ii. 509; Bulfinch's Or., 156; Win- throps Canoe Jour., 284; Stuart's Montana, 89-92; W. McD. Dawson, in House Com. Rept., H. B. Co., 1857, 399-402; Wilkes' Nar. U. S. Expl. Ex., iv., passim; McTavish's Dep., passim; Richardson's Prtar Regions, 219-97; Hoopers Tents of the Tuski, 309-86, where is an excell nt description of the aurora borealis; Gray's Or., 610-19; Lee and Frost's Or., 81-95, 196-203; Foster's Missi. Valley, 36, 180, 197-9, 252, 257. In relation to the policy of the European fur-traders, settlers, and missionaries, besides the authorities already quoted, I would mention Roberts* Rec, MS., 14; Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 30; Compton's Forts, MS., passim; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 24-6, 29-34; Hancock's Thirteen Years, MS., 359-60, Chinook jargon; McKay's Rec, MS., 17-18; Dean's V. I., MS., 22-4; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser, i., 33-4, 55-6, 83; Vowell's Mining Dist., MS., 8-11. Nobili, in De Smet, Miss, de VOr., 153; Pub. Accts. Canada, iii. 43; payments to natives B. C, 1876, House of Commons Rept., H. B. Co., 1857, 363-7; Anderson, in Hist. Mag., vii. 76; census carriers and remarks on decrease, U. S. Ind. Affairs Rept., 1869, 533-4, 558-60; Overland Monthly, ii. 206-7; Seemann's Voy. Herald, i. 104-6; Canada Tear-Book, 1878, 44; Rept. Dept. Int., 1875, xlvi. 44-6; Indian reservations, Columbia Mission, various reports; Kirchlwff, Reisebilder, ii. 81; B. C, Journal and Sess. Pap., 1, 1874, passim, and Rept. 1875, 673; 25th Cong. 3d Sess., House Com. Rept. 101, 41; Fitzgerald's H. B. Co., chap, vii.; Douglas' Addresses and Mem., 68; Armstrong's Or., 25-6; U. S. Statutes at Large, passim; Shasta Courier, Dec. 24, 1864; Isbister, in House Com. Rept., H. B. Co., 1857, 123; McESn- lay's Nar., MS., 13-14; Simpson's Nar., i. 210; Allen's Cont., MS., 20; Fort Simpson Journal, MS., 11; Sproat's Scenes, passim; Simmons, in U. S. Ev. H. B. Co. Claims, 134. As to original populations in these parts, Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour in their report of the 26th of October, 1845, give the census of the tribes inhabiting the Oregon Territory between the forty-second and fifty-fourth parallels and west of the Rocky Mountains at 86,947. This census was made up from the trading-lists of the several stations, and from other good authority. Of the number named, 11,079 were arrived at by estimate, and 75,868 by accurate census. The last named consisted of 33,956 males, 35,182 females, 1,584 children under twelve, and 5,146 slaves. Lord, B. C. Naturalist, ii. 226, estimates the native population of Vancouver Island and British Columbia in 1860 at 30,000. In the United States the numbers have fallen from 2,000,000 to 300,000. Douglas, Private Papers, MS., ser. ii., 7-33, gives census tables of native British Columbia populations of the several districts in columns showing heads of families, women, canoes, guns, etc., most of which are for the years 1838-9. These statistics were found very useful to the Company in its commercial operations. Kane, Wanderings of an Artist, also gives tables of population, all which are contradictory and unsatisfactory. Aboriginal British Columbia, by P. N Compton, is a manuscript of 120 pages, filled with interesting and valuable detail concerning the geography, 76 OCCUPATION OF THE DOMAIN. natural wealth, and native inhabitants of the country. Most of it is the result of personal observation. The style is plain, simple, and practical, common sense characterizing every page. It is probably the most complete work extant on the aborigines, particular attention being given as well to their fisheries, game, food, and commerce as to their character, customs, and languages. Not the least interesting part of the work is a division on the natural history of this region, devoted chiefly to the bear tribe. For fort-dwellers, settlers, and missionary stations I would refer more especially to McLoughlin s Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 1; Saxton's Or. Ter., MS., 38; the observations of Wilkes and Simpson before quoted. Belcher, Voy., i. 301, mentions as occupying the Willamette Valley 24 Canadians, 20 American stragglers, mostly from California, and ten Methodist clergymen and teachers. The five vessels performing the coast service were the bark Columbia, 310 tons, 6 guns, and 24 men; the bark Vancouver, 324 tons, 6 guns, and 24 men; ship Nereid, 283 tons, 10 guns, and 26 men; schooner Cadboro, 71 tons, 4 guns, and 12 men; and steamer Beaver, 109 tons, 5 guns, and 26 men. See also House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 7; McKay's Rec, MS., 2; Finlayson's V. I. and N. C, MS., 90-1; Tolmie's Hist. Puget Sound, MS., 59-60; 2Jfth Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Doc. 262, 27-30, iii.; Evans Hist. Or., MS., xxi. McKinlay states, Narrative, MS., 13-15, that Wanquille -River was named after the Indian chief Wanquille, and Nicola Lake after the chief of the Okanagans who lived there. McLeod, in McDonald's Jour., 113, states that Tete Jaune Cache at Yellowhead or Leather Pass derived its name from the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company, requiring large quantities of leather for their carrying service in the Columbia, Thompson River, and New Caledonia districts, brought from the eastern side by this pass dressed moose and deer skins which were here cached for convenience. Two miles below Fort Vancouver the country was called Cox's Plain, ' from Old Cox, the H. B. Co. swineherd, who had his residence there among the oaks,' as mentioned in a former volume. Hines, Ex. Or., says that ten miles southwest of Corvallis rises the most beautiful mountain of the Coast Range, Mary's Peak. Among a party travelling in that vicinity in early times was Mary, an Indian woman, the wife of a white man. In crossing a river hereabout, her mule threw her, and she narrowly escaped drowning; in compensation for which disaster both river and mountain were honored by her name. Indian tradition says that the falls at the Dalles were once so great that fish could not scale them; also that from Swalalahhost Mountain south-east of Young Bay, thunder and smoke once issued; also that the waters at the Cascades on the Columbia once flowed smoothly and without obstacle beneath lines of projecting rocks until they fell; ever since which time the water has stumbled over them; also, that the chasm at the Dalles was once arched over, and was subsequently rent by an earthquake. Mt St Helens is said to have erupted in 1831, • The Tacullies called the reindeer of their region hotsee- kaya; the Canadian voyageurs, caribou, whence the name of the Cariboo country. Many years ago the Beaver Indians inhabited the country round the rivers Beaver and Athabasca, formerly Elk, and lakes Deer and Wollas- ton. Then came the Knisteneaux, the most warlike and powerful people in NOMENCLATURE. all these parts, and drove the Beavers, together with their neighbors the Slaves, down the Athabasca River and beyond the Athabasca Lake, once called Lake of the Hills. Thence the Slaves fled down the Slave River to Slave Lake, thus giving these two bodies'of water their name. The Beavers turned into Peace River, where, upon a point not far distant from its mouth, they halted and made terms with their pursuers, and made this point their boundary, from which circumstance the place was called Peace Point, and the river Unjigah or Peace River. CHAPTER IV. CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. 1842. Necessities of a Northern Metropolitan Post—Encroachments of Settlers on the Columbia—The Dividing Line—Growing Importance or Agriculture—The Question of Locality—A Northern Rendezvous for Whalers—The Southern End of Vancouver Island Its Advantageous Position—Douglas Surveys the Harbors—Camosun and Esquimalt Compared—Report of Douglas. Several causes united at this juncture to render necessary the building of a metropolitan post somewhere to the northward. When John McLoughlin came to Astoria in 1824, he saw at once that the mouth of the Columbia was not the proper place for the chief factory, or general distributing depot of his company on the Northwest Coast. Here as elsewhere the adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay must have absolute control of the country, its lands and waters, its forests and prairies, its aborigines and its wild beasts. It must be all or nothing. Competition might be endured along the seaboard where the savages were blood-thirsty and jealous, and where the silent sailing of the ships neither disturbed the game nor materially changed the relative attitude of the inhabitants. Astoria might be the best location for a fortress in repelling foreign invasion, but there was something more to be feared than foreign invasion. In fact, the thought of forcible entry from the sea in such numbers as to do much injury gave little concern. Game must be preserved and the native hunters controlled. This QUARRELS OF THE FUR-TRADERS. 79 could be done only by keeping others away; all others except members of the monopoly; for their own countrymen, English, Scotch, and Irish, as we have often observed, were as bitterly detested as opponents as were the Russians or Americans—instance the long and bitter rivalry of the Northwest Company, culminating in the bloody fueds of Red River.1 1 Fully to realize the extent to which this brotherly hate was carried, one should have been present at a meeting of the clans at York Factory or Fort William immediately after the coalition. Before me is 'a vivid account of one such meeting, early in the summer of 1S22, at the former post, for which I am indebted, among other kindnesses, to Mr John Tod. The bitterness of the Northwesters was somewhat intensified because of their supposed defeat, though, as a matter of fact, they were less defeated than their opponents. The loss of their name, and the scattering of the hitherto proud and powerful Montreal associates, gave the retainers of the old chartered company an opportunity to assume superiority, of which they did not hesitate to make avail. A dinner at York Factory in those days was closely akin to a tragedy. There were the haughty Highlanders of the Northwest Company, and the equally independent servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, stalking the sombre halls of the dilapidated fortress, and glaring deadly scorn from under shaggy eyebrows as paths met. Company colors were still bravely flaunted, the former arrayed in gray, the latter in blue. At the sounding of the bell, seventy or eighty of these two kindred souls marched promiscuously into the dining-hall and stood along the walls in sullen silence, jealously watching colors in the appointments of place and precedence. But' that crafty fox, Sir George Simpson,' as my friend of the grays calls him, was happy with his small talk and diplomacy, and presently the party was seated. Brought thus into yet nearer and more nervous conjunction, it was interesting to see them handling the knives intended for cutting their meat, but seemingly it would have given greater satisfaction to have applied them to the throat ox their vis-a-vis. There was blind McDonnel savagely blinking at his enemy of Swan River, Chief Factor Kennedy, whom he had fought with naked sword within these three months, and who still carried marks of the encounter upon his face. I shall never forget the looks of scorn and defiance,' says my friend, I as their eyes met. The Highlander's nostrils expanded; he snorted, squirted, and spat, while the other looked all that, and more.' At either end of the table sat the respective chiefs of the lately opposing companies, Sir George Simpson and Simon McGillivray, who interposed wine and good cheer between the would-be combatants with such polished stratagem as to save the dining-hall the scene of open hostilities. Indeed, under the Hudson's Bay governor preceding Simpson, the bluff and rugged Williams, whose ultimate appeal in matters of dispute was always war, the coalition would scarcely have been achieved. 'Immediately on the right of McGillivray/ continues the gray, speaking of- this special occasion, ' sat that flexible character, Mcintosh, his ever-shifting countenance and restless black eye indicating that nature had designed him for the harbinger of plots, treasons, and stratagems. I allude to the same who, some years before, in Peace River, tried hard to poison poor little Yale, but could not succeed, for so invulnerable had the integuments of the latter's stomach become by long acquaintance with the tough fare of that inhospitable step-mother, New* Caledonia, that the diabolical attempt altogether failed. Directly in front of Mcintosh sat his gallant enemy of the preceding winter, the pompous but good-natured John Clark, with neckerchief and shirt-collar always up to his ears, and his head above the level of ordinary men.' I may remark that the two leaders, Mcintosh 80 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. But to protect the dusky children of their adoption, to watch white interlopers, to prevent the too rapid slaughter of fur-bearing animals, and to delay settlement, a location more central than the seaboard was deemed advisable. Hence head-quarters had been removed up the river, near the head of ocean navigation, and near the mouth of a large river flowing in through the fertile Valley Willamette, from far to the southward. The northern bank of the Columbia had been chosen, that should this stream prove eventually the boundary line between British and American Pacific domain, as was then thought probable, the chief post of the company might still be found planted within British possessions. In 1824 agriculture also began to assume importance in fur-trading circles. The subordinate establishments, of which there were a score or so on the Pacific slope, needed supplies. The servants of the company were no longer satisfied to trust entirely for food to the game which they might kill or purchase. Some of the interior forts might, it is true, and did, cultivate vegetable patches, and Colville raised no inconsiderable quantities of grain and live-stock. But every locality was not suited to growing grain; furthermore, mills were necessary, and the more the occupants of the several posts cumbered themselves with the paraphernalia of civilized life, the more their traffic was impeded. But the central establishment might very properly and profitably turn some attention to agriculture, and while securing land to themselves prevent its falling into the hands of others. It was and Clark, each on his respective side, were for several years close neighbors, and constituted the advance guard of that fierce rivalry which so long kept the fur-traders in a turmoil. It was only within the past six months that after a long day's march, side by side on snow-shoes, they had agreed to settle a dispute by combat; and across the blazing camp-fire that night lively pistol- lings began, which were unfortunately interfered with by their companions. These festive occasions, however, greatly assisted in healing personal feuds, which could not long continue after their pecuniary interests becameone; for before this present York Factory feast is over we see McVicor taking wine with his late jailer who had burned brimstone and phosphorus in his cell, thus giving him a somewhat unpalatable foretaste of what might be his fate hereafter. CHANGE OF LOCALITY FOR HEAD-QUARTERS. 81 wise policy on the part of McLoughlin and his associates to move their Pacific head-quarters from Astoria; and all things considered, the site of Fort Vancouver was as well chosen as was then possible. And now in 1843 a second move seemed no less necessary than had the first in 1824. The ownership of the territory was still in dispute. Settlers from the United States and elsewhere were coming in, and the land could no longer be kept wholly as a game preserve. The representatives of two powerful nations occupied in common by agreement. In the very nature of things, this partnership must be dissolved. In sentiment and in policy the subjects and citizens of the two powers were to some extent antagonistic. Still more were the private* interests of the fur company, who, down to near the present time, had singly dominated this common territory, oppugnant to the interests of the incoming agriculturists. Some day, and that not far distant, either with war or without war, there would be drawn the dividing line; and that line it was now certain would not be south of the Columbia, though it was possible the lower Columbia might be upon that line. But in any event, whether the territory was divided soon or late, whether the forty-sixth or the forty-ninth parallel should separate the ownership of the two nations, it was no less important that the headquarters of the fur company should be moved. It was impossible to prevent settlement; it was impossible to treat settlers as enemies, for the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company were, as a rule, just and humane men. Nor was it any the less impossible to conduct a successful peltry business in the face of increasing settlement. For several years past these ideas had been patent in the minds of all who thought upon the subject. Having determined upon the necessity of a move, the next consideration was the selection of a site. Hist. Brit. Col. 6 82 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. The nearest northern post was Nisqually.- Too near, in fact, for already the agriculturists were upon them. There were the Cowlitz farms; and round Fort Nisqually the Puget Sound Agricultural Company was rapidly laying wide tracts under contribution. But this was not the worst of it. The agricultural improvements on Cowlitz Plains and round Nisqually belonged to the Puget Sound Company, which belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company. All this could be easily controlled; and the agricultural interest might indeed have been subordinated to the fur traffic to the benefit of both. For it need not necessarily follow that the principal post of supply should be in the centre of a fur-bearing region. But it was better it should be back of settlement; and settlement in earnest had already set in between the Columbia and Puget Sound. Then Nisqually, while distant from the northern posts, was likewise distant from the sea; and too much threading of inlets would more than offset any other advantages Puget Sound might offer. But most of all to be considered, Nisqually might be on the southern side of the line when the national partition should be made, and it was surely desirable that any further improvements made by the British fur company should be on British territory. Fort Langley might next be considered. The Fraser was the next largest river on the coast after the Columbia, and on it stood Langley, as Vancouver stood on the Columbia. The Fraser could offer as abundant a supply of salmon as the Columbia, and the entrance was as safe. The Fraser should now become the natural route to New Caledonia, and Langley was well situated to supply all the interior posts. But might not some point more accessible to the sea be chosen which would offer all the other advantages of Langley as well? The dividing line once determined there would be little fear of present inroads of settlers beyond it; and if in time a British colony within strictly British territory and under British ni[e should WHALERS' RENDEZVOUS. 83 be established on the Pacific coast, might not the fur company's site be the best for a colonial capital as otherwise? In the ordinary course of things, the business of wild-beast raising and skinning must decline; and when it does, and agriculturists take the place of savages, it would be as well for the proprietorship of the metropolis of the new empire to vest in the company as in another. Yet another consideration might be regarded. It so happened that with the decline of the fur-trade upon the Northwest Coast,- the whaling interest had assumed larger proportions. Since 1790 there had been occasional vessels off the shore of California catching whales. Gradually the number of these vessels increased, a large proportion of them now hailing from New England ports, until the present century was wellnigh two thirds gone, when in the north Pacific this fishery was at its height. Meanwhile San Francisco Bay had its Whalers' Harbor, now Sauzalito, and large fishing fleets congregated at Honolulu.2 And but for the narrow policy of the Mexican Government and the apathy of the people of California, the harbor of San Francisco would have been the rendezvous of Pacific whalers during the most important half-century of their existence. For, though the Hawaiian Islands, lying as they did in the very track between the northern and southern fisheries, were always easy of access by reason of the trade winds, nature offered far more bounteous supplies for the refreshing and refitting of vessels upon the mainland than at the Islands. Besides a plentiful supply of timber and resin which California offered for ship-building, hemp grew spontaneously, and beef might be had for a trifle. For several years prior to active operations in that quarter, the southern end of Vancouver Island had 2In 1823, three years after the arrival at the Hawaiian Islands of the first missionaries, fifty or sixty whalers might be seen at one time at Honolulu, and for twenty years thereafter the annual arrival at this port averaged not less than sixty sail. See Jarves' Hawaiian Islands, 361. 84 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. been thought of and talked of as a locality suitable for an establishment. It was indeed better adapted for the site of a magnificent city, than that of a fur- trading fort. It was near the ocean, and yet protected fromit. It was on the broad highway between the islands, and shores of the Pacific, and a continental interior equal to the whole of Mexico. It was at the cross-roads of waters; to the west led Fuca Strait, to the south Admiralty Inlet, and to the north the Gulf of Georgia. Huge islands were back of it, and a huge continent beside it. And the fact that as a place alone whereat to buy furs it was not as desirable as some others, shows that in the minds of the shrewd traders and factors of the great company who saw and seized this opportunity, it was something more than a mere trading-station. The steamer Beaver had not been on duty in these waters more than a year before she was prying into the mysteries of Boyal Harbor. For in the Fort Simpson journal under date 10th August 1837, I find written: "On his way to the southward Captain McNeill explored the south end of Vancouver Island, and found an excellent harbor and a fine open country along the sea-shore apparently well adapted for both tillage and pasturage, but saw no river sufficiently extensive for mills."3 This clearly shows what was wanted; not only a fort site but a mill site; that is to say, something more than a common trading-post. As Governor Simpson passed the place by the same conveyance on his way from Fort Vancouver to the northern posts in September 1841, he remarked: "The neighboring country, comprising the southern end of Vancouver's Island, is well adapted for cultivation, for, in addition to a tolerable soil and a moderate climate, it possesses excellent harbours, and abundance of timber. It will doubtless become, in 3 The fact that this survey of Esquimalt and Victoria harbors by McNeill was recorded in the journal of so distant a post as that of Fort Simpson, shows that it was then regarded as a matter of no small importance to the company, and one generally speculated upon by the officers. GEORGE SIMPSON. 85 time, the most valuable section of the whole coast above California."* Simpson had seen this island twenty-three years before, immediately after his overland journey and passage down Fraser Kiver in 1828 ;5 but having no need to think much about it at that time, Fort Vancouver filling every requirement, he passed it by without special comment. But now, and later, during this visit of 1841, we find his mind dwelling upon the subject, and connecting it with that of a whaling station within British Pacific territory, which he believed might be made at once attractive to shipmasters and profitable to his company. Surely northern forests were superior to southern; northern harbors equally safe, and as whaling operations worked northward, a northern rendezvous might be more convenient. As for supplies, if the Hudson's Bay Company could furnish the Russians in America on terms advantageous to both parties, as they were now satisfied they could, surely they might supply the whaling fleets of those waters.6 When Simpson reached England, being while here en route overland round the world, he laid the matter of a new Pacific post before the London directors. Ordinarily in planting a new establishment no such formality was deemed necessary. But, involving as it did an entire change of base in operations here, a vir- 4Simpsons Journey, i. 182. 5 G-eorge Simpson was chief officer in America, and governor of the Hudson's Bay territories for an uninterrupted term of thirty-seven years. He had no fixed residence; part of the time he spent at Red River, part in Oregon, part in Athabasca, and part in Canada. Throughout that vast commercial empire as well in Rupert Land as in the north-west territories, his authority was absolute, his will unquestioned except by the council or the company. And during all this time, if we may believe his own statement^ it was never questioned. A very able man of large physique, he was a power throughout the land. 6 The governor's logic was sound enough, but it is not so easy to draw traffic from its accustomed channels. Vancouver Island never was greatly used by whalers. In Niks' Register, lxx. 341, mention is made of four American whaling vessels that wintered there in 1845-6, one of which was the Morrison of Massachusetts, and one the Lowrie, of Connecticut. Six sailors deserting from these ships with a stolen boat attempted to land, but were opposed by the natives; and so, driven to sea in a. storm, three of them perished. r 86 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. tual abandonment of the Columbia, and the beginning of a new regime under new conditions, it was deemed desirable to have the advice and sanction of the magnates of the corporation, before proceeding with what were now, in the minds of the managers, tolerably well determined plans. The fact is there could not be in this association two opinions in regard to this measure. A move was Camosun and Vicinity. inevitable. The life of a fur-trader or factor was one perpetual lesson in observation. To study well the country, its configuration and contents, was their daily occupation. Hence the location of the chief city of British Columbia was not, as has been so many times the case in city-building, the result of accident. The very best place that the very best men, after due deliberation and examination, could find, was chosen, and in the enjoyment of the results of this sound DOUGLAS' SURVEY. 87 judgment their successors and descendants forever may call them blessed. Those to whom more immediate thanks are due are James Douglas, John McLoughlin, Roderick Finlayson, John Work, Anderson, Tolmie, and McNeill. Governor Simpson and the London management were only secondary in their influence as to location. It was the chief factors and chief traders of the day who really determined matters. And first among these we may place James Douglas. McLoughlin was now in his decline. His retire ment was already determined upon. He had been the central figure in Northwest Coast affairs for a period of eighteen years. A new sun was now arising, which for the next score of years was to shine in the north as had the other in the south. In early summer 1842, Douglas made a careful preliminary survey of the southern end of Vancouver Island, more particularly of the region round what is now called Royal Bay,7 it being by this time well understood that there was to be found the most suitable available spot on all the Northwest Coast. At a place called by the natives Camosun,8 or Ca- 7 At the extreme south-eastern end of Vancouver Island is a large open bay called Royal Bay, directly back of which is Esquimalt Harbor, some three miles east of which is Victoria Harbor. That part of Royal Bay leading more directly into Esquimalt Harbor, and beginning at Albert Head, is called Royal Roads. Vessels may there anchor in ten or twelve fathoms, safe from all winds save those from the east or south-east. Esquimalt Harbor may be entered at all times^ and there vessels of any size find safe anchorage. Victoria Harbor, entered between points McLoughlin and Ogden, by reason of the sunken rocks which extend a mile in either direction, from the bare, flat projection situated midway between the two harbors, and known as Sailor or Macaulay point, is regarded as dangerous of entrance in bad weather. The channel is so tortuous that long vessels often run aground. ' It appears not a little remarkable,' says Imray, West Coast of North America, 239, ' that with the excellent harbor of Esquimalt within two miles, Victoria should have been continued as the commercial port of a rising colony. I See also Kane's Wanderings, 208, and Seemann's Voy. Herald, i. 101. 8 So written by Finlayson, and by Douglas, Camosack. I give the preference to the former, because though Finlayson may not on all occasions have been as close an observer as Douglas, the visits of observation of the latter were transient, and in some degree necessarily superficial, while the former was brought immediately into close and continued relationship with the natives, where he was obliged to know something of their language, and where he assuredly had the opportunity to obtain the most correct pronunciation of so important a word. Lieutenant Vavasour, in March 1846, House of Commons 88 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. mosack, signifying the rush of waters, such as occurred at the gorge, Douglas found an open space some six miles square in area, consisting of a range of plains with timber convenient, and possibly water-power for mills on Camosun Canal, notwithstanding McNeill had reported unfavorably in regard to mill sites. I will permit Douglas to make his own report. I Camosack is a pleasant and convenient site for the establishment, within fifty yards of the anchorage, on the border of a large tract of clear land which extends eastward to Point Gonzalo at the south-east extremity of the island, and about six miles interiorly, being the most picturesque and decidedly the most valuable part of the island that we had the good fortune to discover. More than two thirds of this section consists of prairie land, and may be converted either to purposes of tillage or pasture, for which I have seen no part of the Indian country better adapted; the rest of it, with the exception of the ponds of water, is covered with valuable oak and pine timber. I observed, generally speaking, but two marked varieties of soil on the prairies; that of the best land is of a dark veg*etable mould, varying from nine to fourteen inches in depth, overlaying a substratum of grayish clayey loam, which produces the rankest growth of native plants that I have seen in America. The other variety is of inferior value, and to judge from the less vigorous appearance of the vegetation upon it, naturally more unproductive. Both kinds, however, produce abundance of grass,, and several varieties of red clover grow on the rich moist bottoms. In two, particularly, we saw several acres of clover growing with a luxuriance and a compactness more resembling the close sward of a well- managed lea than the produce of an uncultivated waste. Being pretty well assured of the capabilities of the soil as respects the purposes of agriculture, the Returns to Three Addresses, 10, writes the word Cammusan, which certainly leans toward Finlayson's orthography. Bolduc says Skagits called the southern end of Vancouver Island Ramoon. De Smet's Or. Miss., 61. DOUGLAS' REPORT. 89 climate being also mild and pleasant, we ought to be able to grow every kind of grain raised in England. On this point, however, we cannot confidently speak until we have tried the experiment and tested the climate, as there may exist local influences destructive of the husbandman's hopes, which cannot be discovered by other means. As, for instance, it is well known that the damp fogs which daily spread over the shores of Upper California blight the crops and greatly deteriorate the wheat grown near the sea-coast in that country. I am not aware that any such effect is ever felt in the temperate climate of Britain, nearly con- responding in its insular situation and geographical position with Vancouver Island, and I hope that the latter will also enjoy an exemption from an evil at once disastrous and irremediable. We are certain that potatoes thrive, and grow to a large size, as the Indians have many small fields in cultivation which appear to repay the labor bestowed upon them, and I hope that other crops will do as well. The canal of Camosack is nearly six miles long, and its banks are well wooded throughout." About a league west of Camosun was a spot known to the natives as Esquimalt;9 that is to say, 'a place for gathering camass/ great quantities of which vegetable were found there, where it was now well known was a better harbor; indeed, Camosun could scarcely be regarded as a suitable rendezvous for whalers; but that did not prevent its being a better place for a fort. 9 As usual in such cases, we find both of these names mixed and mutilated in a variety of ways by different writers. Thus Grant, Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 272, and others repeating his error, say the natives called Victoria Harbor Tsomus, 'from the name of the tribe which lives there,' which were the Songhies, and which name in fact he was endeavoring to pronounce. There is J a bay within three miles of Fort Victoria,' say two very intelligent gentlemen specially appointed to see and speak correctly. Warre and Vavasour, Rept., 1845, j called Squirnal by the Indians.' The native name of Cordoba, the Victoria Harbor of the Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, 38, is given by a Spanish writer Chachimutupusas. Paul Kane, the artist, Wanderings, 209, writes most of the names in the vicinity correctly; but he peoples the Songhie village with Clallams, a scarcely pardonable mistake in one studying savages. Douglas writes Esquimalt Iswhoymalth, which orthography, however correct it may be, is rather redundant for popular use. The French Jesuit, Bolduc, De, Smet's Or. Miss., 57-8, calls the Songhies Isanisks. 90 CAMOSUN AND ESQUIMALT. When once the shoals and covered rocks were known, the channel would be found sufficient for the small vessels of the company; and as for whalers, the other harbor was quite near enough for their not always too pleasing presence. Little thought was then taken as to which should be the great commercial port, or as to where should be placed the future great commercial city. Even should the station ever assume such pretensions, Esquimalt would still assuredly be the proper place, and Camosun would still be near enough to it. For the present, favorable surroundings, good open lands, clear fresh water, and a beautiful periscope were far weightier considerations than the accessibility to shipping, which they did not care to have too near them. In reference to Esquimalt, Douglas says: " Iswhoy- malth is one of the best harbors on the coast, being perfectly safe and of easy access, but in other respects it possesses no attraction. Its appearance is strikingly unprepossessing, the outline of the country exhibiting a confused assemblage of rock and wood. More distant appear isolated ridges, thinly covered with scattered trees and masses of bare rock; and the view is closed by a range of low mountains, which traverse the island at a distance of about twelve miles. The shores of the harbor are rugged and precipitous, and I did not see one level spot clear of trees of sufficient extent to build a large fort upon. There is in fact but little clear land within a quarter of a mile of the harbor, and that lies in small patches here and there on the declivities and bottoms of the rising ground. At a greater distance are two elevated plains on different sides of the harbor containing several bottoms of rich land, the largest of which does not exceed fifty acres of clear space, much broken by masses of limestone and granite. Another serious objection to the place is the scarcity of fresh water."10 19 Compare further Martin's Hudson's Bay, 35-7; Waddington's Fraser Mines, 13, * Victoria may be the farm, but Esquimalt will be the trading- port.' Seemann's Voy. Herald, i. 101. THE MATTER DETERMINED. 91 Such report dated the 12th of July, being duly made at Fort Vancouver on the return of Douglas; after due consideration by the factors and traders there assembled, it was determined to open operations at that point as early in the following spring as practicable. CHAPTER V. FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. 1843. Expedition from Fort Vancouver—Source of Agricultural Supplies— The Cowlitz Country—Embark on the * Beaver'—Visit to the Clal- lams—Anchor in Camosun Harbor—Beauties of the Surroundings —Aboriginal Occupants—Selection of a Site—Two Points Attract Attention—Location Settled—The Jesuit, Bolduc—His Conference with the Natives—The Fort-builders Begin Operations— Portentous Signs—Bolduc Celebrates Mass—He Visits Whidbey Island—Douglas Departs for Tako—Abandonment of that Post, and also of fort mcloughlin—return of douglas to camosun with Reenforcements—The Stockade Erected—Arrival of the 'Cadboro'—Ross Placed in Command—Departure of Douglas with the ■ Beaver ' and the ' Cadboro. ' The expedition for establishing a post on the southern point of Vancouver Island left Fort Vancouver the first day of March 1843.1 It consisted of some fifteen men, and was under the command of James Douglas.2 It had been determined that the posts of 1 As to the date of the first expedition to Royal Bay for the purpose of planting an establishment there, and of the beginning of the Fort Victoria buildings, there is a multiplicity of statements, although there is not the slightest difficulty in reaching the truth, strange as it may appear, if one goes to the right place for it. Thus Cooper, Maritime Matters, MS., 2, who one would think should know, says f the fort was commenced in 1842 and completed in 1844,' when in truth the site was no more than selected at the date first mentioned, while for nearly ten years after the time last named they were adding to the buildings. McKinlay, Narrative, MS., 7, was quite near it for him when he dates the founding 1840. Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 272, and Hazlitt, Brit. Col., 157, copying him; Tolmie, Puget Sound, MS., 19, Finlayson, Hist. V. I., MS., 21, who was there and one of the building party, give the date 1843. 2 Of this expedition, which will be forever interesting and important as the beginning of active permanent operations on Vancouver Island, I have two accounts, of the highest order of evidence, both narrators being of the party; one is the journal of James Douglas, written by himself, and the other a letter of Bolduc, a Jesuit priest, to Mr Cayenne, published in De Smet's Or. Miss. • (92) THE EXPEDITION. 93 Tako and McLoughlin should be abandoned, and the men there stationed should lend their assistance to the builders of the new establishment; hence the small number of men brought from Fort Vancouver.3 First of all, arrangements must be made for provisions. Unlike a regular fur-trading fort, the proposed general depot on Vancouver Island could not, in any considerable degree, sustain itself by hunting and fishing. It was intended at once to pursue agriculture; but there could be but little raised the first year, and while the first crops were growing the men must eat. Therefore, Nisqually and the Cowlitz Plains being of all the Company's farms the most productive and accessible, it was determined to draw supplies thence. A week was thus occupied in the Cowlitz country,4 and in the transportation of effects, and on the 9th the party reached Nisqually in the midst of a heavy fall of snow. There the little black Beaver awaited them; but it was the 13th before all their effects were on board ready to start. Embarking at ten o'clock on that day, and steaming northward through Puget Sound and Admiralty Inlet, at dusk they came to anchor a few miles south of Port Townsend.5 The water was still; over the sides of the vessel fishing tackle was thrown, and soon a plentiful supply of cod and halibut was secured for the next day's dinner. Weighing anchor the next morning, they ran into New Dungeness, and landed for the double purpose of notifying the Clallams of their intended occupation of Vancouver Island, preparatory to opening traffic with them, and also to examine the neighborhood as to 3 'According to instructions from' the governor, Sir G-eorge Simpson, the trade at Tako and the neighboring islands was to be carried on by the Beaver steamer, as a trading vessel along the coast there.' Finlayson s V. I., MS., 21. i The first night, camped at the mouth of the Cowlitz; second night, slept below the forks; third night, above the forks; fourth and fifth nights, at Cowlitz Farms; sixth and seventh nights, at Mountain Plain; eighth night, at north end of Grand Prairie. We may judge somewhat of their occupation by their movements. Douglas' Journal, MS., 120. 5 ' At a place named Pointe Perdrix, formed by a projection of the Isle Whitby.' Bolduc, in De Smet's Or. Miss., 55. 94 FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. its resources. There was a plain of some two hundred acres, containing chiefly granite bowlders, a stream of water, and a large village of the Clallams, who in autumn capture large quantities of salmon. In small gardens on the plain the natives cultivated potatoes. Their observations completed, they crossed Fuca Strait to Camosun Bay, and anchored about four o'clock just inside the entrance round Shoal Point.6 It was indeed primeval in appearance. Before them lay a vast ocean-bound body of land upon which no white man now stood. Not a human habitation was in sight, not a beast, scarcely a bird. Even the distant murmur of the voiceless wood was drowned by the gentle beating of the surf upon the shore. There was something specially charming, bewitching, in the place. Though wholly natural, it did not seem so. It was not at all like pure art; but it was as though nature and art had combined to map and make one of the most pleasing prospects in the world. So park-like in appearance was the region round and back of the harbor, that the European first landing would scarcely have manifested surprise had he encountered workmen, who, while subduing that which was evil or ungainly, were yet subordinating art to nature, and striving with their artificial changes still to preserve nature's beauties. The fertile vales, warm groves, and grassy slopes of the rolling plateau were intersected by serpentine ribbons of glistening water, and bound round by wind-chiselled rocks as smooth and symmetrical as if placed there by design. These gave the ground a substantial air, and a warning to the encroaching sea, as if progress had specially prepared the place, and the foundations of civilization were there already laid. Never danced clearer, purer water in the sunlight than that which rippled in the coves and bays around, and the Olympian Heights from this 6 Some say that this expedition fiiat *«fired Esquimalt Harbor, some C6rdoba Bay; both are in error. TheseaBa»wwn&d been previously visited often enough to enable them to proceed at gimhW their objective point. VIRGIN WILDERNESS. 95 standpoint, with the glistening water for a foreground and cloud-cut midway above their base, as they often are, seemed translated heavenward. Never were mountains more aptly named than these, thanks to the old trinket-huckster, Meares; for if there is anywhere a spot on which an American Jove might fitly hold his court, it is here on these high uplifted hills, their base resting on clouds and their white tops bathed in celestial glory. The aboriginal occupants of the domain round Camosun, by which native appellation we are permitted for a time to call what was afterward known as Victoria Harbor, were the Songhies,7 whose chief village was situated on the western side of the channel, on a point about one mile from the entrance. At the present time, however, they had fortified themselves within stakes enclosing an area some one hundred and fifty feet square, at the head of the harbor,8 through fear of the fierce Cowichins, who lived a little north of Fraser River, both on the island and on the mainland, and who crept stealthily down the strait in their canoes, entered villages at night, massacred the men, and carried the women and children into slavery. On the present occasion the Beaver had scarcely come to anchor when two canoes were seen, and at the discharge of cannon savages appeared upon the bank, confusedly moving hither and thither like the unearthed inhabitants of a disturbed ant-hill. The night passed quietly, and the following morning saw the steamer surrounded by a swarm of boats. Chief now among other considerations was wood with which to build the fort, and ground to place it on. For the former, early on the morning of the 15th of March, Douglas set out from the steamer in a small boat and began to examine the shore directly north of the anchorage, where he found the trees short, crooked, and not at all suitable. On the south 1 See Native Races, i. 174-207, 297. 8Bolduc says 'six miles from the port, at the extremity of the bay.* De Smet's Or. Miss., 56. 96 FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. side the wood was better, and Douglas anticipated no difficulty in obtaining sufficient of some kind for his purpose. Small, straight cedar-trees, such as were most desirable for pickets, being lighter, and of greater durability underground than other timber of this region, he found it necessary to bring from a distance. Meanwhile, never indifferent to food supply, he questioned the natives, and learned that pilchard, or herring, came in April, and that salmon ascended Fuca Strait in August, when large quantities were taken, the supply of the latter continuing until September. Where to place the proposed fort was the next question. "There are two positions," writes Douglas in his journal under date of 15th of March, "possessing advantages of nearly equal importance, though of different kinds. Number one has a good view of the harbor, is upon clear ground, and only fifty yards from the beach; on the other hand, vessels drawing fourteen feet of water cannot come within one hundred and thirty feet of the shore. We will therefore have either to boat cargo off and on, and at a great destruction of boats, and at a considerable loss of time, or be put to the expense of forming a jetty at a great amount of labor. Number two, on the other hand, will allow of vessels lying with their sides grazing the rocks, which form a natural wharf whereon cargo may be conveniently landed from the ship's yard, and in that respect would be exceedingly advantageous; but on the other hand, an intervening point intercepts the view, so that the mouth of the port cannot be seen from it, an objection of much weight in the case of vessels entering and leaving port. Another disadvantage is, that the shore is there covered by thick woods to the breadth of two hundred yards, so that we must either place the fort at that distance from the landing-place, or clear away the thickets, which would detain us very much in our building operations. I will think more on' this subject before determining the point." BOLDUC, THE MISSIONARY. 97 In all which it is clearly evident the commander's mind was dwelling more on proximate facilities than on permanent advantages; for had he been aware that he was choosing the site of a city, and not merely locating a fort, such considerations as a view of the entrance or a belt of bushes on the shore would have weighed but little. With the expedition was a Jesuit missionary, J. B. Z.9 Bolduc, who claims to have been the first priest to put foot on.Vancouver Island; of the truth of which supposition perhaps neither he nor any of those with him were the best judges. However this may have been, certain it is that Father Bolduc, on this same 15th of March, landed with swelling breast and head erect, as fully bent on business as any there present. If we may credit the truth of the good man's statement, the savages, with their chief, whose name was Tsilalthach, at once recognized his apostleship, and bowed submissive to that spiritual yoke which they hoped would in its own mysterious way add to their creature comforts. Accompanied by the commander of the expedition and the captain of the steamer, the priest directed his steps to where the savages had congregated up the channel, and was immediately embraced by six hundred souls, which number swelled to twelve hundred before his departure. Men, women, and children, all must touch the hem of his garment, all must shake hands with him, and absorb in their being some of that divine afflatus that flows from the Lord's anointed. Repairing to the great public house of the village, the priest harangued the people, and the chief harangued the priest: which was the more interesting and instructive discourse I shall not attempt to determine. "O man!" cried Bolduc, "red man, blind man, beastly man; know you not of a creator, a heaven, and a hell? I know, and I am come to tell you, the Hist. Brit. Col. 7 98 FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. creator is such and such a character as I shall describe ; and he loves and hates such things as I shall tell you are right and wrong." "All that I know as well as you," returned Tsilalthach. "Another told me teu years ago.9 I used to be bad; now I am good." Lucky Bolduc! Lucky Tsilalthach I How wonderful is knowledge, hidden as it is from the wise and prudent, but revealed to babes! "You must be baptized," continued Bolduc. "Baptize our enemies," said Tsilalthach; "do not baptize us; for all the Kwantlums and Cowichins so treated died immediately." "Then you can never see the master," replied Bolduc. "Well, baptize, then," cried Tsilalthach; "we have soon to die in any event." So Bolduc baptized until arrested by sheer exhaustion; and the sheep now gathered into the fold were ready for the slaughter. Next day, the 16th, having determined on a site, which was number two of his recorded cogitations, Douglas put his men at work squaring timber, and dx others digging a well. He then explained to the natives,10 now assembled in considerable numbers, that he had come to build among them, and to bring them arms and implements, clothing and beautiful adornments, which they might have for skins Whereat they were greatly pleased, and eagerly pressed their assistance upon the fort-builders, who were glad to employ them at the rate of one blanket for every forty pickets they would bring.11 The 17th was Friday; was it their lucky or un- 9 Was it another first priest, a swearing sailor, or a supernatural apparition ? 10 The 'Samose,' he calls them: which is hardly so near * Songhies' as * Camosack' is to * Camosun,' 111 The pickets were twenty-two feet long and three feet in circumference. I also lent them three large axes, one half square head, and ten half-round head axes, to be returned hereafter, when they had finished the job.' Douglas' Journal, MS., 12*-5. THE) NATIVES. 99 lucky day ? Was that luminous streak which lingered in the heavens after the day went out, shining brightly there until the moon came up and frightened it away —was the sign portentous of good or ill to this beginning ? And did it speak to the savage or to the civilized? For five consecutive nights it did not fail to make its appearance, and was the wonder of the time.12 Sunday was the 19th, and Bolduc decided on that day to celebrate mass. Douglas kindly placed at his disposal whatever he should wish from the steamer, besides supplying him men to aid him in his holy work. A rustic chapel was improvised; a boat's awning serving as canopy, and branches of fir-trees enclosing the sides. During the service the rude sanctuary was graced with the presence of the commander, and two Catholic* ladies, by which term the polite Frenchman designates the pious half-breed wives of the Canadians. No cathedral bell was heard that sabbath morning; no soft and solemn peal flung back by waving forest on Georgia and Fuca straits; and yet the Songhies, Clallams, and Cowichins were there, friends and bloody enemies, in thick attendance, all anxious for heaven after they should have received sufficient of some nearer and more present happy sensation. The Songhies themselves were soon enlisted in missionary service. Bolduc, desirous of carrying the gospel to Whidbey Island, after purchasing a canoe was devoutly paddled thence by Tsilalthach and ten of his most efficient warriors, on the 24th. The captain had given him a compass and had told him which way to steer, else this man who knew the road to heaven so well would have lost his way on a little stretch of opaque sea of twenty-seven miles. The first night was spent on Lopez Island; the new converts, securing an abundance of sea food to gorge themselves withal, did ]2Douglas every day made a note of it, placing it 'due south from the position we occupied at the time of its appearance, and extended from thence in a continuous line to the south-west point of the horizon, forming an arc of ninety degrees. It diminished gradually toward the south-west horizon.* Douglas' Journal, MS., 126. 100 FOUNDING OF FORT CAMOSUN. not find it necessary, at this juncture, to eat the missionary. The next day he reached Whidbey Island in safety; and pitching his tent beside the cross planted there by Blanchet in 1840, before the sun went down he had shaken hands with a file of savages, numbering, with those so favored the following day, over one thousand, enough to put to blush Ulysses Grant, the greatest of American hand-shakers. Signifying his desire for something better than a cotton house, two hundred Skagits immediately fell to cutting trees, and in two days a wooden building twenty-five by twenty-eight feet, covered with cedar bark, the interior lined with rush mats, stood at his service upon an adjacent hill; in return for which the Skagits were taught to sing. The 3d of April the good missionary departed from these shores, directing his boat back toward Nisqually, naively remarking that although the heathen hereabouts gladly received the word, he was not sure they fully comprehended it; for when he attempted to reform their morals they straightway relapsed into indifference. The beginning of these important operations having thus been made, Douglas committed his little force of fort-builders to the honorable mercies of the yet un- maddened savage, and steamed northward, transacting the usual business on the way. Proceeding to Fort Tako, he took thence all the goods and other articles worth the transportation, and placing them with the men on board the vessel, abandoned the place. At Fort Simpson he took on board Roderick Finlayson, leaving there another officer in his place. Dropping down' the Milbank Sound, he gathered in the stores and men at Fort McLoughlin, and abandoned that post as he had done Fort Tako.13 Then he returned to Camosun. 13 [ This course was adopted in consequence of instructions having been sent from Red River settlement in Hudson's Bay, then the head-quarters of our governor, Sir George Simpson, to establish a depot for whalers on the south point of Vancouver Island, as there were many whalers then visiting the North Pacific.' Finlayson's V. I, MS., 21. THE FOUNDATIONS OF EMPIRE LAID. 101 It was on the first day of June that the new force landed from the Beaver at Camosun. But little progress had been made in building since the departure of the steamer, and there was as yet no shelter for stores upon the shore. Carrying forward to rapid completion the few log huts already begun, the goods were landed, and stored in them, the men protecting themselves at night as best they were able, until further buildings were erected for their accommodation. From the coasts of Vancouver, the neighboring islands, and the contiguous mainland the natives flocked in to see the work that was being done, and encamped on every side. They were all well armed, and were without their wives and children, which seemed somewhat suspicious to the fort-builders. The fur-trading force at Camosun now numbered fifty men, part of whom were from the abandoned posts of Tako and McLoughlin, and part from Fort Vancouver. This was almost too formidable an array, armed to the teeth, and constantly on guard as they were, for the natives to think of attacking; so they contented themselves with the pilfering of such articles as providence threw in their way, for they were thieves upon principle. Three months after the arrival of the parties from the north, the stockade, with bastions at the angles and store and dwelling houses within, was completed. While this work was in progress, the schooner Cadboro arrived with supplies from Fort Vancouver. Mr Charles Ross, who had been in charge of Fort McLoughlin at the time of the abandonment, being senior officer, was placed in command, with Mr Finlayson as second. Then in October, Douglas, pronouncing the new establishment capable of self-defence, departed with the Beaver and the Cadboro, and their crews, midst long and lusty cheers from the shore. Thus were laid the foundations of a new empire. CHAPTER VI. AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. 1844. Death of Commander Ross — Roderick Finlayson — Sketch of his Career—At Forts Tako and Simpson—Bibliographical Note on his Manuscript—His Character—First Cargo of Live-stock—The Savages make Game of the Cattle—Redress Demanded and Refused— War Declared—Tsoughilam and Tsilalthach with their Allies Attack the Fort—Strategy of Finlayson—Bloodless Victory—The Pipe of Peace is Smoked—Descriptions of the Fortress—Warre and " Vavasour — Berthold Seemann — Finlayson's Letter—James Deans—His Character and Manuscript—Interesting and Minute Description of the Fort—Under Orders of Douglas, Fort Camosun was Built without a Nail. In the spring of 1844 Ross, the officer in charge, died, and Finlayson reigned in his stead. The first duty of the new commander was to despatch to Nisqually a canoe with a messenger for Fort Vancouver, announcing the death of Ross. The return express brought from McLoughlin authority for Finlayson to remain in charge, with a promise of another officer to be sent shortly to assist him in carrying on operations. On the western highlands of Scotland was born Roderick Finlayson, thus destined for a time to rule this island. His father was an extensive sheep-farmer, and in assisting him, no less than in attending the parochial school, the youth was preparing for his successful future. At the age of sixteen years he left home and began making his own way in the world. Crossing the Atlantic on an emigrant ship in 1837 to New York, he there met an uncle who secured him a position as apprenticed clerk in the. Hudson's Bay Company, and RODERICK FINLAYSON. 103 reported himself at the office in Montreal. After remaining there several months he was appointed to Bytown, a station on the Ottawa River. Thence in 1839 he crossed the mountains to Fort Vancouver, where he wintered, hunting in the Willamette Valley, shooting duck where Portland now stands, and making preparations meanwhile for an expedition northward for the purpose of taking possession of the ten-league shore strip lately leased from the Russians. Thence with James Douglas in command of the party, of which were W. G. Rae, John Kennedy, and John McLoughlin, junior, in the spring of 1840 he proceeded by way of the Cowlitz River, Nisqually, Langley, Mil- bank {Sound, and Fort Simpson to the Stikeen River, where were left Rae, McLoughlin, and eighteen men; Douglas, Kennedy, and Finlayson, with the remainder of the party, proceeding in the steamer Beaver, which had brought them from Nisqually to Sitka. In June the party sailed from Sitka for the Tako River, where they built a fort, which was left in charge of Kennedy, with Finlayson as assistant, and eighteen men, Douglas returning to Fort Vancouver. After a dreary winter at Tako, in the summer of 1841 Finlayson was ordered to Stikeen to take the place at that station of Mr Rae,. who was sent to Yerba Buena. There he remained six months, when lie took his place at Fort Simpson as trader. Upon the assassination of John McLoughlin, junior, by his men at Stikeen, Finlayson proceeded thither in a canoe to take command of that post, but on arrival he found that Governor Simpson had reached the place before him, and had provided for its government. Thereupon he returned to Fort Simpson, where he remained through 1842, and until he was taken thence by Douglas to assist in establishing the post at Camosun in the spring of 1843.1 1In a manuscript of 104 folio pages, entitled History of Vancouver Island and^ tJie Northwest Coast, by Roderick Finlayson, are given the primary facts relative to the first establishment on Vancouver Island subsequent to the doings at Nootka, some half-century previous. Part of this manuscript !04 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. ^ There can be no evidence more satisfactory to the historian in regard to an incident or episode not connected with contending factions, than the testimony derived from frequent and close converse, pen in hand, with the chief actor in the event. If besides being upon the spot and ordering, or doing, and seeing done all that was done, we have a witness, intelligent, high-minded, of the strictest integrity, careful in his statements, precise in the use of words, unbiassed, un- bigoted, neither seeking praise nor fearing censure, it were strange, indeed, if one seeking facts only could not under such circumstances find them. Such a witness, touching one of the most interesting and- important events of British Columbia history, namely, clearing the ground for the future metropolis, and setting there the stakes of civilization, we happily have, in this instance, in the person of Mr Roderick Finlayson. is in the handwriting of the author; the remainder was taken by reporters from Mr Finlayson's dictation in my presence, and while subject to my interrogatories. He who would investigate the early affairs of British Columbia, more particularly matters relating to the founding of its most important establishment, and which led to the building of the present city of Victoria, is surprised at the absence of material. There was scarcely a post upon the whole Northwest Coast of which I had not more information than concerning the founding of Camosun, or Victoria, before I began to gather it from unrecorded sources. Fortunately in Mr Finlayson I found the man before all others for the purpose. Well preserved in mind as in body, clear-headed, courteous, intelligent, and public-spirited, he patiently sat with me day after day and week after week, until I expressed myself satisfied. And to him his fellow-members of the commonwealth, and all who care for a knowledge of its early incidents, may tender their thanks; for without what he has given me there would be little to tell. It is wonderful, indeed, how quickly unrecorded facts drop out of existence; and what blind apathy even the most prominent men sometimes display concerning most important matters which have lain nearest them all their lives, but which did not happen to come within the routine of their duties. When asked by Mrs Victor for incidents of the early life of John McLoughlin, Mr Douglas replied that he knew nothing of McLoughlin's early life. Half their lives had been spent in intimate business and friendly intercourse; both were wise and prominent men, and yet the younger knew absolutely nothing of the elder except what he saw of him. Mr Finlayson has a most happy way of presenting facts. ' His style is lucid, exact, and at the same time comprehensive. The chief incidents of his long and prominent career seemed already arranged in his mind in well defined sequence. His manuscript, though not as large as some, contains as much information as many three times its size, and the importance of his information is not exceeded by any. Mr Finlayson presented as fine an appearance physically as one not very often meets. Tall, well proportioned, erect, and crowned with gray, with fine, full features, expressive at once of benevolence and intelligence, his would have been felt as an imposing presence in any community. CHARACTER OF FINLAYSON. 105 Every individual is composed of human qualities, the worst having much that is good, the best much that is bad. And the honest historian deems it his duty to present, in every instance, without fear or favor, without prejudice or feeling, both phases of character, clearly and conscientiously. In rigidly adhering to this course, he must expect little else but censure from any quarter; for praise a man never so long or loudly, once a fault is touched he or his friends bristle with anger in a moment. In the lives of the best of us are some things which we prefer should not be brought under too strong a light; the worst of us do not relish the parading of our wickedness, nor do we believe it true, or the statement just. Before embarking in his too often thankless task, the writer of history, if his work be worthy the name, must so incase himself in armor as to be wholly indifferent to attack, relying only on truth, and the satisfaction of telling it, for his reward. Applying this sentiment to the matter in hand, I find myself at a loss in the consummation. No doubt Finlayson has bad qualities; his place is not upon this planet otherwise; but unfortunately I have not been able to find them. Though always a leading man in the company and in the colony, he has not been so prominent as to have excited, to any general extent, jealousy or obloquy by reason of his position. Among business men, among those who have met him almost daily for a period of forty years, or are intimate with his course and character, he is pronounced a shrewd, practical, clear-headed Scotchman, who, though sometimes seeking office and assuming public duties, meddles little with his neighbors' affairs, but attends to his own business, and does it so well and thoroughly as usually to command success. Kind, benevolent, honorable, and exceedingly courteous, showing himself by instinct a gentlemen in the highest sense of that much misapplied word, he possesses neither the genius nor the weakness of McLoughlin, nor the chiv- 106 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. alrous strength or the cold calculating formality of Douglas. He is not wholly self-abandoned in his welldoing like the one, nor snow-capped, by reason of his moral or political elevation, like the other. Being not so great a man as either, his faults do not stand out so conspicuously. We will now continue our narrative of affairs at Camosun. When the Cadboro and the Beaver sailed away about their business the previous October, the latter proceeded to Fort Nisqually, and taking on board a cargo of cattle and horses, returned with them to Camosun. Thereafter regular trips were made, and soon Camosun became the home station of the little steamer, whence she departed on her several missions. The cattle brought from Nisqually were chiefly of Mexican origin, and were wild and unmanageable. When first turned loose from the steamer, with head and tail erect they darted hither and thither, and then plunged into the thicket; and it was with no small difficulty that they were finally corralled and controlled. In due time, however, a sufficient number for building and farming purposes were subdued and brought under the yoke, and when not at work were turned out to graze, as were likewise the horses and other cattle. The savages regarded with wonder not unmixed with contempt this new species of game trained to do women's work, and thereby rendered wellnigh unfit for the accomplishment of their high destiny, which was to be killed and eaten. Besides, if this thing was to be, what would women do; what would wives be good for? Not only would they become idle, lazy, and too proud to work, but they would so fall in value as materially to affect the wealth and standing of those possessing six or ten. Their blood-thirsty logic was convincing to their own minds at least, and indeed overpowering, notwithstanding the white men had warned them, under penalty of severe displeas- HOSTILITIES. 107 ure, to treat these civilized beasts with distinguished consideration. Among those encamped in the vicinity of the fort, and who watched operations with as keen a zest as any, was a band of Cowichins, w^.ose chief was Tsoughilam, and who had come down xrom the north on a plundering expedition. The horses and cattle of the fort-builders were magnificent prey for these brigands, particularly the work-animals, which were finer, fatter, and more easily approached than the others. It was not often the good gods sent them such abundant benefit at so small a cost; and to decline them might seem ungrateful. So some of the best of the work oxen and horses were killed, and the Cowichins were filled to their utmost content. The day of reckoning quickly came. The fort- builders, having need of their cattle, went out for them one morning, and found in place of their faithful assistants only blood and bones, the more valuable parts of the carcasses being easily traced to the Cowichin camp. Finlayson immediately despatched a messenger to Tsoughilam, demanding delivery of the offenders, or payment for the slain animals. The savage attempted intimidation, pretended ingenuousness, though he knew well enough he was criminal. "What!" exclaimed to the messenger the lordly aboriginal, "these animals yours I Did you make them ? Are these your fields that fatten them 1 I thought them the property of nature; and whatever nature sends me, that I slay and eat, asking no questions, and paying no damages." I These cattle were brought from beyond the great sea," replied the messenger; "they belonged to those who brought them; and unless you make proper restitution, the gates of the fort will be closed against you." j Close your gates, if you like!" exclaimed Tsoughilam, now thoroughly enraged, "and I will batter 108 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. them down! Close your gates forsooth! Think you we did not live before the white man came ? and think you we should die were he swept from these shores ?" It was no idle threat that Tsoughilam thus made. There were others in the neighborhood, bold chieftains with their warriors, not least among whom was Tsilalthach, the greatest and bravest of the Songhies, who had watched these many days, with itching palms, the good things carried in behind the palisades, and who would not scruple in the least to attempt to secure some of them. Though not exactly upon his own domain, Tsoughilam almost felt at home there by reason of his oft-repeated depredations. He might set up a sort of claim by right of conquest. At all events, his right was as reasonable as was the white man's. Summoning to a council all the chiefs within his call, he said to them: f Reptiles have crept hither, reptiles with strange stings, whom it were well to crush upon the spot lest they should soon overspread the whole island The reward for such labor may be found behind the palisades." Then arose Tsilalthach, chief of the Songhies, and said: "We and our forefathers have lived in happiness upon this island for many ages before the existence of these strangers was known. We have eaten the fruits of the earth, have bathed in the waters and in the sunshine, have hunted our forests unquestioned of any, and have fought away our enemies manfully. Is all now to be taken from us?" The spirit of butchery was aroused. " We will meet this new infliction," cried another, " as we have met those in the past. We can do without bedizen- ments; or, what is better, we can take them without the asking." : Meanwhile within the fort watch was kept day and night to prevent surprise. After a lapse of two days, during which a large force had assembled round the fortress, the threatened attack was made. Midst THE FORT ATTACKED. 109 savage yells and terrifying antics, such as should put to flight a host of hobgoblins, men, or devils, a shower of musket-balls came pattering down upon the fort, riddling the stockade and rattling on the roofs of the houses. Instantly Finlayson shouted his order that not a shot was to be returned, though it was with the utmost difficulty he could restrain his men. The savages continued their fire for full half an hour, when seeing no prospect of annihilation near, they rested from their waste of ammunition. Then the commander of the fort appeared upon the parapet and beckoned Tsoughilam within speaking distance. "What would you do?" exclaimed Finlayson. I What evil would you bring upon yourselves ? What folly with your peppery guns to think to demolish our stronghold! Know you not that with one motion of my finger I could blow you all into the bay 1 And I will do it, too. See your houses yonder! And instantly upon the word a nine-pounder belched forth with astounding noise, a large load of grape-shot tearing into splinters the cedar lodge at which it was pointed. A hundred howls of agony rent the air, as if by that single shot all the women and children of the island had been blown to atoms. And so they would have been doubtless injured somewhat had they been there, as many of their woe- stricken husbands and fathers supposed they were. But the humane Finlayson had no desire to depopulate the isle, or even to injure a hair of a single aboriginal head. Before seeking a parley, and while the bullets were falling thick around him, he had formed a plan for teaching them a salutary lesson without doing them injury. He had ordered his interpreter to slip from the back gate and run for his life, as if escaping from a deadly foe, and on arriving at the lodges designated to warn the inmates to instant flight, as the fort was preparing to fire upon them. Hence no damage was done save the shivering to splinters r 110 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. of some pine slabs. And much good was accomplished, as the result will show. Some little time was allowed to elapse after the firing of the shot, that the savages might have opportunity to gather somewhat their dusky senses. Presently a deputation of their principal men appeared before the fort and requested a parley with the white chief. Finlayson told them they might come within the stockade; and as a guaranty of his good faith, he would send out two of his men as hostages. The offer was accepted, and the deputation entered the fort. ^£jj Then Finlayson fully explained to them how easily he could destroy them if he would. He showed them his men, his big guns and his little guns, and powder and balls, and knives and swords. He assured them that he wished them only good; but he insisted that those who killed the oxen should be given up for punishment, or the cattle paid for. They preferred the latter alternative, and before night fur to the full amount of the damage was delivered at the fort gate. The pipe of peace was then smoked, and promises of friendship exchanged. Next day the natives asked to see the great gun tried again; whereupon Finlayson told them to station an old canoe out in the water, and pointing the cannon at it he fired. Away went' the ball, and after cutting a great hole in the boat, bounded along the surface of the water to the opposite shore. The savages' respect for civilized institutions was duly increased. But the white man's laws as gradually revealed to them were seldom palatable. For example, not long after the cattle-killing affair certain Skagits from Whidbey Island came to Camosun to trade. Their business done, they started for their boats; but before reaching them the Songhies fell upon the visitors and stripped them of their goods; for between the Skagits and the Songhies, just as between France and Germany, feuds had long existed. Now, in the big DESCRIPTION OF THE FORT. Ill book of the fur-hunters is it not written that trading skins is a sacred calling, and that consequently the persons of skin-sellers are sacred? Therefore when the Skagits returned with long faces to the fort and told their tale, the commander ordered the immediate restoration of the stolen goods, under penalty of his displeasure and absolute cessation of trade, which was done. Steal and butcher among yourselves, or on any other occasion, as much as you will; but ah your peril touch the pilgrim who brings hither the gains we love. The fort was situated, as we have seen, on the east side of the inlet, directly opposite the chief village of the Songhies, which was distant some four hundred yards, and between which places was constant communication by boats. As usual, the chiefs were kept friendly by presents and a judicious balancing of power by Mr Finlayson, for whom they entertained the highest respect.2 The square enclosed by the cedar pickets, which were eighteen feet above ground, was one hundred and fifty yards on every side, with two block-houses or bastions at the angles, and dwellings and storehouses within the enclosure.8 Although building was not entirely over for several years, the fort proper and the usual building within the palisades were well advanced during this year of 1844. As there is no period in the history of a commonwealth possessing a more keen and lasting interest than that of the rude incipiency of its metropolis, I 2'On the opposite side of the harbor is a large native village; the distance across is only 400 yards, and canoes keep up constant communication between it and the fort. Certain supplies to the chiefs keep them in good humor with their intruding visitors. The houses of the natives 'are built with solidity, the climate rendering it necessary to guard against the cold, and arrange with some degree of order in streets or lanes with passages running up between them. Several families occupy the same house—one large shed, little better than an open cow-house or stable in an indifferent inn, the compartments or walls hardly excluding the sight of one family from another. Seemanti's Voy. Herald, i. 105-6. See also Native Races, i. 174-208. 3 This is Mr Finlayson's statement. Hist. V. I, MS., 31-2. Others who- know less about it give other figures. 112 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. shall give the impressions of a few early visitors in their own words. Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour, who were there in 1845, report the 26th of October: "We visited the Hudson's Bay Company's post,. . .where they have established a fort similar to those already described, a farm of several hundred acres, on which they raise wheat and potatoes, and a depot of provisions, supplies, etc., for the different trading-posts farther to the north." And again the latter of the above-named gentlemen says in a report to Colonel Holloway dated the 1st of March 1846: "Fort Victoria is situated at the southern end of Vancouver's Island, in the small harbor of Cammusan, the entrance to which is rather intricate. The fort is a square enclosure of one hundred yards, surrounded by cedar pickets twenty feet in height, having two octagonal bastions containing each six six-pounder iron guns at the north-east and south-west angles. The buildings are made of squared timber, eight in number, forming three sides of an oblong. This fort has lately been established; it is badly situated with regard to water and position, which latter has been chosen for its agricultural advantages only.... This is the best built of the company's forts; it requires loop-holing and a platform or gallery to enable men to fire over the pickets. A ditch might be cut round it, but the rock appears on the surface in many places."4 Berthold Seemann, naturalist on board H. M. S. Herald, who visited the place in July 1846, says: "The fort is a square enclosure, stockaded with poles about twenty feet high, and eight or ten inches in diameter, placed close together, and seamed with a cross-piece of nearly equal size. At the transverse corners of the square there are strong octagonal towers, mounted with four nine-pounder guns flanking each side, so that an attack by savages would be out of the question; and if defended with spirit, a dis* 4 House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 7, 11 12. LAYING OUT A TOWN. 113 ciplined force without artillery would find considerable difficulty in forcing the defences. The square is about one hundred and twenty yards, but an increase, which will nearly double its length from north to south, is contemplated. The building is even now, though plain to a fault, imposing from its mass and extent, while the bastions or towers diminish the tameness which its regular outline would otherwise produce. The interior is occupied by the officers' houses, or apartments they should rather be called, stores, and a trading house, in which smaller bargains are concluded, and tools, agricultural implements, blankets, shawls, beads, and all the multifarious products of Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds, are offered at exorbitant prices." "In 1852," says Finlayson, "the town of Victoria was laid out in streets, then bounded on the west by the harbor, on the east by the present Government street, on the south by the old fort, and on the north by the present Johnson street. Outside of these boundaries were the fields which were under cultivation."5 This will enable the reader to locate to-day the exact spot on which the fort stood. But by far the best account extant of the place as it existed at an early day is that given me by my friend James Deans,6 of Vancouver Island, who describes it as he first saw it in January 1853: "The bastions were of hewn logs some thirty feet in height, and were connected by palisades about twenty feet high. Within the palisades were the stores, numbered from one to five, and a blacksmith shop, besides b Finlay son's Letters, MS., Oct. 18, 1879. 6Settlement of Vancouver Island, MS., by James Deans, Victoria, 1878. Mr Deans was born at Armisfield, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, on the 17th of June 1827. Leaving London the 17th of August 1852, on the H. B. Co.'s bark Norman Morrison, he arrived at Victoria the 16th of January following. British Columbia has been his place of residence ever since. Thus, under his continuous observation, society and the commonwealth have arisen and developed, and being a close and intelligent observer, an original thinker, and a fearless speaker, his manuscript constitutes no unimportant part of my material for this portion of my history. I shall have occasion to refer to it many times during the progress of this work. Hist. Brit. Col. 8 114 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. dining-hall, cook-house, and chapel. . . .The site of the fort was an oak opening. The ground, to the extent of an acre, was cleared and enclosed by a palisade forming a square. On the north and south corners was a tower containing six or eight pieces of ordnance each. The north one served as a prison, the south one for firing salutes whenever the governor visited any place officially. In the centre of the east and west sides were main gate-ways, each having a little door to let people out or in after hours. On the right, entering by the front or south gate, was a cottage in which was the post-office. It was kept by an officer of the company, a Captain Sangster. Next in order was the smithy. Next and first on the south side was a large storehouse, in which fish-oil, etc., were stowed away. Next came the carpenter's shop. Close to this was a large room provided with bunkfc for the company's men to sleep in. Next, and last on that side, was a large building, a sort of barrack for new arrivals. Between this corner and the east garte were the chapel and chaplain's house. On the other side of this gate was a large building which served as a dining-room for the officers; adjoining this were the cook-house and pantry. On the fourth side was a double row of buildings for storing fur previous to shipment to England, and goods before taking their place in the trading store. Behind these stores was a fire-proof building used as a magazine for storing gunpowder. On the lower corner was another cottage in which lived Finlayson and family, who was then chief factor. On the other side of the front or west gate was the flag-staff and belfry. The central part of the enclosure was open, and was always kept clean. Through this enclosure ran the main road leading from the two gates. On one side of this road was a. well in which a lamentable accident happened early in the rush of 1858. This well was about thirty feet in depth, down to the bed-rock, which dipped suddenly toward the harbor, leaving, when the water got DOUGLAS AND FINLAYSON. 115 low, the upper part of it dry, while at the lower part there were three or four feet of water. It was lined with stone-work up to the surface, then covered with wood. To this well the miners came for their supply of water, whicli was hauled up with a rope and bucket. While one of them was hauling up water the rope broke and let his kettle fall to the bottom. In order to save his kettle, he gave an Indian a dollar to go down and fish it up. The Indian went down and stocd on the dry part of the rock. After trying a little while, and unable to grapple the kettle, in order to help him to recover it the miner swung himself down by the rope. When about ten feet down his feet struck the stone-work. In an instant the whole wall fell down on the Indian, who, poor fellow, died instantly, crushed to death at the bottom. A number of people came and quickly recovered his body. The well was ordered to be filled up, which was done. Only one of all the old buildings now remains, which is the store known as number three. It is at present used as a theatre"—that is to say, in 1878. Characteristic of Douglas was the desire to accomplish the greatest possible results with the smallest means, a praiseworthy quality if not carried too far. During his wide experience he had often been forced to this economy of capital, and what he had done he compelled others to do. If a fort was to be built, Douglas would specify the number of men to be employed, the tools to be used, among which the never- failing Canadian chopping-adze was always prominent, if indeed it was not the only one, if I may except a few augers, chisels, and saws. Finlayson had been the pupil of Douglas, as Douglas had been the pupil of McLoughlin. ^ Under the influence of Douglas, Finlayson imbibed similar ideas; so that when ordered to build Fort Camosun without a single nail, he did it. Strange as it may appear, houses, palisades, and bastions were 116 AFFAIRS AT CAMOSUN. erected without the use of one iron nail or spike, wooden pegs alone being employed.7 7 Besides Finlayson's Hist. V. I., MS., passim; Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., passim; Douglas' Voyage to the Northwest Coast, in Journal, MS., 120-7; Bolduc, in De Smet's Or. Miss., 55-65; and Waddington's Fraser Mines, on whose evidence this and the preceding chapter rest—I may infer to Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 279; Simpson's Or. Ter., 47; Niles' Reg., lxix. 134; Seemanns Voy. Herald, i. 101-3; Maine's B. C, 26-57; Kane's Wanderings, 215; Guide to B. C, 281-4; Martin's H. B., 34-5; Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvi. 272; McKinlay's Nar., MS., 7; Overland Monthly, xv. 497; James Douglas, H. B. Co. Ev. H. B. Co. Claims, 49-61; Cooper, Mar. Matters, MS., passim; Haz- litt's B. C, 157, copied verbatim from Grant; Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 19; Howison's Rept., 36; Macfie's B. C, 58; Blanchard, in House Commons Rept., 1857, 290, 294; Cooper, in House Commons Rept., 1857, 208; Good's British Columbia, MS., 2; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 19. CHAPTER VII. CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. 1845. Extermination of Savage Nomenclative — Camosun Becomes First Albert, and then Victoria—Food Supply—Douglas' Motto, Great Ends from Small Means —Wooden Ploughs and Rope Harness—A More Liberal Economy Sometimes Profitable — Outward-bound Ships from England now Come Directly Hither—Whaling Eleets —The Mission of the 'America '—Captain Gordon as a Sportsman— Hospitality at Fort Victoria—\ Fifty-four Forty or Fight "—More Vessels of War at Victoria—Also Surveyors and Appraisers of Territories—The Northwest Coast not Worth Fighting for- - Adventures of Paul Kane—Fort Victoria in Early Days. Back into the woods, you greased and painted redskins ! Go! And take your belongings—all of them, that is, all except what civilization would have. But chiefly take yourselves, your past, your future; take your names of things and places; take your lares et penates, take your legends and traditions. Begone! JBlot yourselves out! Why should you be remembered ? What have you done as tenants of this domain except to occupy, and eat and sleep, and keep it fresh and virgin as 'God gave it you, until some stronger hand should come and wrest it from you? Thanks, gentle savage; but go! And please do not die here under our cultivated noses. You need execute no testament; we will administer your estate. Go! Be forgotten! Be not! And let not your late home breathe of your former being. For the first two years of its existence, as we have seen, the post at the south end of Vancouver Island was called by the native name of the place, Camosun. ui7; 118 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. It was now deemed advisable, not to say necessary, to eradicate all traces of nature and the natural man; it was thought in better taste, with the levelling of forests and the tearing up. of rocks, to blast from memory the sylvan race that once were masters there. It happened there lived somewhere a man whose name was Albert, whom it were well for the adventurers of England to conciliate; therefore, in the year of grace 1845, orders came from the London magnates to damn the name Camosun, and call the place Fort Albert. But even then they were not satisfied; for behold, upon this planet there was one mightier than Albert, even his wife, the queen; and so before the year had expired Camosun was called Victoria, each new baptism being celebrated by the usual salutes and ceremonies.1 ■ w%'si' No sooner were the stockade, storehouses, and dwellings prepared than the people at Camosun turned their attention to the production of food. "For," said Finlayson, "after the first year many applications for agricultural produce from head-quarters would be ascribed to want of energy on the part of the officers in charge," and holding fast to the motto of Douglas, "great ends from small means," the omnipotent adze was sharpened, and wooden ploughs and narrows were made, the mould-board and teeth being of oak; old ropes obtained from the coasting vessels were used as traces for the horses to pull by. Afterward, seeing how industrious and thrifty they were, as a mark of his special favor Douglas indulged them in the extravagance of a few iron ploughshares Finlayson says, Hist. V. I., MS., 26: 'In the year 1845 the name of Camosun previously given to the fort was changed to Fort Albert by order from England, and the succeeding year to that of Victoria.' This I should regard as the highest authority did I not find a higher in the report of lieu- tentants Warre and Vavasour, House of Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 7, dated the 26th of October 1845, in which the post is plainly .designated Fort Victoria. This may have been done without proper authority, or it may not have been commonly called by that name, or baptized into it before 1846. At most, the discrepancy in the time of the change of name involves but a few months. GREAT ENDS FROM SMALL MEANS. 119 from Fort Vancouver; and whetting their Scotch ingenuity still further, they took the iron hoops from old provision casks and with them lined the mould- boards of the plough and bound the wooden agricultural machinery gricultural outhouses were built; and grain was thrashed by driving horses round a ring in the barn. Flour was made with a steel hand- mill sent from Fort Vancouver. Perhaps a more liberal economy would have better served the purpose, though it might not so well have served James Douglas. McLoughlin was making ready to retire from the service, and remove from Fort Vancouver to Oregon City the coming winter, leaving Chief Factor Douglas first in command on the Pacific. * This new post on Vancouver Island was undoubtedly. destined to great things. Mr Grant says: "As in settling there, no idea was entertained by the Hudson's Bay Company beyond starting a fresh trading-post with the Indians, the establishment remained in statu quo until the year 1849, when the granting of the whole island to the company opened out a fresh fiefd for their exertions;" but in this he is mistaken. We know that the company harbored far more ambitious views for Camosun, or by the grace of God, Albert, and Victoria, than the establishing of an ordinary trading-post there, though Mr Grant did not. The great men of the great monopoly were wholly able to keep their own counsel, and those .nearest them, in point of time as well as of distance, often knew least as to the project or policy revolving in their mighty minds. . Had a trading-post alone been the measure of their expectations, Langley would have answered. At Langley were both furs and fisheries; there was little local trade on this south end of Vancouver Island. No, the day was coming when progress should demand somewhere in this western north a British city. Already the Americans were upon them, and had spoiled their southern grounds. Possibly they might 120 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. nurse their western hyperborean game yet a century or two as they had done in Rupert Land; or, if hard pressed,, they might spare the island to civilization and yet hold the mainland savage. Howbeit, with metropolitan glories far or near, with or without the assistance of the whale-catchers, this new post would prove more than the usual trafficking stockade. Therefore Douglas would begin his reign with reform, and carry yet more than ever into rigid practice his principle of the greatest results from the least means. Almost immediately Fort Victoria became the second depot of Hudson's Bay Company goods on the Pacific coast, and shortly afterward the first. Outward-bound ships from England now had orders to sail direct for this port, and after landing here all the goods destined for the coast trade, to proceed to the Columbia River with the remainder. Hence the station rose rapidly in importance. There were now three vessels in the company's service between London and the Northwest Coast, the Vancouver, the Cowlitz, and the Columbia. These ships made yearly voyages, bringing outfits always twelve months in advance, which enabled the fort to have on hand one or two years' supply. The first to enter Victoria Harbor direct from England was the Vancouver in 1845.2 A fleet of five American whalers dropped in at Royal Bay in 1845 for supplies. And yearly after that they called at Fort Victoria, until finally it was found that the Hawaiian Islands offered a more convenient port of call. Indeed, the hope of Governor Simpson to establish here a general rendezvous for whalers was never fully realized. During this same year Juan de Fuca Strait was honored by a visit from her majesty's ship America, 2 The Vancouver is reported at Victoria again in November 1846, and in 1847 the bark Columbia at Honolulu twenty-six days from Vancouver Island. VISIT OF CORDON. 121 whose captain was Gordon, brother of the earl of Aberdeen, then prime-minister of England. Knowing- little or nothing of Esquimalt and Victoria harbors, Gordon put in to Port Discovery, sending a despatch, as he was passing through the strait, to the officer in charge at Fort Victoria to come on board his vessel. Placing his first officer in charge of the fort, Finlayson returned with the messenger to the America, and soon stood in the presence of the august commander. A series of catechisings then set in, which lasted three days, at the expiration of which, Finlayson, squeezed of all information in his power to impart, was sent back to his post, Captain Gordon and certain of his officers accompanying him. The object of the America's visit was to obtain information concerning the coast, such as should assist the English government in settling the boundary question then pending, To this end, while Finlayson was yet on board, Captain Parke of the marines, and Lieutenant Peel, son of Sir Robert Peel, were despatched by way of the Cowlitz to the Columbia, to ascertain the value of that region to the subjects of Great Britain. As the time drew near when the rights of ownership and occupation must be finally determined, British statesmen asked themselves, Is the country worth having ? Further than this, is it worth fighting for % These queries they put to the London management of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the answers were not satisfactory. The company cared nothing for the value of the country, cared little whether England should fight for it. Their interest lay in preserving it as a hunting-ground. So long as that was done, and they enjoyed a monopoly of the fur-trade, all was well. If their plans were to be spoiled, it mattered little to them whether it was done by the English government, or by American settlers. When McLoughlin was asked this question, he answered plainly that he did not think the country worth fighting for. 122 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. It was not every day that brothers and sons of earls and baronets dropped in upon the quiet traders, and all were well aware that England now expected Finlayson to do his duty. First of all, the America's officers were duly feasted, this being a custom which English gentlemen as well as American savages delighted in. Fatted calves were killed, also swine and poultry; and hunters were sent out for game. To native delicacies were added home productions, which well cooked and served with the choicest wines and liquors satisfied the stomach and warmed the heart into solemn good-fellowship. It was really necessary the dinner should pass off well if the service was to escape disgrace, for when bedtime came there were no sumptuous apartments into which to show the guests. Eating and sleeping were two quite distinct affairs at Fort Victoria. There were no wives, civilized or savage, in the officers' quarters of the fort; indeed, Finlayson's was the only bed, and that was a single cot slung against the bare walls. This was given to the captain, while the others slept on the floor. At the breakfast table next morning a large, fine salmon was placed before the guests, smoking hot. "What is that?" demanded the captain. I Salmon," said Finlayson; "we have plenty of them here." I Have you flies and rods ?" "We use lines and bait; the Indians catch them in nets; we have no flies and rods % " " No flies! no rods!" responded the puzzled captain, who, like many others, prided himself most on what he knew least about, and could scarcely imagine a greater disgrace to English sportsmen than the adoption of aboriginal customs in fishing or hunting. "No flies! no rods! Well, you have indeed turned savages." Fishing in Fuca Strait being out of the question, without the customary adjuncts attending angling in OPINIONS. 123 British trout-streams, horses were ordered, the finest and fleetest the island afforded. The British sailors were now to show their benighted countrymen how deer were stalked. Even nature, flattered by the presence of the illustrious visitors, had put on her gayest apparel. Riding forth upon the wild sward carpeted with flowers, between forests and fern-fringed thickets, the rich green of the hill-top foliage pluming the illimitable blue, the dancing waters below, and the frozen sunshine above, the breast of the honest fur-trader heaved somewhat exultant over the island's loveliness. After waiting in vain for some expression of appreciation on the part of his companions, he modestly asked, "Is not this beautiful?" "Finlayson," replied Gordon, "I would not give one of the bleakest knolls of all the bleak hills of Scotland for twenty islands arrayed like this in barbaric glories." Finlayson could not help asking himself what the government meant in sending such an ass to set a valuation on the Northwest Coast. Presently a band of deer started up, the party pursued, and just as Gordon was ready to shoot, the game disappeared in a thicket which the mounted hunters could not penetrate. The captain thereupon broke out into new cursings, and demanded how deer could be shot in a country like this. "We have men who can average six a day," said Finlayson, " and that without fatigue; but as the game of the island is not yet enclosed in park fences, and we cannot run it down through these thickets, we are obliged to steal upon it unawares, which is easily done by those who understand it." In a very bad humor the sailors returned to the fort, and after a week of eating and drii king, whicli they most of all enjoyed, they went on board their ship. Meanwhile, accompanied by Douglas, who was doing the honors in that quarter, Parke and Peel re- 124 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. turned from the Columbia River, apparently as disgusted with the country in that direction as Gordon had been with Vancouver Island. When the expedition returned to England, and made its intelligent and valuable report, British statesmen were amply able to give the subject the clearest consideration. And now while the cry of "fifty-four forty or fight"3 was ringing throughout the United States, and while in England there was likewise no small excitement relative to the interests of Great Britain on the Pacific, there appeared before Fort Victoria several British vessels, which had been ordered from the south Pacific to guard British interests on the Northwest Coast. These were the Cormorant, Captain Gordon—not the Gordon of the former visit, but another of that name; the Fisgard, Captain Duntze; the Constance, Captain Courtney; the Inconstant, Captain Shepherd; and the surveying vessels Herald, Captain Kellett, and Pandora, Captain Wood. Thus again in 1846 Finlayson was called upon to dance attendance on maritime magnificos. Beef cattle were driven up for the officers to shoot, and wild horses for them to break. Douglas and Finlayson were often on the vessels to dinner, and the officers used to ask them, "Why do you leave the Columbia? If we could only be sent there, we would take the whole country in twenty four hours." After these came the frigate Thetis and other vessels. All these ships found the fortress of Victoria revelling in fat things; nor were the officers slow to provision their vessels from the stock of cattle and produce there abounding. Several of these ships were given some little commission other than the primary one of guarding British rights and frowning on the obstreperous encroachments of the Americans. Thus Captain Duntze of 3 That is to say, if Great Britain did not yield to the United States peaceable possession of all territory west of the Rocky Mountains, between the possessions of Mexico on the south and Russia on the north, which latter bound was latitude 54° 40', the Americans-would fight for it. SEYMOUR AND KELLETT. 125 the Fisgard was directed by Rear-admiral G. F. Seymour, commander-in-chief of her majesty's fleet in the south Pacific, and whose report to the admiralty was dated on board the Collingwood, Valparaiso, 8th February 1847, to "ascertain whether coals could be supplied in sufficient quantities for the use of steamers on Quadra or Vancouver Island," and Duntze accordingly sent the steam-vessel Cormorant thither. The result, so far as its bearing upon the coal interest is concerned, will be given hereafter.4 Henry Kellett, commanding the Herald and the Pandora, which appeared before Fort Victoria in July 1846, being tugged from deep surroundings by the Cormorant, which was there before them, made a superficial survey of Fuca Strait, and then sailed southward. Subsequently Kellett became conspicuous by three cruises to the Arctic regions, in search of Sir John Franklin. Besides the war-vessels of the Pacific squadron, whose officers were to report on the resources and condition of the country, as well as guard their government's interests therein, a special commission of inquiry was sent from England by way of Canada to ascertain yet more definitely what the Northwest Coast was worth, and how matters stood there. Two engineers, lieutenants Warre and Vavasour, were selected by the government for this purpose, and they arrived at Fort Vancouver in 1845 by the annual express from York Factory, that year in charge of Chief Factor Ogden. In addition to this commission by the government, these gentlemen were to perform a little secret service for the Hudson's Bay Company council in London, which was no less than to act as spies on McLoughlin, especially in reference to his intercourse and dealings with settlers from the United States. * 'As I withdrew the Cormorant from the Northwest Coast, on hearing of the arrangement of the Oregon question, I presume none will be required under present circumstances for her majesty's service.' Seymours Rept. to Admtv, S Rept. to House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 1848-9, 3. 126 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. I do not doubt that these gentlemen performed their duties conscientiously. They examined the Columbia River and the country south of it; they visited Puget Sound and Vancouver Island, and made a lengthy report on its resources; they spoke of the coal, the fisheries, and the timber; but they did not think the country worth fighting for. Their report concerning McLoughlin was likewise unfavorable, so much so that they sent it off secretly, without showing it to him, which was contrary to custom, and suspicious if not insulting. On the strength of this report, the London management wrote McLoughlin a letter of reproof, which, though subsequently apologized for, led to the immediate resignation of that most valuable officer. Travelling was now becoming somewhat dangerous along the middle Columbia, even for the Hudson's Bay people, owing to animosities arising from conflicting interests. As a rule, however enraged the savages might be against Americans, their faith in the British fur-traders remained unshaken. But in 1844, when J. W. McKay first came to Fort Vancouver, he found that the natives along some parts of the route were not to be trusted. After spending some time with Paul Fraser, wno had established a post for the Hudson's Bay Company near the mouth of the Umpqua, and after being present at several political meetings in Oregon, where, to his no small amusement, he saw nominated for office old servants of the company, ignorant voyageurs, whose ideas of government were but little above those of a grizzly bear, he was detailed to attend on the officers of the British government in their examination of the country, to take charge of the baggage, and provide animals, guides, and equipage. McKay testifies that with regard to the Cowlitz country and the region between the Columbia and Fuca-Strait, they declared that it should be held at all hazard. If by this he CUNARD'S VIEWS 127 means that such was the general and final impression expressed by the officers of the Aberdeen ministry here investigating in 1845, that being the time of which he speaks, I can only say that the weight of evidence is against him. Doubtless both British and Americans deemed it shameful that any part of the Northwest Coast should be given up to the other, doubtless both would take and hold all territory possible, without actual war; but when it came to fighting for the gravelly plains of the Cowlitz and the rolling bunch-grass prairies of eastern Washington, they did not think it worth the while. Early in 1846 McKay was sent to California to ascertain what arrangements might be made for obtaining certain supplies nearer than England, in case the farming establishments on the Columbia and the Cowlitz should be given up to the United States. There were thoughts in England that perhaps before long settlement by British subjects would begin in British Columbia; for about this time we find S. Cunard suggesting to the admiralty, that in granting lands on Vancouver Island the crown might as well reserve to its own use the coal-mines already pregnant with promise. Meanwhile such of the company's men as could be spared from the business of the fort, as well as all natives desirous of taking on civilization, were kept at work clearing lands and establishing farms. The savages were soon convinced that in this instance emphatically wisdom's ways were peace; so they turned in and helped the white men r.nd the men half white to work, becoming good bullock-drivers, and better ploughmen than the Canadians or Kanakas, to whom, nevertheless, they gave freely of their women to wife, all which tended to promote good behavior among the variegated retainers of the commercial despots. The natives were treated with strict fairness, being paid as well as other laborers when they worked as welL Their wages were from £17 to £25 per annum. 128 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. Within three years after the beginning of the fort there were under cultivation one hundred and sixty acres, on which were grown wheat, oats, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and other vegetables, with a constantly increasing conversion of wild lands. There was a dairy furnishing an abundant supply of milk, which took the place, in a great measure, of beer, wine, and spirits as a beverage. By the end of 1847 there were at this place two dairies, each having seventy cows, which were milked twice a day, the milk yielding seventy pounds of butter to the cow each season. Thus the wild hunters, fishermen, and fighters were fast becoming farmers and -dairymen In this year of 1847, on the flat where now run the most prominent business streets, where stand the banks, the post-office, and the principal business houses, three hundred acres were cleared and under cultivation. The land was rich, producing fine pease and potatoes, and of wheat forty bushels to the acre, the most of which produce was sent to Sitka. Two Russian vessels came this year, and carried away from Victoria Harbor over five thousand bushels of wheat, beside beef and mutton, payment for the same being made with bills of exchange on St Petersburg. Fort Langley likewise contributed to the lading of these two ships, the produce being brought thence to Victoria Harbor in small boats. Up to the time of the bargain with the Russian American Fur Company, nothing like a foreign commerce in any articles, other than those obtained in the regular fur traffic, was ever attempted on the Northwest Coast. Although as a whaling depot the establishment at Victoria Harbor was attended with insignificant success, yet, as the Venice of the northern wilds, the home anchorage of the only steamer that had ever puffed upon those waters, and the chief commercial port in British Pacific Ainerica'of the Russian American fur-traders, it fast budded .into promise. VISIT OF THE jHERALD-' 129 Two or three years later saw changes yet greater— the seeds of a city, with new goods and new jargons, with a cash trade for goods, as well as a fur-trade, where merchandise was sold for money by those who had hitherto scarcely known a dollar from a ducat. While the fur-traders were delighted over anything which broke the dead monotony of their lives, and were specially pleased by the opportunity to entertain their countrymen, they were not always gratified with the result. Leading, as they did, isolated and simple lives, and accustomed to indulge only in plain words and honest purposes, they were often treated somewhat cavalierly by their visitors, while using the best means at command for their comfort and amusement. And when once the guests had turned their back upon the place, they did not hesitate to speak their minds. Thus Seemann, writing for the officers of the Herald, says: " There being no competition, the company has it all its own way; it does not profess to supply the public; indeed, although it does not object to sell to people situated as we were, yet the stores are for the trade in furs, to supply the native hunters with the goods which they most value, as also for the use of its own dependents, who, receiving little pay, are usually in debt to the company, and are therefore much in its power. In fact, the people employed are rarely those to whom returning home is an object; they have mostly been taken from poverty, and have at all events food and clothing. The work is hard, but with health and strength this is a blessing rather than otherwise. Want of white women appears to be the drawback to this prospect of success, and generally leads to connections with the natives, from which spring half-castes, who from the specimens we saw appear to inherit the vices of both races; they are active and shrewd, but violent and coarse, while neither their education nor conduct admits them into Hist. Brit. Col. 9 130 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA the society of the European settlers. This must engender a bad state of feeling, and might be remedied by taking more pains with the education and training of these hardy and enterprising, yet more than half- brutalized, people. We felt quite disgusted in seeing one of these half-castes, bearing as good a name as any in Scotland, beating and kicking a score of Indians out of the fort with as little compunction as if they had been dogs, scorning them as natives, though his mother had been taken from one of their tribe, and had been no more educated than they were." Thus slowly toward a more illustrious destiny proceeded affairs at Fort Victoria. Though no danger was apprehended from the natives, watch-was usually kept at night inside the pickets, where the hourly cry of "All is well!" told the conscious sleepers that the sentinel was on duty;5 for, failing to hear the cry, ti le, sleepers would awake. Thus silently aroused one night while on a professional visit to this post, Douglas caught a Kanaka watchman endeavoring to unlock the door of the storehouse, probably for rum, but surely for no good purpose. Next morning he was tied to a tree and given three dozen lashes, and rent to work, nevermore to be trusted. The natural advantages of this locality were not slow to be recognized, even by the aboriginals. Although each fort had its district,6 and the inhabitants of each district were expected to trade at their own post, yet so much more convenient was Victoria to many points, and so much better was the stock of goods kept there, that tne trade of this station rapidly increased beyond its legitimate dependencies. 5 This upon the authority of William John Macdonald, senator, who was with the company eight years. B. C. SIcetches, MS., 30. . 6 For example, Nisqually extended from the Chehalis Rlv'cr to Whidbey Island; Langley from Whidbey Island to Milbank Sound; MeLoughLn from Milbank Sound to the Sheena River; and Simpson from Skeena River to l>.o Alaskan boundary. After McLoughlin was alxmdoned, the territory formerly occupied by that post was covered by the neighboring establishments. jR.v 'iHist. T.7., MS., 87. PAUL KANE. 131 Artists and ethnologists are common enough now on the Northwest Coast, but it was not so when in 1846 Paul Kane appeared in these parts, having come over from Canada with portfolio, paint-box, and gun as his sole companions. The party to which he had attached himself in crossing the mountains, consisted of Mr Lane and wife, Mr Charles, then a clerk in the service appointed to a western post, Mr McGillivray, and sixteen men. Douglas and Ogden then reigned at Fort Vancouver with ten clerks and two hundred men. A policeman in the form of her majesty's ship Modeste was stationed in the river before the fort. At Oregon City Kane met McKinlay, who told him his Walla Walla gunpowder story, and also another describing how he recovered some stolen tobacco when stationed in New Caledonia. He had but three pounds, and its loss was serious. Summoning all the Indians about the fort, he ordered each there present to place to his mouth the muzzle of his gun, and then to blow in it. None who were innocent would be harmed, but the head of him who was guilty of the theft would be blown to atoms. Setting the example himself, the one nearest him blew into his gun, and the next, and so on until all had done so except one man, who when it came his turn, hung his head, confessed his crime, and restored the stolen property. After sufficiently studying the missionaries and Chinooks, Kane proceeded by way of Nisqually to Fort Victoria, where he was kindly welcomed by Mr Finlayson. After about a year upon the coast Kane returned and wrote a very readable book.7 The farms and gardens in the vicinity of Fort Victoria were radiant. Besides grain and vegetables,, there were fruits and flowers in abundance, all healthy but not heavy, for it could scarcely be said that the- soil had ever yet been fairly ploughed, but only 1 Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, from Canada to Vancouver's Island and Oregon, through the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory and back again. With a map and colored illustrations. 132 CAMOSUN, ALBERT, VICTORIA. scratched. While trading in furs, attention was likewise directed to fisheries, Fraser River now exporting annually from one to two thousand barrels of salted salmon. When Paul Kane was there making his sketching excursions m the neighborhood, finding clover abundant he supposed it "to have sprung from accidental seeds which had fallen from packages of goods brought from England, many of which are made up in hay." Not a very brilliant supposition; for so correct an artist, not to say naturalist, should know wild from tame clover without supposing. "The interior of the island," Kane continues, "has not been explored to any extent except by the Indians, who represent it as badly supplied with water in the summer, and the water obtained from a well dug at the fort was found to be too brackish for use. The appearance of the interior, when seen from the coast, is rocky and mountainous, evidently volcanic; the trees are large, principally oak and pine. The timbers of a vessel of some magnitude were being got out. The establishment is very large, and must eventually become the great depot for the business of the company. They had ten white men and forty Indians engaged in building new stores and warehouses." One day, while sketching not far distant from the fort, Kane discovered, stretched naked on the rocks, the body of a young female slave slain and thrown to the vultures by her mistress. The artist recognized the victim as a comely maiden whom he had seen a few days before in perfect health. Notifying Finlayson, the two visited the lodge of the mistress, who was accused of the murder. "Of course I killed her. Why should I not? She was my slave," replied the woman. | She was far better than you," replied Finlayson. 'What!" exclaimed the female, now furious with rage, "I, the daughter of a chief, no better than a slave!" and wrapping herself in her filthy dignity, JAMES BAY. 133 she stalked from their presence, and a few days thereafter moved from that locality. Almost as inhuman in the treatment of her slave as are civilized matrons in their treatment of outcasts, she was almost as indignant as they when reproved by the voice of humanity. Long after settlement set in, long after the town was laid out and city-building begun, the fort was the chief feature of the place. " Upon my first visit to Victoria in 1849," says Mayne, "a small dairy at the head of James Bay was the only building standing outside the fort pickets, which are now demolished. But shortly after, upon Mr Douglas' arrival, he built himself a house on the south side of James Bay; and Mr Work, another chief factor of the company, arriving a little later, erected another in Rock Bay, above the bridge. These formed the nucleus of a little group of buildings, which rose about and between them so slowly that even in 1857 there was but one small wharf on the harbour's edge." At the time of his arrival in April 1861, Good observes: "The old fort of the Hudson's Bay Company, together with several old buildings, all surrounded with a strong picket palisade, still remained."8 8 Material for this part of British Columbia history is meagre. The truth is, there was little going on at the time at Fort Victoria, to which this chapter is chiefly devoted, except the usual routine at such establishments. My authorities are, Finlaysons Hist. V. I., MS., 25, 32-41; Andersons Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 110-12; McKay's Rec, MS., 2-5; Douglas' Private Journal, MS., passim; Cooper's Maratime Matters, MS., 1-2; McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., ser. ii., 13; Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 21-2, 32-3; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 21-3; McKinlay's Nar., MS., 8; Paul Kane's Wanderings, 209; Mayne's B. C, 30; Marysville Cal. Appeal, Sept. 17, 1875; Oregon Spectator, Nov. 26, 1846; Sandwich Island News, ii." 23; Howison's Rept., 36; Hazlitt'sB. C, 215-16; London Times, Aug. 27, 1858; House Commons Rept., H. B. Co. Affairs, 1857, 208, 290; Good's B. C, MS., 2; Findlay's Direct., i. 417-19; Waddington's Fraser Riv. Mines, 31; Macfie's V. I. and B. C, 58. CHAPTER VIII. THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. 1846. Kamloop—The Old Fort and the New^—The Romance op Fur-trading— The Lordly Aboriginal and his Home—John Tod, King of Kam. loop—His Physique and Character—Lolo, a Ruler among the Shushwaps—Who and What He was—His Kingdom for a Horse— Annual Salmon Expedition to the Fraser—Information of the Conspiracy—Lolo Retires from before his Friends—Tod to the Rescue — One Man against Three Hundred — Small-pox as a Weapon—A Signal Victory—Chief Nicola Measures Wits with Mr Tod—And is Found Wanting. John Tod reigned at Kamloop. John Tod was a chief trader in the service of the Honorable Hudson's Bay Company, and Fort Kamloop was the capital of the Thompson River district bordering on New Caledonia. The establishment was one of the oldest in all the Oregon or Northwest Coast region, dating back to the days of the dashing Northwest Company, when with posts planted side by side, the two great rival associations fought for the favor of the savage, and for the skins of his wild beasts. There were two forts which bore this name, the old and the new, both situated at the junction of the two great branches of Thompson River with the eastern end of Kamloop Lake, one on the north side and the other on the south. Old Fort Kamloop was first called Fort Thompson, having been begun by David Thompson, astronomer of the Northwest Company, on his overland journey from Montreal to Astoria, by way of Yellowhead J?ass in 1810. Next upon the ground, after Thompson, was Alex- (184) BLACK AND DOUGLAS. 135 ander Ross, who in 1812 conducted operations there on behalf of Astor's Pacific Fur Company. After the coalition of the Northwest and the Hudson's Bay companies in 1821, we find the fur veteran John McLeod in charge of the Thompson River district, from 1822 to 1826. Ermatinger presided there in 1828, when Sir George Simpson, the illustrious front of the fur traffic in British America, dropped in upon the fort and harangued the assembled redskins, beseeching them to be honest, temperate, frugal, to love their friends the fur-traders, and above all to bring in piles of peltries, and receive therefor the useful and magnificent trinkets which the honorable adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay had been at so much cost and pains to bring them from so far; after which pretty piece of artless subtlety the governor continued his perilous descent of Fraser River. A thousand thrilling and romantic associations hang round the place. It was there the company's officer in command, Samuel Black, challenged his brother Scot and guest, David Douglas, the wandering botanist, to fight a duel, because the blunt visitor one night, while over his rum and dried salmon, had stigmatized the honorable fur-traders as not possessing a soul above a beaver-skin. But the enthusiastic pupil of Hooker preferred to fight another day, and so took his departure next morning unharmed, but only to meet his death shortly after by falling into a pit at the Hawaiian Islands while homeward bound. Likewise may we say, poor Black! For it was but a short time after this chivalrous display of fidelity to his company, that is to say, during the winter of 1841-2, while residing at the old fort, that he was cruelly assassinated by the nephew of a friendly neighboring chief, named Wanquille, for having charmed his uncle's life away. It was Black's successor who built the new fort on the opposite side of the river. The new estab- 136 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. lishment differed little from the later built fortresses of the fur company; some seven houses, consisting of stores, dwellings, and shops, were enclosed in palisades fifteen feet in height, with gates on two sides, and bastions at two opposite angles. To the older establishment, beside the compact and palisaded blockhouse, were attached stockades for animals; for here hundreds of fine horses were yearly bred for the transport service, which formerly was by boats from Fort Vancouver to Okanagan, and thence by horses, in bands of two or three hundred, to Kamloop and Fort Alexandria, on Fraser River, whence to Fort St James canoes were again employed. It was a sight never hereafter to be repeated, two hundred horses laden with rich peltries, winding down the mountains, through rugged passes and over the waving plain, on toward the smoother highways of commerce, along which are interchanged the varied comforts of the world. Later, the route of the semiannual brigade from the districts of New Caledonia, Thompson River, Okanagan, and the Columbia, was from Kamloop to Fort Hope on the Fraser, and thence by boat to Langley and Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island, now rapidly becoming the metropolitan post of British Columbia. Seven tribes traded at this post when it was first built, namely the gentle Atnah, the lively Kootenai, the chivalrous Okanagan, the surly Similkameen, the fierce, vindictive Teet,the treacherous Nicoutamuch, besides the always hospitable and friendly Kamloop. All these nations were members of the family Shushwap. These, however, were not all regular visitors, nor permanent in their patronage. The simple-minded and ingenuous savage knew every trick of the trade, and where opposition was, there were gathered his peltries. The rough rolling surface of the Kamloop-Shushwap plateau with its frequent depressions, is for the most part open and grassy, with occasional patches of scattering trees thickening at still wider intervals into THE FRASER HEREABOUT. 137 forests, and all made bright and eye-compelling by an open sky and silvery waters, here dancing in river-beds, and there in mirroring lakes softly and silently bringing down heaven. The summers are hot, the winters cold; the early spring enrobes both plain and mountain in grass and flowers, and autumn spreads before the phlegmatic aboriginal a bounteous supply of food. Thompson River is sometimes seen The Shushwap Country. elbowing its way among the rocks, but more frequently it presents itself glittering between rich green borders of alder and willow. Between Fort Kamloop and the Papayou, or the Fountain we will say, on Fraser River, are light sandy plains, with here and there a gorge or valley running parallel with the river, a rocky cliff, bounding a valley covered with long grass, clumps- 138 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. of bushes and trees, all growing wilder and more pronounced as the rugged chasm of the Fraser is approached. Trap and basalt bluffs occasionally reach over the border of the lake into which the river broadens on leaving the fort, the plateau rising behind in terraces. Everywhere the scenery is bold and varied, and the heart of man struggles ever outward to meet it. And as many others before and since have there ruled, John Tod reigned at Kamloop. His kingdom was not extensive except in so far as space was concerned. All above and below was his; and on either side, surely as far into the wilderness as he should choose to go. His subjects vere not numerous, if we deduct the savages, the bears, and the beavers; there were with him at the fort during this spring of 1846, besides the dusky mother of his three dusky little ones, only half a dozen men and a half-breed boy. John Tod was not a handsome man; neither was he learned, nor polished, nor to any considerable extent durably refined or remodelled by civilization. He was one of some two thousand Scotchmen, who, coming into America and turning themselves out into primitive pastures, fell back somewhat upon the early ways of mankind, and became what in the wilds of the Northwest might be called European savages. Tall, bony, and wiry, he did not, like McLoughlin and Douglas, present a physique at once powerful and commanding; yet when in the administration of fur-trading justice his right arm was driven down from the shoulder by righteous wrath and with spasmodic force, the red nobles of his suzerainty fell before it like tenpins. There was a superstition abroad among the savages that they could not kill him. Had he not been hunted, starved, cut at, and shot at by warriors whose arm and cunning had never hitherto failed them ? Upon a small neck rising from sloping shoulders was set a head narrow and high, which a half-century of constant exposure to the rigors of a New Caledonian JOHN TOD. 139 climate had warped a little, and made otherwise awry. The light brown hair was not long, falling over the shoulders in carefully greased waves or curls, so commonly seen among the free trappers on frontiers; nor was it short like a prize-fighter's; it w^s of medium length, somewhat stiff, in places matte x, and on the whole tolerably well kept in dishevelled Hudson's Bay respectability. Above a broad, straight Scotch nose, and high cheek-bones, were glittering gray eyes, which flashed perpetual fun and intelligence. And the mouth! Support me, 0 my muse! What an opening for gin and eloquence! Had the mouth been small, the mighty brain above it would have burst; as it was, the stream of communication once set flowing, and every limb and fibre of the body talked, the blazing eyes, the electrified hair, and the well-poised tongue all dancing attendance. It was a trick the fur-traders early fell into, that of copying from sav- agism its aids to declamation. Tod could no more tell his story seated in a chair than he could fly to Jupiter while chained to the rock of Gibraltar; arms, legs, and vertebrae were all brought into requisition, while high-hued information, bombed with broad oaths, burst from his breast like lava from Etna. But although among earth's pretty ones, among the starched and veneered of broadways and boulevards, his angular contour and disjointed gait presented anything but an imposing appearance, yet John Tod was built a man from the ground upward, and those with eyes might see in him a king, ay, one every inch a king. Notable now and for many years afterward throughout these parts was a whitewashed savage, a Shushwap, likewise a king in his way, christened by the company St Paul, and by the Catholic priests Jean Baptiste Lolo. The Shushwaps frequented Kamloop almost as much as they did the lake that bears their name. Their passion was finery; they loved it more than liquor. Indeed, before the advent of the miners, beside whose 140 THE SHUSH WAP CONSPIRACY. mud-colored clothes the bright vestures of the natives shone like the rainbow on a thunder-laden sky, the interior tribes did not wallow in drunkenness like their relatives along the coast, but rather affected horses, and a wardrobe in which were conspicuous caps with gay ribbons, scarlet leggings, and red sashes, and for the women bright-colored skirts, and gaudy handkerchiefs for the head. Although Lolo had been thus doubly baptized, he was not yet wholly clean. There was much of the aboriginal Adam still in him; yet he was' always ready to serve the god of the fur company, or of the missionaries, whenever he could make it pay; everything being equal, however, he preferred his own. In physique he was large, with fine bold features, a Roman nose with dilated nostrils being prominent. His black eyes displayed a melancholy cunning rather than ferocity, though at times they were restless and piercing. His permanent dwelling was a substantial hut situated near the old fort, and in which he lived and reared his family and ruled his nation long after civilization had filled the Kamloop Plains with farmers. His authority among his people was absolute; even after old age and sickness had sent him permanently to his bed, the naked sword and loaded gun beneath his pillow, or ever within his reach, were a terror to the most distant member of his tribe. He was a man of intellect and nerve as well as of personal prowess. The company's trade jargon did not satisfy him in his intercourse with white men, and so he learned Canadian French, which he spoke fluently in later life. Some time after the events recorded in this chapter, believing something at fault about his knee-joint, thinking perhaps it needed scraping, and haying little faith in medicine-men, red or white, little by little as he could bear it, with his own hand he cut the flesh away, bored through the bone, and kept open for a time the wound by forcing water through it. He was i LOLO. 141 a great lover of horses, and usually kept a score or two for his own use. Lolo's days were not few, nor did his name lack renown; for twenty years before Tod's time he had lived there on friendly terms with the fur-traders, and for a dozen years thereafter his rusty old body still enjoyed the blessings of sunlight. To the honor of the Hudson's Bay Company's officers stationed at Kamloop, be it said that in his old age they treated Lolo not alone with kindness, but with respect. A dutiful son to an aged parent could not have been more considerate than was McLean in ministering to the whims and desires of this ancient savage. And as for fame—who, from the Rocky Mountains to the sea, did not know of Lolo % Now, in this year 1846 the two kings, the white and the red, were in their prime; Tod was domineering and reckless, not knowing the name of fear, and Lolo was not so wealthy in women and horses as afterward. One horse in particular, the best of a band of three hundred belonging to the fort, Lolo had long coveted. He would give anything for that horse, endure any hardship, kill any person. Tod was equally obstinate in his refusal to part with it; the savage should not have the horse; second best must suffice the ruler of redskins. It was the custom every spring or summer to send a party from Kamloop to the Popayou, seventy-six miles distant on Fraser River, near what was later known as the Fountain, to procure for the year's subsistence salmon there caught and cured by the natives. It had been agreed this year that "Lolo should lead the party for the mutual benefit of the two sovereignties. "Are your men ready?" asked Tod one day. "They are ready," replied Lolo. "Have the horses been driven in and hobbled?" "Yes." 142 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. "The men will leave day after to-morrow, before daylight." "Very good." j The second night after the departure of the expe^ dition, just as the chief trader was about retiring, a knock was heard at the door. Besides himself and family and the half-breed boy, there Was not a soul about the place; every man was with the expedition, and as the country was at peace, even the fort gates were not fastened at night. "Come in," exclaimed Tod. Slowly the door opens a few inches until the black eyes of Lolo were seen glistening at the aperture. Though amazed beyond measure, and fearful lest some misfortune had happened to the party, Tod was Indian enough never to be thrown so far out of balance as to manifest surprise at anything. He continued to busy himself as if the unwelcome apparition at the door was but part of his preparations for bed. Nevertheless, waves of unquietness began to roll over his breast, ready to break out in wrath or subside in resignation, as the case might require, for Tod was not a patient man, nor slow of speech, nor soft of words; and for all the rascally redskins this side of perdition he would not long remain the savage stoic. But upon occasion, the Gaelic lion could play the lamb, provided the period of endurance were reasonable. Left to himself, the Shushwap chief pushed open the door and slowly entered. For several minutes he stood bolt upright in the middle of the room, until at length Tod motioned him to a seat beside the table, and shoved toward him pipe and tobacco. "Your family will be glad to see you," Tod finally remarked, wondering more than ever what had happened to the party, and why he had returned, and cursing in his heart the savage conventionalism which debased a man from any manifestion of curiosity. "The sorrel horse I spoke to you about," replied THAT SORREI HORSE. 143 the chief. "I should like to have that horse, Mr Tod." " The river has risen a little since yesterday," observed Tod. "For twenty years I have followed the fortunes of the Hudson's Bay Company," continued Lolo. "I have shared my store of food with them, warned them of dangers, attended them in perils, and never before have I been denied a request." " Fill your pipe," said Tod. "Alas! my wives and little ones," still sighed the savage. "Though I am old and not afraid to die, they are young and helpless; what would become of them should this evil befall; where will they go?" "What the devil is the matter?" now blurted Tod, thrown suddenly back by Lolo's gibberish from high forest reticence to the conventional speech of Christendom. "Who talks of dying? Where are the men? Why have you returned ? Speak I" "Matter enough," answered the chief, who now changed his tone from that of whining lament to one of surly concern. " When near our destination we met a young chief of the Atnahs, who, drawing me aside, informed me that his father, who is a friend of mine, had entered into a conspiracy with the chiefs of several other Shushwap tribes for the extermination of the fur-traders. They had agreed to open hostilities by the capture of the annual Kamloop party just as it reached the Fraser; and this warning was given, me that I might save myself and mine." "Where are the men and horses?" " I hid them as well as I could behind some bushes, a little off the trail, telling them that I was going to- hunt a better camping-ground, and to let the animals graze there until I returned. I said nothing about the conspiracy, knowing that the attack would not be made until the party reached the river, and that my men would not remain should they know of it. Time was when I would not have turned my back upon 144 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. such a threat, but my friendship and faithful services are no longer valued." "Well, go to your family now, and let me think about it; 1 and so the chief departed. Was it true, or was it a trick on the part of Lolo to get the horse? Tod was greatly puzzled. There had never been trouble with the natives in this vicinity; there was now no provocation that he knew of. And yet it was a long ride for so useless a question. Of course if there was danger of an attack the chief should not have left the party. As he thought it over, the trader's suspicions increased. While deep in these considerations as to what was best for him to do, Mr Tod saw the door again move on its hinges, and Lolo's head thrust in at the opening. ."Will you not let me have the horse, Mr Tod?" "No, damn you! go home; and if you say horse to me again I'll break every bone in your body." For the trader's patience had finally forsaken him. He was now almost sure that Lolo's only object was to get the horse, and that the conspiracy story was false; nevertheless, the party must be looked after immediately. How should he manage it ? His people were all absent; there was not a white man at that moment within seventy miles of him. For himself, his family, or anything about the fort, the chief trader did not fear the Shushwap chief. As Lolo himself had said, he had been true to the company for twenty years. The sorrel horse he longed for with all a child's intensity; but often it happened to be necessary to deny the childish covetings of the aboriginal, else his desires would run away with him, and there would be no living with him. Had not Tod known and trusted Lolo implicitly he would not at this juncture have spoken sharply to him as he told him to go home. It was not a breach of etiquette, however, for a white chief to speak rudely or even to cuff or kick a red chief; but woe to the white man of A DESPERATE RESOLVE. 145 low degree, the laborer, the voyageur, who insulted a native nobleman. A king might bear a king's affront; not so a slave's. At the seat of war, if war was to be, the position of Lolo would be entirely different. It must be remembered that the conspirators were, likewise with Lolo, members of the Shushwap family. The chiefs proposing to unite for the taking of Kamloop were the heads of the several divisions of one family. Lolo would be importuned, and perhaps in some degree influenced against his old friends. Even here, so strong was his faith in him, Tod did not fear absolute treachery. But after mature reflection he concluded that he wculd rather undertake the management of affairs without the presence of Lolo than with it. The chief trader had his own way for the treatment of such cases—a way always original and generally effectual. Lolo was thunderstruck at the bold tone in which Tod had denied his last request for the horse. The Indian well knew of the truth of the conspiracy. He knew, or at least he supposed, his fidelity and services would be of the first importance to the trader, isolated as he was, and alone in the midst of numerous organized and blood-thirsty enemies. Surely the horse would not be a feather's weight to him now, reasoned Lolo, when all the horses, the fort, and the property in it, wife and children, and life itself—for the chief well knew the trader would not run away from danger, and that if he did not he would certainly be killed— were in such jeopardy. Therefore was he confounded at Tod's rude and violent denial. Before the door had closed on the retreating form of the savage, almost before the profane words of refusal were out of his mouth, the trader had made up his mind what to do. Calling the half-breed boy, he ordered him to saddle two of the fleetest horses in the corral. In as few words as possible he explained the situation to his wife. Then he wrote a general Hist. Brit. Col. n 146 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. statement of the case for head-quarters at Victoria in case he should never return. And shortly after midnight, while Lolo was asleep at home, the chief trader and his boy were on the trail for Fraser River, galloping over the ground as fast as their horses could carry them. Meanwhile the mind of the chief trader was no less active than his body. Here was a field for the display of his brightest genius. By slow degrees and cool consideration he had arrived at the conclusion that Lolo had not deceived him in regard to the conspiracy. He knew the Indian character thoroughly; nor was the chief's fresh plea for the horse so wholly out of place in such an emergency as he had at first regarded it. At all events, the safer way, the only safe way, was to act as though the report was true. He found no difficulty in reaching his men by noon. They were surprised to see him, had heard nothing of the threatened attack, nor did he see fit at once to enlighten them. He merely gave orders to prepare to move forward early the next morning. The men were accustomed to implicit obedience. They could not understand why their leader should be suddenly so solicitous as to the condition of their arms and the supply of ammunition, seeing no danger portending. But it was not their province to question. By sunrise the party was on the trail, moving at the usual pace toward the Fraser. Some distance in advance was Tod, alone; he had told his men to keep three hundred yards behind him, to march when he marched, and stop when he stopped. By nine o'clock they approached a small open plain enclosed in thick brushwood and bordering on the river. Tod motioned his men to halt while he rode slowly forward into the open space, apparently careless and unconcerned as usual, but with a glance which scrutinized with intense interest every rock and shrub around the arena. Presently his eye caught unmistakable signs of opposition. i INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH. 147 Behind the bushes on the northern side of the opening, and close to the river, he saw a large band of armed and painted savages. No women or children were among them, which circumstance, beyond perad- venture, signified mischief. Already they had discovered him, and were moving about excitedly. They were kilted up for fight; and now they brandished their knives and guns threateningly. Lolo was right; and the chief trader vowed that if he survived that day the chief should have the horse. But what was he to do? He had not ten men, all told, Canadians and Indians, and here were three hundred arrayed against him. Nor were they a foe to be despised, these powerful and active Shushwaps, every one of whom could (handle the rifle as well as any white man. How was he to cope with them ? Brute force was certainly out of the question; brute courage here was powerless. And if intellect was to be king, how was white cunning to circumvent the red ? Then arose the mind of John Tod in the power of its might. The men, with the horses in the rear, had by this time approached the opening, had seen the savages, and had witnessed their warlike demonstrations. They knew now why their leader had so unexpectedly appeared among them, and had been so singularly preoccupied the night before. Still with his face toward the enemy, though he had now stopped his horse, Tod motioned one of his party, George Simpson by name, to attend him. "George," said he, as the Canadian came up, "fall back quietly with the horses, and if things go wrong with me, make the best of your way back to the fort. Go!" The brave fellow hesitated a moment to leave his leader alone in such peril. "Damn you, go!" shouted Tod, in a voice which rang through the woods, and made to rattle in their hands the weapons of the startled savages. 148 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. And now to business. It is a magnificent animal that Tod bestrides, a white mare, clean of limb, with flowing mane and tail, a proud stepper, and strong and swift withal. The enemy, emerging from the forest, gather on and round a low knoll at the edge of the opening, and there stand watching intently the fur-trader's every movement. The battle begins; it is one man against three hundred. There is little use for the usual death-dealing machinery in such a contest as this. Turning full front upon the glowering savages, Tod put spurs to his horse; and as he rushes on toward them, they raise their guns. The horseman does not flinch nor slacken speed; but quickly drawing sword and pistol, he holds them aloft in one hand, and with the other lifts high his gun above his head. For an instant only the murderous trinkets flash the sun's light into the eyes of the astonished multitude; then the rider hurls them all aheap upon the plain. Seizing the rein which hitherto had lain neglected, the rider next turns his attention to feats of horsemanship. With head erect, eyes flashing, and mane flowing, the white mare prances to the right, then to the left, and after describing a half-circle, charges into their very midst. Very strange, no doubt, and very silly, a cavalry captain would say. Why did they not kill him ? So, indeed, the [cavalry captain ^ould have been killed, and all his men. Why did not those fire who raised their guns ? Curiosity. Thus the interested antelope will stand and be shot. They wished to see what the white man would do next. Hundreds they had killed before, and could achieve a butchery, any day. But they could not have every day an honorable chief trader upon his best mettle before them for their amusement. Well was it that Tod understood his role, and had the coolness and courage to play it, for the least mistake was death. There sat the smiling Scotchman upon his panting OH, WORSHIPFUL TOD. 149 white steed, amidst the thickest of them. Tod always smiled in joy and in sorrow, and his smile was enormous. His angry smile was more fearful than his oaths; the savages felt this, though they could not analyze the sentiment. And now they saw his smile was angry, though he spoke them fair; they began to be afraid, though they knew not why; but they would kill him presently. "What is all this?" demanded the chief trader. "What is it that you wish to do?" "We want to see Lolo," they replied. "Where is Lolo ? Why came you here ?" "Ah! then you have not heard the news. Lolo is at home. Poor fellow!" "News! What news? No, we have heard no news," they cried, again forgetting their bloody purpose, ingulfed in curiosity. "I am sorry for you, my friends." And now his smile on the outside was, oh! so sad, though inwardly lined by the softest, merriest chuckle. " The smallpox is upon us; the terrible, terrible small-pox. It was brought from Walla Walla by an Okanagan." They well knew what the small-pox was, and that it raged at Walla Walla and on the lower Columbia. Worse than death they feared the scourge; the bare idea of it was horrible to them. They knew, likewise, of Whitman's massacre, and the divine punishment that had so quickly followed the offenders. "Ay, the dreaded disease is here," continued Tod, in deep, sepulchral tones. "That is why I am come. I came to tell you. I came to save you. You are my friends, my brothers. You bring me furs. I give you blankets and guns wherewith to get food for your families, and I love you. But you must not come to Kamloop until I give you notice; else you will die. See, I have brought you medicine, for I would not see you lying scattered on the bank like yonder salmon, rotting, rotting; ah! indeed, I would not." Where now is the battle; who the victor? Won 150 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. by a trick; you may say, a lie. Partly so. The universe is but a trick, however, and half this world a lie. Flown to remotest regions were all thoughts of murder, fire, pillage. Kill him! their best, their truest friend? They had never intended such a thing. It was other adventure they were dreaming of, they could hardly tell what. "0, Mr Tod! Mr Tod! save us! save us!" Not more than ten minutes were occupied in achieving this wonderful revolution, of feeling. It was a conversion which would honor any apostle or priest, aided to the full measure of the miraculous by attendant spirits. And now black was white, and white was black. It was true, however, that the chief trader would help them as he was able. Though they would cheerfully have killed him half an hour ago, John Tod would no more have revenged himself on them by doing them injury than he would injure his child. They were but children; and if his boasted superiority was real, he could afford to overlook so slight a fault as intent to. murder him. It was true, the small-pox was abroad. It was true that in his pocket the chief trader carried some vaccine matter. The Hudson's Bay people were seldom without medicine. Business still. Between his thumb and finger the fur-trader held the will of that multitude as the will of one man; but lest their erratic mind should change, it must be kept occupied. It was not enough that the white men should simply escape with their lives; the yearly supply of salmon must be secured, and the natives must be induced to sell to them, and that speedily. Not a word about conspiracy and murder; not a word about wrongs and infelicities. Fear must be kept alive, the threatening wrath of a mysterious unseen power must be before them. Revenge is for fools, for beastly idiots. "You see yonder tree," pointing to an enormous pine. "Yes." THE GREAT PHYSICIAN. 151 "Cut it down." Away flew their weapons, off went their clothes, and as many as could stand round the tree were in stantly at work hewing it down. The women now came forward from their place of concealment, and to these the trader next directed his attention. "Do you see the smoke beyond the bushes?" "Yes." "There is my camp. Carry salmon thither, and sell to my men." Never was the annual requirement more quickly completed, nor the price less questioned. Presently down came the tree, and the trader wishing to gain yet more time, that his men might get well on their way toward home, said, "Cut it again, four fathoms from the but; then level the stump, and roll the log up to it." The horses were now all loaded with salmon, and Tod gave orders to his men to hasten with their purchase back to the fort. The last task given to the savages was completed, and there being no further cause for delay, the chief trader dismounted, and seated himself with. royal dignity upon the stump, his feet resting on the log. "Let fifty of the bravest and best of you strip each his right arm." Only the foremost chiefs were included in this category. "Go down to the river and wash that arm," was the next command. Soon they returned, and the trader, drawing from his pocket a knife and the vaccine matter, began to vaccinate. The knife was old and dull; the trader used it principally in cutting his tobacco and cleaning his pipe; therefore strength as well as skill was requisite in his rough surgery. I will not say that the trader derived no pleasure in thus driving the blunt blade into arms so lately raised against him, for he was human. Indeed, Mr Tod admitted to me, confidentially, that when the turn of certain noted rascals, whom he was satisfied were the head and front of 152 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. the conspiracy, came, he did cut away more than was absolutely necessary, and did not perhaps feel that solicitude for the comfort of his patients which he ought to have done; and if so be the arm—mark! the right arm—might not wield a weapon for ten days or a fortnight, so much the better. The trader was thoroughly fatigued before the round was made; and even then, as there was a little of the virus left, he vaccinated another score. Then he instructed them how they were to carry aloft their ■ arm, and when the sore had healed, how with the scab they might vaccinate the others. " It was a strange sight," says Tod, "to witness the Indians going about with their arm upheld and uncovered." As a matter of course, it would be fatal to handle a weapon before the arm had healed. And so the conspiracy of the Shushwaps ended. Lolo obtained the sorrel horse, and Tod was worshipped throughout that region ever after; for not a man of the three hundred would ever after believe that he did not owe his life to the chief trader. Another incident that happened the following year I may briefly mention in this connection. A band of Okanagans came one day to Kamloop and asked permission of Mr Tod to camp close by the fort. Nicola, they said, who lived some forty miles- south of Kamloop, near the lake which to-day bears his name, was very angry with them, and wished to kill them. The chief trader assented, stipulating that they should behave themselves and obey the regulations of the traders. It was a custom of the company thus to balance powers aboriginal, taking care that in the end they alone should be lords of all. Nicola was furious when he heard of it, and swore in good stout jargon that white as well as red should suffer for so unfair, so unholy an alliance. " A pretty pass, indeed, things have reached upon these hunting- grounds," he said, "when one cannot fight one's ene- NICOLA'S PLOT. 15S mies without this foreign interference." But he must curb his impatience until better prepared; for in the weighing of these rude destinies, arms, and ammunition were the strongest factor. So degenerate had become the times, ssince the advent of skin-buyers, that without these infernal implements little could be done in the killing line. The Okanagans were well armed; Nicola was short of guns; and as the chief trader was at present opposed to slaughter, he would furnish no weapons knowingly for that purpose. Nicola was shrewd as well as energetic. His influence was not so widely extended as Lolo's, but within his narrower area he was absolute. His warriors were active, experienced, brave; moreover, he was rich, and loved revenge The fort people loved furs; better than revenge, religion, or other earthly distemper they loved them; furs piled mountain high; furs without end. One day certain of Nicola's men appeared at the fort wishing to buy guns, which were given them. Shortly afterward others of the same nation came, and asked for powder, balls, and more guns, which were likewise sold to them. The Okanagans watched these proceedings narrowly. "Why should Nicola require so many guns?" they asked of the chief trader. "For hunting, I suppose; I do not know." " No, they are not for hunting, but for us." " If I thought so, I would sell them no more; bold and vindictive as he is, Nicola would hardly dare attack people under my protection, under the very shadow of the holy tabernacle of traffic." "He will dare; he will do it. Those bullets are for us, for our wives and our little ones." Again came others from Lake Nicola, and asked for knives and guns, and nothing else. " Why do you buy only arms and so much ammunition ?" demanded the trader. " You will leave none for others." 154 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. "We are going on a long journey, beyond the Kootenais, to hunt," they replied. "Ah! my friends; your hunt, I fear, is nearer home. You wish to kill the Okanagans. I will sell you no more weapons; and you may tell that old fox, Nicola, that if he, or any of his men, dare lift a finger against any person within five miles of Kamloop, I will be upon him in a way of which he has never yet dreamed," This being told to Nicola, in no wise tended to assuage his wrath. Summoning his warriors, and such of the neighboring chiefs as he could prevail upon to hear him, he talked to them, he harangued them; breath failing him, he rested, and then again harangued, until at length the presence of the spirit was felt, and the converts acknowledged it their duty to capture the fort as well as kill the Okanagans. 1 Refuse us, indeed!" growled Nicola, as he expressed his thanks, "we will take what we require without the asking." Surely enough it was reported shortly after that Nicola was marching with a large force upon the fprt. As usual Tod had but a few men with him, not more than six; for it was by the power of mind, and not by physical strength, that the fur-traders everywhere held dominion. Again was strategy Tod's only resource; for even his few men became so frightened that they fled to the woods, a most unusual proceeding in fur-trading annals. The Okanagans, of course, retired to a place of safety, and the chief trader seeing himself thus left alone, sent his wife and children with them. One only of his men, a Canadian named Lefevre, returned repentant. 11 cannot leave you, Mr Tod; I would rather die with you." "No, you had better go; we are too few to fight them. Had the others remained and stood by the company's property, as they were bound to do, we might hold the fort until assistance from Langley could reach us; as it is I would prefer to be alone." THE GUNPOWDER FARCE. 155 Tod now bethought himself of the somewhat stale gunpowder ruse. It seemed his only chance of saving the fort; and he did not believe the trick had ever been played in these parts. There was danger enough attending it to make it deeply interesting to him, for if he failed in the execution, or if Nicola suspected that it was a trick, the fort was lost. Nicola was not a common native; he possessed a powerful will; his intellect was keen; his hatred, when aroused, was tigeribh. But he was afraid of Tod; it is only the dull and brutish savage that does not fear civilization. Nicola-was intelligent enough to know that the white man, with his superior arts and appliances, held the poor redskin at disadvantage. Another point was greatly in favor of the fur-trader in the coming combat: an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company very seldom deceived an Indian. It was the leading maxim of their policy to inspire confidence as well as fear. "Did ever I lie to you?" roars Tod, as he heaps oaths and blows on the head of an offender. " Did not I tell you I would knock you down? And there! I have kept my word," as the redskin drops sprawling. So that when the chief trader sprang from an ambush and caught one of Nicola's men who was reconnoitring close upon what he now supposed the deserted fort; when he drove the captive within the palisades, and forced him to bring from the magazine three kegs of powder, upon one of which the trader seated himself, driving in the heads of the two others with his heel; when he asked the affrighted savage for his flint, coolly remarking that he was now ready to meet Nicola, and any number of his men, for that the power was at hand to blow into atoms the whole earth from Kamloop to Okanagan Lak^; when this was done, I say, and the terror-stricke 1 captive, as a mark of benign favor was permitted to escape and save himself, upon the solemn promise that he >would not reveal the plot to Nicola or any other person, the 156 THE SHUSHWAP CONSPIRACY. man believed it, and Nicola believed it, when his scout, more dead than alive, returned to him and told him all, as the wily Tod had wished, and well knew would be the case. These credulous wilderness men had never seen so great a mass of powder, and had no idea of the effect if ignited at one time. If the little a nutshell will hold can bring down a buffalo, three kegs might bring the world down. What Mr Tod had said, that would he do. Besides, if while the buffalo was being brought down by the nutshell of powder he who fired the shot remained uninjured, might not he escape harm, who, with three kegs, blows the world up? So Nicola made overtures of peace, which the chief trader required should include the Okanagans. The following summer John Tod retired from Kamloop. CHAPTER IX. ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. 1846-1847. Necessity op a New Route between the British Columbia Seaboard and New Caledonia—Must be Wholly within British Territory— Anderson Proposes Explorations—Authority and Means Granted— Biographical and Bibliographical Note of Anderson and his Manuscript History—Sets out from Alexandria—Proceeds to Kamloop—Thence Explores by Way op Anderson and Harrison Lakes to Langley—Returns by Way of the Coquihalla, Similkameen, and Lake Nicola—Second Expedition along Thompson and Fraser Rivers—Back by Kequeloose and the New Similkameen Tbail—Report and Suggestions. Meanwhile brains were active in the interior as well as at Fort Vancouver and on the seaboard. In 1845 A. C. Anderson,1 who was stationed at Fort Alexandia, New Caledonia, then the lowest post on the Fraser except Langley, became convinced that the boundary line between United States and British domain on the Pacific would be drawn, by the treaty then pending, north of the lower Columbia; in which event, a route from the ocean to the interior, wholly within British territory, would become a matter of primary importance. 1 While at Victoria in 1878 I made the acquaintance of Mr Anderson, and spent much of my time with him in studying Northwest Coast affairs. Indeed, without that experience and the information then given me by Anderson, Tolmie, Finlayson, and others, I do not see how I could have written with any degree of completeness or correctness a history either of Oregon or of British Columbia. Anderson was the most scholarly of all the Hudson's Bay Company officers; Tolmie was keen and practical; Finlayson intellectual and courtly. Sir James Douglas, Mr Work, and Mr Ogden unfortunately were dead, but their respective families kindly placed at my disposal all the information within their reach. I speak of all these gentlemen elsewhere. I (157) 158 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. Acting on this conviction, Anderson wrote Governor Simpson, in council at Norway House, Lake Winnipeg, asking permission to explore a route from will give here only a brief biographical and bibliographical sketch of Mr Anderson and his works. The more immediate result of my many interviews with Mr Anderson is a manuscript History of the Northwest Coast, comprising 285 pages, and covering the entire field of Oregon affairs to 1846, and of matters relating to New Caledonia and British Columbia to date. So far as possible, the needless repetition of facts already in print was avoided. He as well as I knew well enough what was wanted, and as neither of us had time to waste, we confined ourselves pretty closely to inquiries into the domain of unrevealed facts. A thousand important events are thus for the first time placed upon record, and a thousand incidents heretofore but vaguely stated are explained. In style, Mr Anderson is somewhat pompous, pedantic, and diffusive in parading himself before the world, while in bringing into proper prominence the deeds of his associates a false delicacy makes him painfully reticent. This is a habit common to all the officers of the great monopoly, who, after living in deadly fear of speaking of company affairs for a score or two of years, almost tremble in their old age to set their tongues wagging over these cld-time and sacred secrets. But for his honesty, courtesy, his sound business sense, and discriminating analysis of character, we may well forgive him a few superfluous words and high-sounding sentences. Throughout the whole work, particularly in the first pages, the facts are sadly jumbled, being thrown together as they arose in our minds, without regard to chronological or other order; but when segregated from the confused mass, by the system of note-taking obtaining in my Library, and being brought into conjunction with parallel facts and contemporaneous incidents, almost every sentence is a jewel which finds its proper fitting. To the personal work of Mr Anderson are appended certain Autograph Notes by the late John Stuart, written at Torres, Scotland, in 1842, and consisting of caustic criticism of a previous narrative by Mr Anderson. While that work of Anderson's is as a whole highly eulogized by Stuart, parts of it were pronounced apocryphal, and other parts exaggerated. This indeed would be the case with any work which could be written. Place three or even two of these old Hudson's Bay men in a room to discuss general affairs in which they had all participated, and hot words if not blows are sure to follow. In his Notes, Stuart takes exceptions to the dark side only of Indian character which Anderson chooses to dwell upon, and to the boundaries Anderson gives to New Caledonia, which Stuart says are too limited, and the like. To all this Anderson replies in such a way as to bring out the real state of affairs in the clearest possible manner. And now for a brief biography, leaving details to their proper place in the history. Alexander Caulfield Anderson, a native of Calcutta, educated in England, was a youth of eighteen, having served the Hudson's Bay adventurers as clerk but one year when in 1832 he first appeared at Fort Vancouver. After participating in the founding of the posts at Milbank Sound and on the Stikeen, in the summer of 1835 he was appointed to Mr Ogden's district of New Caledonia, and reached Fort George about the beginning of September. He was then despatched with a party by way of Yellowhead Pass to Jasper House to meet the Columbia brigade, and bring back goods for the New Caledonia district. Two months afterward he was appointed to the charge of the post at the lower end of Fraser Lake, his first independent command. In the autumn of 1839 he was removed to Fort George, and in the spring of 1840 accompanied the outgoing brigade to Fort Vancouver, and in the autumn of the same year was appointed to the charge pf Fort Nisqually. In the autumn of 1841 Mr Anderson left Nisqually and passed the winter at Fort Vancouver. Next spring he went with the express to York Factory, re- FORMER SURVEYS. 1591 Alexandria to Langley through a tract of country then practically unknown. His request was granted, five men were detailed for the service,2 and the necessary horses and outfit provided. The descent of the Fraser had been twice attempted, and twice, after a fashion, made: once in 1808 by John Stuart and Simon Fraser; and once, twenty years after, by Governor Simpson. It was known to be unnavigable in part; it was then deemed decidedly impracticable for boats. Some other pathway must therefore be made, where nature was less; oppugnant. turned in October and proceeded to Fort Alexandria, to the charge of which he had been appointed, and remained there till 1848, having meanwhile- been promoted. In that year he was appointed to the Colville district, succeeding Chief Factor John Lee Lewes. At Colville he remained, making annual trips with supplies and bringing out the furs to Fort Langley till 1851, when he went to Fort Vancouver as assistant to Mr Ballenden, and succeeded temporarily to the superintendence till 1854, when he retired from active service. Marrying, he passed a few years near the house of his father-in-law, James Birnie, and then purchased a home at Cathlamet. In 1858 he went to Victoria to inquire into the gold discoveries. Douglas urged him to accept office and bring his family and assist in the affairs of the colony, which he did, since residing at Rosebank, Saanich, near Victoria. In 1876, he was appointed by the Dominion government commissioner to settle the Indian land differences in British Columbia, and continued to act in that capacity until the commission was dissolved in 1878. On his retirement from the Hudson's Bay Company's service in 1853-4, he received two years' retiring furlough in addition to the usual retired interest, which continued for seven years subsequently. It was as chief trader that he left the service of the company, his commission as chief factor being dependent on his returning to take charge of New Caledonia, where he had already passed a year; but the education of his family demanded that he should reside nearer the conveniences of civilization. In 1846 Mr Anderson made an exploration for a route from Alexandria down the Fraser Valley to Fort Langley, and in 1847 a similar survey from Kamloop down the Thompson to the mouth of the Nicola; thence by way of Lytton to Yale and Langley. The lines then traced afterward became the main routes of access to the interior. In 1858, in order to obtain means for transport of goods to the newly discovered gold-diggings, he recommended and directed the opening of a road from the head of Harrison Lake by way of Lake Anderson to the crossing of the Fraser, where Lilloet was afterward located. Five hundred miners were employed on the work, and the road thus constructed was used for the transport of all supplies, until the road along the Fraser was made. In personal appearance, at the time I saw him, be being then sixty-three years of age, Mr Anderson was of slight build, wiry make, active in mind and body, with a keen, penetrating eye, covered by lids which persisted in a perpetual and spasmodic winking, brought on years ago by snow-field exposures, and now become habitual, and doubtless as disagreeable to him as to his friends. In speech he was elegant and precise, and by no means so verbose as in his writings, and in carriage, if not so dignified as Finlayson, his manner would do him credit at St James. 2 Their names were Edward Montigny, J. B. Vautrin, Abraham Charbon- nedern, Theodore Lacourse, and William Davis. Anderson's Northwest Coast. MS., 124. 160 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. Anderson's journal dates from Kamloop, the capital of the Thompson River district,3 whence, on the 15th day of May 1846, they started, and passed down Thompson River to Cache Creek, in the main by the line of what is now the wagon-road. .. The first encampment was at the lower end of Kamloop Lake. Crossing the Defunt River in an old canoe which they found at hand, narrowly escaping being swept to their death by an eddy into a boiling rapid in the effort, they continued to the River Bonaparte, which they found much swollen. Nearly the whole of the 17th was consumed in making a bridge for the men, and finding a ford for the horses. At night they encamped at the Biviere aux Chapeaux.4 Through a cut in the hills they passed on next day to a small lake, then to another lake, then to Pavil- lion river and village on the Fraser, following which southward they reached Upper Fountain at four o'clock. In the early part of the day they had startled a village of natives, who, rushing to arms midst terrific yells and fear-compelling antics, threatened the party with instant annihilation. On Anderson's riding forward and demanding what all the uproar was about, they subsided into the smallest compass, saying they thought their enemies were at hand. Here the way was found too rugged for horses,5 so 3 ' I remember the old, compact, and well-palisaded fort, and the stockades a little distance off, large enough for three or four hundred horses, for the horse brigades for transport of goods in and returns out for the district, and for New Caledonia, generally numbered about two hundred and fifty horses. A beautiful sight was that horse brigade, with no broken hacks in the train, but every animal in his full beauty of form and color, and all so tractable.' Malcolm McCleod, in Peace River, 114. The New Caledonia and Thompson River brigades were encamped at Kamloop when Anderson set out. 4 Now called Hat Creek. ' This stream derives its name from an Indian habitation connected with a large granite stone on its left bank indented with several hat-iike cavities; it flows through a very picturesque valley richly covered with herbage, and bordered by hills sprinkled by fir-trees.' Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 125. 5 * The proposed track passes over a mountain 1,500 to 2,000 feet high, the summit of which even at this advanced season is still thickly covered with snow, and obviously impassable save with snow-shoes. Indeed, there does not exist the slightest possibility of a horse-road in this, direction suitable for our purposes.' Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 128. DOWN THE FRASER. 161 they were sent into the open country southward, to the Vermilion branch of the Similkameen River, there to await Anderson's return, and the party continued down the river, alternately on foot and by canoe. Engaging several native lads to carry luggage, they continued their journey next day and crossed Fraser River at Lilloet. Anderson had hoped to be able to follow Fraser River to its mouth, but this he now found impossible. "Precipitous rocks, ten to fifteen hundred feet in height," he says, ¥'rise on both sides, and preclude the possibility of all progress by land, save perhaps by scaling the craggy sides at some rare points less precipitous than the rest." He concluded, therefore, to strike westward by lakes Seton and Anderson, and thence proceed southward by Lilloet and Harrison lakes, which was done. It was a rough journey, but the natives everywhere received him with demonstrations of joy, and lent him every assistance, so that no insurmountable obstacles opposed him. On the 21st, while in the vicinity of Lilloet River, Anderson writes: "As far as my search extended, I did not see any favorable spot conveniently situated for an establishment having the maintenance of a horse-pasture in view. But it may be presumed that should the idea ever be entertained, a narrower search than the state of our provisions enabled me to institute would prove successful." The journey by the line of lakes was made chiefly in canoes obtained from the natives, though portages were frequent. About noon on the 24th, the party fell upon Fraser River again, and at five o'clock the same day reached Fort Langley. Thus far Anderson was not particularly pleased with his success, but he hoped to do better on his return. Embarking at Langley, the 28th of May, in company with a party from the fort who were ascending the river for the purpose of establishing a salmon fishery, they encamped the first night just below the Hist. Brit. Col. 11 162 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. Chilakweyak.6 The second day thereafter, at noon, they reached the mouth of the Tlaekullum, just below the Quequealla7 River, where the town of Hope now stands. There Anderson and his assistants were left by the Fort Langley party. Anderson's Routes. Anderson had brought with him an Indian chief as a guide to the head waters of the Similkameen, and, plunging through the Cascade Range, hoped for the best.8 Over a high ridge, he continued his march through a labyrinth of huge bowlders which 6 Written by Anderson Chilwhaeook. 7 Or as it is now called the Coquihalla. On Trutch's map Coquhalla. 8'This from all I could ascertain, both at Kamloop and Fort Langley, is the most probable if not only route by which it is likely we may discover a communication for horses, if such exist.' Anderson's N. Coast, MS., 138. SKAGIT RIVER. 163 seemed to laugh at these searchers for a horse-way through them, and the baffled party beat a retreat. Another defile9 to the northward was next attempted and with better success. Returning to the Fraser, Anderson engaged a boat, which carried them into the Quequealla, where disembarking they took a southeastward course by land, and soon found themselves in a broad, well watered valley. Passing out of this into a defile, they examined the country carefully on both sides of the river, and though rugged, Anderson discovered a route through which he thought a road might be built. Of the surface over which his proposed horse-path should go, he gives a minute description, so particular that from it a contractor might almost make an estimate of the cost of construction. The first day of June, while groping his way slowly among the craggy hills and unexplored streams of this region, Anderson fell in with an intelligent Indian from the fork of Thompson River. He was hunting beaver, and being well acquainted with the country Anderson engaged him under promise of a few charges of ammunition and some tobacco to show him the way. The party were now at the Sumallow10 branch of the Skagit River, down which they proceeded to the fork, and then up the north-east branch, or the head-waters of the Skagit. Their way was for the most part through a rocky, thickly wooded country, the elevations and even some of the valleys being covered with snow. Occasional patches of grass were found on which horses might feed. Wending their way north-east toward the height of land, they leave the little river and ascend the mountain from whose side the forest had been partially burned by the natives. Arrived at the summit, a vast expanse of white lay 9It was up the Tlaekullum defile the Langley guide first took them; now Anderson proposed to follow up the Quequeaila. 10 The Indians call it Simalaouch, or Simailaow, and say that it falls, as nearly as I can ascertain, somewhere in the vicinity of Bellingham Bay.' Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 144. 164 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. spread out before them.11 Close at hand was a small lake having a striking resemblance to the Committee's Punch Bowl at the summit of Athabasca Pass. Here their guide left them. Missing a good Indian trail on account of its being covered with snow, they wandered about, scarcely knowing where they were. One of the party, Montigny, lost himself while out exploring, and Anderson was obliged to go in search of him. From Summit Lake they followed, as best they might, its outlet, which was a feeder of the Similkameen River, to Vermilion, or Red Earth Fork, the appointed rendezvous, where they found their horses. Proceeding northward through a fine open country, they reached the Louchameen road, just above Rocher de la Biche, which took them to McDonald River, whence .by Nicola Lake they continued their journey with ease and pleasure to Kamloop, where they arrived at evening on the 9th of June. Thence Anderson proceeded to Alexandria. " This line," says Anderson, " in its main features was afterward adopted for the government road, and is the direct route of communication with the southwestern interior of British Columbia." It was the intention that the trail from Kamloop to Hope should be made suitable for horses. For, concludes the journal, "a temporary establishment would of course be required at the place where the horses must remain, at the mouth of the Quequealla. According to all accounts, this vicinity affords one of the most prolific fisheries on Fraser River. The services of a few men might thus be profitably employed in the interval during which it would be necessary to maintain the post. The boats necessary for the accommodation of the brigade were to be brought up by the Langley people and Indians at the proper period, 11 The cause was easily explained, being * ascribable to the relative position of the opposite sides; that by which we ascended has a southern exposure, lying open, consequently, to the full influence of the sun's rays, aided by the southern winds, and vice versa.' Andersons Northwest Coast, MS., 149. THE SIMILKAMEEN COUNTRY. 165 conveying salt and barrels; the products of the fishery to be conveyed by the same means to Fort Langley, after the return of the brigade." From Alexandria, Anderson wrote the board of management at Fort Vancouver on the 21st, and again on the 23d of June, giving the particulars of his proceedings and his opinion concerning the result. By waiting until the snow melted, and the streams swollen thereby had subsided, he pronounced practicable the route by way of the Quequealla and Lake Nicola. Fearful lest the opening of a road by the white men should the easier let their enemies of the Similkameen upon them, the natives of Fraser River did not kindly regard the movement. Indeed, Anderson was informed by Blackeye, a most respectable aboriginal and an attache of Kamloop, that Pahallok, chief of the Fraser River Indians, had tampered with his fidelity by attempting to persuade him to mislead and thereby deter the road-makers from their purpose. Some delay might arise therefrom, but no serious trouble was apprehended. It was an important matter, this selection of a route for the main line of travel between the British Columbia sea-board and the interior, and the stupendous obstacles interposed by nature rendered it not so easy of accomplishment. Anderson had learned much in his late exploration, but yet he was not thoroughly satisfied. Hence, in the following summer we find him examining Thompson and Fraser rivers between Kamloop and Langley, having the same purpose in view. Setting out from Kamloop on the 19th of May 1847, Anderson proceeds with five men to Nicola Lake, whence, following the Nicola River by the trail of the trading parties to its junction with the Thomp son, he sends back the horses, to meet him on the Fraser near Anderson River, where there is a well- known trail from that point to Similkameen. The 166 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. weather is sultry; several Indian camps are encountered on the way; the country is remarkable for its rugged volcanic rock, wormwood, and rattlesnakes. Crossing the Nicola in a canoe, on the 2 2d the explorers continue along the left bank of Thompson River, crossing the streams on fallen trees until rlext day, when they reach Fraser River, and encamp near the Indian village of Shilkumcheen, where now stands Lytton. Here, contracted to a width of some sixty yards and deepened correspondingly, the Thompson flows quietly between ragged bounds of limestone and granite into the Fraser. Soon Pahallok presents himself, and delivers a letter from Yale. Accompanying, the chief is a concourse of savages, men, women, and children, a scampish-looking set of vagabonds Anderson calls them, though exceedingly polite and affable. Continuing along the left bank of the Fraser on the 24th, Anderson finds the road as well as the river-bed exceedingly rough, and pronounces it impracticable for a loaded horse brigade. Nor can Pahallok or any native of that region point out a smoother way.12 Still the natives at the villages they pass receive them with loud acclaims and bombastic oratory. At the stream called Tummuhl the aborigines are actively employed in erecting a stockade for protection against their enemies, and the superior death-dealing contrivances of the white men would be exceedingly serviceable just now. Squazowm, a populous village, is reached the 25th. The river banks in this vicinity are wooded with cedar, pine, and plane trees, and the hills which rise abruptly in the background are free from timber in parts, affording good pasturage. Herbage on the elevations is luxuriant, and the hill-sides are decked with larkspur, red flowering vetch, and the dwarf sunflower, which flaunts its glories in brave contrast to the arid declivities so recently passed. 12 'In the vicinity of the village called Skaoose is a succession of rockj hills, some of which are avoidable by making a circuit, while others appear t» offer no such alternative.. The' rocky passages extend for a long distance. Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 165. THE RETURN. 167 The horse-road which leads hence to the Similkameen country, as well as the region between this point and Nicola Lake, is well known to Montigny and Michel Ogden, both of whom have traversed it; therefore Anderson deemed it safe enough to order his horses sent thither, and does not feel obliged to stop now to examine it. The new road was but recently opened by the Similkameens. Their way now lies along the Squazowm,13 which they cross upon a fallen tree and follow for some distance, when they pass over to the Fraser. Anderson now seeks a suitable place for a ferry across this man- defying stream, passage by the left bank becoming more than ever perilous. Kequeloose, near where the suspension bridge has since been erected, is reached the 27th, and Spuzzum six miles below, which stands on the right bank of the Fraser, and where Pahallok proposes that the ferry should be placed. "The country is very rough," remarks Anderson, "and much labor with many painful circuits would be necessary to complete a road anywise practicable for horses." The explorers, after careful observation, think most of the rapids hereabout can be run as safely as those of the Columbia. Leaving now the rapids, their pathway leads along a causeway of cedar boards connecting several projecting points overhanging a precipice; obviously an exceedingly dangerous walk. Then after crossing a stream they come on the 28th to the first village of the Sachincos, where afterward the fort and town of Yale were placed. After a hearty breakfast next morning, on fresh salmon and potatoes furnished by the natives, in hired canoes they pass rapidly down the river to Langley. Returning, they leave Fort Langley the 1st of June, having, in addition to the canoes hired from the natives, a large Northwest Coast canoe in which Anderson proposes to attempt the ascent of the rap- 13Now, more appropriately than is always the case', called Anderson River. J 168 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. ids to Kequeloose, where he proposes the horse-portage of commerce by proving the navigability of the Fraser thus far. The ascent of the rapids is begun on the 4th of. June, a rainy day, the natives officiating with the boat.14 Two portages are made without much difficulty, when the boat is lightened, and taken by a line through the swollen channel; then crossing to the opposite side, the ascent was continued, one Indian being in the boat and the others dragging by the line. All goes well until the middle of the last rapid is about reached, when the line parts, and the boat sweeps swiftly down the current while a wail ascends from the bank over the perilous position of the boatman. Fortunately, with the boat but half full of water, he succeeds in getting it into an eddy, and so comes to land. But he cannot be induced to enter it again; so the canoe is carried with no small diffi* culty to the head of the falls, where they encamp. After paying the natives for their important assistance, they continue next morning, breakfast at Spuz- zum, and reach Kequeloose at eleven. Leaving the canoe in charge of Pahallok, they set out over the proposed horse-portage by way of Lake Nicola to Kamloop, clearing the way with their axes as they go, and reaching the horse rendezvous the 8th. The last day they had merely indicated the route by chipping the trees, the natives under the superintendence of Pahallok undertaking to finish this portion of the road for them. The natives below object to the proposed change of route, and one of them threatens disturbance/but is soon quieted. On the 10th, Anderson leaves the party in charge of Montrose McGillivray, with orders to continue the opening of the road to Lake Nicola, and then to proceed to Kamloop in time to meet with the horses of the New Caledonia u ' Cross to the eddy at the foot; make a short portage and reBmbark... A series of eddies conducts to a second portage upon the same side, right ascending .Cross and breakfast at the foot of the rapid formed like the first by a rock which lies near the left shore.' Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 178. ANOTHER ROUTE. 169 brigade at Okanagan. Anderson then presses on to McDonald River and Kamloop, and thence proceeds to Alexandria. It would seem from these facts, taken wholly from Anderson's journals and letters, that prior to these expeditions no route between Langley and New Caledonia was open; none practicable was known to exist, the nearest approach to it being that portion of an Indian or horse trail from Similkameen to Kequeloose, a point on Fraser River six miles above Spuz- zum. His first return route, by the defile of the Coquihalla and the Vermilion Fork of the Similkameen, Anderson thought presented almost insurmountable obstacles; the snow alone preventing the road from being open for more than a brief period each year. The second route, by way of Kequeloose, he preferred, provided the rapids intervening could be overcome. Of the first he reports to the board of management: "I have no opinion of its feasibility. It is difficult to realize a conception of the ruggedness of this extraordinary region." And of the other route: " Keeping in view the obvious disadvantages inseparable from the route surveyed by me last summer, as being available only for a comparatively brief season of the year, I have no longer any hesitation in according a decided preference to the route recently examined by way of Kequeloose. The series of rapids in the vicinity of the falls, extending with intervals of smooth water in all from two to three miles, presents no insurmountable impediment to our progress, from the facility of making portages if found necessary, as they doubtless will be at the higher stages of the water. . . . For divers reasons I would suggest that the New Caledonia party, if intending to pass by the new route, should not leave Alexandria before the 25th May, timing their departure so as to reach Langley about the 20th June, to admit of a delay of ten days- there, and to depart about the 1st July, a day or two 170 ANDERSON'S EXPLORATIONS. later than the brigade usually leaves Vancouver by the present route." We shall see later the more definite results of these observations; suffice it for the present to say, that several lines were ultimately opened, and that Anderson was finally led to modify his first marked preference for the route by way of Kequeloose and Lake Nicola. Understanding that it was the intention of the board of management to open the new route the following spring, that is to say, 1848, Anderson coupled with his report the following suggestions: A sufficient number of boats, similar to those used on the Columbia, should be constructed during the winter, either at Kequeloose or Langley, and if built at the latter place, they should be sent to the rendezvous at Kequeloose before the river was swollen by the melting snow. A gauge at Langley would at all times determine the state of things above, the rise or fall of one foot at that point being equivalent to a rise or fall of eight or ten feet in the confined channels of the inferior regions. It would be well for the brigade to time its return with the ascent of the salmon, as well that provisions might be plenty as that navigation would be easier, owing to the abating of the waters, which considerations apply to all the lines of intercommunication as far north as Stuart Lake. Likewise by making the annual departure from Alexandria as late in the spring' as possible, agricultural operations would be less interfered with, and horses then would be in better condition. Anderson concludes with a lengthy discussion, detailing regulations which should govern the spring and autumn expresses to and from Hudson Bay, the use of boats and horses, and the introduction, where necessary, of sledges and snow-shoes, an Indian mail system, intercourse between posts, protection of property, treatment of the natives, and the like, all eminently practical and interesting, but which for lack of space I shall not be able here to introduce. CHAPTER X. YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. 1848-1849. Establishment on the Fraser at the Landing of the Sachincos—James Murray Yale—Causes Which Led to the Building of Fort Yale— Orders Given Interior Traders to Break their Way through to Langley—Three Brigades Join for That Purpose—The Route Chosen not Satisfactory—Anderson's Proposal—Building of Fort Hope—A New Route Attempted—It Proves Worse than the First—Joseph W. McKay on the North Coast—Sharp Practice between English and Russian Traders—The ' Constance ' in Northern Waters—Effects in British Columbia of the California G-old Discovery—Bags of Gold-dust at Fort Victoria—The Excitement in the Interior. Early in the spring of 1848 a small post was erected by the Hudson's Bay Company on the Fraser River near a village of the Sachincos, and just below the rapids ascended by Anderson the year previous. The establishment was called Fort Yale, in honor of Chief Factor Yale,1 then in charge of Fort Langley, and was the only point on the wild, weird Fraser between Langley and Alexandria, a distance of some three hundred miles, then occupied by white men, save only the salmon fishery established below the Coqui- halla two years previous. 1 James Murray Yale entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company when but a boy, in about the year 1815. For a long time he remained a boy, not receiving any promotion until fifteen years after the coalition, or twenty- one years after entering the service; and to the day of his death, and long afterward, he was known to the officers of the company only as Little Yale. Though small of statue he was strongly built, wiry, and active, and as courageous and enduring as a young Hercules. Indeed, his reckless bravery was for a time rather against him than otherwise, as it rendered him in a measure unfit for the staider duties attending promotion and partnership; but this (171 ^ 172 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. One immediate cause which led to this establishment was the Waiilatpu massacre, which occurred in the autumn of 1847, and the hostilities which followed. Another was the conclusion of the Oregon treaty of 1846, which not only placed the boundary line several degrees north of the lower Columbia, but left the matter of duties on foreign goods in such a shape as almost to stop business at Fort Vancouver. To British subjects was reserved the right of freely navigating the Columbia and passing over the portages with their goods, upon the same terms accorded citizens of the was afterward proved a great mistake, or else as the man advanced in year3 he changed materially, for in all the company's service there was scarcely a better post-commander than Little Yale. From boyhood, hardship seemed to mark him for its own; his young bones were kneaded in the trough of exposure, and the sword of Damocles seemed too often to hang from the trees of the forest he threaded. His first appearance in the arena of savage life while yet a stripling is significant of the man's character and of his subsequent career. It was at a time when feuds waxed warm between the brother skin- buyers, each fearful less the other should gain advantage. The old adventurers of England had fully awakened to the fact that their more shrewd and energetic rivals of the Northwest Company were surrounding them in their operations, and if they would secure territory equal to their desires, they must leave the shores of Hudson's Bay and take possession of it. So posts were planted along the Saskatchewan, the highest of which was then Edmonton; and as Red River blossomed under the benign smile of the Earl of Selkirk, his associates followed their more adventurous opponents through Peace River Pass, and opened their eyes toward the Pacific. Just about the time Yale entered the service, John Clark, with one hundred men, set out for the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, for the purpose of planting new posts for the circumvention of the Northwest Company. Certain fisheries in the beaver country, upon which they had depended for a winter's food supply, failed them, and starvation stared them in the face. Their rivals were there with food, and would most charitably have supplied them on condition of their renouncing allegiance so the old adventurers and joining the Northwesters; but sooner than do this they would die. And die they must unless relief should soon come. One day an Indian came into their camp and reported that his people had been successful fishing, and that they had food. Though the way was long and perilous, a party, one of whom was the boy Yale, set out for the Indian camp. One after another fell by the way, overcome by starvation and fatigue, and laid down earth's burden in despair. At length Yale's little legs began to fail him. A long tramp through the deep snow took him greatly at disadvantage. In this, his first adventure, he had become the pet and proUg6 of a stalwart old voyageur, who was as a giant to this Jack, and who encouraged him by every means in his power to keep moving. But all was of no avail. The boy finally threw himself on the snow and told his old friend to leave him there and to save himself. The Frenchman continued a few paces, calling to his companion to come on and keep up his courage. But finding it all m no avail, he retraced his steps, •tearing his hair, and swearing as only a French Canadian can swear, meanwhile his big heart swelling, and as he came up to his now insensible little friend, bursting into tears—these villanous voyageurs could sometimes cry like women—he exclaimed in his doggerel French: * Sacre! misere! C'est trop de valeur! Em- EXPEDITION UNDER MANSON. 173 United States. But this, of course, did not permit the Hudson's Bay Company to import goods free of duty. So long as Fort Vancouver remained the distributing depot, imported packages must there be broken and parcelled for the several interior and coast stations. To pay the same tariff on goods destined for British Columbia traffic which citizens of the United States were obliged to pay on goods sold in Oregon, was not for a moment to be thought of. Less was said in Oregon about the terms of the treaty, as the cause of hastening a change of base, than of the hostilities following the Whitman massacre, which set bristling the savages of the Columbia as far up as Walla Walla, but the former rendered the opening of a route between the seaboard and the interior within British territory as necessary as did the latter. The building of Fort Yale had, indeed, been projected before the outbreak of hostilities; the terms of the treaty were amply sufficient to warrant the move, as well as to hasten the opening of a new route, but each several event carried its due weight. However all this might have been, certain it is that early in 1848 orders were sent by express from Fort Vancouver to the officers in charge of the interior posts immediately to break their way through to Langley, where supplies from head-quarters for the several districts would be sent this year. Acting on these instructions, a party, consisting of three brigades, namely, one each from New Caledonia, barque ! Embarque !' by which latter marine exclamation the Canadians were wont to tell little people to get on their back, and seizing Yale by the arm, he swung him over his shoulder on to his pack, and sturdily marched forward. That night they reached the Indian camp, where an affecting scene took place. We generally associate in our minds with savages only blood-thirstiness, mer- cilessness, and cruelty. To many native women were given by the creator hearts as humane and tender as to many white-skinned dames. At sight of the senseless youth, says Anderson, to whom the tela was told, I the women of the camp melted to tears, rushed forward, carried Yale into their encampment, rubbed his limbs to restore suspended circulation, fed him with choice broths, and in every way treated him as if he had been one among their own children.' We may be sure the boy neyer forgot that old voyageur or those Indian women. About 1870, after over half a century of continuous Hudson's Bay Company service, Yale settled near Victoria, and died there, leaving several children. 174 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. Thompson River, and Colville, after due preparation, set out toward the end of May, selecting as their way Anderson's return route of the previous summer. Fifty men with four hundred horses, many of them unbroken, comprised the party, which was under the command of Donald Manson of New Caledonia, he being senior officer present, Anderson, in charge of the Colville district to which he had been recently appointed, being second. It is needless to recite the difficulties encountered by the three brigades united under Manson. A small party can often manage better in an untrodden wilderness than a large one. In the present instance a large band of heavily laden horses was no slight encumbrance. Over the roughest part Anderson's former journey had been on foot, and with the anxiety and chagrin attending the discomforts and curses of his companions, his ardor for the new route began to abate. Nevertheless Fort Yale was in due time reached; and leaving there the horses, the party passed rapidly down to Langley in boats. The return, which was by the same route, was if possible more disastrous than had been the journey down. The merchandise carried back was more bulky and perishable than was their former cargo, and not only a large percentage of the property was destroyed, but many of the horses were lost. The fact is, the course pursued by the united brigades was over neither of the routes explored by Anderson; or at all events, it was over a portion only of his favorite road. He had expected to make Kequeloose the station on the river for the horses; but the rapids had interposed objections too formidable in the minds of the management, and hence Fort Yale had been built below. The disastrous results of the attempt of the united brigades to open a road back from Fort Yale turned attention once more to Anderson's exploration of 1846, and to his return route of that year. ANDERSON ON ROUTES. 175 After their return to Thompson River, in August 1848, Anderson addressed a written communication to his associates there present, Donald Manson and John Tod, which was subsequently forwarded to the management, setting forth the importance of adopting immediate measures for the opening of the Similkameen route, which was his Coquihalla route of 1846 with certain modifications suggested by Old Blackeye, the wise and scientific savage before mentioned. It appears that a party had been sent by Yale from Langley the previous year to take a second look at this section, more particularly to ascertain its condition in regard to snow, and a favorable report had been made. The snow was not an insurmountable obstacle, and a band of workmen with horses in ten or fifteen days would be able to make the way passable. As to the route over which they had just passed, there could be but a single opinion, and that a condemnatory one. "The question of navigation," continues Anderson, "as far as Kequeloose, where I last year proposed the horse transport to commence, being negatived, the whole scheme of communication thence depending necessarily falls to the ground. The prudence, not to say possibility, of extending our horse transport beyond that point has this year been fully tested, and needs no comment on my part. As regards the question of navigation, my opinions have undergone some change; for though as before I think it practicable to bring up Columbia boats by making the necessary portages, further examination teaches me that it must be by very arduous degrees at the higher stages of the water, and therefore unadvisable. At low water, however, the rapids have been proved to be safely navigable with loaded bateaux, one portage only intervening. These points admitted, I am still constrained, however reluctantly, to withdraw the proposal of navigation formerly advanced by me. My recent experience of the pass in question con- 176 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. vinces me that no portage on a large scale could with prudence be effected there during the summer season, after the host of barbarians among whom we have recently passed are congregated at the fisheries. The risks of sacrificing both life and property—for it is needless to attempt to cloak the matter—under circumstances where neither courage nor precaution could avail to resist surprise or guard against treachery, are alone sufficient to deter us from the attempt. The losses by theft, in themselves nowise contemptible, which have already taken place, are but the prelude to future depredations upon a larger scale, should the present system of operations be unfortunately persisted in—depredations which it is to be feared will be difficult either to discover in time or to prevent effectually." Anderson then proposed that Henry Peers, assisted by Montigny and certain natives, should be appointed to the duty of making ready the new route. In view of all which, during the winter of 1848-9 another post was established a short distance below Yale, on the left bank of the Fraser at the mouth of the Coquihalla, to which was given the name Hope.2 2 Better fortune was expected another time. The Reverend Mr Good absurdly dates the establishing of Port Hope 1840-1. British Columbia, MS., 45. It is a purely random statement, and might with equal propriety have been placed a hundred years earlier or later. ' Fort Hope,' he says, ' was remarkable for the extraordinary beauty and grandeur of its situation, the fort being a very old Hudson's Bay Company station erected in 1840-1. From hence the company's brigade carried supplies, and communicated for trading purposes with stations on the Columbia and other parts of Oregon, by what was called the Similkameen Pass, and they also connected with Nicola, Kamloop, and Okanagan by the old and well-worn brigade trail.' The author of British North America, 283, calls it in 1860 the second town in British Columbia, meaning the mainland, and 'next in importance to the capital,' being 'about one hundred miles up the Fraser, at the elbow where the course alters from south to west. Here the miners stop both going to and returning from the upper country gold-diggings; and a number of Chinese have taken up their abode in the town. It is making rapid progress, and roads are being pushed forward north and east of it.' See also Gray's Or., 43, and Barrett-Lenard's Travels, 148-9, which latter work calls the river the Coquiklum, and the mountain scenery around it grand and beautiful, while adjacent is the village of the Tumsioux Indians, though where he obtains such a name it is difficult to decipher. See Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 175. A NEW TRAIL CUT. 177 Yale was the head of navigation on the Fraser, while should the defile of the Coquihalla prove the most advantageous passage to the interior, as was now becoming more than probable, to at least certain parts of it, Hope would for the present be the more important post. In 1849 the New Caledonia spring brigade followed the route of the previous year by way of Yale to Yale and Hope. Langley, the Hope road being not yet rea<Jf?*l)ut, returning, disembarked at Hope, determined at all hazard to attempt the defile of the Coquihalla. With the brigade was brought a number of men from Langley, and the whole force being set to work, soon cut a trail across the mountains, which differed in some respects from Anderson's return route of 1846. Hist. Bbit. Col. 12 178 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. And this was the main route followed until 1860, when the government road was made. To Joseph W. McKay now in 1846 was given the general supervision of the north coast establishments, up to this time under the more immediate supervision of James Douglas. Proceeding northward in the Beaver in October, as was usual for the general agent to do, he stopped at the several stations, and made such changes and left such instructions as seemed to him best. The Russians he found affable and polite, but tricky. "In August 1847," he says, "a chief of the Stakhine Indians, whom I knew well and had reason to believe perfectly trustworthy, told me that he had been approached by a Russian officer with presents of beads and tobacco, and that he was told that if he would get up a war with the English in that vicinity, and compel them to withdraw, he should receive assistance in the shape of arms and ammunition, and in case of success he would receive a medal from the Russian emperor, a splendid uniform, and anything else he might desire, while his people should always be paid, the highest prices for their peltries." Taking his position at Fort Simpson in 1847, McKay became practically dominator of that region, and so remained for many years, although his duties did not confine him there constantly. Traffic being king, and McKay king, we are prepared to learn that the Hudson's Bay Company were more successful in those parts than the Russian American company, that the former secured nine tenths of all the beaver and land-otter taken in the country drained by the Stikeen, and that even on the coast north of the river, and toward the country of the Chilkats and Tungass, all strictly Russian domain, no small proportion of the catch fell into the immaculate maw of the English adventurers. Armed vessels were sent at various times by the Russians to break up this traffic, but the trading canoes sent by the Eng- NORTH-COAST AFFAIRS. 179 lish company into the intricate channels and inlets easily escaped encounter with a superior force. Even American and other vessels which went thither to trade on their own account were brought into requisition by the Hudson's Bay Company in turning the tide of this commerce into their own channels and away from those of the Russian company. Toward the end of 1847, while the Chimsyans and Tungass were indulging in hostilities, Shemelin, on beh'if of the Russian company, made a visit to McKay, who was then at Bellabella, with the object of inducing him, if possible, to use his influence to stop the savage feud which so greatly interfered with trade. For while fighting not only were the belligerents diverted from hunting, but such furs as they did secure fell into the hands of foreign, or, as the great monopolists designated them, contraband traders for arms and ammunition. While Shemelin was thus engaged at the house of McKay, the two being then at dinner, a native retainer of the latter appeared at the door, and beckoning McKay without, informed him that a large fleet of his canoes heavily laden with furs surreptitiously obtained in Russian teritory, was entering the port. What was to be done? It would never do at all to let Shemelin know how his company had been robbed by the honorable servants of the honorable English company, and to parade the spoils before his very eyes. Surmise was one thing, positive proof quite another. In his dilemma McKay bethought himself of the Muscovite love of liquor, and inwardly thanked Bacchus for the suggestion. Instantly despatching a messenger to the approaching canoes to await his signal outside the harbor, he returned to his guest. There was less than a gallon of rum in the storehouse, and it took nearly the whole of it to stretch the enemy hors de combat. But it was done; and while Shemelin lay unconscious, and his men we're feasting in a house at some distance from the scene of action, the expedition 180 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. landed, the peltries were speedily put out of sight, and the canoes hidden in an adjacent cove.3 After the arrival of the frigate Constance at Victoria, during the summer of 1848, she sailed northward, calling at the company's stations along the coast. The natives everywhere were impressed by her formidable appearance, for she was a fine ship, well manned and appointed. Some time after her departure, McKay was informed that just then the Chimsyans, Tungass, and Stikeens were conspiring to join in an attack on the Europeans. Russians and English at one fell swoop were to be swept from their shores. But after an examination of the death-dealing mechanisms of the Constance, they thought better of it. However the truth of it may be, it is certain that all through the following year these savages were restless and impudent, and it was only by exercising the utmost care and patience that the Hudson's Bay Company prevented their outbreak. There was little difference thus far between the character of trade at Fort Victoria and that at other posts of the company on the Pacific, the general routine of affairs becoming more and more similar to business at Fort Vancouver, which establishment it was destined in due time wholly to supersede. The first startling innovation arose from the California gold discovery of 1848, which during the following year stirred in the breasts of thousands the fires of cupidity, and shook with monetary ague the financial centres of the world. Fort Victoria was then the nearest and most accessible point, outside of San Francisco, where miners could obtain their outfits. True, they might have gone to Fort Vancouver, and 3 The officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, not less than Washington Irving, love to dwell on the fondness of the Russians for liquor, and how drunk they used to get on every possible occasion. How an intelligent and prominent officer like McKay reconciles his accusation when he calls the Russians unprincipled and tricky with this story, which he tells with unblushing gusto, I leave the reader to judge. CALIFORNIANS IN VICTORIA. 181 did to some extent; but at the latter post the goods had been raised in price by reason of United States duties, and the stock was likewise daily diminishing there, while supplies were constantly increasing at Fort Victoria. The custom-house regulations at San Francisco were then not of the strictest, especially in regard to miners' outfits. While at that point articles not immediately desired could scarcely be sold at all, such goods as were in demand and of limited supply bore exorbitant prices. Hence many miners, particularly during the winter, when they could not work their placers, found it more profitable to take a passage on a sailing vessel for the north coast, and there lay in their spring supply, instead of idling the time in riotous living in any of the comfortless and expensive towns of California. It was a strange spectacle thus so suddenly presented to the staid officers of the honorable Hudson's Bay Company, these curious characters on their singular errand, springing from so miraculous an event— exceedingly strange, and it is no wonder that the simple- minded, methodical traders were somewhat confused by it. But though thus isolated, knowing little of what was going on in the great world without, and accustomed to traditionary rote in their business transactions, their instinctive shrewdness did not desert them. "These rough-looking miners," writes Finlayson, "landed here from their vessels, which entered the harbor early in 1849. I took them first to be pirates, and ordered our men to prepare for action. I, however, entered into conversation with them, and finding who they were, was satisfied as to their friendship for us. They had leather bags, full of gold nuggets, which they offered to me in exchange for goods. At this time I had never seen native gold in my life, and was doubtful whether to take it or not. Having heard about pure gold being malleable, I took one of the pieces to our blacksmith shop, ordered the smith 182 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED and his assistant to hammer away at it on the anvil, and finding that it answered the description by flattening out as thin as a wafer, I offered to take it at eleven dollars per ounce, in exchange for goods. This offer was accepted readily, and as I could not go back from my word, the trade opened on this basis. I would then have been better satisfied had they complained of the low rate, but no complaints were made. I therefore thought I had made a mistake. I traded, however, all they had, and was.doubtful about the correctness of the transaction until the express I sent to the Columbia River to head-quarters came back with the intelligence that the gold was satisfactory, and also the rate at which I had traded it. Other factors followed, so that we had a good remittance of gold that year to^ send to England, in addition to our furs." The Hudson's Bay Company, on and in the vicinity of the lower Columbia, were in a position to derive great advantages from this gold discovery. Not so great, indeed, as if they had held their post at Yerba Buena, yet their profits were very greatly swelled thereby. Prior to 1846, they had placed a post at Cape Disappointment, consisting of a dwelling and a storehouse, with which they claimed one mile square of land; there was the fishing-station at Pillar Rock, where salmon in large quantities were cured; there were the granaries at Coweeman, where the Cowlitz enters the Columbia, the warehouses and wharf at Champoeg, and the mills above Fort Vancouver; their cattle had increased abundantly, and their farming lands had become widely extended; they had their own ships in which to send away their produce, and all under the most perfect system and the strictest control.4 Anderson was appointed to the Colville district * And yet Douglas testified before the joint commission at Victoria, H. B. Co. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, 59, that 'the dividends on the general profits of the Hudson's Bay Company were not appreciably affected by the discovery of gold in California;' which, if true, shows a large falling-off in the far trade. EFFECT OF GOLD ON MEN. 183 in 1848. "It was there," he writes, "that I first got notice of the discovery of gold in California in a private letter to Mr Douglas, who had just returned from a trip to the Sandwich Islands. Little excitement, however, arose from this communication on the part of any one; and in fact, Mr Douglas himself seemed half incredulous of the report. A few months, however, served to dissipate this belief, and before the autumn of 1849 the whole country was ablaze. I myself felt fearful on my return from Langley in August of that year, lest every man should leave me. By prudent management, however, and possessing, I flatter myself, the confidence of my men, I contrived to confirm them in their allegiance, and retained their services until their contracts were fully expired, a period of some two years. In this respect I was exceptionally fortunate, for while my men, some thirty in number, adhered to me faithfully, the other posts lower down the river, including Fort Vancouver, in which about one hundred and fifty men had been stationed, were almost deserted, and Indian laborers were hired to supply the deficiency. "It is almost impossible to realize to the mind the intense excitement which at times prevailed. Gold appeared to be almost, as it were, a drug in the market, and more than one of the French Canadian servants who had left Vancouver under the circumstances mentioned, returned the following spring with accumulations varying from $30,000 to $40,000. It is needless, however, to add that the large amounts of treasure thus collected with so much facility, united with the habits of extravagance which the unexpected possession of wealth engendered, speedily disappeared. The men who had thus dissipated their possessions, sanguine of their capacity to replace them with equal facility as before, returned to California only to find that the field of their operations was fully occupied by others, who, in the mean while, had flocked in, and that their chance was gone." 184 YALE AND HOPE ESTABLISHED. Mr Anderson would have been yet more confounded had he known that at that moment, in the very district he was then superintending, this precious metal was so abundant as some day to cause a stir which should rank among the prominent mining excitements of the period. When gold was found at Colville, the Hudson's Bay Company had on Thompson River a small farm and a trading-fort. . As Fort Colville was situated some twenty miles south of the boundary, that establishment was removed northward across the line, in order to avoid paying United States duties on English goods. It was still called Fort Colville after its removal. CHAPTER XI. ESTABLISHING- FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. 1849-1852. A New Factor, Coal—The Existence of This Mineral Known from the Earliest Times—Pacific Coal-fields—Discovery at Beaver Harbor—The Quackolls and The Fort McLoughlin Blacksmith—Tolmie Appears—The Notable John Dunn—Warre and Vavasour Report the Discovery—Which Attracts the Attention of Government—Fort Rupert Built—Muir and his Scotch Miners Arrive— Another Arrival—Examinations and Tests—Failure at Fort Rupert—Discovery of Coal at Nanaimo Harbor—Another Blacksmith Story—McKay to the Proof—Muir Moves from Fort Rupert —Fort Nanaimo Built—Visit of Douglas—Minor Discoveries. And now appears another factor in that progres- sional power which seems destined shortly to undermine the sovereignty of the fur-traders in the Northwest, and to drive them still farther back toward the inhospitable Arctic—coal; a factor of civilization, contributed direct by mother earth, second only to agriculture, and although not so immediate or demonstrative as gold, yet in truth far more potential. The officers of the Hudson's Bay Company were intelligent and observant men. It was part of their profession to have their eyes open as they tramped the forests, and the resources and possibilities of the country whose sovereignty they swayed was never a matter of indifference to them; hence, almost from the beginning, they were aware of the presence of coal in certain localities. But as they had no immediate use for it, and as they were constitutionally and corporately reticent, "they said little about it. 186 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. All through the interior, all along the coast, on both sides of Johnson and Georgia straits, on both sides of the Columbia from the Willamette to the ocean, in the Willamette and Cowlitz valleys, on the coast and in the mountains of southern Oregon, in eastern Oregon, on Queen Charlotte Islands and the mainland district of Nass-Skeena adjacent, at intervals in large or insignificant quantities, coal croppings were seen. Wood being abundant and always at hand, and charcoal being for the most part used by the company's blacksmiths, there was little necessity for drawing from the deposits around them. Indeed, it was found easier and cheaper for such posts as did not burn charcoal, particularly for those accessible to the ocean, to bring from England the small quantity required by the blacksmiths, than to dig for it; but where it was known to be convenient, and natives could be employed to bring it in, it was obtained upon the spot. The existence of coal in considerable quantities at Beaver Harbor, where later Fort Rupert was established, was made known to the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1835. It happened in this wise: A party of Quackolls from the north end of Vancouver Island were at Fort McLoughlin trading, when one day, being of an inquiring turn of mind, they strolled into the blacksmith shop, and stood watching intently the movements of the smith, as he drew from the fire the incandescent metal and hammered it into shape upon the anvil. Presently they saw him take from a little pile near by some hard sooty substance, and lay it on the fire, which under pressure of the bellows glowed with intenser satisfaction over its. crackling food. Their curiosity was more than ever excited. Crowding round the furnace, they saw the black substance transformed to living heat. Then they went to the pile, COAL AT BEAVER HARBOR. 187 and picking up some of the lumps, turned them over, rubbed them in their hands, broke them, bit them, then threw them down with a questionable grunt. " What is that ?" they demanded. " Stuff to make the fire burn," answered the good- natured smith. " What do you call it %" "Coal." " How is it made ?" "It is dug out of the ground." "Where do you get it ?" "It is brought over from the other side of the great salt sea; a six months' journey and more it makes before it gets here." Another more prolonged grunt, as of relief followed this colloquy. Falling back before the sparks which again flew from the anvil, they were soon in warm and gesticulating converse among themselves. Soon, however, their voices subsided. Then over their sombre Cyclopean features gradually dawned a smile, which soon stretched into a loud guffaw, absolutely startling in a savage. And when to this they added their former antics, now redoubled, the blacksmith stood amazed, and wondered if indeed they were insane or drunk. "White men are very wise!" they cried, in uncouth irony. "The great spirit tells them everything, and gives them strength for cunning contrivances. The red man knows nothing; he is poor, and the great spirit is ashamed of having made him; and yet he is not such a fool as to bring soft black stone so great a distance when it may be had at his very door." The blacksmith stopped his work and called Tolmie and other officers of the fort, to whom the Quackolls explained themselves more fully, telling how in different places in their country that same black stone was found in hillocks at or near the surface, and that the quantity of it was very great. Word was sent to Fort Vancouver, and in due time 188 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. McLoughlin ordered the Beaver to stop on one of her upward voyages, at the place indicated by the Quackolls, and ascertain the truth of their report, which was done. Duncan Finlayson was chief factor in charge at the time, and of the party was John Dunn, who reports: "Mr Finlayson, with a party of the crew, went on shore, leaving me in the ship to conduct the trade; and after some inquiries and a small distribution of rewards, found, from the natives, that the original account given at Fort McLoughlin was true. The coal turned out to be of excellent quality, running in extensive fields, and even in clumpy mounds, and most easily worked all along that part of the country."1 The place where the steamer anchored was first called McNeill Harbor in honor of her captain, and afterward Beaver Harbor after the vessel herself. Indeed, the first use the company found for coal, except what little the blacksmiths required, was not until after the arrival of the steamer; and even then the necessity was not actual; for we have frequent and abundant proof that for several seasons after entering the service wood was employed for her furnace; 1 John Dunn was a stupid observer, and an exceedingly desultory writer. I give the'date as nearly as I can decipher it. His book, History of tlie Oregon Territo?-y, was published in London in 1844. The information given is thrown together in a confused mass, with but little regard to chronological or other order. The preface informs us that the writer was eight years in the company's service, but when he came to the coast and when he left it we are not informed. The Ganymede brought him, and he remained for a year after his arrival at Fort Vancouver, in the capacity of assistant store-keeper. Anderson inform us, Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 17, that Dunn was of the party which went to establish Fort McLoughlin in 1833. Thus by many careful comparisons with reliable authors I am able in most instances to determine about the date of his several events. It is to be deplored that one who should suffer himself to write a book at all should perform the task so poorly. ' Mr Dunn's book was written with the same view as his letters to the Times newspaper, namely, to draw the attention of this country to the value of Oregon and the encroachments which the Americans made. Neither his disposition nor his temperament admitted of his telling the whole truth. Had he written his book himself, and had he not been compelled, according to his own statement, to burn his journal at Fort Vancouver by a regulation of the company prohibiting their servants from retaining any record of what passes in the conntry, his History of Oregon would be far more valuable than it is.' Parliament Papers, 3d April 1849, 58. * There never was any such regulation.' Sir George Simpson, in House Commons Rept. H: B. Co., 1857, 100. JOHN DUNN. 189 and even after she began the use of coal, such use was only partial. It was the custom at the several stations to have wood in readiness on the arrival of the steamer, while coal was not always convenient. Thus during her first northward voyage in 1836 Dunn writes: "At Fort McLoughlin we took on board about twenty-six cords of wood for fuel, which was ready cut for us; this generally lasted us, when running on, between three and four days." And again on their return trip they wooded at Milbank Sound.2 Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour report, the 26th of October 1845, that "there is coal in the neighborhood of Puget Sound, and on the Cowlitz River; the specimens used by the Hudson's Bay Company were obtained from the surface, and were probably on that account not found good."3 Thus the attention of government was directed to the coal at Vancouver Island, and at his request a report was made to J. A. Duntze, captain of the ship Fisgard, by Peter Skeen Ogden and James Douglas. The report is dated at Fort Vancouver the 7th of September 1846, and may be relied upon as containing all knowledge of the subject up to that time. Although the indications were that important strata existed along the entire north-eastern part of Vancouver Island, namely, from Cape Scott, its northern extremity, southward to latitude 50° 36', there was only one spot known as the coal-mine, and this was in McNeill Harbor, in latitude 50° 39'.4 There the beds, which were separated by layers of sandstone, were most distinctly visible upon the beach, where, for a mile or thereabouts, the waves had washed 2 William Fraser Tolmie claims all the credit due him in this coal discovery at Beaver Harbor when he says, Canadian Pacific Railway Routes, Int.: I At the H. B. post, Fort McLoughlin, Milbank Sound, having for two years incited the natives to search for that mineral, he had the good fortune in 1835 to ascertain the existence on the north-east shore of Vancouver Island of good bituminous coal, which was tested less than a year after on board the company's new steamer, Beaver, just out from London.' 3 House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 7. i This according to the report, and not in accordance with the facts. 190 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. away the incumbent mould, leaving the seams clearly exposed, particularly at low water. Likewise a rivulet running eastward across the bed exposed the strata for three quarters of a mile back from the shore. The depth of the bed was unknown, as it had been penetrated but three feet. Coal, however, had been obtained by passing vessels, the natives for a small compensation cheerfully lending their assistance in loading.5 There were a few men employed by the Hudson's Bay Company at this time in opening this mine, but from lack of proper implements they made slow progress. The quality of the coal was not highly spoken of. The substrata, however, were better than the surface lumps, which exposure had deprived of their bitumen. None which they had been able thus far to obtain could be used in the company's forges, but for steam-vessels it had been found very serviceable. Ogden and Douglas concluded their letter with the suggestion that if the government intended making available this coal for its navy, it would be necessary to establish works, keep on hand a supply, and protect operations with a sufficient force from depredations by the natives, who were there numerous and bold. But first of all, the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company in London must be consulted, after which all would be plain and easy for the subordinate officers on this coast. Upon receipt of this letter, Captain Duntze directed G. T. Gordon, commander of her majesty's steam-sloop Cormorant, to proceed to McNeill Harbor and inquire into the matter. Arrived at the mine, Gordon made known his wishes to the natives through one Sang- ster, who informed him how to proceed. A tub which would hold about six hundred pounds was 5 jj On one occasion when we employed them for that purpose, they brought in upwards of 90 tons in a few days, which they dug with hatchets and other inconvenient implements, and there is no doubfthat with proper excavating tools they would have done the work much more expeditiously.' Letter of Ogden and Douglas, in House of Commons Return to Three Addresses, 6. GORDON AT McNEILL HARBOR. 191 slung from the foreyard. Presently canoes laden with coals appeared, which hourly increased in number during the several days' stay of the vessel at that port. As the canons came alongside, each in its turn, the tub was lowered and quickly filled. Each tub was paid for as it was hauled up, in trinkets of little value. In this manner sixty-two tons, at a cost not to- exceed four shillings a ton, including presents to chiefs, were taken on board in less than three days. Gordon then went ashore, and after digging a little amongst the coal-beds, fell to naming things. In honor of the first lord of the admiralty, the peninsula forming the north-west part of McNeill Harbor was called Ellenborough; a cove eight miles to the northwestward he named Baillie Hamilton's Bay, because the secretary of the admiralty was so called, and had patronage. A fine seam of coal was found at this last-mentioned place, which Gordon surmised was connected with those at McNeill Harbor. The quality was pronounced fair for steamer purposes, and from the appearance of the country the seams were thought to extend well inland. All which information in due time reaching Sir George Seymour, rear-admiral commanding the Collingwood, it was by him forwarded from Valparaiso on the 8th of January 1847 to the admiralty. As the Oregon question was now settled, the Cormorant had been withdrawn from the north, and to any other part of that station it would be cheaper to ship coal from England. Nevertheless, these mines could but add importance to the island of Vancouver, and a box of specimens was sent forward by the Frolic homeward bound about that time. Might it not be better for the fur-traders to turn coal-miners at once than to wait for other results to flow from the pryings of government? True, they .had but little use for such an article at present; but California might take some if the reports proved true that gold, in paying quantities, had been found there, and that 192 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. a line of steamers had been established between the east and west coasts by way of Panama\ Hence it was determined in due time to open operations at the northern end of Vancouver Island. William McNeill6 was sent thither in his steamer Beaver, with orders to establish a post, George Blen- kinsop being second in command. McNeill had often been there, and knew the place and people well. Land- Northern Forts. ing at McNeill Harbor, which I shall hereafter call Beaver Harbor, with forty men, whites, half-breeds, and Kanakas, during the summer of 1849 work was vigorously prosecuted, which resulted in due time in 6 Often mentioned in my History of the Northwest Coast as captain of the brig Llama and the steamer Beaver. He was a native of Boston done into a British subject and Hudson's Bay Company officer on the Northwest Coast. He once took a run to London commanding the company's ship Nereid, and was for a time in charge of Fort Simpson. See Andersen's Northwest Coast, MS., 70. MICHEL MUIR. 193 a quadrangular stockade, with interior gallery, two bastions mounting four nine-pounders, and the usual storehouses, workshops, officers' quarters, and laborers' cottages. The establishment was called Fort Rupert. A smaller stockade protected the garden and outbuildings. Although established more as a protection in developing coal-deposits, Fort Bupert \^as nevertheless a trading-post. In this respect it was made partially to take the place of Fort McLoughlin on Milbank Sound, whence, although as we have seen the latter post was abandoned in 1843, certain articles yet remaining were transferred to Fort Rupert.7 Fort-building was still in progress when in September 1849 the Scotchman Muir, with wife, daughters, and sons, arrived at Fort Rupert. Among these was Michel, born at Kilmarnock in 1840, to whom I am personally indebted for this account.8 The elder Muir, with his family and a party of miners, was brought from Scotland by the Hudson's Bay Company for the purpose of opening coal-mines at this point. At the time of Muir's arrival, the natives were engaged at Saquash cutting out surface coal for the company. So inferior was the quality, of loose and open structure as it was, and interspersed with slate, that no remunerative market could be found for it. A shaft to the depth of ninety feet was sunk by the Muirs, who, after further examination, pronounced the seam too small to be workable. This shaft was six miles from Saquash, and half a 7 Either Fort McLoughlin was never wholly abandoned, although it is distinctly so stated by several authorities, or else it was abandoned and rebccupied several times. Writing of 1843, Finlayson, Hist. V. I., MS., 21, says: 'After the abandonment of Fort McLoughlin on Milbank Sound, the Beaver, with the officers and men at that place, with those from the fort at Tako, proceeded to the south point of Vancouver Island,'and built Fort Camosun. Anderson, Northwest Coast, MS., 22, affirms that 'the post at Milbank was afterward abandoned; or rather transferred to its present position at Fort Rupert. But subsequently the company found it advisable to reestablish a small trading-post on the old site of Fort McLoughlin, which continued to be occupied in 1878.' See further on Fort Rupert, Barrett-Lennard's Travels, 67-8; Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 275; Michel Muir, in British Columbia Sketches, MS., 20; Dean's Settlement, V. I., MS., 19. 8See Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 20-5. Hist. Beit. Col. 13 194 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. mile from the fort. Troubles arose with the natives,. who demanded pay for the land or its product; and when the white men refused, the savages surrounded the pit, threatening to kill all present should they persist in their robbery. Other complications arose, in which Blenkinsop was unpleasantly conspicuous, McNeill having departed, leaving him in charge.9 The result was that, excepting the elder Muir and certain members of his family, the men all left for California. Society at Fort Rupert at this time was a little startling to European nerves. The day after the Muirs arrived, there appeared in the harbor sixteen war-canoes, whose occupants were exceedingly happy. Victory had crowned their recent efforts against their enemies, and sweet content sat on every barbaric face there present. Not that the white new-comers had never heard of war, nor joined in shout of victory, but the American way was a trifle different from the European way. That was all; but it was enough to shock the sensitiveness of those unaccustomed to sylvan slaughter. For instance, after landing and setting on each of sixteen poles one human head, taken from each canoe as a specimen, the warriors first learned that their isle was honored by the presence of a white woman, to whom it was the custom of her people to show courtesy. There was nothing mean about them. Though the coal-diggers had refused to pay for what they seemed to prize so highly, the elated redskins would freely give this female stranger of their spoils of war. Inviting Mrs Muir to the ghastly display, they begged her to accept her choice of any two. Where would be found in any primeval centre of civilization such delicate attention, such marked consideration toward 9 ' Young Blenkinsop was then left in command, but he caused much dissatisfaction among the miners, putting three in irons, or in jail, because they would not submit to his arbitrary orders and unreasonable regulations, which he endeavored to force upon them without authority.' Muir, in Brit. CoL Sketches, MS., 21. COAL-MINING. 195 a female visitor, from savagism? Their latest, best, most hiphly prized possession, the bloody trophy of their priceless success, they freely offered. Doubtless the simple-hearted warriors, accustomed only to the restricted killing of their foes, would have been as overwhelmingly shocked on witnessing the slaughtered thousands of a European battle-field as was Mrs Muir on beholding these poor sixteen trophies of aboriginal prowess. Mr Cilmour continued the first Muir shaft to the depth of one hundred and twenty feet. He likewise instituted a thorough examination of the surface, and finally arrived at the same conclusion, namely, that coal-mining at Fort Rupert was a failure.10 Governor Blanshard visited the place in March 1850. He reported the mines a failure, and said that the men could scarcely be induced to work at all, being dissatisfied with their employers, and having few proper tools.11 Nevertheless, the ship England loaded here this year.12 It was well known that if at Fort Rupert coal-mining could not be successfully carried on, there were other places to try; or even here something might yet be done. During the year 1851 more and better coalmining machinery, with some twenty-five practical men, were brought from England in the ship Tory, chartered by the company for that purpose, and landed at Fort Rupert.13 But this had been ordered and 10 * Anotner bore was sunk directly at the back of Fort Rupert to a depth of 47J fathoms. Two other bores were sunk behind. Fort Rupert, towards the interior: one, some four miles to the north-west, where the borers were stopped by loose quicksand at a depth of SO fathoms; another, two miles to the southwest, to a depth of 40 fathoms; again, ten miles from Fort Rupert, along the sea-coast, two bores were sunk through sandstone to depths of 47 and 47£ fathoms respectively, without any signs of workable coal; these were sunk at some distance back from the shore. Close to the shore two pits were sunk, one seventeen, the other 30 fathoms. The thickest vein struck did not exceed six inches.' Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 276. 11 Blanshard's Despatches, 2. 12 Muir, in Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 22. ^An officer on board this vessel was Herbert George Lewis, who gave me the information, this being his second voyage from England in the company's, service. See Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 1, 2. 196 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. the men brought out before it was settled that there were no seams worth working in the region around Fort Rupert. The arrival of this reenforcement, however, was not inopportune, as we shall presently see. Prospects were better at Nanaimo; and thither in the spring of 1851 Muir proceeded with all his men and mining machinery, leaving Fort Rupert in possession of traders only.14 The incidents attending the discovery of coal at Nanaimo are not unlike those at Beaver Bay.15 One morning in December 1849, while Joseph W. McKay, then prominent in the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Northwest Coast, was engaged in the office at Fort Victoria, he was called aside by the foreman of the blacksmith shop, who informed him that an old Nanaimo chief, from the vicinity of what was then called Protection Island, had entered the shop a short time previous to have his gun repaired. W hile waiting, and watching operations, he noticed the men replenishing the fire with coal. Picking up some of the lumps, he observed them closely, and finally remarked that there was plenty of such stone where he lived. Proceeding immediately to the shop, McKay entered into conversation with the Indian, who reiterated what he had said to the blacksmith, giving further particulars and with more exactness. McKay then said that if he would bring him some of the pieces of the stuff, he should have a bottle of rum, and his gun repaired for nothing, which magnanimous offer the Nanaimo accepted. He was poor and feeble; the gun would help to procure him food, and the rum would warm his stiffened joints, and dispel his misery for a moment. u ' There are now no miners at Fort Rupert,* writes Grant, London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 276, in 1854, 'and the establishment consists of twenty officers and men.' See also Deems* Settlement V. I., MS., 19. 15 That one is not taken from the other, I am satisfied. John Dunn tells his story, not without due regard to dramatic effect ib is true, but in a manner wholly original. Mr McKay states hh facts clearly, concisely, and I am very sure, truthfully; nor is it likely that he was familiar with Dunn's story. ANOTHER DISCOVERY. 197 What did it matter if there were millions in it for the white man; civilization would soon get it in any event, as it was getting everything else, and upon terms equivalent, namely, a bottle of rum and a gun repaired in return for a coal-mine. The ancient aboriginal went his way, and the fur- trader went his; and as nothing further was seen or heard of the chief at the fort, little more was thought of the Nanaimo coal discovery. But the old savage had not forgotten his promise. All during the cold winter he had lain sick, very near death's door, thinking of the rum, which did not greatly comfort him. Reviving from his illness with returning spring, he went to work, and surely enough one day early in April he appeared in Victoria Harbor with his canoe loaded with coal. It was immediately taken to the forge, and examined with no small curiosity by all present. On being tested by the smith, it was pronounced of excellent quality. Then McKay remembered his promise. A Hudson's Bay Company's officer always keeps his word. The bottle of rum was given to the native. A prospecting party was fitted out at once; and placing himself at the head of it, McKay landed near where the town of Nanaimo now stands, about the 1st of May 1850.16 Several days were then spent in a careful examination of the country for miles around After which, on the 8th day of May, the Douglas vein, which is still being worked at this writing, was located by McKay. And it was from this very spot that was loaded the canoe of the old 16 t The coal at Nanaimo was first discovered by Mr Joseph McKay in May 1850, who was directed to it by the Indians of the neighborhood.' Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 277. The particulars of the discovery are from Mr McKay himself, furnished through Mr Petroff while on his expedition in my behalf to Alaska in 1878. The dictation was taken at Fort Simpson, and is entitled Recollections of a Chief Trader in the Hudson's Bay Company, by Joseph William McKay. The manuscript is exceedingly well written, clear, concise, and very interesting and important. Mr McKay is remarkably intelligent, and besides, a most courteous gentlemen. A brief biographical sketch is given elsewhere. 198 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. chief who carried the first intelligence and the first specimens of this famous mine to Fort Victoria. On his return to Victoria, McKay made a circumstantial and favorable report, and it was forthwith determined to make practical avail of the important discovery; but owing to other business, the mine was for a time neglected. It appears that the natives had first discovered a small seam about eight inches in thickness, on the undulating sandstone surface af Newcastle Island; then on the opposite shore of Com- mericial Inlet they noticed more of the black stuff, which proved to be an outcrop of the same seam, which at this latter point was but three and a half-feet thick, though its general thickness was six or seven feet.17 The natives took two hundred tons from Newcastle Island by the 15th of September. On the 17th, Gilmour with ten experienced miners began a pit18 at the north-west extremity of Nanaimo Harbor. Another spot where the seam was six or seven feet thick was struck, which was afterward worked in several parallel galleries.19 Muir arrived with the men and machinery from Fen Rupert in the spring of 1851, as I have before i-elated. The steamer Otter brought them thither, and Douglas met them there. The machinery was landed and set up, and temporary measures adopted for defence. Muir's force was small, and should the natives grow jealous or mercenary, as at Fort Rupert, they could do little that year; nevertheless they prospected and dug heartily, wasting no time.20 But it was not until 1852 that work was begun in 17 Eight or ten inches of fire-clay ran through the centre. The direction of the seam was to the south-west, and the dip 45°. 18 A shaft of 50 feet passed through 12 feet of alluvium, 8 feet of sandstone, and 30 feet of slate. Grant is loose in regard to dates. McKay, Rec, MS., 11, says 'the mine was not actually opened until August 1852.' 19 \ The seam here runs nearly level, with a dip of only some seven degrees to the south-west; the greatest quantity of coal that has been raised from it was at the rate of 120 tons per week with ten regular miners.' Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 277. This was prior to 1854. I 'About 1851 Mr Muir started the Nanaimo coal-mines, which were successful.' Muir, in Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 24. THE DOUGLAS ON THE GROUND. 199 earnest at Nanaimo. Arriving on the 19th of August, after diligent search with pick and shovel, McKay found the Douglas seam on a peninsula at the northern end of the harbor, and the men were put at digging, this making the fourth place21 at which work was done at an early day. Satisfied with his investigations, McKay erected a fortress, with all the necessary buildings, and called the place Fort Nanaimo.22 Thus was the new industry of co.al-mining taken in hand at Nanaimo by the fur company, and pressed forward with uncommon energy. Before the expiration of 1853 two thousand tons were shipped from this point, half of which was taken out by the natives. The first sent hence to San Francisco was in May of that year by the ship William. The company's price at Nanaimo was then eleven dollars; at San Francisco the coal brought twenty-eight dollars a ton.23 In 1853 James Douglas visits this mine in state. Leaving Victoria in the propeller Otter, with the Mary Dan in tow, on the 18th of August he anchors before Fort Nanaimo at precisely twenty minutes past eight the same day.24 Early next morning he is out examining the mine and buildings about the fort. McKay and his men are highly complimented by the chief. "A prodigious quantity of work, for the hands employed," he writes, " has been accomplished here; the place has quite the appearance of a little village. The mines have cost a great deal or labor and other outlay. The mine-shaft is now 211 These were all the same seam of coal, which is called the Douglas.' Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 278. 22 See Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. ii. 50. Though not as pretentious as some other establishments, it is dignified by Douglas with the name of fort. It might, perhaps, more properly be called a bastion. 23 For general description of mines at Nanaimo, see Newberry's Geol. Rept., 65-7, in Pacific R. R. RepL, vi.; Horetzky's Canada on the Pacific, 170; Raw- lings' Confederation of Brit. N. A. Provinces, 122. 2*It was with just such ponderous particularities that Douglas did everything. After a detailed description of an insignificant trip, he concludes in these words: 'Made Lighthouse Point at dusk, and came to an anchor off the Fort of Nanaimo at 8:20 in the evening, having been 9 hours and 40 minutes underweight Douglas! Private Papers, MS., ser. ii. 50. 200 ESTABLISHING FORTS RUPERT AND NANAIMO. full of water; that called McGreggor's headings and north gallery give the miners employment at present." Thence he is pulled to Newcastle Island, and visits, the outcroppings, observes the perpendicular cliffs and fine white sandstone in regular beds and on edge underlying beds of conglomerate. The 20th he examines with much interest a salt-spring which rises in the bed of a fresh-water brook, now nearly dry.25 "The coal-field between Chase River and Newcastle Island," he writes, "has been proved, it being Mr Gilmour's opinion, founded on the trials he has made, that coal may be found anywhere in that district." The 22d, "walked from the establishment to the coal crop at the head of Commercial Inlet, into which a gallery sixty feet long has been cut." Thence to Chase River, where is a gallery of forty feet; and so on. Leaving Nanaimo on the 24th, he surveys the coast to Valdes Inlet, and then returns to Victoria. About this time, 1852-3, coal was discovered at Bellingham Bay by two axemen, who were cutting logs for a saw-mill. In the up-torn roots of a fallen trees, on the side of a bank, they first saw pieces which led to an examination of the ground and the finding of a seam several feet thick. A claim was entered, and shortly after sold at San Francisco for $10,000.26 Several companies were formed to work this and adjoining claims, among which the Puget Sound Mining Company and the Mamoosie Mine were conspicuous.27 Other coal deposits attracting attention prior to 25' The spring yields about two gallons of water per minute, or 2,880 gallons in twenty-four hours. It yields about a pound of salt to a gallon, which, at sixty pounds to the bushel, would make a daily yield of forty-eight bushels of salt.' Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. ?i. 52. 26 'Altogether about 140 tons of coal had been exported from Bellingham Bay up to 1st January 1854.' Grant, in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 315. 27 'Another bed a little to the north of this, belonging to Captain Fauntle- roy and others, presented much better indications. Its thickness is sixteen feeb four inches, and the coal brighter and freer from impurities than the^ other. A small quantity got out here sold in Francisco for $23 per ton/ Gibbs, in Stevens' Pac R. R. Rept., i. 473.. OTHER COAL DEPOSITS. 201 1854 were those between Port San Juan and Cape Bonilla;28 in the country back of Barclay Sound;29 near the coast west of Soke Inlet;30 at several points on the western shore of Vancouver Island,31 and on the mainland opposite.32 The deposits on Queen Charlotte Islands attracted attention at various times.33 28 * It is, however, almost worthless, as, though it crops out on the sea- coast, there is no shelter for vessels near it.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 285. 29 * There is no truth in the reports which have been circulated of there being coal on Barclay Sound; the Indians, however, describe some coal as existing at Munahtah, in the country of the Cojucklesatuch, some three days' journey into the interior, at the back of Barclay Sound.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 287. *• «Traces of coal have been found on a small river called by the natives Quaachuka, which here discharges itself into the straits.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 284. Few of the seams were more than one inch in thickness. 81 * At Nespod, a little north of Nootka, coal is reported by the Indians. Nespod is called Port Brooks on the charts. At Koskeemo, north of Nespod and opposite to Beaver Harbor, a seam of coal two feet in thickness has also been discovered.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 288. Grant's Koskeemo is Quatsino Sound. See Richardson, in Geol. Sur. Canada, 1871-2, 76. 82 'Between Burrard Canal and Home Sound, i. e., on the southern shore of Home Sound, close to the entrance, a small seam of coal has been found.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 314. 83' As early as 1852 the brig Recovery, Captain Mitchell, the vessel that was once the Orbit, was there for coal.' Olympia Club Convs., MS., 3-4. 'Anthracite is known to exist at ^kidegate Island, Queen Charlotte Islands, and a seam of the same kind of coal is seen cropping out on the mainland opoosite, about forty miles distant. The extent of these deposits is not known, but specimens have been sent to San Francisco which were of good quality, and in 1871 there were 565 tons of it imported.' Macfarlane's Coal Regions of America, 574. CHAPTER XII. CROWN GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND TO THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY 1849. Spirit of Monopoly—The Adventurers of England More Jealous of British Subjects than of Foreigners—Colonization to be Retarded by Favoring rather than by Opposing It—The Grant Solicited as Early as 1837—Woes of the Monopoly—Failure to Obtain thb Grant at This Time—Fur-hunting and Settlement Antagonistic— The Liquor Traffic—The Company Apply for the Grant—Startling Proposal— Influence of United States Acquisitions on British Pacific Territory—Piety a Plea for Power—The Fur-trade and Colonization again—The Draft Perfected—The Mainland—Preamble and Grant—Conditions of Grant—Differences of Opinion respecting the wlsdom of the measure. Now that the Northwest Coast between Fuca Strait and the Russian possessions was wholly and indisputably their own, a vast territory without a government, too vast and too important to be held absolutely by a commercial corporation, while the near south under the liberal policy of the United States government was so rapidly being settled by ■enterprising emigrants of their own Anglo-Saxon race, it behooved the ligislators and rulers of England and of England's colonies to cast a parental eye toward this very far away and very wild and very little Britain. The history of the treaty of 1846, which determined tire dividing line between the possessions of Great Britain and those of the United States on the Pacific coast, having been given at length elsewhere in this work,1 it would be superfluous to repeat it here. 1History of the Northwest Coaxt. SERIOUS QUESTIONS. 203 That event safely over, soon we see the hand of the mother country again moving in Northwest Coast affairs; this time, however, confining her interest to her own peculiar case, and in the capacity of patron rather than that of champion. The question was what to do next. The country north of the lately defined United States boundary was a wilderness held by an association of British subjects under sanction of the British government, which had gone so far as to grant the occupants the privilege of exclusive trade with the natives for a period expiring in 1859. The question now was, Shall anything be done toward colonizing or settling the country, or any part of it, before the expiration of the fur company's present privilege of exclusive trade, and if so, what? It so happened that about this time, namely, in 1846 and 1847, the directors of the fur monopoly presented themselves before Lord Grey, quaking with fear lest American marauders should pursue them beyond the new boundary, and spoil their traffic in British Columbia, as they had already done in Oregon. Lord Grey lent a favorable ear; and from this beginning arose important negotiations.2 Since the charter of Charles II. to Prince Rupert in 1670, the policy of the adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay had been, to say the least, exclusive. Not alone had they been fearful of the intrusion of foreigners, but most of all were they jealous of their own countrymen. During the first half-century of their occupancy of these hyperborean shores, they had been forced to battle French soldiery invading by sea; some of their forts had even been taken from them during these encounters. And later they had frequently been called upon to resist the encroachments of French fur-hunters from Canada. Wars with hereditary foes, 2 Compare Hansard's Parliamentary Debates and Levi's Annals of British Legislation, passim. 204 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. however, were never to be compared in point of hatred and disastrous results with the rivalry between them and the Northwest Company. So in regard to settlement. The occupation of Oregon by emigrants from the United States had given them much anxiety, and they had exercised every means, but always within the bounds of justice and humanity, to stop this tide of population which would prove the total destruction of their traffic in those parts. Yet as in former encroachments and opposition, the government and the people of the eastern American states gave them less serious concern than their own. The cause was obvious. The dividing line between the North American possessions of Great Britain and those of the United States they well knew their government would see properly drawn without assistance from them. The bounds of their dominion fixed they could easily regulate their business accordingly. They entertained no serious fear of being cramped for territory. But when England herself should attempt colonization on the Pacific, well might English fur-hunters look to their interests. It was now considered certain that United States territory on the western ocean would be speedily settled; that there would be within the limits of such territory, and as the result of such settlement, one or more large commercial towns conducting trade direct with the coast above and below, with the Hawaiian Islands, and with China; and that between the eastern and western seaboards there would be safe and free intercommunication. With so powerful and progressive a people as neighbors, and with an overcrowded population at home, it was clearly evident that so broad and valuable a region as the British Pacific possessions could not always be kept solitary as the game-preserve of a commercial monopoly. And none saw this clearer than the monopolists themselves. Yet it was not by opposing colonization by any means, but rather by encouraging it, that the company BEFORE PARLIAMENT. 205 would attempt to control affairs for a time longer. If they could be constituted England's colonizers on the Pacific, then might they colonize after their own fashion, quickly or slowly—very slowly indeed, if such should prove their interest. Such advantage, indeed, had not been overlooked in arranging the terms of the last license of exclusive trade, the grant of 1838. When in 1837 the company petitioned for a renewal of that grant, they sought extended privileges. In addition to a license of exclusive trade, they asked title to the land for purposes of colonization, urging their services in excluding settlers of other nations as a - reason why they should have the management of settlers of their own nation. Both Sir J. H. Pelly, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company in England, and Sir George Simpson, governor of the company's affairs in America, after magnifying the hazardous efforts of the company to enrich itself, after lamenting the heavy losses sustained in keeping the country clear, alike of British subjects and foreigners, after gently chiding their benignant mother for neglecting that protection which it was their chief joy to see withheld, begged a fresh continuance of their misfortune, together with such hold upon the soil as should perpetuate them. The profits arising from the business, said they to parliament, are no more than a fair return for the capital employed; and the services rendered the mother country in securing her this commerce, which otherwise would fall to foreigners, demand further favors. Besides their twenty-two trading-depots on the western slope, they have in the neighborhood of the Columbia large pastures filled with stock, and grain farms affording abundant supplies of every kind of agricultural product, and it is their intention to augment such establishments so as to export wool, tallow, and hides, and at the same time to afford a quiet home for retired servants of the company. Climate and soil are all that could be desired, they continued, 206 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. hut in order to justify the outlay necessary to the full furtherance of the company's plans, protection, that is to say, monopoly, must be secured them; the natives, body and soul, must be theirs, likewise the soil, and every subject of Great Britain who dare intrust his keeping to their arbitrary will. Cunningly as these proposals were advanced, in so far as they related to proprietorship in the soil they at this time failed. It was now pretty well understood by England, after dreaming over it for nearly two centuries, that the adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay were not unduly anxious to make settlements anywhere. In one instance only had they attempted or permitted such a measure, and that was employed as the deadliest engine for the breaking-up of a powerful rival. The Red River difficulties had opened the eyes of statesmen to the fatal effects of colonization on hunting-grounds. It was becoming a pretty well established fact that foxes, beavers, and native hunters do not dwell long in apple-orchards. Savagism is essential to a game-preserve a thousand miles square, and settlement of any kind is directly antagonistic to savagism. In a word, it was against the company's interests to have their forests cleared, and their Indian hunters demoralized by drink and civilized diseases. This they had well known from the first, and had managed their business accordingly. Nor are they to be specially blamed for adopting a self-protective policy, which is no less the first law of corporations than of governments and individuals. Notwithstanding the very natural desire to postpone the day of their downfall as far as possible, the Hudson's Bay Company were not blind to the fact that the ultimate destiny, indeed^ the near destiny of their Pacific coast, was colonization. It would soon prove as vitally important to them as to the British nation at large, in or out of British America. Their very existence, the preservation of their hunting- ARDENT SPIRITS. 207 grounds to the north ward, and between the ocean and the mountains, would soon depend upon their ability to guard their coast against the inroads of foreign traders, who had always caused them much annoyance^ and were now becoming more troublesome. By these lawless traders, many of whom were from New England ports, the accursed taste for strong drink was kept alive among the natives. So long as there was a possibility of obtaining intoxicating liquor the Indians- would trade for little else. They were wild for it„ almost as insane in the desire as in the gratification. From hundreds of miles inland past the doors of the company's forts, they would bring their best skin& down to the sea-shore, and there hold savage saturnalia as long as they lasted. There was no controlling them or controlling business so long as rum was sold upon the coast. It was as clearly to the interests of the monopolists, or license-holders, to prevent this demoralizing traffic, as it was to the pecuniary profit of transient traders visiting the coast to indulge in it. No£ alone were traders from the United States accused of selling liquors to tribes inhabiting British American territory, but the Hudson's Bay Company were charged with the like offence in disposing of strong drink to the Indians of the United States.3, However fatal the result to the poor Indian, the fur- trading policy of the time was essentially retaliatory,, and although the truth of these charges was flatly 8 The question in 1849 was made one of official correspondence. On the? 8th of December Henry W. Sibley writes Mr Clayton, asking a remonstrance to be laid before the British government, to prevent the introduction of ardent spirits into the Indian country. He pronounces it 'a fact which can be established by incontestable testimony.' This letter was forwarded to Abbott Lawrence, United States minister to Great Britain, who laid the complaint before Lord Palmerston. The matter was referred to the secretary of state for the colonies. Finally Earl Grey received a flat denial from Sir John Pelly, and there the subject rested. Since the 13th of May 1842, when Sir George Simpson and Adolphus Etholin, governor of the Russian American colonies, signed at Sitka an agreement prohibiting the use of spirituous liquors in the Indian trade of their respective territories, that region had in a measure been free from this curse. But this agreement did not prevent resort to the forbidden traffic when competition with traders of other nationalities rendered it necessary. 208 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. denied on both sides, there is no doubt that both were guilty, i Again in 1846, when the much-agitated question of boundary was being settled, the subject of colonization was brought forward. As the right honorable Edward Ellice, M. P., remarked to a select committee of the house of commons—" Being in possession of the trade of the adjacent country under the license .. . the company applied to Lord Grey for protection in Vancouver Island, for fear of American marauders disturbing their possessions there." Earl Grey replied that the distance round Cape Horn was too far for even the long arm of his government conveniently to reach, and that the company must protect themselves. On the 7th of September a letter was addressed by the company to Earl Grey, stating that their estab- lishment on the south point of the island was annually enlarging, and asking a grant of land. A long correspondence followed, and negotiations were begun. Then for nearly a year, that is, from March 1847 to February 1848, the matter rested. From the modest first request, which was to be confirmed in the possession of the island only, the ideas of the company had gradually enlarged, until, as Sir J. H. Pelly expressed himself in a letter to Earl Grey, the 5th of March 1847, the company were "willing to undertake the government and colonization of all the territories belonging to the crown in North America, and receive a grant accordingly." It was this startling proposal, opening the eyes of the government to the real designs of the company, which temporarily suspended negotiations. In February 1848, with more modest mein, they again came forward with the assurance that "placing the whole territory north of the 49th degree under one governing power would have simplified arrangements, but the company was willing to accept that part of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, or even Vancouver Island alone; in fact, to give every assistance INEXORABLE NECESSITY. 209 in its power to promote colonization." In a subsequent letter of the 4th of March the same writer goes still further, and says: "In every negotiation that may take place on this subject, I have only to observe that the company expect no pecuniary advantage from colonizing the territory in question. All moneys received for lands or minerals would be applied to purposes connected with the improvement of the country."4 Accompanying this truly disinterested offer was a private letter of a somewhat different nature, which was nothing less than a request that the privileges possessed under the original grant of Rupert Land, giving the adventurers of England power to establish colonies, courts, and governments should be extended over the entire Northwest and Pacific territories. The magnitude of the proposal at this juncture was alone enough to insure its defeat. It was at once decided by the government that if a grant were made at all, it should be confined to Vancouver Island. Besides the tide of emigration which since the treaty of 1846 was pouring into Oregon, the United States had lately acquired California, and this alone was more than sufficient to make that nation the dominant power upon the Pacific, even should there be no foundation in the reported gold discovery, rumors of which were now reaching British Columbia and England. And if gold was plentiful in the Sierra Foothills, might it not be found north of the 49th parallel? Indeed, there had already been indications of the precious metal in this region. Where then would be the Hudson's Bay Company, with its large and widely extended interests, should the Pacific coast be brought into sudden prominence before the world, as in truth it was even now being brought? All this was purely for effect, and was, moreover, so palpably opposed to the character and policy of the company, that none but the most simple-minded were for a moment deceived by it. Hibt. Brit. Col. 14 210 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND It was well, as cautious and prudent business men, to think of these things and to provide for them. And the officers of the company did so think and so provide, for they were shrewd, far-seeing men. For their subsequent policy as well as for their past deeds, many writers attempt to bring odium upon them. I see no special cause for praise or blame in the premises. They were not professional patriots like our congressmen and state politicians; they were a commercial corporation seeking to make money by every lawful means, and I have failed to discover anything more dishonorable in their dealings than in those of merchants and monopolists generally. When a man or an association of men raise the signal of money-making, the less they talk of piety or patriotism in connection with their commercial efforts, the less they will be regarded as hypocrites.5 5 It is in exceedingly bad taste, to say the least, for Mr Martin, who writes as special advocate for the company, to devote one of the five parts of which his work is composed to expatiating on the ' Christian conduct and beneficent policy of the Hudson's Bay Company.' The fact is, there was not the slightest Christian conduct or beneficent policy about their business. Their occupation was neither proselytism nor benevolence, but the fur-trade. As a matter of course, there were religious and humane men among them—humane I think they almost all were, and remarkably so; but in orthodox Christianity they numbered many sceptics. Their lives were such as to engender thought, and thought is unfavorable to faith. Away from the influences of form and example, spending much of their time alone with nature, constant witnesses of the diversity of beliefs in the surrounding nations, the servants of the company were apt to fall into an independent train of reasoning which le& them far away from the teachings of their childhood. So that I say for that time, and as a class, the officers and servants of the company were remarkably sceptical. In this part of Mr Martin's work the company itself can scarcely take pride. It is made of prolix testimonials from church people who have received favors from the corporation, and which a night's lodging would buy. Now, no one has ever denied, that I am aware, that the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company were composed of high-minded, courteous gentlemen. I should call them exceedingly liberal, both in money-matters and in ideas. Their respect for the opinion of others, whatever might be their own, and their kindness to missionaries of whatever faith or nationality, were proverbial. Therefore when Mr Martin cites instances of courtesy extended to bishops and others as examples of piety, he renders himself ridiculous. One of his first assertions, here is that the company 'have well fulfilled the objects for which their charter was granted in 1670,' which, if I read the record correctly, is simply not true. Exploration was made only a3 they were driven to it, and then more to conceal knowledge than to reveal it; settlement was absurd on the face of it; and although profoundly indifferent as to the belief the savages entertained regarding the future state, and although missionary establishments interf ered in some degree with their traffic, they were not insane enough, while dependent upon public opinion for their very existence, to bring down FUR-TRADERS AS COLONIZERS. 211 A fur company is a bad colonizer. The adventurer of England never professed to be a colonizing company. Before this they had never specially opposed colonization, for, except in the affairs at Red River, the question had never arisen, and that settlement was made, as before remarked, not so much for the sake of colonizing as for retaliation. The company had never refused an application for land for purposes of colonization, because none had ever been made. Land held under license to trade, the company did not pretend to have the right to sell; but Bupert Land, held under charter of Charles II., they did claim as theirs absolutely, to hold or to sell as they should elect. A portion of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains might be colonized without interfering with the fur-trade; lands suitable for agriculture are not fur-bearing. In all parts habitable to progressive man, the fur- trade, from its very nature, was from the beginning destined to diminish. In the United States and in the southern parts of British America, it is already comparatively extinct. During the present century the trade in North America has diminished three fourths. The Hudson's Bay Company by restricting the slaughter have, for a time, and in certain localities, caused the game, instead of diminishing, actually to icrease, but it is only in latitudes too cold for civilized nan that we may expect the peltry trade to be permanent. All this the company had long understood, and therefore were well aware that Vancouver Island could not long remain untenanted. Again, though constitutionally opposed to settlement, it was interference with the fur-trade that the company feared more than the mere segregation of upon their heads the indignation of the religious world by throwing obstacles in the way of heathen conversion, or of treating with coldness or indifference the messengers of the gospel. They even had their own paid chaplains at many of their posts, but this was rather for form's sake. Evidently Mr Martin in his extraordinary ardor has here given the corporation credit for a, virtue which they themselves never claimed. 212 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. any small part of their vast domain for purposes of cultivation. Could colonial operations be strictly confined to the Island, the Mainland meanwhile being under the absolute dominion of the company, more particularly if there was money in it, the adventurers of ^ England would scarcely remain long averse to doing good in that way. Throughout their long and eventful career, never had they for a moment hesitated to serve their country when the largest profit was to be realized in so doing.6 In 1847 certain complaints were made at the colonial office in London against the Hudson's Bay Company by Mr Isbister, lately returned from a visit to the territories of the company. The answers given by the company to these complaints not being satisfactory, the matter was referred to Lord Elgin, governor-gren- eral of Canada, whose opinion as rendered seemed not adverse to the government of the fur-traders. The Hudson's Bay Company were now emboldened to present their request in due form, and the following year, the draft of a charter granting them the Island of Vancouver was laid before parliament. Mr Gladstone spoke against the measure, believing the corporation unqualified for the undertaking. Likewise the public journals, as a rule, were against investing the company with these privileges, and the chamber of commerce of Manchester sent up a remonstrance against the proposition.1 Two principal objections were urged: first, that the colonization of the Island at the present time was an unwise movement; and secondly, were it not so, the officers of the fur company were not; the proper persons to undertake it. Objections were made to certain features of the proposed grant. For example, it was 6 'I suppose the Hudson's Bay Company discourage having any settlement as far as they can, within their territory?' asked the chairman of the house of commons committee of Mr Ellice. 'The Hudson's Bay, like all other people, would like very much to have any settlement that was profitable, was the reply. COMPLAINTS OF SETTLERS. 213 the intention to vest in the company the fisheries of the Island, and it was said to be the purpose of Earl Grey to let the provisions of act 1 and 2, George IV., cap. 66, regulate the administration of justice. By this act, felony and civil cases involving over two hundred pounds must be tried in the courts of Canada. One of the chief arguments of the Hudson's Bay Company, in their effort to make it appear to the interest of the British Government to continue the license of exclusive trade in their hands, was that by so doing the country might be kept in peace. It was not alone to prevent competition with Canada that an act of parliament was about this time proposed, which should enable the crown to grant the company a license of exclusive trade, while the Mainland should be. opened to colonization, but also to hold the country from the inroads of people from the United States. Unless a monopoly was given to a particular class of British subjects, citizens of the United States might trade with the Indians the same as British subjects. Terminate our monopoly, they said, and you open the country to the world. In the house of commons on the 17th of July 1848, the earl of Lincoln asked if the government intended to make to the Hudson's Bay Company a further grant, giving them powers over Vancouver Island similar to these enjoyed over their other territories. The under-secretary for the colonies replied that such a measure had been talked of, but not yet determined. It was understood that the inquiry had been instituted through the instrumentality of the governor- general of Canada, and, Lord Lincoln thought, merited due deliberation. Lord John Russell answered that other persons besides the Hudson's Bay Company were desirous of colonizing Vancouver Island, and he did not deem expedient at that time such investigation as would lead to long delay. A month later Mr Christy remarked that he believed the complaints of those who had hitherto settled- 214 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. on lands ruled by the fur monopoly at Red River and elsewhere to be well founded. The system of this corporation was utterly opposed to colonization, and he hoped this valuable island would not be given them. Mr Hawes replied that none of the many persons who had expressed a desire to colonize, had offered any security to settlers, as did the Hudson's Bay Company, which already had a flourishing post on the Island, with the exclusive right of trading with the natives. The distance was great, the climate and soil were not attractive, and the expense of colonizing was beyond the purse of any private individual; the scheme would likely prove disastrous to all engaged in it unless backed by some strong power. Moreover, the proposed grant was only a grant of territory, not carrying with it any right to rule. The government of the Island was a matter totally distinct from this grant of land; it should be perfectly free, with a governor and an assembly making and executing their own laws, and collecting and disbursing their revenues, wholly independent of .the Hudson's Bay Company. But for all this, the proposed grant should not be made until the complaints of the Red River settlers had been inquired into. The world had already had experience in colonization by companies, said Mr Gladstone. The Hudson's Bay Company was at once a trading and a land company, exclusive and secret in the strictest sense, all their affairs being conducted in a spirit of absolutism wholly inconsistent with imperial concerns, which throughout the vast British empire were everywhere open and public. If he read the thoughts of the company rightly, they would say, " Colonization is undoubtedly a great evil; but if it is to be, it will be better in our hands than in the hands of anybody else, for so we shall be able to keep it down to the minimum." And to this same end they had first asked for all the queen's dominions west of the Rocky Mountains. Although Mr Howard believed it most unwise to PELLY AND EARL GREY. 2J5 confer the extensive powers proposed on a fur-trading company, yet as California had lately been ceded to the United States, it appeared to him a matter of the highest importance that a flourishing British colony should be established on the western American coast, in order to balance the increased maritime strength of the United States in that quarter. Lord John Russell explained that the company already held exclusive privileges which did not expire until 1859, that they now held these western lands by a crown grant dated the 13th of May 1838, confirming their possession for twenty-one years from that date, that these privileges could not be taken from them without breach of principle, and that if colonization were delayed until the expiration of this term, American squatters might step in and possess themselves of the island, but Goldburn did not think the last-mentioned event possible. Earl Grey saw two reasons for making this arrangement with the Hudson's Bay Company: no other persons were ready with the necessary capital for the undertaking, and the fur company already possessed the exclusive right of trade for a further period of eleven years. The company were willing to vest the appointment of governor in the crown.7 When Sir John Pelly again brought the subject of the grant to the attention of Earl Grey, proceeding on the principle that he or his associates would not derive any pecuniary benefit therefrom, but would apply all funds accruing from the sale of lands or minerals toward the colonization and improvement of the Island, his astute lordship suggested that it might be well to insert those terms in the grant, as they had been wholly omitted in the original draft. The earl himself, in a letter to Mr Hawes dated the 4th of September 1848, would not hesitate to take the com- 6The discussion of this subject in parliament Was very extended, and is ably reported in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, ser. 3, c. 510-12; ci. 263- 305, 315, and 465-9 216 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. pany's word for it, but "in order not to leave any grounds for the jealousy of their intentions, which it appears, from recent parliamentary discussions is entertained in other quarters, he thought it as well to introduce all these now well understood conditions formally into the grant."8 The Hudson's Bay Company could do no less than to admit these stipulations into the grant, since they had originally proposed them in the former petition which the government had denied. Hence on the 9th of September Sir John Pelly wrote Earl Grey according to his suggestion. On the 30th of October 1848, the privy council committee for trade and plantations, to whom the matter had been referred the 4th of September, reported to the court at Windsor on the grant of Vancouver Island, that in the opinion of the committee certain amendments and further conditions should be inserted into the original draft; as, for example, the company should not have the fish about the Island, and should not retain more than ten per cent, and so on, which report was duly approved by her Majesty. Although there was nothing embodied in the charter to change the administration of justice, yet in the proposed scheme of government now made public, a guaranty was given that application should be made to parliament to vest in local tribunals the power of administering English law, thus removing from this colony the restrictions of the act named. 8 In regard to the remuneration of the company for their services—for although they had expressed the intention of receiving no pay, it was well understood that in some shape they would certainly receive pay—Earl Grey named ten per cent of the gross receipts from lands and minerals as a fan* compensation. The remainder he suggested ' should be expended either in sending out emigrants, or in providing for the cost of roads, and buildings and other necessary charges for the settlement of the Island. As the whole of these charges, and every other expense connected with the occupation of the Island is to be provided for by the company, according to the original understanding that no pecuniary demand of any kind was to be made upon her Majesty's government, it is obvious that the company could not expect under any circumstances to realize as profit a larger proportion of the proceeds of the land sales than I have mentioned, and that therefore the introduction of an express stipulation to the above effect into the grant would be attended with no real sacrifice of their interest.' Letter from B. Howes to Sir John Pelly, 4th Sept. 1848, in House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 17. ISLAND AND MAINLAND. 217 There was no provision in the original draft that any portion of the proceeds from the sale of lands, or of the royalty received from settlers for working mines, should be expended for the benefit of the settlers. Hence it threw upon the project quite a different aspect when in addition to the restriction concerning fisheries the grantees were required to expend nine tenths of all money so received in public improvements, reserving for themselves only one tenth for their trouble. It was not at this time deemed advisable by the government to include the Mainland in this coloniza- tionscheme. There was work enough to do for the present upon the Island, and until a secure footing should be established here, it was folly attempting more difficult tasks. Upon the Island the natives could be easily controlled; upon the adjacent coasts colonists would be at their mercy. When all goes well with the savage, he is independent and arrogant. With a plentiful supply of fish for food, with fire-arms and occasional copious supplies of spirituous liquors, the natives of the Mainland would prove very difficult of management by colonists. The fur-hunters if left to themselves could manage them. They alone understood them and were accustomed to their ways. It would be time enough to take the country out of their hands when it was actually needed for settlement. We have already seen how in the forty-third year of the reign of George III. parliament passed an act extending the jurisdiction of the provincial courts of Canada over the British American territory adjoining, so that crimes committed in the Indian territories should be deemed offences of the same nature, to be tried in like manner, and subject to the same penalties, as if committed within the provinces of Upper or Lower Canada. We have seen how upon the amalgamation of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies in 1821, in order to secure to the utmost 218 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. such favors as the united interests of two such powerful associations could command, in order to obtain official recognition, a renewal of rights, more clearly defined territorial boundaries, and power more absolute and determined, pretence was made that the terms of the former act were ambiguous; in fact, that doubts were entertained whether the provisions of the act of the forty-third of George III. extended over all the territory granted by the charter, and it was expedient that such doubts should be removed. Where the power was not wanting, it was easy enough to make out a plausible case, and to have a new act passed. The act of 1821 was entitled "An -act for regulating the fur-trade, and for establishing a criminal and civil jurisdiction within certain parts of North America." By this act it was made lawful for the crown to make grants or give royal license to any person or company for exclusive traffic with the natives in any part of North America specified, other than in domain before granted, or not a part of British North American possessions. At the same time, the provisions of the act of the forty-third of George III. were declared extended over all the territories before granted to the governor and company of adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay. We have seen how on the 13th day of May 1838, the time then drawing nigh when the license of 1821 should terminate, application was made for a renewal of that license on the ground that large sums of money were being expended in the trade which, if it was to be abandoned so shortly, the company were not justified in continuing; and that the license was renewed, as asked for, another term of twenty-one years, making it expire in 1859. We have seen how on the 15th of June 1846 the 49th parallel was made the dividing line between the United States and the British American possessions, thus causing the company to move their operations back to the north of that line. TERMS OF GRANT. 219 Finally, with all this as a preamble, and in view of the fact that the letters-patent of Charles II. as applied to Rupert Land had been extended over the western territories, so far as exclusive trade was concerned, and the adventurers of England had built forts at various points within that territory, and on the Pacific slope, and on Vancouver Island; and because it would conduce to the maintenance of justice and good order, and the encouragement of trade and the protection of the natives,9 it was determined to vest in the company the property in the land of Vancouver Island for purposes of colonization, and on the 13th. of January 1849 the grant was consummated. By the terms of this instrument the governor and company of adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, and their successors, were given the Island, with the royalties of its seas, and all mines belonging to it. They were made lords and proprietors of the land forever, subject only to the domination of the British crown, and to a yearly rent of seven shillings, payable on the first day of every year. They were to settle upon the Island within five years a colony of British subjects, for to this end alone was the gift made; and to dispose of land for purposes of colonization at reasonable prices, retaining of all the moneys received from such source as well as from coal or other minerals, ten per cent, and applying toward public improvement upon the Island the remaining nine tenths. Such lands as might be necessary for a naval station, and for other government establishments, were to be reserved; and the company should every two years report to the government the number 9 It would have been better for the majesty of England to have said nothing about the protection of the natives in this connection. It should have been by this time well understood, the significance of the term protection, as applied by civilization to savagism. Spain had given full example. The only solitary instance in all the two Americas, where the natives had been uniformly and permanently treated with kindness, was by the Hudson's Bay Company themselves, and no further comment on. the comparative benefits which were to flow in upon them by reason of colonization is necessary than to refer the reader to the pages which follow upon the subject. 220 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. of colonists settled m the* Island, and the lands sold. If at the expiration of five years no settlement should have been made, the grant should be forfeited; and if at the expiration of the company's license of exclusive trade with the Indians in 1859 the government should so elect, it might recover from the company the Island, on payment of such sums of money as had been actually expended by them in colonization. That is to say, the crown reserved the right to recall the grant at the end of five years should the company, either from lack of ability or will, fail to colonize, and to buy it back at the end of ten years by the payment of whatever sum the company should have in the mean time expended. Except during hostilities between Great Britain and any foreign power, the company should defray all expenses of all civil and military establishments for the government and protection of the Island.10 No small difference of opinion arose as to the wisdom of the grant, and the act was consummated in the face of strong opposition. The friends and the enemies of the measure arrayed themselves on either side, and a war of words followed. As a matter of course, there was much exaggeration, and many misstatements, wilful or otherwise, were made on both sides. But out of the debris brought down by the combatants 10 Among othei places, a copy of this grant may be found in House of Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 13-16. The original draft is in Martin's Hudson's Bay, 168. Besides a copy of the royal grant of Vancouver Island, the House oj Commons Returns to Three Addresses, dated respectively the 16th of August 1848 and the 6th of February and the 1st of March 1849, contains copies of admiralty letters and despatches; one from Sir George Seymour; one from Captain J. A. Duntze of the ship Fisgard, tc Commander Gordon of the 3loop Cormorant, dated 7th. of October 1846; letter from Peter Skeen Ogden and James Douglas to Captain Duntze; report of lieutenants Warreand Vavasoui, March 1846, respecting soil, climate, minerals, and harbors, addressed to the secretary of state for the colonies; report by Vavasour, March 1846, addressed to Colonel Holloway, Canada; instructions of the admiralty respecting the coal of Vancouver Island; correspondence between the colonial office and the admiralty; letters from B. Hawes to Sir John Pelly; from Sir John Pelly to Earl Grey, the 9th and 13th Sept. 1848; from Hawes to Pelly the 27th of Sept. and the 25th of Oct. 1848; and from A. Barclay to 6, Hawes 3d Nov. 1848. Also report from privy council committee for trade and plancations on the grant of Vancouver Island, dated 31st Oct. 1848. MARTIN AND FITZGERALD 221 there is no difficulty in arriving at the truth, which was simply that the Hudson's Bay Company desired to control colonization on the Pacific coast; to press or retard it as they should find it to their interest, which persons interested in the settlement of the country preferred should be done by those having no ulterior end to serve.11 In the Times of the 27th of January 1849, a fortnight after the grant was made, appeared an adver- 11 Among the mass of matter published in books and periodicals, two authors stand preeminent as champions, one on either side, K. Montgomery Martin, The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island, for the company, and James E. Fitzgerald, An Examination of tJie Charter and Proceedings of the Hudson's Bay Company, with Reference to the Grant of Vancouver's Island* against it. Mr Martin writes avowedly to enlighten the world on Hudson s Bay Company affairs. He gives, first, the physical features of the territory; second, the constitution and workings of the corporation; third, their treatment of the aborigines; fourth, the conduct and policy of the company; fifth, qualifications of the company for colonizing Vancouver Island. The first part is made up largely of quotations; in fact, Mr Martin makes the scissors do duty throughout the entire work. In brief, the country is good, the system perfect, the natives well treated, the conduct of the company beneficent and Christian, ten thousand half-breeds testifying to their morality, and to prove their qualifications for colonizing Vancouver Island, he quotes ten pages from Wilkes, with scarcely a break—this, and to the point nothing more. Wilkes' testimony goes to show that the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company were intelligent, enterprising, and hospitable gentlemen, which as 1 have before remarked no one has ever denied With Martin's book before him, which is supposed to be all the information and arguments an able advocate enjoying the patronage of the company and having at hand all material extant for writing a good book upon the subject could produce, Fitzgerald writes Gladstone that there is little in the work to reply to, and what there is, is 'neither fair or true.' His reply is arranged in the following order: First, he states some recent occurrences in connection with the subject. Next he examines the validity of the grants made to the company at various times, which he pronounces from the first invalid. Then he speaks of the influence of the charter on England and America, and on colonization. Both these writers are extremists, Mr Fitzgerald leans as much too far toward one side as Mr Martin does toward the other. It is between the two that the truth lies. The original grant of Charles II. was undoubtedly invalid; but quiet occupation for one or two centuries was surely sufficient to give the possessor title as claimed, which was ownership in the soil, but always subject to the crown of England; Mr Fitzgerald's work is far the abler of the two. With ungloved hands he strips the subject of its falsities; exposing the subterfuges of special-pleaders with merciless severity; and were he not a special pleader himself, his work would carry much weight. The difference between these two writers was this: While Fitzgerald stood up to a square, manly fight, Martin played the public foul, not only endeavoring to make one thing appear another, but asserting unblushingly that one thing was another. A just cause needs no such literary trickery as that employed by Mr Martin. I do not say his cause wa3 not a just one I do not think the Hudson's Bay Company werw specially to be blamed tor obtaining the grant or for what followed. Earl Grey made some mistakes as well as the company. I only say with respect to Mr Martin and his book, that right or wrong he injured his cause by resorting to bold deceit. 222 GRANT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. tisement stating the reason why this act should not have been consummated, or at all events, not until the charges then standing against the company had been thoroughly investigated and the matter decided whether additional power would be safe in their hands.12 12 ]yjr Finlayson says, V. Land Northwest Coast, MS., 26, that it was only after British men-of-war had visited Esquimalt harbor during the Oregon disputes of 1846, that the government became alive to the importance of the Island, 'and in order to enable them to establish courts of justice, offered the Island of Vancouver to the Hudson's Bay Company, in fee-simple, on condition of colonizing it at first for ten years from 1849, reserving to themselves the right of appointing the governor.' See also British North America, 298, where the grant is called a lease; Martin's Hudson's Bay, passim; Waddmgton's Fraser Mines, 30; Grant's DescHp. V. I., in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 272-3; House Commons Rept. Rae, par. 648-54; Simpson, 1283-4, 1635-44, 1666-74, 1847-8; Maynard, 445-6; Blanshard, 5102, 5149-55; Ellice, 5834-67, 5906-33j Olympia Club Convs., MS., 1-19; Langevin's Rept., 1; Cooper's Maritime Matters. MS., 3, 4; Tod's Hist. New Caledonia, MS., 21-2. CHAPTBB XIII. THE COLONY OF VANCOUVER ISLAND UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY REGIME. 1849-1859. Prospectus and Advertisement for. Colonists—Qualifications of the; Company for Colonizing — Objections Raised — They were Fur- traders- -And yet They had Ships and Money—The Puget Sound Company would have a Share—No Easy Matter to Please All— Land, One Pound an Acre—The Scheme a Foreordained Failure —Price of Land Too High—The Gold-fields of California One- Cause of the Failure—Vancouver Island in Parliament—The Earl of Lincoln, Lord Elgin, and Mr Gladstone on the Situation—New Attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company in Relation to the Natives. Upon the signing of their grant, the company published a prospectus, and advertised for colonists.1 In the prospectus the price of land to settlers was fixed at one pound an acre, and for every hundred acres bought at this rate the purchaser was obliged to convey at his own expense three families or six single men.2 The qualifications for the colonization of Vancouver Island possessed by the adventurers of England over all other persons or powers—if indeed they possessed any such advantages as before intimated—may be briefly summed up as follows: First, capital. Money was required from some source to convey colonists thither,. 1 This their enemies said was done more for display than with honest intent. In any event, it would be a convenient argument to have at hand for the purpose of proving at any time that the failure of the scheme was through no fault of theirs. 8 * It is needless to offer comment on these impolitic and suicidal regulations, when at the same time both in Oregon and California, where gold was abundant, land was purchased at six shillings per acre. The fact was, the Hudson's Bay Company wanted to keep back emigration for the sake of the furs and other petty traffic with the natives; and so f:_\as anti-civilizers they succeeded.' Cornwallis1 New El Dorado, 35. See also Finlayson's Hist. V. I., MS., 26;. Cooper, Mar. Matters, MS., 3-4, calls the prospectus a mere sham. 224 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. to protect them from the savages, and to provide shelter and the means of subsistence until they should be able to provide for themselves. This capital the corporation had at its command, and were willing to employ it for that purpose. It is true, the crown could have supplied the means; but if with relief from the responsibility and care of the settlement, the expenditure of public money might be avoided while the object was attained, it was surely an argument in favor of the persons willing to undertake the scheme on these terms. Second, organization. The Hudson's Bay Company were there upon the ground with one of the most complete commercial systems in the world. Third, experience. For more than a century and a half they had occupied these northern realms. They were familiar with the country adjacent and its capabilities; with the natives, and how to control them.3 On the other hand, it was claimed that the company had been recreant in former trusts, that they had managed their affairs so as to return to them the greatest profit without regard to their promises, and that the additional power now given them was of a nature to tempt their cupidity beyond the stretch of average commercial integrity. Already was their grasping, overreaching disposition manifest in putting forward a draft with scarcely a binding provision in it, except that which made the land their own. They were fur-traders, and fur-trading was directly opposed to colonization. They were monopolists, and monopoly is but a species of tyranny. It is to that very end that monopolies are 3 Mr Martin's line of argument in attempting to prove the superior fitness of the Hudson's Bay Company for this trust is unique. In the first place, he quotes the money they had made, twenty millions sterling, in somewhat less than two centuries, which pocket-stuffing he calls enriching England. Then he quotes the Red River colony, which was not conducted by the company, and which was a failure, and the Puget Sound Company, which was not the Hudson's Bay Company, and also a failure. Next-he quotes what Wilkes savs of the forts and fort life, missionaries, McLoughlin and Douglas, the farm at"Fort Vancouver, California horses, the Cowlitz farm, all interesting in their way, but having little, so far a3 I can see, to do with the subject. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 225 made, that a few may reap advantage to the exclusion of the many. Further than this, by the terms of the grant as it now stood, a premium was offered to mismanagement and rascality. There was probably never made so irrational an agreement by an English minister professing to have his wits about him.4 It was well understood at that time that the company were opposed on general principles to have their business broken in upon by settlers. The grant would enable them to suppress settlement ad libitum. Again, the government might buy the Island back in ^ve or ten years, by refunding to the company what had been expended. Now the company had at command ships, forts, servants, and all the appliances of colonization. Any business man will readily understand that the company could make a feint of colonization, or begin settlement in apparent good faith, to the best of their ability, and in so doing, in transmitting passengers, and in providing for the wants of the colony, could easily charge to account a hundred thousand pounds for that which did not cost them twenty thousand pounds, and which, indeed, would have cost the government under its own management all that the company might so charge. With ships of their own in regular communication with England, and an abundance of land at their control, the additional expenses of colonization would be insignificant, and scarcely felt by them. This was the advantage the company had by being on the ground with an old established business and experienced servants. It is a well-known fact that private individuals or corporations will do almost anything more economically than public officials. It is now a pretty generally settled principle that-the * Of Earl Grey's mismanagement Mr Fitzgerald and others speak in the strongest terms. 'The minister has publicly declared by this conduct that he is possessed of no distinct guiding principles in respect to colonization. Let the public judge whether such a minister is fit to preside over the vast colonial interests of this empire.' Fitzgerald's V. I., 266-7 Hist Brit. Col. 15 226 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. public is a thing to be fleeced, and that no stain of dishonor attaches to a wasteful expenditure of the people's money; so that the company had but to make a pretence of colonization, write down large sums against the colonization account, and impose upon the colonists until their situation should be unendurable, and so force the government to take the Island off their hands, and pay the money charged in the account; most of which would be profit; the remainder having been faithfully employed to the best ability of the monopolists in retarding settlement. Here was apparent the far-sighted wisdom of Earl Grey.5 There was yet another reason why the colonization of Vancouver Island might perhaps be better performed by other hands. The Puget Sound Agricultural Company, though not identical with the Hudson's Bay Company, was closely allied to it. The former was simply a distinct association of some of the members of the latter. ' The officers of the fur company were the persons principally interested in the agricultural company; the Puget Sound Company being rather a farm than a colony. There remained only the Red River settlement as a sample of fur-company colonization, and this was a failure. Serious charges were preferred by the settlers at Red River against the governor and rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the imperial government was begged to interfere. The Hudson's Bay Company frankly admitted that the Red River colony was a failure, but claimed that it was none of their doings, but the private scheme of Lord Selkirk, and never should have been undertaken. The colonists there were surrounded by a wilderness, 5 'There is strong reason to suspect,' says Fitzgerald, 'that the company never did intend to colonize any part of their territories. They never proposed to do so until it was inevitable that it must be done by some one; and their whole conduct suggests the idea of a desire to get possession of the country only for the purpose of keeping others out. Driven out of this design by public opinion, they have undertaken to colonize or to give back the island to the crown, to be disposed of to those who will do so.' This was written immediately after the grant was made. A TRYING POSITION. 227 with difficult communication with the world without, and little market for their produce. The colonization of Vancouver Island would be a totally different matter. Already there was no inconsiderable trade between the Northwest and Russian American coasts and the islands of the South Sea and Asia. Moreover, the lands of the Puget Sound Company, since the treaty of 1846, were within the territory of the United States. The affairs of the association were not in a very flourishing condition. Now if with one stroke they might dispose of their lands and improvements at a good price to the United States, and at the same time secure a good footing in the most favorable part of an island set apart for colonization, thus forcing settlers, should any come, to subdue wild lands adjacent and beyond their limits, thus greatly enhancing the value of their own, it might surely be a good thing. It was a difficult undertaking, this of the fur-traders, exceedingly difficult, at once to please England, to please the settlers, and to please themselves. England would wish to see this rock-bound,, forested isle speedily converted into fertile fields and flourishing settlements, where her prolific poor might find happy homes and her manufacturers good customers. The settlers would like each the best and largest piece of land upon the Island. If their farm was not upon the main street of the metropolis it should be at least in the suburb. They should be furnished for little or nothing with everything they required; they should not be expected to perform much labor, for they could have lived at home if they had labored hard; the climate should not be allowed to breed diseases; the land with slight tillage should yield abundantly, and a ready market should be always at hand. As for the company—those who had been lords of the wilderness, would now be nothing less than dominators of the new subjugation society. Again, while there were many implied obligations which the company were expected 228 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. faithfully to perform, the government did not hesitate to impose duties which were not found written in the grant. As a matter of course, the crown would appoint the governor. It had been stipulated that the land should be sold at a fair price; but what would be a fair price—a shilling an acre, or two guineas an acre ? The company made known their ideas, and then it was that Earl Grey thought a pound an acre about the right figure, though on what ground is not stated. That would be assuredly cheap as compared with the price of land in England, but it might be called dear in a country where five bottles of rum would buy a square mile. It might be thought high considering its cost, which was simply the taking of it. The fur-traders knew well enough that this alone was sufficient to kill the scheme. As they were now situated, it really made little difference to them whether it should prove a success or a failure; but if the latter, it would be as well for the fault to fie at his lordship's door as at their own. The company claimed that the scheme, from the very nature of things, was a foreordained failure. It was a fine thing for the government to throw the expense of settlement upon them, but in due time they began to realize that they never should have accepted the charge. There were other restrictions imposed, by Lord Grey equally fatal to success. Not only was a colonist required to purchase the land at a high price, but he was obliged to create other colonists. To obtain a footing in Vancouver Island, the emigrant must be comparatively a rich man, and rich men preferred to remain in England. Besides the heavy expense of bringing out himself and his family, if he had one, in order to obtain a title to the waste lands of this far-away island, he must bring out other men or other families.6 Another i sing 6 Fitzgerald says ' three families or six single men.' Grant says five £ ^ men, ' being at the rate of one man for every twenty acres; no single individual coming out was allowed to purchase more than twenty acres.' Descrip» tion V. I., in London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 272. Blanshard, in House Commons Rept., 287, says that five laborers must be brought out from England A POUND PER ACRE. 229 serious drawback was the anomalous condition of political affairs, engendered by impolitic admixtures of interests, wherein the antagonisms of monopoly and free legislation were constantly being brought face to face, which will more fully appear as the history proceeds. The charge of a pound an acre as the price of the land, not to mention the condition coupled to it of requiring the buyer of every one hundred acres to place upon the Island five men or three families, was absurd. In the first place, the Island did not offer the finest attractions in the world as a place of settlement. It was far removed from the mother country, and the time and expense of reaching it were great. Though no farther north than England, it was off the main lines of circumnavigation. The surface was rocky, and in places heavily wooded, there being comparatively little good agricultural land. The market for produce was neither present nor secured. The pioneer would have difficulties enough to contend with, were the land given him together with a bonus of a pound an acre for preparing it for cultivation. Indeed, far better land at that very moment;, was being given away in .Oregon, where the climate was warmer, the market nearer, and the government as free and as favorable. Without impediment and without restriction, upon exactly the same footing as a native of the United States, by simply declaring his intentions of becoming an American citizen, a subject of Great Britain might settle upon any unoccupied lands south of the 49th parallel. Instead of five hundred dollars for every one hundred acres purchased, i For every one hundred acres the purchaser was bound to import four persons.' Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 3. A story is told of J. M. Swan, who, it is said, on consulting with Douglas, Colville, and Finlayson, in relation to the terms of settlement, was informed that for every twenty acres purchased one male adult must settle on the ground; to secure one hundred acres, a man must have four male servants, or three married couoles. 'But I have neither servants nor wives,' said Swan. ' Then get natives, was the reply;' -three Siwash men and three Siwash women, j This report, though unreliable, was circulated south of the border to the no small amusement of those who were securing their land without money and almost without stipulation. Olympia Club Convs., MS., 1-19. 230 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. in money, and the trouble of bringing six or more persons to the coast for every hundred acres secured, three hundred and twenty acres were given him, or if he could boast a wife, to the two were donated absolutely and for nothing the magnificent area of six hundred and forty acres. Strong, indeed, must be the patriotism of the pioneer to deny himself these advantages in order to maintain allegiance lo the mother country.7 Nine tenths of the pound per acre, it is true, went to public improvements, and so added to the value of the land; but seed, stock, and the implements of and aids to husbandry are of far more importance to the struggling frontiersman than government institutions. Almost all the pioneering in the United States has been done beyond the pale of government. It is true that settlers upon the public domain of the United States have suffered from outrages and lawlessness far more than settlers upon British American soil; but unlike the latter, the former while clearing their lands and struggling for subsistence have not been burdened in building institutions or supporting government.8 Failure to colonize, among other things, was charged to the gold-fields of California. Finlayson, Anderson, and others complain of the rush from the ranks of both agriculturists and traders. Grant says, of four hundred men brought out by the company during the first five years two fifths deserted, one fifth were sent 7 Says Mr Ellice, referring to Lord Grey's restrictions: ' Any person accustomed to the settlement of land must know that if you take a pound from a man who comes to settle in a wild country, you take from him all the little capital which he wants to establish himself on the land. The land is of no value to anybody until it is cultivated.' House Commons Rept., 334. 8 | Of the money arising from the proceeds of the sales of that land, 18*. 6d. in every pound sterling was to be applied to the benefit of the colony, only Is. 6c?. in the pound being reserved to the company to remunerate them, as it were, for their undertaking the agency of the disposal of the land. Colonists were to be allowed to work any coal they might find, on paying to the company a duty of 2s. 6d. per ton, and a duty of lOd per load was to be paid on all timber exported Grant's Descript, V.I., in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jowr., xxvii 272-3. i A settler was restricted in various ways in his operations, which also tended to keep back the progress of the settlement.' Finlayson's V. I. and Northwest Coast, MS., 26. EFFECT OF THE GOLD MINES. 231 to other posts, and the remainder were employed on the Island. Admitting this, which I do not doubt, I cannot regard the excuse as a valid one. The omnipotent magnet of the Sierra Foothills drew settlers from Oregon, but in due time they returned, bringing with them newly found friends. So would it have been with regard to Vancouver Island, had general relations there been happy. The love of nationality within the breast of an Englishman is strong and enduring, and many, willing for a time to endure foreign rule, would not for twice what they might make renounce their native allegiance, or live long under any government but theii-own. After the first flush of gold-gathering had passed it was supposed the mines were exhausted, and when the miners were returning to their homes then, had the attractions been strong enough, many who had learned to love the excitements of pioneering, and who still would choose to remain British, would have taken passage to Victoria with their little capital, and there have made themselves homes; so that in the end California would have proved a great gatherer of settlers for Vancouver Island, as she did for other parts of the north Pacific coast. . Several did go from California, and returned disappointed; among others a Mr Chancellor, sent by a company of Englishmen whom he left still digging while awaiting his return. His report being unfavorable, they abandoned the project which they had formed of settling in the Island. It was as early as December 1849, while the mines were flooded and mining was regarded as an extremely hazardous business, that J. M. Swan visited Victoria and would have secured places for himself and others as colonists had the terms been regarded as favorable.9 Probably Blanshard himself did as much as any other one man in preventing emigration from England, for being dissatisfied •See Blanshard, in House Commons Rept., 289; Olympia Club Convs., MS., 1-19.^ * There are thousands of people in the neighborhood of San Francisco and in California who would gladly go to a British colony, provided it was under a new administration.' Cooper, in House Commons Rept, 191. 232 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. with bis reception and treatment there, naturally his reports and letters home were colored accordingly. To sum up the case, we see that colonization under the crown grant of Vancouver Island to the Hudson's Bay Company was a failure. The causes, we have likewise seen, were several. Stripped of the cant and cunning in which legislators, fur-traders, and settlers alike inwrapped the subject, the naked truth presents itself in the forms following. The primary object of the imperial government was to save itself trouble and expense; the field was not sufficiently enticing to excite either the cupidity or the ambition of politicians. There were no spoils. While the settlers had abundant cause of complaint, and as a class such people complain with or without cause, the fur-traders desired, first of all, to hold the country in their own hands as hitherto. They preferred no colonization at present. When it must come they preferred to control it. Could settlement be confined to the Island, and the Mainland still be kept by them intact as a game-preserve, it would make but little difference with them; but they well knew that for many years the Island would not support a large population, and when once the limited agricultural fields were filled it would speedily overflow on to the Mainland. And almost immediately the grant was made the crown repented it. Before the end of the year Lord Elgin had instituted further investigations into the complaints made by the Bed River settlers, to the disparagement of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company; and on the 6th of February 1849 the Earl of Lincoln asked in parliament that the new charter or grant of Vancouver Island might be laid on the table. The attorney-general and solicitor-general were asked their opinion whether the company could hold land at all as a crown grant. In the house of commons the 22d of February Mr Hume remarked, that since the occupation of Cali- CORPORATION COLONIZATION. 233 fornia by the United States Vancouver Island had become more valuable than ever, far too valuable to fling away on a fur company, which would do nothing.10 In the house of commons, the earl of Lincoln, on the 19th of June 1849, made a lengthy speech which showed that the hostility manifested from the first toward the grant of Vancouver Island had in no wise diminished. He believed the measure a national disaster, and the parties to it culpable in a high degree. The course pursued by the government was wholly informal, and what was done should be revoked. Colonization by absentee proprietary companies had always proved a failure, and were likely always so to prove. Witness the colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, Carolina, South Australia, and others. Penn, as a corporation sole, managed well enough so long as he was oh the ground, but disaster followed closely on his absence. The superintending power of colonies should rest only in the imperial government. These fur-traders were not only commercial monopolists, but in their transactions were despotic and secret, and therefore the very worst persons to whose care to intrust a tender infant colony. In short, the legality of the powers of the fur com: pany in the matter of colonization occupied 'the attention of British statesmen during the greater part of the year 1849. The company presented no objections to the fullest inquiry, though they took care that the decision should be ultimately in their favor. In the house of commons, the 5th of July, when the subject was again opened for discussion, Mr Gladstone remarked that for Sir John Pelly and other officers of the company he entertained the highest respect, but that he was opposed to the system as applied to colonization. Again, on the 1st of August 1850, Mr Gladstone demanded an inquiry into the rights of the company over its territory in America. And so 19Hansard's Pari. Deb., 3d ser. cii. 303, 764, 1169-71. 234 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. matters went on; the settlers complained, the statesmen talked, and the fur company ruled.11 On the whole, affairs in Vancouver Island, under fur-trading colonization rule, and up to the time of the gold discovery, were managed about as might have been expected. There were no flagrant offences, no outrageous wrongs, and there was much kindness and humanity. As a matter of course, the settlers and the fur- traders quarrelled. They had not been human, else. The idea of vesting in a commercial company supreme power, making it lord of the soil and of the lives of men, and then expecting free and intelligent subjects of a liberal and enlightened government to place their necks voluntarily under the yoke as colonists, would never for a moment have been entertained by a wise and thoughtful statesman.12 The Hudson's Bay Company were sound enough and content enough throughout. Fur-trading was their chief object. They did not care to colonize, unless there was money in it. Whatever the result, they knew as business men that they had driven a good bargain with the crown, and, notwithstanding the assertions of Edward Ellice to the contrary before the select committee, whichever turn affairs took, they could make it profitable. Should colonization succeed, they would find their reward, as I have said, in bringing out settlers, in furnishing them supplies, in securing the best lands, and in developing the coal-mines. So far as the Island alone was concerned, they could undoubtedly make more out of it in this way than in holding it as a fur- preserve. On the other hand, should colonization fail, they would not only have the country all quietly to themselves again, but they might collect from the 11 Hansard's Pari. Deb., 3d ser. ciii. 549-94; cvii. 1355-62; cxii. 637-8; Niles' Register, lxxii. 274, 291; Ixxiv. 157, 277; Polynesian, v. 110; vi. 122. 12' Most English people object to be under any government except the real true British government.' Cooper, in House Commons Rept., 200. THE USUAL COMMERCIAL POLICY. 235 crown wellnigh whatever sum their consciences would permit them to charge as expenses of the failure. True to their principles, more Machiavellian than patriotic, the company continued business much after the usual way, and much as most other shrewd and respectable merchants would have done, careful to fulfil their obligations, in the letter at least, to the government and to settlers. Nor were they specially tyrannical in their treatment of settlers, or disposed, as a rule, to take undue advantage of their necessities. Their own interests undoubtedly commanded the company s first attention; there were individuals always to be found in new and small societies who rendered themselves particularly obnoxious, whose chief delight was to breed trouble and stir up strife, on whom the corporation, in self- defence, was obliged to lay its strong hands; but these contingencies satisfied, the fur-traders were disposed to treat all men justly and humanely, to walk circumspectly before the world, upholding the dignity of their government, with all its time-honored institutions, and commanding the respect and confidence of all good men. The lot of the settlers, however, was by no means a happy one. Obliged to pay a high price for land for the most part difficult of cultivation, and far removed from the protection of the fort, they were exposed to privations, disease, and dangers. As settlers scattered themselves about the Island, the Hudson's Bay Company felt obliged to modify their treatment of the Indians. Not that they were more strict with them, but less so, more conciliatory Until the white population became stronger it was not considered safe to arrest and punish a native offender; else there would surely be retaliation, and a bloody and disastrous state of things, akin to that then prevailing over the United States border. And here again the company displayed their consum- 236 UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S REGIME. mate knowledge of Indian character, and their coolness and discretion. The native offender was by no means passed unnoticed, but instead of general butchery the tribe was prevailed upon to send in the criminal, who would usually escape with a reprimand or even after being won over as the white man's friend, would carry home with him a present. This the settlers called bribery, or premium on crime; yet the result shows the wisdom of the policy, for though the nations of this region were as fierce as any described in all this history, there are no massacres or outrages to record. "Many sleepless nights have I spent," said Mr Douglas, "in my anxiety for the safety of the colony." This forbearing policy, which effectually dissipated the clouds of contention which now and then menaced the Island, was quite marked. For example, when in the spring of 1853 a shepherd was killed by a native, the captain of the Thetis found the governor in no wise disposed to turn the ship's guns on innocent and guilty alike.13 In 1856 an Indian who fired at a white man evidently with intent to kill, wounding the man, but not mortally, was tried by a jury, the governor acting as judge, found guilty and hanged. The offender was apprehended by the assistance of a force sent from the Trincomalee. Should the question be asked, whether on the whole the Hudson's Bay Company had been a blessing or a curse to the country, the reply would depend upon the view taken. Undoubtedly the lives of the natives have been prolonged by the guardianship and care of the company. The seeds of destruction have not been so rapidly sown by civilization. The country has been kept longer a wilderness; development has been retarded. 13 I Captain Kuper, who was in command, had to write several letters before he could prevail on Douglas to act.' Cooper, in House Commons.RepU, 195. NOT OVER-ANXIOUS. 237 If it is better to keep the savages in- their original state as long as possible, to preserve for them their forests and their game, to place in their hands the means of obtaining food with greater ease and safety, if it is better to keep back settlement, to keep out white men, and use the domain only as a preserve for fur-bearing animals, and as a hunting-ground for savages, then the company has been a blessing. If it is better to send the natives more swiftly to destruction, to let in upon them the dogs of development, rapine, disease, and speedy extermination, in a word, to throw open more rapidly the land to settlement, then the monopolists have been a drawback. CHAPTEB XIV. TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. The Doctor and the Divine—Robert J. Staines—A Man op Frills— His Interview with the King of the Hawaiian Islands—The Man Mistaken for the Master—His Arrival at Victoria—Mud—Parson and School-teacher—Mrs Staines a Most Estimable Lady—Quarrel with the Company—Joins the Settlers' Paction—He Cultivates Swine—The Settlers Steal his Pigs—Hot Litigations—His Sad End—The Doctor Colonist—John Sebastian Helmcken—His Physique and Character—Enters Politics—Accepts Office under the Governor—Discovers his Mistake—And Becomes a Supporter of the Monopolists. While yet the colony was young, there appeared upon the scene two men of marked individuality, a doctor and a divine. One undertook to cure men's bodies, and the other their souls; both dealt in the unseen and unknowable; hence, the ideas and ethics of neither could be disputed. And each carried to consistent conclusions, more nearly than is generally the case, the tenor of his own teachings; for the divine died, and so perhaps might see how much of all he had been saying was true, while the doctor lived. The name of the clergyman was K-obert J. Staines; he signed himself of Trinity Hall, Cambridge; and he came to the country in 1849, in the bark Columbia, as chaplain for the company at Fort Victoria. "He was a man full of frills," says Finlayson, who endeavored to receive him politely and treat him kindly, but whose patience was sorely tried by him. He was insufferably conceited, without being at all shallow-pated. He well knew the difference between himself and the common human herd, and he was (238) THE REVEREND STAINES. 239 determined that others should know it. He was not, indeed, the first clergyman to make the mistake of attempting to browbeat the company's officers in the name of his master, and to his own discomfiture. Barbarians, he thought, should know him. at a glance, even barbarian kings should delight to do him homage. On the way out from London the ship touched at the Hawaiian Islands, and Staines wrote the king, intimating that he should be pleased to do his turgid-blooded majesty the honor to call on him. The king replied that he should be glad to see him. Staines delighted in display, and here was a rare opportunity. Unfortunately that glitter which captivates the barbaric mind, his profession would not permit him to sport upon his own person. But there was a poor fellow whom he called his servant, and he might be made to bear the master's burden of pride. Hence, arraying himself in the sombre robes of religion, he illuminated his man in gorgeous livery, and so presented himself in the royal apartments of his Hawaiian majesty. On entering the room where waited his visitor, the king's eye caught the dazzling vesture of the attendant, and rushing past the master, he seized the hand of the servant, and shook it with warm, pathetic respect. Mr Staines was a married man, and his wife was with him; and however he may have felt called upon to fight evil as found in fur-traders, he was a good husband, and Mrs Staines stood true to him. Together they labored, for they were both hard-workers, teaching, preaching, and finishing generally what their creator had left undone in their little world. Together at Victoria they taught the first school in the colony, for the Hudson's Bay servants were seldom without children. ^"At this time there were no streets," continues Mr Finlayson; "the traffic cut up the thoroughfares so that every one had to wear sea-boots to wade through the mud and mire. It was my duty to receive the 240 TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. clergyman, which I did, but felt ashamed to see the lady come ashore. We had to lay planks through the mud in order to get them safely to the fort. They looked around wonderingly at the bare walls of the building, and expressed deep surprise,1 stating that the company in England had told them this and that, and had promised them such and such. At all events the rooms were fitted up as best could be done. Mr Staines had been guaranteed £340 a year for keeping a boarding-school, and £200 as chaplain. The services were carried on in the mess-room of the fort, which was made to serve for almost every purpose. Here also was erected a temporary pulpit, and prayers were held every Sunday. At this time Staines purchased some land on the same conditions as others. But he too became much dissatisfied with things, with Douglas and his administration as governor of the colony."2 Like many others with whom the company had to deal in those days, and by whom they were often severely and unjustly censured, Mr Staines was possessed of qualities more angular than amiable. Undoubtedly, he in his turn had much to try his patience; all pioneers have. He would not wholly ignore the powers of darkness, nor even attempt to overcome them, but rather on occasion allied himself with them, glad of assistance from any quarter. He early quarrelled with the company, accusing them of failure to keep their promises with him, more particularly in the matter of prices of goods, which, he had been assured before leaving London, should be furnished him at servants' rates, that is, at fifty per cent on cost, instead of which, he was in reality charged in some instances two thousand per cent profit.8 Hence Mr Staines found it hard to ask a blessing on their 1 Piously swearing at Finlayson in their hearts, as travellers sometimes swear at a way-side innkeeper. 2Finlayson's Hist. V. I., MS., 52-3j Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 102; Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 8. 8 For example, fifty cents for a salmon which the company would obtain from the Indians for a pennyworth of trinkets out of tneir shop. Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 8. THE CLERGYMAN'S PIGS. 241 mercenary souls; and although obliged todo so twice or thrice every week, or forfeit his pay, inwardly he cursed them. But to the company his blessing and his curse were one. It was out of regard for public sentiment, to which even the most powerful monopoly cannot afford to be wholly indifferent, that the fur- traders tolerated gospel ministers, rather than in the expectation that the arm of omnipotence would be through such means swayed more especially in their interests. At an early day Mr Staines joined the settlers' faction, and waged open war upon the company, still continuing, however, his heavenly ministrations. But with his own people he was not always at perfect peace. Though brought hither as a bird of paradise, his plumage was never wholly unruffled. His learning, acquired at Cambridge at no small cost of time and money, was given him in order that he might do good. Now to the fur-traders he had no disposition to do good, but rather evil; the settlers were not much better, but he must begin his work somewhere. The savages needed cleansing within and without as much as any, but that was not exactly in his line; besides they were so like swine. Ah! swine—pigs—pork. Here was an idea. There was already a sufficient number at work improving the savages, and his own race was cultivated too much already; every white man he met there carried too keen an edge, so sharp, indeed, as to be dangerous. Improved hogs might tend to nullify the effect of human greed. So the Reverend Staines affected swine. Throwing to the winds all scruple, all the refined sensibility of which he so lately made parade, he gathered from every quarter the finest breed, and prided himself on his piggery. He strove to interest ship-masters in pork, and brought the subject to the attention of his parishioners. Success crowned his efforts. In less Hist. Bbit. Col. 16 . 242 TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. than two years the Island was well stocked with a fine breed of pigs. But as riches increased so also did the good man's troubles. His swine would stray into by-ways and forbidden paths, and the settlers regarded their visits with no inward displeasure. They rather liked the parson's pork. As now and again a fat favorite disappeared, the anger of the chaplain rose within him, for he knew his pigs were sure to come home unless they were roasted. Procuring from a neighboring justice a lettre de cachet, he saddled his Rosinante, the beast on which it was his custom to make his round of visits, and sallied forth armed for the right. Not only would he gather into the fold his stray pigs> but he would punish severely those whom he suspected of enticing them from paths of rectitude. Endless litigation followed. On one occasion the parson himself narrowly escaped prosecution and imprisonment by an enraged parishioner, whom he had accused of stealing his pigs.4 Finally matters with the settlers grew daily worse, and it was resolved to send Mr Staines to England, to remonstrate with imperial powers upon the injustice of so tyrannical a rule. It was easier to obtain a promise from the reverend gentleman to go than to get him started. His habit of procrastination in this instance cost him dear, not to mention the loss to the colonists thereby. The vessel which he was to have taken, and which would have carried him safely to San Francisco, sailed from Soke without him, as his pigs were not yet all provided for. A lumber-laden craft, however, left the same port shortly afterward, and on this Mr Staines embarked. But scarcely had the ship left the strait, when off Cape Flattery a storm struck her, throwing *This character is not in the least overdrawn. These facts and others for which I have not space were given me by Finlayson and Anderson, and particularly by Captain Cooper, who knew the eccentric parson well, having command of the ship which brought uim to this^ country, and who lived near him on terms of intimacy during his stay in the island. DEATH OP STAINES. 243 her on her beam ends. Instantly she was waterlogged and at the mercy of the waves. Most of the crew were at once swept overboard. Mr Staines, who was below, cut his way through the side of the ship. His cabin was flooded, and without was the wild waste of tumultuous waters. And there the poor man remained, between the lowering sky and the lowering sea; there he remained till he died. So the only survivor of the wreck reported when rescued by a passing ship, and then himself expired. Thus much for the unfortunate divine; the doctor is of quite another species. His name is John Sebastian Helmcken, and he turns up first among the coal- miners at Fort Rupert in 1849. He differs.from his friend the Reverend Staines in many respects; and first of all he can in no sense be called divine, even by the widest stretch of irony. He had not been long upon the Island before he found his bread buttered on the Hudson's Bay Company's side of the disputes then raging, while Staines was the champion of the independent settlers. In body no less than in mind the doctor was one to command attention. Short and slightly built, with a huge head, always having on it a huge hat, balancing itself upon his shoulders; with deep, clear, intelligent eyes, in which there was self-confidence and critical incrimination, but no malice; with a wide-spreading and well-projecting mouth, holding in it the ever- present cigar, and given to much laughter; with a kind heart that gave the lie to many of his words and actions—there has never been a man in British Columbia who, with an exterior so impenetrable by a stranger, has for so many years maintained the respect and confidence of the community, who has made more friends, or performed more acts of unparaded charity, than John Sebastian Helmcken. In more paths than one—in the pursuit of politics and medicine, in the pursuit of wealth, honor, and distinction—he won the success he so richly <JeservecL 244 TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. At a very tender age Helmcken had harbored in his breast political aspirations. In boyhood he had thought of himself as born to something, and he had not long been among the savages and miners of Fort Rupert before he arrived at the conclusion that he was born to rule. He was sure he could rule, for if his subjects would not obey him he would punish them with physic. In such society he surely might aspire to shine as a great medicine; in a government so Utopian as to have an office for every citizen, surely he might obtain one. Time with him was no object; he had little to do; eight coal-miners thus far were all who could be legally compelled to take his drugs, and the natives had no confidence in him, preferring their own physicians, whom they might righteously kill when they failed to cure. He had time enough; he could attend to the affairs of her Majesty's government in those parts as well as not, and he thought he should like to do it. As Helmcken, unlike Staimes, declined to leave the Island under any consideration, as he declined to die in the service of his country or in any other service, and as we shall meet him occasionally in the course of this narrative, it is not necessary for me to dispose of him finally in this place. We shall see how he behaves in office, for office he obtained—office, the delight of his heart. The tidings of his first appointment pleased him hugely. His commission came to him in the form of a letter from the colonial governor, of which he immediately broke the seal and read. It was enough to win him to the cause of the corporation for life. Here, indeed, was a new future opening up to him, with endless and brilliant ppssibilities, the thoughts of which engendered high aspirations, and were attended with such thrilling satisfaction as those only can appreciate who have themselves been thrown upon the border-land of civilization, and have seen the light of liberation thus breaking in upon them through the wilderness. To one who has buried himself in a new country, resolved there to remain, the develop- JOHN SEBASTIAN. 245 ment of himself and his resources depending upon the development of the country, it is a great satisfaction to him when he is first made aware that he is not always to remain buried. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, during the pioneer periods of ^.merican settlement, have thus gone down into their graves, lost to themselves and to their friends, lost to time and to eternity. Now, in the incipiency of colonial government on Vancouver Island, Helmcken was the devoted partisan of the Hudson's Bay Company. And though he was not exactly the kind of a man that they had imagined him to be, in reality he was of much higher and more lasting benefit to them than if he had been. What they thought they wanted, and did n.ot want, was a gnarled knot of human nature of so coarse and unpleasing a texture as to be oppugnant to every feeling of refinement, egotistical, boorish, never suspecting the low order of his cunning, affecting irony, but achieving only buffoonery, fit to wait on Aristophanes or Rabelais though Juvenal or Lucian would none of him, making up at table in wine and loud laughter what he lacked in wit—such was the kind of instrument on which the fur-traders would like to play their new tune of colonization. All the better was it for their purpose that he should practice a profession, a business that was neither law, divinity, nor commerce, but one which would bring him in contact with people everywhere,. with those of both factions, when factions should come. Luckily for them, he had been taught to mix and administer physic, in which he now succeeded well enough; for, having no competitor, whether he killed or cured his proceedings were deemed regular, and his patients lived or died by the book. A short time sufficed to show him that office under the colonial governor was not his element. Though openly friendly, the representatives of Fenchurch street and of Downing street were secretly opposed; And volatile as might be John Sebastian by nature, 246 TWO ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. he could not serve and satisfy these two masters. Love, avarice, and ambition all beckoned him away from imperial affairs, fleeting and fading as they were. Therefore, as her majesty's presence on Vancouver Island was at this appearing a somewhat shabby affair, the little doctor returned to his original allegiance, and soon turned himself out of office. It so happened, as we have seen, that both of these men, the doctor and the divine, were brought hither by the.monopoly, whose servants they were; only the clergyman would not wholly renounce his master in heaven, would not at all renounce himself for them, he who was inferior to no being of whatsoever caste or calibre on this or any other planet. And so he went his way, and was swallowed by great waves of adversity. The doctor, on the other hand, after a brief departure from the traditional paths of fur-trading rectitude, returned to the easier pursuit, and to his pursuit proved faithful to the end, receiving to wife a governor's daughter, with all attendant honors and emoluments. CHAPTER XV SETTLEMENT OP VANCOUVER ISLAND. 1849-1857. What are Settlers ?—Not Fur-traders—Nor Coal-miners—Nor yet the Nootka Diplomatists—The Mainland not Included in the Colonization Scheme—The Mormons Cast an Eye upon the Island— Woman, Red and White—The Monopolists Seize McKenzie, Skinner, McAulet, and Parsons—Bona Fide Settlers Obliged to Take What They can Get—W. Colquhoun Grant—His Settlement at Soke Harbor—Lease to Thomas Monroe—Grant Sells Soke to the Muirs—James Cooper, Sailor, Trader, and Agriculturist— Builds One of the Many First Vessels—He Takes up Land at Met- chosin—ThomasBlenkhorn—The 'Harpooner/ 'NormanMorrison,' and the ' Tory ' Bring Settlers—The Town of Victoria Laid out— Wails from Fort Victoria—James Deans Arrives—Baillie and Langford—Progress of Settlement. The first white men in British Columbia were not settlers. To win the favor of the savages, and not to exterminate them, was their object. In obtaining the skins of fur-bearing beasts their profit lay; and that this source of profit might continue, it was to their interest, while drawing as largely from the forests as possible, to preserve the country in a state of nature, and nurse the game when it began to fail. Thus the fur-traders were diametrically opposed to settlement, as I have said before. Nor could the coal-miners properly be called settlers. Their purpose was solely to disembowel the earth of its wealth, not to colonize the country. It is only when men appropriate to themselves a portion of the soil with the view of subduing, improving, and permanently cultivating it for the benefit of themselves (247) 248 SETTLEMENT OP VANCOUVER ISLAND. and their successors, that settlement in the true signification of the term begins. There was thought of colonization at Nootka, but it was transient. Astor entertained visions of settlement at the mouth of the Columbia, keeping the surrounding country meanwhile as a hunting-ground. Wyeth thought to settle, trade, and build a city, beginning operations by establishing Fort William on Sauve Island. The originators of these and other like schemes were doomed to disappointment. The hour of permanent occupation had not yet come. The opposers of settlement were too strong for such efforts. It was only when the stomach of the great monopoly began to feel cravings for something else than purely animal food, began to see profit in feeding their fur-hunting brethren of Russian America, that they allowed their hunting-fields to be in any degree marred, and their servants to reclaim a few fertile patches of ground for their own more proper feeding. Thus settlement was permitted to begin in a small and primitive way in the vicinity of the several forts, and by the French Canadian servants of the company in the Willamette, Columbia, and Cowlitz valleys. Nor, from their own, and from a commercial standpoint, were the fur-traders wrong in opposing to the latest possible moment the inroads of agriculture upon their fur-bearing domain. Their protestations of indifference, in political circles, as to the progress of settlement, their denials of harboring any desire to retard the permanent occupation of the country, might be taken at their worth. Years before the consummation of their fears they saw that their traffic on the lower Columbia, and south of it, was doomed. And when finally by the influx into Oregon of emigrants from the United States they were driven back beyond the 49th parallel, only what they had long known to be the inevitable was upon them. It will be remembered that with the removal of EUROPEAN MARITAL FASHIONS. 249 head-quarters to Fort Victoria the transport for the Mainland interior was established by way of Fraser River, furs being brought on horses down to Hope, and thence by boat to Fort Victoria. Outfits for New Caledonia and the other interior districts went out by the same route. Yet in 1847 there was not a single white man on the Fraser between Langley and Alexandria, save at the salmon fishery below Hope. For some time yet the Mainland was destined to be kept solemnly aboriginal. As early as 1845 the Mormons had their eyes on Vancouver Island as a haven of rest, Nootka being their objective point. Even before the homely hardships of agricultural ventures, the Island began to look upward, began to put off that conventional prostitution which had so long been pronounced respectable by commercial considerations, and to array marital matters in the white robes of Christian purity. McLoughlin had been reviled by Beaver for living in open adultery. Mrs Beaver would not permit her petticoats to come in contact with those of Mrs McLoughlin for fear of defilement; so after soundly cudgelling the clergyman for his impudence, to make up for past defects the chief factor had himself married to his wife; was, in fact, married to her two or three times over. And as the light of parliament now dawned upon this dark western wilderness with ever increasing lustre, at the heels of many another officer of the fur monopoly dangled the tawdry vestments of aboriginal love unsanctified by any European formula. All this must now be changed, and the Island must put on connubial purity. Those who had incased the polluted blood of their offspring in dusky coverings must repent and be baptized, then sit in social sackcloth all their days. But for those who had overcome, white wives should be the reward. From the Hawaiian Islands in 1848 came Mrs Cov-. 250 SETTLEMENT OP VANCOUVER ISLAND. ington, of blood pure and etiolated skin, the aurora borealis of feminity, who reigned resplendent for forty years and more. Others from England followed; there were the Langfords, the Skinners, Mrs Staines, and Mrs McKenzie; and so aboriginal wife-taking went out of fashion forever. Miss Burnie, Anderson's wife's aunt, arrived from Scotland in 1851.1 Among the first acts of the company was to work out for themselves a tract of land comprising ten square miles2 round Fort Victoria,»and to have it surveyed. The whole Island had been granted them, but for purposes of sale and colonization. This ten-mile tract they desired to reserve; this they would hold and not sell. Not that the company entertained the purpose of paying at once into the colonial exchequer the pound per acre to make good their title, unless it should become necessary for them to do so, and unless they should clearly see profit in it at that price. However it should turn out in the end, they had the power at this time to hold it, and to refuse to sell it at any price. And this they did. When Mr Blanshard returned to England in 1851 there were two or three of the company's former servants located within the tract; not more. Great indeed were the monopolists in whatsoever direction greatness was the fashion; if in fur-trading, half the world was too small for them; if in farming, they would be the largest farmers in British Columbia. All the Island and Mainland were theirs, and 1 'Rev Mr Staines, who was also school-master as well as chaplain to the company, arrived at Fort Victoria from England about 1849, and remained until about 1853. Mrs Staines, his wife, was probably the first English lady who landed on Vancouver Island.' Anderson's Hist. NortJiwest Coast, MS., 102. 'Mrs Covington, now in Victoria, was the first white lady here.* Fin- lay son's Hist., V. I., MS., 96. Grant, Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 281, says that Mr and Mrs Staines were there in 1854. 'Mrs Annie Muir, wife of John Muir of Soke, died Feb. 18, 1875, aged 73 years. She came to this country in 1848, being the second white woman who landed in the province of British Columbia.' Olympia Transcript, March 6, 1875. 2 This according to Blanshard, House Commons Rept., sel. com., 1857, 207. Grant including the Puget Sound Company makes the quantity much larger. THE PUGET SOUND COMPANY'S TRACTS 251 all the power; were they idiots that they should not have a door-yard to Victoria Harbor and fort? By no means.3 On the most fertile spots the two great companies planted farms, one at Craigflower, one at Lake Hill, and so on, and brought out men from England to work them. In 1853 the Puget Sound Company had under cultivation and in charge of three bailiffs, twenty-five acres of their open patch of two hundred acres lying between Victoria and Esquimalt. Skinner's farm, McKenzie's farm at Craigflower, McAuley's farm, carid Langford's, were settlements made under the auspices of the Puget Sound Company. Parsons' bridge was built, and there a saw and grist mill was erected for the company, Parsons superintending the saw-mill part of the structure, and George McKenzie the grist-mill part.4 The remains of the mill were visible in 1878; by the freshet of 1854-5 the wheel was washed out, and the property was otherwise badly damaged. Two or three families besides several single men lived at Parsons' Bridge. And because the company was great, if for no other reason, the settlers early threw themselves into an attitude of antagonism. They seemed to understand from the first that they had the monopoly to fight, and if no wrongs had already been committed, they would do battle for those which were sure sooner or later to be perpetrated. Their standard complaints were the original terms 8 'On my arrival in the Island all the land in the neighborhood of Victoria and Esquimalt, which comprised some 40 square miles, and contained nearly all tthe available land then known, was reserved by the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound companies.' Grant, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 273. Writing to Lord Grey, the 15th of June 1850, Governor Blanshard says: 'The Hudson's Bay Company have commenced a survey of the land reserved to themselves, which is bounded by a line drawn nearly due north from the head of Victoria Harbour to a hill marked on the chart as Cedar Hill or Mount Douglas, and thence running due east to the Canal de Arro. The extent is estimated at about ten miles square. A tract adjoining of similar extent is reserved for the Puget Sound Agricultural Association.. .This last contains the harbour of Esquimalt.. .There is no water near; the water required for the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company is brought from a distance of two miles, and during summer and autumn they are kept on allowance as at sea.' Blanshard'% Despatches, 2. * Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., 19; Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 25. 252 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. of colonization, the grasping disposition of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound companies in appropriating all the best lands, the fear, of the Indians, the absence of properly constituted courts, the withering influence of monopoly on colonization, and the failure to have been admitted into the Canadian reciprocity treaty. These were the permanent troubles, besides which was a multitude of near and transient woes which well nigh overshadowed all the rest. They ob~ jected to the "truck system" as they stigmatized the company's time-honored mode of barter; laborers or any who had dealings with the monopolists being obliged to receive pay in goods in lieu of money, and at whatever prices the company should choose to fix.5 There was one vessel belonging to the company which made voyages between Victoria and the Hawaiian Islands several times a year. This ship would take freight from Victoria hence, but would not as a rule bring goods for settlers from abroad to Victoria. The open land was first appropriated, where neither milling nor shipping facilities were required, this being less expensive to prepare for cultivation than timber land. The open land was usually fertile, and capable of producing from twenty-five to forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Wheat was sown in October, and among the best fields in 1856 were Old Bay Farm and the farm of Mr Boss. The price of wheat depended on the will of the Hudson's Bay Company. They might give for it a shilling a bushel, or ten shillings if they pleased, or they might not take it at all.6 The first and only bona fide settlement for several years under the crown grant, and independent of the Hudson's Bay Company, or not an offshoot from it, 5Deans' Settlement, V. I., MS., 3. 6 Mr Grogan asked what was done with the wheat in case the company refused to buy it. 'A great deal of it is in stacks to this day,'Mr Cooper replied, 'therebeing no market for it.' House Commons Rept., 203. GRANT AT SOKE HARBOR. 253 was made in 1849 by W. C. Grant.7 Hearing of the new colonization project, he sold his commission as captain in an English cavalry regiment, and fitting out a small colony consisting of eight persons, he placed them with all his effects on board the ship Harpooner for Vancouver Island, by way of Cape Horn, coming out himself by way of Panamd,. The Harpooner arrived in June 1849,8 and the eight agriculturists and colonists with all their belongings were brought wholly at Grant's expense. After a careful examination of the country in the vicinity, he chose what he regarded as the most favorable spot available, which was at Soke Harbor, at the head of Soke Inlet, distant from Fort Victoria, south-westerly, some twenty miles.9 Grant would have preferred settling nearer the fort, where his little colony would have been less isolated, less open to attack from the savages, and nearer the source of supplies; but by the outspreading of the 7W. Colquhoun Grant was a captain of the Scots Greys, 2d Dragoon Guards, and lieutenant-colonel of Turkish cavalry contingent. He was a man of no ordinary natural ability, to which were added high intellectual attainments, as is clearly shown by a Description of Vancouver Island, written in 1854, read before the London Geographical Society the 22d of June 1857, and printed in vol. xxvii. of the society's Journal, 268-320. This article, which is accompanied by an excellent map, I have often had occasion to quote in this history. As I have before remarked, it covers the whole field of geography, geology, ethnology, and natural history, with a masterly applicati< | of science to an entirely new domain. In describing a trip around the Island, he gives particulars of the prominent features coming under his observation, describing the harbors, their natural advantages, the amount of available land, with statistics touching climate, resources, and coal and trade prospects, and an account of the natives. This statement of Grant, printed by so respectable a body as the Geographical Society, carried great weight in England, and influenced in no small degree the subsequent investigations of parliament. 8Finlayson, Hist., V. I., MS., 48, says that the first colonists arrived in 1851, but he makes the statement erroneously from memory. Grant makes it indisputable when he states, Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 273: 'In June 1849, the first batch of colonists under this system arrived, and they consisted of eight men brought out by myself; and from that day to this'—he was writing in 1854—'not a single other independent colonist has come out from the old country to settle in the Island; all the other individuals who have taken up land having been in the employ of company, and brought out to the country at its expense.' 9 Grant's distances were greater than those of later measurers. He says, London Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 273, that 'Matchousin, distant eleven miles from Victoria, was pointed out to me as the nearest unclaimed spot on which I could settle; not approving of which, as there was neither a harbour nor mill-power there, I was recommended to proceed to Soke, distant 26 miles.' 254 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. skirts of the fur monopoly, and of those of its sister association whilom of Puget Sound, he was obliged to betake himself to the wilderness beyond their sacred precincts. Soke Harbor was large, larger than either Victoria or Esquimalt harbor. It was well sheltered; and though the entrance was intricate, vessels could warp in and out or having a south-west wind they could enter without difficulty.10 The soil was good, capable of producing anything grown in England or Scotland, and the aboriginal occupants, sixty male adults in number, were peaceful. On the whole it was the best he could do. Accordingly he selected there a tract of land, built farm-houses and barn, and erected a sawmill at the mouth of a small stream flowing into the harbor from the north-east. Thirty-five acres were soon under cultivation, and a small stock of cattle, horses, pigs, and poultry rejoiced over that act of the British parliament which resulted in giving them so much to eat with so little effort in obtaining it. There for two years resided the retired captain, a solitary coloni M he who lately figured so conspicuously in the drawir. g-room and on parade, now reduced to the abject rubrship in a solitary wilderness of eight farm-hands with their attendant pigs and poultry. "Being a patriotic Highlander," says Finlayson, "he had formed the idea of establishing a Scotch colony, and intended bringing out a Gaelic school-master and a Scotch pipei." Becoming tired of such a life, in 1851 he leased his farm to some of his men, Thomas Munroe and others, and took his departure from the Island. The laborers left to themselves speedily became demoralized, so that returning after a time to find his farm neglected, the land lying uncultivated, and most of the property destroyed, the disgusted 10 The ship Lord Western, drawing nineteen feet of water, loaded there in the summer of 1853, before Grant's article was written. This vessel was wrecked shortly afterward at Achosat a little north of Clayoquot. THE MUIRS, McKAY, AND COOPER. 255 captain sold the establishment for what he could get, and abandoned the country.11 The purchasers of Grant's establishments at Soke were the Muirs, Michel Muir being still there when I visited Vancouver Island in 1878, at which time the original sixty natives had been reduced by civilization, disease, and rum, to five.12 During the summer of 1850, Joseph W. McKay was commissioned to explore that part of the island lying between Victoria and the newly discovered coalmines at Nanaimo, with a view of opening the country to settlers. Several tracts were designated; but if the monopolists could not occupy a single point on Island or Mainland without the protection of palisades and armed bastions, how was the solitary agriculturist to plough his field and defend his family? James Cooper,13 in 1851, brought out from England in sections a small iron vessel, which, on arrival, he put together in Victoria. Many call this the first vessel in any manner constructed or launched from 11 Samuel Hancock, Thirteen Years' Residence on the Northwest Coast, MS., 217-18, who, by stress of weather, was thrown upon Grant in his hermitage before his departure in 1851, reports him * a most generous gentleman.... having around him three or four servants, and amusing himself as best he could, in 1850, besides Fort Victoria, there was but one small settlement at Soke. House Commons Rept. Set Com., 1857, 294. 12' Sooke was the first place from which piles and spars were exported. San Francisco, Shanghai, Australia, Hong Kong, Sandwich Islands, South America, and England, were points of exportation.' Michel Muir, in Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 24. 18 Mr Cooper entered the service cf the Hudson's Bay Company in 1844, as master in command of a vessel sailing between London and Fort Vancouver. In 1849 he was captain of the bark Columbia. At the time I met him in 1878, he impressed me as a pleasant English gentlemen, with a mind more than ordinarily subject to the warp of fortune; consistent in his dislikes, which were lasting, harboring from year to year his hatred of the Hudson's Bay Company with unwavering persistency. He soon left the service of the company and became a settler on Vancouver Island. Visiting England in 1857 he gave evidence against the company before the house of commons' select committee. 'Notwithstanding over twenty-five years have passed,' he said to me, ' and any harsh feeling on my part may fairly be considered to have vanished, I state with all candor that difficulties experienced by myself in the early struggles of settlement in this country may be attributed to the monopoly and adverse interests of the Hudson's Bay Company.' A plain man, Captain Cooper told me a plain, unvarnished tale, but his amanuensis, a young person of more pretensions than parts, so clouded it with high-sounding words as greatly to obscure the blunt old sailor's meaning. 256 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. the Island, but they forget Nootka.14 It was employed during the season of 1852 in trade at Eraser Biver, where the owner bought cranberries and potatoes from the natives for the San Francisco market. The Indians gathered cranberries, which grew in large quantities on the delta at the mouth of the Fraser River, supplying the vessel at the rate of seventy-five cents a barrel. These berries were sold in San Francisco at a dollar a gallon. It was a new industry, and was not regarded with any degree of favor by the Hudson's Bay Company, which still held a license of exclusive trade with the Indians on the Mainland. It is true that this license referred more particularly to the peltry traffic, but the company were jealous of any interference in that quarter, and threw every obstacle in the way of any kind of commercial intercourse with the natives of the Mainland.15 Soon after Captain Cooper had opened this traffic, Douglas sent instructions to the officer in charge at Fort Langley, to buy all the cranberries the Indians could gather, and pay such a price for them as would keep other traders away. Cooper took up land at Metchosin, seven miles from the fort, and became a settler under the crown grant, being the first defection from the Hudson's Bay Company's service in that direction. He farmed three hundred acres, and called himself a colonist from 14 The owner, indeed, says it was the first on the Pacific coast. Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 5. But we may surely count half a dozen before this, as at Neah Bay, Astoria, and elsewhere on the Columbia, and on the north coast. It is unsafe to call a thing first unless one is sure that nothing was before it. 15 ' To show how entirely dependent settlers were upon the Hudson's Bay Company: I found it necessary to apply to the company for the purchase of barrels, originally intended as salmon-barrels, for the purpose of holding the cranberries traded for oh the Fraser River, Should I fail to secure such barrels, the time, labor, and expense I had been put to, to collect such cargo, would be lost. I had no thought, however, that a refusal would be made, considering that to speak within bounds, the company had at that time at least a thousand barrels on hand, the prime cost of which to them would not certainly exceed thirty cents each No barrels could be bought elsewhere I therefore applied to the company to sell me one hundred barrels.. .when, after much apparent concession, the favor was accorded to me of being allowed to purchase one hundred barrels at three dollars each cash.' Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 5-6. GRANT AND BLENKHORN. 257 1851 to 1857, by which latter date he had arrived at the conclusion that the term signified little. High as ran his expectations, he was doomed to disappointment as an agriculturist. Unlike Grant, he did not run away and rail, but railed and remained, and when last I saw him was still reviling the monopolists who had tricked him in the cranberry trade, and had, by their baneful breath, stifled his attempts at Met- chosin.16 Cooper's partner at Metchosin as well as at the Fraser Delta was Thomas Blenkhorn, pronounced by Fitzwilliam before the -select committee to be one of the most energetic settlers on the Island. Before coming hither he had been up and down the world somewhat, had lived some time in Australia, possessed a mind of wide range, and well tried by experience. Blenkhorn also carried on a lumber trade with San Francisco, and was in most ways an estimable man. Besides Grant's agriculturists, the Harpooner, which arrived in June 1849, brought out eight coal- miners to work the company's property at Fort Rupert. There were also on board two laborers for the fort farm. In 1850 the bark Norman Morrison arrived, bringing eighty immigrants; in June 1851, the Tory came into port with one hundred and twenty hired laborers, about one quarter of whom, with some coal-mining machinery the vessel brought, were sent to Fort Rupert.17 The Tory returned by way of Honolulu and Shanghai, carrying tea to England. Mr Blanshard, the first governor, states that when 16 'After Grant cameCooper,' says Finlayson. Hist., V. I., MS., 48. ' He too had sanguine hopes.. .These two settlers who might be said to have complied with the first conditions, spent all their means, and the venture proved entirely unsuccessful.' See also Cooper, in House Commons Rept. sel. com. H. B. Affairs, 1857, 190. Fitzwilliam, in ib., 119, states that he purchased the land from the Hudson's Bay Company. 17' Some have already been sent to Oregon, and some to other posts of the company. No preparation had been made here for their reception, beyond erecting a couple of log-houses, or rather sheds. In these the remainder are huddled together like cattle, as I have seen myself, to the number of thirty or thirty-five in each shed, men and women, married and single, without any kind of screen or partition to separate them.' BXmisJiard's, Despatches, 12. Hist. Bbit, Col. 17 258 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. he returned to England in 1861, besides the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, there were about thirty settlers on the Island. Of these, some had formerly been in the service of the company, but had withdrawn their connection, bought land, and had become agriculturists or stock-raisers. James Deans says that in 1852 there were in the vicinity of Fort Victoria but seven independent settlers, three of whom had formerly been in the company's service.18 The town of Victoria was laid out in streets in 1852, the western boundary being the harbor, the eastern, the present Government street, the southern the fort, and the northern, the present Johnston street.19 Two trails led from the fort; one to the Songhies' camp, and on to McAuley Point, and through McKenzie Plains to Craigflower and Colwood, the ether connecting with the town and also with Colwood, but passing round the north sides of Victoria and Esquimalt arms, and crossing the former at Qiia- massin, that is to say, Seatangle, at the present bridge. When James Deans arrived, early the following year, where the city now stands was thick brush, with intervening cultivated patches. Besides the fort there were but twelve houses within the present city hmits. Again, on the 16th of January, 1853, appeared the Norman Morrison, with two hundred additional colonists, who had engaged themselves to the company for five years, the reward for such service being land to the regal extent of twenty-five acres to laborers, and fifty acres to tradesmen, payable at the expiration of the term. It was a noble enterprise, well worthy the 18 Their names were James Yates, James Cooper, R. Anderson, R. Scott, James M. Reid, W. Thompson, and George Deans. Deans' Settlement, V. I., MS., 4. See also Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 2. Besides the above, we find signed to a settlers' petition to Governor Blanshard the names of the Muirs, at Soke, Michel, Archibald, Andrew, Robert, and John, senior and junior; Thomas Blenkhorn, Metchosin; Thomas Munroe, James Sangster, R. J. Staines, William Fraser, John McGregor, and William McDonald. In his estimate of thirty, Blanshard was as usual vague and undecided, though there may have been laborers enough to make up the number. 19 Finlayson's Letters, MS., 18th Oct. 1879. JAMES DEANS. 259 conception of honest merchants and the management of parliament, this seizing lands without pay, expelling the natives, then putting men to subdue it who should take as pay an infinitesimal part of the land which their own hands had made of value. Among these arrivals was James Deans, before mentioned, who came out as laborer, and after a few weeks' South End op Vancouver Island, 1853. service in the company's store was set to work on their farm at Craigflower, where he remained half his term, serving the remainder among the sheep at the Lake Hill station. T. F. McElroy visiting Victoria in September 1853 in company with Captain Beid and daughter, of the Island, was met on landing by Andrew Muir, who 260 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. introduced him to Mr Finlayson and William Atkinson, after which he proceeded to Esquimalt, where the United States surveying steamer Active, Captain Alden, was anchored. McElroy states that James Cooper was residing there at the time, though Michel Muir affirms that there were no settlers at Esquimalt in 1855, and that the first houses were built where the navy-yard was subsequently placed. McElroy, an American, was delighted with Staines, who scourged his own countrymen more thoroughly than any foreigner could have done. Next, the colonial academy, conducted by Robert Barr, was visited; afterward Thomas Baillie, whose residence was five miles from the fort. At the end of 1853, besides the 17,000 natives20 there were on the Island, men, women, and children, white and mixed, 450 persons, 300 of whom were at and between Victoria and Soke, 125 at Nanaimo, and the rest at Fort Bupert. Up to this time, in all, 19,807 acres and 16 perches of land had been applied for under the grant, 10,172 acres being claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company, 2,374 acres by the Puget Sound Company, and the remainder by private persons.21 At first a deposit of only one dollar an acre was required from purchasers, but that system was soon abolished, and settlers were required to pay the full price of the land, one pound per acre, before occupying. At the beginning of 1854 not more than 500 acres in all were under cultivation; and of this all but 30 acres at Soke and 10 acres at Metchosin was worked by the monopolists.22 Three miles distant from the fort, Baillie farmed for the Hudson's Bay Company, while the lands of the Puget Sound Com- 20Adopting Grant's estimate. See also Rattray's V. I., 8. 21 Sixteen settlers occupied 1,696 acres, two roods, and sixteen perches; 973 unoccupied acres were claimed by absentees. ' Altogether,' says Grant, ' including the fur and farming monopolists, there are 53 different claimants of land, about 30 of whom may be said to be bona fide, occupying and improving their land.' 22 This is Grant's statement, and reduces to insignificance the efforts of Cooper with his 300 acres claimed. CAPTAIN LANGFORD. 261 pany were worked under four bailiffs. The fur company had upon the Island 2,000 sheep, 1,700 of which in 1858 were at Lake Hill farm.23 Langford, after whom Langford Plains and Lang- ford Lake were named, was a Kentish farmer and whilom English army officer, who had been induced to enlist as he supposed in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, which treated its servants with some kind of decency, and besides was reliable in money or rather trafficking matters, for there was no such thing there as money. He was to open a farm for them on Vancouver Island;24 but on arrival, to his infinite disgust, he found himself a servant of the Puget Sound Company, and for his quarters two log- huts of one room each, one for himself and family, and the other for his men. A petition from the settlers was presented in the house of commons, the 9th of March 1854, by Sir John Packington, who stated that the same was signed by residents of the Island, each of whom gave his place of abode and profession, and that he entertained no doubt that it had issued from the greater part of the respectable inhabitants of the Island. After reciting the contents of the petition, which stated that the five-years' grant to the fur-traders was about to expire, that the high price at which land was held, and the unsettled form of government, retarded progress, and which concluded by praying parliament to provide a remedy, Mr Packington asked whether the connection of the company with the Island was about to cease, and whether it was the intention of her Majesty's ministers to establish a new form of government for Vancouver Island. To this Mr Peel replied that the connection was not about to terminate, and that the government had no power to remove the company unless it could be shown that 28Deans' Settlement, V. I., MS., 24. 24 So Captain Langford asserted, House Commons Rept. sel. com. H. B. Co. Affairs, 1857, 296-7; but it would seem that such stupidity on his part merited but little better treatment than he received. 262 SETTLEMENT OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. no settlement was established on the Island, which hypothesis the petition itself disproved. The company were simply proprietors of the Island in trust for the settlers, and there need not necessarily be any connection between the company and the governor of the Island. It was true that the commission of governor was now held by an agent of the company, but it was open to the imperial government to appoint an officer independent of the company, at any time they should so please. Earl Fitzwilliam urged the same measure in the house of lords on the 12th of June. The Duke of Newcastle said that the government would bear it in mind, and advanced the now somewhat stale argument that it was the gold excitement in California which had prevented speedier settlement; and so the petition was laid on the table. CHAPTER XVI. GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. 1850-1852. James Douglas Nominated by Sir John Pelly foe, Governor.—Earl Grey Refuses to Appoint Him—Richard Blanshard Chosen—His Arrival at Victoria—Reads his Commission—Visits Fort Rupert—Relative Attitudes of the Governor and the Fur Company—Ruler of the Queen's Wilderness—Settlers and Subjects—No Material for a Council—Nomination of Council Postponed — John Sebastian Helmcken Appointed Magistrate at Fort Rupert—The Murdered Deserters—Character of Blanshard—His Unpleasant Position— Heavy Expenses and Ill-health—What the Settlers Think of it— Blanshard Appoints a Council, Resigns, Shakes the Dust from his Feet, and Departs from the Island—James Douglas Appointed Governor. While yet the granting of Vancouver Island to the Hudson's Bay Company for the purposes of colonization was in progress, six months and more prior to the consummation of the act, the draft of a governor's commission with instructions was made out, the only things lacking for a fresh departure in the much-loved line of domineering being a governor and a government. In a letter to Sir John Pelly, dated the 31st of July 1848, Earl Grey intimated that the chief officer of the Hudson's Bay Company might now, were he so disposed, express his opinion as to the proper person to be recommended for the office of governor which was his privilege under the grant. Sir John did not hesitate to avail himself of his lordship's permission, and nominated for that office James Douglas, whose name appeared in a late report among certain papers laid 264 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. before parliament, relative to the Island. The reasons given by Pelly for nominating Douglas were that he was a man of property, a chief factor of the fur company, and a member of the board at Fort Vancouver for the management of the company's affairs west of the Rocky Mountains. This appointment Sir John did not intend should be permanent, but merely an expedient to bridge the time until the colony could afford to pay a governor not connected with the company. Meanwhile the writer availed himself of the opportunity to submit to his lordship the names of certain persons qualified to hold commissions of the peace under act 1 and 2 George IV, cap. 66. His list comprised about all the officers of the company there at that time.1 In reply to this letter, Earl Grey saw no objection to the appointment of a chief factor of the company to act as governor as a temporary arrangement, although he apprehended that the issuing of a temporary commission would be attended with additional expense. This idea of Earl Grey, like others of colonization conceptions, was, to say the least, singular. A man upon the ground, with no additional expenses, no establishment to keep up, would, according to his economy, cost more than would suffice to send out and support one specially appointed for that purpose. And if there should be additional expense, it would not fall upon the crown, but upon the fur company. The fact is, Earl Grey never for a moment intended that Douglas should then be made governor. He had other ends in view. It suited his purpose, however, to give this answer. As regarded the names proposed for commissions of the peace, he had no objections to them, and promised to take the necessary steps for their appointment. 1 Their names were A. C Anderson, John Tod, W. F. Tolmie, John Work, James Douglas, R. J. Staines, P. S. Ogden, A. McKinlay, J. M. Yale, Richard Grant, Donald Manson, G. T. Allan, John Kennedy, and Dugald McTavish. RICHARD BLANSHARD. 265 It was a most politic provision on the part of the company, their right under the new charter or grant to nominate the governor, leaving it with the imperial government only to accept or to reject their choice. Naturally the first consideration in such selection was a willing instrument, not too wise, nor yet wholly a fool, for some fools are exceedingly stubborn. Earl Grey certainly did well to decline Douglas; it would have been a most impolitic measure, and one by means of which his enemies might have made him much trouble. What then should be the next move % The earl at length intimated to his friends of Fen- church street that, as there were many members of parliament opposed to the grant, and who would do all in their power to frustrate the harmonious workings of colonial affairs under the fur company, it might be as well in this instance for the crown to nominate as weir as to appoint; at all events, the company would lose nothing in the end by waiving their right under the grant, in this first instance. The fur magnates expressed their unbounded confidence in the good judgment and fair intention of their noble friend of the government office, as well they might. If they could not have Douglas, if some noodle was required for a figure-head—for they knew that no very able or sensible man would assume the office under the circumstances—they could easily, even under the cloak of courteous consideration, make it so uncomfortable for him that he would not long remain. So, when-the name of Richard Blanshard was suggested by Earl Grey, never having heard ill of him, never having heard of him at all, Sir John Pelly offered no objection. The friends of his lordship's friends knew him, and that was sufficient. In his subsequent intercourse with the fur-traders, Blanshard was very precise on this point; he gave them constantly to.understand that he did not belong to them, but to England. To her majesty alone he owed his appointment, and to her he should do his 266 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. duty^ His relations with the fur company differed in no wise from his relations with any other inhabitants of the Island; he had no special relations with them. Governor Blanshard arrived at Victoria on the 10th of March 1850. From Panamd,, the December previous, he had written Earl Grey of his arrival at that port, of the non-appearance of Admiral Hornby, commander of the Pacific squadron, and of the absence of any means of conveyance in his long coastwise journey. And now having reached his destination, he might as well have never come. Except the palisaded square, which shut out more welcome than it enclosed, there was little to govern but seals and savages, abundantly able these many centuries to manage their affairs without the aid of her majesty's deputy. But faithful to his trust, Blanshard would do what he could. He had been sent thither to rule, and the rocks and the sea or whatsoever had ears should hear from him. Landing, he read his commission and proclamation. And that he might not be wholly dependent upon the almost tenantless isle for an audience, he begged Johnson, captain of the government vessel Driver, which had carried him there, to listen to him. The captain kindly consented; likewise Gordon of the Cormorant, with his officers in full uniform; the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company also lent their presence. The reading was in the mess-hall of the fort; and the sterile ceremony over, those present gave three cheers. The newly installed governor of this wilderness then returned to the vessel, there being no government house, inn, or other lodgings upon the land to receive him. Douglas was on the ground, ready to nullify with his superior powers any unfavorable influence arising from the antagonism of Lord Grey's governor. For some time thereafter the government headquarters of Vancouver Island were migratory. Being A FLOATING GOVERNMENT. 267 on board the Driver, wherever that vessel went the government was obliged to go. The Driver set out to coast the Island, to visit Fort Rupert and many other points of interest. Thereupon the government concluded that its first duty was to survey its domain and minister to the benighted of distant parts according to their new necessities. At Beaver Harbor the governor looked into the working of coal, which was then attracting the attention of the Hudson's Bay Company, but he seems to have entertained no very high opinion as'to the quantity or quality. He instituted a searching examination into the condition and wants of his subjects at this point, who, besides the savages and the eight miners, consisted of the oddity doctor and the mine-manager. Then he returned to his capital. And yet he was not happy. Blanshard was to serve without pay. Had Douglas been confirmed, no expense would have been laid on the government; and this was used as an argument why another should so serve. This of itself shows that neither Blanshard nor any one else entertained a very high opinion of Blanshard's worth, else he would never have been asked to serve his country for nothing, or if so asked he would certainly have declined. A thousand acres of land had been promised him before leaving London, which promise the company construed into the use of a thousand acres, and not a full title in fee-simple. Now we all of us know of what value the use of a tract of wild land in a far-off out-of-the-way region might be to a penniless politician, and who would be eventually the gainer were he so foolish as to attempt to improve such land. Such recompense was worse than no pay at all. His peregrinations over, the governor deigned to accept a bunk in the fort while a small house, offices, and garden were being prepared for him outside the palisades.2 Then he desired to know where were his * 'The piece of ground whereon now stand the buildings known as the Bank of British North America, Barnard's Express office, the Adelphi saloon, 268 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. thousand acres of land; whereupon a rocky eminence two or three miles away was pointed out to him, where a tract had been set apart for government use in that vicinity where the government house now stands. Thousands of pounds would be necessary to make the place respectably habitable, and it was no wonder the governor's heart should quail, or that a huge disgust should take possession of him. In April 1851, the governor was notified by the managers of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound companies, that they were about to occupy some land on the Island, and that the sum of four thousand pounds sterling was to be expended on public buildings under the governor's direction, but subject to the approval of the monopoly management. The buildings were to be erected near the fort. "Unless the colony is intended to be merely an enlarged depot of the Hudson's Bay Company," writes the governor, "which I do not conceive was the intention of her majesty's government in making the grant of the Island, it will be a waste of public money to expend it in the way they indicate, as the buildings will then be surrounded by their reserves, which they are neither prepared to use nor sell." The governor recognized no relation to the Hudson's Bay Company other than that usually existing between ruler and subject. That the company held the contract for colonization, together with a monopoly of the soil, was nothing to him politically. It might affect appointments and freedom of legislation, but it could not change the natural attitudes of crown governor, crown colony, and fur corporation. On the other hand, :the company cared nothing for the governor.- As their noble friend Lord Grey had taken the trouble to appoint him, and the appointee and the Colonist office became the site of the government buildings^ The well in front of the Colonist office is still known as Governor Blanshard's well, having been dug for his excellency's accommodation. Brit. Colonist, Aug. 8, 1877. THAT THOUSAND ACRES. 269 had taken the trouble to come so far over the two great oceans, they would treat him politely, that is if he would be humble and behave himself; but as for his governing them, that was simply ridiculous. He might issue all the mandates he pleased, but he would give little force to his authority without appeal to the chief factor, to Douglas, to the very man who had opposed him for the office, and who even now was in fact, if not in name, governor of the Island. Great indeed must have been his desire of ruling this wild island of the north-west when he was willing to accept the commission as governor, without salary, and pay his own expenses. True, there was the promise of Sir John Pelly, of a thousand acres of land, such as he should anywhere select. This, at a pound an acre, was a thousand pounds to begin with, and when settlers should flock thither, as he was sure they would, and a civil list should be formed, and fat colonial revenue should roll in from land sales and royalties on coal, then the whilom liberality and disinterested services of the first governor would be remembered, and a comfortable consideration would be awarded him, and he would be the father of his country for. many years to come. Moreover, his thousand acres of land, from one, thousand pounds in value, might increase to twenty thousand. Then who should say that honor was not profitable? But alas! for human hopes. Sir John Pelly was governor only of the London part of the Hudson's Bay Company. Mr Douglas, who acted as agent for the sale of the land on Vancouver Island, knew nothing of Sir John's promise, which Mr Blanshard had failed to secure in writing, knew nothing of thousand- acre gifts, and referred the simple-minded governor to England for the fulfilment of the promise. Mr Blanshard then begged one hundred of the promised thousand acres, that he might occupy them as a settler, if they should not be given him as governor. But no. The promised thousand acres, he was finally told, were 270 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. intended for the use of the governor only while he was .upon the Island. He might select, subdue, and beautify the tract for his successor, should he so please, but he could not sell nor pocket any of the proceeds of it. This is Mr Blanshard's side of the story. The governor might easily have misunderstood Sir John, or the latter may wilfully have deceived him. However that may have been, the company assuredly had no right to give land to the governor, or to any one else, unless they chose to pay for it themselves, and that in this instance they were not likely to do, as Blanshard was not their choice for the office, and they were evidently not disposed to go far out of their way to make his stay in their isle pleasant. This we shall see amply demonstrated as we proceed. The governor's passage out cost him three hundred pounds. Of this the company paid one hundred and seventy-five pounds; and this was all he ever received from them. When he returned, a British sloop of war carried him to San Francisco, and thence he paid his own passage to London. During the time he spent upon the Island his living cost him eleven hundred pounds a year, and for such articles as he was obliged to purchase from the company he paid what was called the cash price, which was the price charged to strangers, and about three hundred per cent over London cost.8 Nor did the governor's troubles end here. Indeed, they had only just begun. He had been instructed before sailing for this region, upon his arrival to nominate a council. But whom should he nomi- 8«The price of everything was regulated by that in California; and as the gold fever was then at its height, living there was of course extremely expensive. . .They had three several prices in the Hudson's Bay Company's stores at that time, one for the superior officers of the company, another for the servants, and a third, which they called their cash price, at which they sold the goods to settlers.. .The officers received their goods at thirty-three per cent increase upon the cost price; the servants and inferior officers, varying from fifty to one hundred.' Blanshard, in House Commons Rept., 288. AT BEAVER HARBOR. 271 nate? At Beaver Harbor McNeill had informed him that there were ten thousand natives thereabout, who were fast disappearing, notwithstanding the sale of spirituous liquors had been prohibited, and the prohibition for some time past enforced. These might do, for lack of better material, as subjects, but they were hardly fit to take part in regulating the affairs of a highly civilized colony. The council should be selected from settlers, but as yet there were no settlers there. Few of the fur-hunting fraternity possessed the landed property qualification necessary to entitle them to vote for members of assembly; and even had they possessed the requisite qualifications,, the council so chosen must have been wholly drawn from the ranks of the Hudson's Bay Company, whom it was the governor's determined purpose to control, instead of being controlled by them. His position was certainly anomalous. Made governor of a colony which was no colony, he was sent to a wilderness to control settlers not yet arrived, and who, should they ever be so unfortunate as to reach that shore, would, in his opinion, find precarious subsistence.* Nor was an immediate arrival of settlers at all likely. In his dilemma he concluded to ask further instructions of his government. The material interests of his empire would scarcely suffer in the mean time. For the colliers at Beaver Harbor, who had manifested a bias toward lawlessness, the governor thought best to appoint a magistrate, and, as there was no one else available, he named for that office John Sebastian Helmcken, the newly arrived doctor, to whom I have taken occasion to allude before, then domiciled at Fort Rupert. In vain the governor had hoped that one coming * *!Ple <luantity °f arable land, or land that can be made arable,' he writes to Earl Grey, the 8th of April 1850, 4s, so far as I can ascertain, exceedingly limited throughout the Island, which consists almost entirely of broken ranges of rocky hills intersected by ravines and valleys so narow as to render them useless for cultivation.' Blanshard's Despatches, 2. 272 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. fresh from the mother-country, "a stranger," as he expresses it, "to the petty brawls that have occurred and the ill-feelings they have occasioned between the Hudson's Bay Company and their servants," would be free from the contaminating influences of selfish interests.5 But this was, perhaps, too much to expect of any man. In the evolution of civilization, even- handed justice never flies west. At all events, the governor soon repented of his choice. He had made the appointment contrary to his better judgment, being impelled thereto by the necessities of the case.6 Meanwhile, time hung heavily on Blanshard's hands. Set down upon the bare rocks of this mist-enveloped isle, with the only white people on it, those on whom he was dependent for everything, for subjects, for society, and for creature comforts, opposed to his rule in all their interests, he felt himself to be utterly powerless and forlorn, and could scarcely realize that he was governor except by taking out his commission and reading it to himself occasionally. During the summer of 1850, a case occurred at Fort Rupert, while yet John Sebastian wore ermine, which casts dark reproach, both upon the Hudson's Bay Company and the officers of the imperial government, and which tended in no wise to reconcile Blanshard to his anomalous position. 5 The governor promptly acknowledged his mistake. Writing of him from Fort Rupert, on the 19th of October 1850, he says: ' The only causes are between the Hudson's Bay Company and their servants; and, as being a paid servant of the former, he cannot be considered an impartial person.' Again, on the 29th of March 1851, being then at Victoria, he states that Mr Helmcken having been called upon since his arrival here, 'to give up, or furnish copies of, his official correspondence while magistrate, to the Hudson's Bay Company's agent, who thus used his authority over Mr Helmcken as chief factor in the company's service, has quite confirmed me in my opinion of the impropriety of making appointments among the company's servants.' Blanshard's Despatches, 4, 9. 6 \ As there are no independent settlers, all cases that can occur requiring magisterial interference are disputes between the representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company and their servants. To appoint the former magistrates, would be to make them judges in their own causes, and to arm them with additional power, which few of them would exert discreetly. Blanshard s Despatches, 3. CALIFORNIA GOLD. .273 The ship "England, on her way from the southern coast to Fort Rupert for coals, stopped at Victoria for sailors, the vessel being short of hands. The California gold excitement was everywhere raging, and sailors willingly risked their lives to free themselves from service. From one of the company's vessels then lying at Victoria, three men deserted to the England, which then continued her way to Fort Rupert. Meanwhile notice was sent to Rupert of the deserters, who thereupon became frightened, left the England, and took to the woods, intending to join the vessel at another port. Indians were sent in pursuit with orders from Blenkinsop, then acting for the company at Fort Rupert, to bring in the deserters dead or alive. Four days afterward the Indians returned and claimed the reward, saying that they had killed them all. It was true. The sailors had been shot down in the forest by savages set upon them by an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company.7 Blenkinsop gave directions to have buried the bodies of the murdered men where they lay, and let the matter be hushed, but Muir insisted that they should be interred at the fort, and it was done. Very naturally the colliers were furious. They did not hesitate to charge the Hudson's Bay Company with having instigated the murder, and they refused any obedience to the officers of the company or to Helmcken as magistrate. The governor had no force whatever with which to apprehend the murderers, and no people from whom to draw a force. Says Blanshard, j the only safeguard of the colony," by which term the governor dignifies the revolted colliers—for of a surety the Hudson's Bay Company were always their own safeguard—"consists in the occasional visits of the cruisers of the Pacific 7' Two conflicting stories were in circulation at once, which, being traced to the same source, raised suspicions of foul play, and caused the report that I have previously mentioned, viz.: that the unfortunate men had been murdered by order of the Hudson's Bay Company.' Letter, Governor Blanshard to Earl Grey, 19th Oct. 1850. Michel Muir, who was at Fort Rupert at the time, confirms what Governor Blanshard said. Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 15, 16, Hist. Beit. Col. 18 274 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. squadron, which only occur at rare intervals, and for short calls." Fortunately for the governor's desires, on the 22d of September 1850, about a month after the murderous affair, H. M. S. Daedalus, Captain Wellesley, arrived at Victoria, when the governor went on board and proceeded at once to Rupert. Now mark the course of justice pursued by the officers of the imperial government. Instead of proceeding against the instigators of the murder, and arresting the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, as they should have done, they direct the lull force of their vengeance against the natives. Helmcken, the newly-fledged magistrate, cognizant of the whole affair, and well knowing who were the guilty persons, and what hand he himself had had in it, goes to the Newittee camp, twelve miles distant, and loudly demands the surrender of the murderers. The savages acknowledge the murder, but plead that they were only executing orders. Truer to themselves and to the right than were the white men, they refused to give up the perpetrators of the deed, but offered to give up the property paid them by the white men for the commission of the crime. This did not satisfy the European justice-dealers. Servants of the Hudson's Bay Company had been slain by order of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company. Some one must be punished; and as they did not wish to hang themselves, they must find victims among their instruments. As the magistrate was unable to accomplish their purpose, Wellesley sent a force under Lieutenant Burton, in three boats of the Daedalus, against the Newittees. Finding their camp deserted, Burton destroyed the village, and made a bonfire of all the property he could find. The following summer, H. M. S. Daphne, ^ Captain Fanshawe, arrived. Meanwhile the Newittees had rebuilt their village, supposing the white men satisfied with the injury already inflicted. One day while holding a potlach, and being at peace, as they DISMAL GUBERNATORIAL PROSPECTS. 275 believed, with the white men, the Daphne's boats, under Lieutenant Lacy, crept into their harbor, and announced their arrival by a discharge of musketry. Men, women, and children were mercilessly cut down, persons innocent of any thought of wrong against their murderers, and their village again destroyed. Then the Daphne sailed away. Justice was satisfied; and Blenkinsop and the rest of them went about their work as usual. By this time the reader- can judge pretty well the character of the colonial governor. -First we cannot but regard him as a good, honest man, but assuredly not a very shrewd one. In fact he did not claim worldly wisdom or any special clearness of intellect. Name and position were primary considerations with him. If shelter and food came with them, well; if not, there would still be greatness to feed on. Before the house of commons select committee, five years after his return from the Northwest Coast, the ex-governor could not tell whether the grant of the Island had been made in 1848 or in 1849, he thought during the former year. On his way out he lost his commission papers in the Chagres River, and seemed every way the son of misfortune. Yet he was very much of a gentleman, and a strictly conscientious man. His position at Vancouver Island was a most trying one. The ill-feeling of the company toward him, added to ill-health and lack of funds, stripped his position of its dignity, and degraded him to the level of a common practitioner in arbitrating the disputes brought before him. As he had been called to the bar, he was cognizant of the law and familiar with the practice. As there were no means of paying a recorder, he was obliged to administer justice himself, and when he wanted a constable he swore one in. Now he could but ask himself why he had accepted this miserable post. He had had experience as a colo- 276 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. nizer in the West India Islands, in British Honduras, and in India, and he saw no reason why he should not succeed in the newly granted isle. But he soon learned to his cost and sorrow that he was not wanted. A governor was sadly out of place there at that time, worse than a supernumerary. There was nothing for him to do but to act as ordinary magistrate, and decide disputes between the company and their servants. This was exactly what the Hudson's Bay Company did not desire. Of all things they abhorred interference. They were not accustomed to it. Absolute obedience on the part of subordinates had been the basis of their internal economy for the past century or two, and to have now a magistrate come between them and their servants, who seemed suddenly to find themselves surrounded by discomforts, and the victims of alleged impositions which they had never before thought of, was unendurable.8 Hitherto he had regarded himself as a man of some pretensions, and under ordinary circumstances would not be likely to forget himself or his mission. To be governor of a crown colony, though his domain were barren rocks, and tenantless, was to snuff the atmosphere of royalty, and dwell beneath the shadow of the crown. It is sweet to rule, to dominate our fellows, to walk as gods among men, to sit the object of even the hollow forms we know their adoration to be, and our governor was by no means above the average man in this respect. He had come far from home and friends for the poor privilege of being called ruler of this wilderness; but never in his life was his presence so insignificant, or his influence less felt. He was here a nonentity, and of all his liege subjects the least. It was the irony of delegated rule, this planting of 8 'Were there many of those disputes?' asked Viscount Goderich of Mr Blanshard. IA great many,' was the reply. ' On what ground ?' * V***™1' tent among the servants.' 'At being ill-treated by the company? 'They considered themselves ill-treated; that they had been brought out there under a delusion, and had been promised many things which were not fulfilled. Blanshard, in House Commons Rept., 289. AWFUL IRREGULARITY, 277 a poor man upon these distant and inhospitable rocks, with dominion over them. Though backed by the greatest nation on earth, he was more helpless than the seventh wife of a savage. Nature was there, whence man draws all his arts of governing, but he was least of nature's subjects. Yet in all things Blanshard was as straightforward as the historiographer Yu, of whom Confucius wrote that when good government prevailed in his state he was like an arrow, and when bad government prevailed he was like an arrow. The qualities of mind and heart he might have displayed had opportunity been his, it is useless for us to speculate upon. There was absolutely nothing here for him to do, and like a sensible man he saw it and determined to resign. There was no glory to be obtained in so inglorious a situation. The months passed by and no settlers arrived, no sales of land were effected, and no coal had been found which promised profitable returns. A line of steamers had been put on between San Francisco and the Oregon country, else the facilities for communication with home and the busy world were of the most meagre and unreliable description. To add to the governor's unhappy forebodings, gold had been discovered on the Spokane River, and there was now every indication that the Scotch colliers and fur-hunters would hasten thither en masse, leaving him without a solitary subject. Although the temper of the governor was kept continually stirred by petty slights and innuendoes, there was but one open rupture between him and the head of the fur company, which, considering the irritating circumstances under which they were placed, speaks well for both these gentlemen sides. The circumstance I allude to was the illegal signing of a ship-register upon a change of masters. It appears to have been the custom of the Hudson's Bay Company, and admitted under the navigation 278 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. act, in the absence of a crown officer, for the chief factor to sign the registers of sea-going vessels. One day ,the newly appointed master of the Hudson s Bay Company's schooner Cadboro brought Blanshard the register of the vessel, remarking that he was not at all satisfied with some alterations which had been made, and asked if the company's servants possessed the right to make such alterations. The governor replied that they did not, at the same time telling him that if he would bring him the register he would sign it. Next day the Cadboro put to sea, the master not having again seen the governor, and the register having been signed by Douglas. On the return of the schooner, the governor summoned the master and Douglas into his presence. Both promptly appeared. The master was then ordered to produce the register, which he did, whereupon the governor pointed out to him that it had been illegally signed. With this admonition the governor bound them in their own personal security to appear again if called upon, and then discharged them. As Blanshard left the Island shortly afterward this was the last of the affair. On the 18th of November 1850,.Blanshard wrote Earl Grey two letters, in the first of which he asked leave to visit England to attend to private affairs; in the second he tendered his resignation, and solicited an immediate recall from the colony, on the ground of continued attacks of ague, remarking, also, that his private fortune was "utterly insufficient for the mere cost of living here, so high have prices been run up by the Hudson's Bay Company, and as there are no independent settlers, every requisite must be obtained from them." His next despatch under date February 3, 1851, embodies a report of occurrences on the Island since his arrival. The only real land sale was that to Grant at Soke, and he had assigned his title to the Hudson's Bay Companv, Tod, a servant of the company, had BLANSHARD RESIGNS. 279 ploughed a few acres, near the fort, but fearful lest his title, held only by verbal agreement with Douglas, should never be secured to him, he became alarmed, and ceased operations, leaving unfinished a house that he was building. "With the exception of a Canadian who has squatted, near Rocky Point, there is not another cultivator on the Island." He had written Sir John Pelly requesting information concerning the Puget Sound Company reserve, but had received no reply.9 In his despatch of the 12th of February, he reports on an account of the Hudson's Bay Company against the colony presented for his approval, and which he signed with a protest.10 The public seal 9' This tract contains, I am informed, nearly thirty square miles of the best part of the Island, and they are already attempting to sell small lots to their own servants at greatly advanced rates. I consider this an extremely unfair proceeding. The terms of the grant of the Island expressly state that "all lands shall be sold except such as are reserved for public purposes," and in consideration of the trouble and expense they may incur, the Hudson's Bay Company are allowed the very handsome remuneration of ten per cent on all sales they may effect, and on all royalties. Not satisfied with this, they are grasping at the whole price of the land, by monopolizing this vast district, making it a free gift to themselves, and then selling it for their own profit, as they are attempting to do. In proof of this, I may mention that an Englishman of the name of Chancellor arrived here from California a few weeks ago, with the intention of settling. The agent offered to sell him land on the " company's reserve," which he declined, as he preferred another part of the Island, but found so many difficulties thrown in the way that he at last pronounced the purchase impracticable, and is leaving the colony in disgust. He told me that he was the forerunner of a party of several British subjects at present in California, who were merely waiting for his report to decide whether they would settle in Vancouver Island or the United States.' Blanshard's Despatclies, 7-8. 19 ' The account asserts that they havejjexpended $2,736, of which $2,130 are for goods paid to Indians to extinguish their title to the land about Victoria and Soke harbours, the remainder also for goods paid to Indians for work done for the colony, provisions and ammunition for the same Indians. The receipts amount to $1,489, from which ten per cent is to be deducted, according to the charter of grant to, the Hudson's Bay Company, and consists entirely of royalties on coal for the last two years; land sales there are none, as I have previously informed your lordship. On examining the account, I found that for the goods paid to the Indians a price was charged three times &3 great as what they are in the habit of paying them at for their oWn work; respecting this, and some inaccuracies I detected in the account, I addressed a letter to the agent; he corrected the errors, but made no alteration in the prices, and in the course of the conversation gave me to understand that they did not expect the charter of grant to be renewed at the expiration of the five years, January 1854, and that they would be entitled to a reimbursement of their expenditure. At this rate, they may continue for the next three years, paying away a few goods to Indians to extinguish their claims to the soil, and by at- 280 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. of the colony of Vancouver Island, and her majesty's warrant and sign-manual authorizing and directing its use,- were transmitted by Earl Grey to Governor Blanshard, arriving in midsummer 1851. Before sending in his resignation, Blanshard recommended the home government to impose duty on the importation and manufacture of ardent spirits, the dangerous tendency of whose introduction was just then freshly appearing in the demoralization of the natives about Fort Rupert, and the riotous tendencies of the colliers at Beaver Harbor. This liquor was not supplied by the Hudson's Bay Company, which treated the natives with every consideration, better, some said, than their own servants. But being brought thither by merchant vessels visiting the coast, it was impossible to prevent the inhabitants of the Island from obtaining it. Nor, indeed, could the government have prevented it had the suggestion of the governor been promptly acted upon. Blanshard had suffered much from ill-health, as well as from poverty; else, perhaps, he might have fought his fate longer, if he had thought the place worth fighting for. There had never been the slightest chance for him from the day of his appointment. Being strong in London, being absolute upon the Island, the monopolists were sure to prevail. And they knew it from the first. Earl Grey might pretend to drive, and Blanshard might amuse himself at playing governor, but all this time the fur-traders were manoeuvring for their man, and before Blanshard had resigned, although Douglas had not then his appointment, yet he had received a letter from the London office stating that he had been recommended, and would undoubtedly receive the appointment. On the 3d of April 1851, Earl Grey wrote Governor Blanshard, saying that her Majesty had been taching an ideal value to their goods, they will at the end of that time appear as creditors of the colony to an overwhelming amount, so that the foundation will be laid of a colonial debt, which will forever prove a burden.' Blanshard's Despatches, 8. PROVISIONAL COUNCIL. 281 graciously pleased to accept his resignation as governor of the colony of Vancouver Island. Whereat Blanshard was also graciously pleased, and the now thoroughly fagged officers of the Hudson's Bay Com- wany were most of all graciously pleased. Blanshard received this welcome intelligence in August. His successor had not yet been appointed, but it was now well understood that Douglas would be the next governor. As he deemed it necessary to leave the little authority he had swayed in official hands, on the 27th of August Blanshard nominated a provisional council, subject to the confirmation of the imperial government, consisting of three members, James Douglas, James Cooper, and John Tod, to whom he administered the usual oath. Then in the ship Daphne, on the 1st of September 1851, he turned his back forever on what had proved to him a most unfortunate isle.11 11 When the settlers learned what had been done, they directed the following communication to the governor: * To his Excellency Richard Blanshard, Esquire, Governor of Vancouver Island. 1 May it please your excellency: We, the undersigned, inhabitants of Vancouver's Island, having learned with regret that your excellency has resigned the government of this colony, and understanding that the government has been committed to a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, cannot but express our unfeigned surprise and deep concern at such an appointment. The Hudson's Bay Company being as it is a great trading body, must necessarily have interests clashing with those of independent colonists. Most matters of a political nature will cause a contest between the agents of the company and the colonists. Many matters of a judicial nature also will undoubtedly arise, in which the colonists and the company or its servants will be contending parties, or the upper servants and the lower servants of the company will be arrayed against each other. We beg to express in the most emphatical and plainest manner our assurance that impartial decisions cannot be expected from a governor who is not only a member of the .company, sharing its profits, his share of such profits rising and falling as they rise and fall, but is also charged as their chief agent with the sole representation of their trading interests in this Island and the adjacent coasts. * Furthermore, thus situated, the colony will have no security that its public funds will be duly disposed of solely for the benefit of the colony in general, and not turned aside in any degree to be applied to the private purposes of the company, by disproportionate sums being devoted to the improvement of that tract of land held by them, or otherwise unduly employed. Under these circumstances, we beg to acquaint your excellency with our deep sense of the absolute necessity there is, for the real good and welfare of the colony, that a council should be immediately appointed, in order to provide some security that the interests ef the Hudson's Bay Company shall not be. 282 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. For twenty years subsequent to 1824, John McLoughlin, as chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, residing at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, was sole dominator of the Northwest Coast. Then, as I have elsewhere said, because of his humanity toward distressed emigrants, or as the London management might express it, because of his undue familiarity with United States settlers, and in order llowed to outweigh and ruin those of the colony in genera. 1 We, who join 1 expressing these sentiments to your excellency, are unfortunately but a ery small number, but we respectfully beg your excellency to consider that we, and we alone, represent the interests of the Island as a free and independent British colony, for we constitute the whole body of the independent settlers, all the other inhabitants being in some way or other so connected with and controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company as to be deprived of freedom of action in all matters relating to the public affairs of the colony, some indeed by their own confession, as may be proved if necessary. And we further allege our firm persuasion, that the untoward influences to which we have adverted above are likely, if entirely unguarded against not only to prevent any increase of free and independent colonists in the Island, but positively to diminish their present numbers. ' We therefore humbly request your excellency to take into your gracious consideration the propriety of appointing a council before your excellency's departure; such being the most anxious and earnest desire of your excellency's most obedient and humble servants, and her majesty's most devoted and loyal subjects. ■ James Yates, Robert John Staines, James Cooper, Thomas Monroe, William McDonald, James Sangster, 'John Muir, senior, William Fraser, Andrew Muir, John McGregor, John Muir junior, Michel Muir, Robert Muir, Archibald Muir, Thomas Blenkhorn.' The commander of the Daphne, in return for the hospitality extended him at Fort Victoria, charged the company, an behalf of the imperial government, with Blanshard's passage to Panama, the governor, as before stated, paying out of his own pocket his expenses from that point to England. A bill amounting to £47 15s. had likewise been presented to Blanshard for the expenses of the Dcedalus in her trip to Fort Rupert. Cooper, Mar. Mattel's, MS., 4, states that Blanshard remained on the Island eighteen or twenty months. Grant, Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxvii. 320,. says he remained \ little more than a year.' Blanshard himself calls it, House Commons Rept., H. B. Co. Affairs, 1857, 'nearly two years.' It is safe enough to date his departure about September or October 1851; his last letter written Earl Grey from the Island was dated the 30th of August. Fwkvysods Hist, V. I., MS., 47 et passim. Finlayson was on the ground during the entire residence of Governor Blanshard in the Island. Cooper, Mar. Matters, MS., 4, says f the expense of living was so enormously in excess of the Hudson's Bay Company's representations, and every possible difficulty being thrown in his way,.. .he was forced to resign.' The settlers naturally sympathized with the discomfited governor. Says Grant, Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour,, xxvii 320. 'His loss was very much to be regretted, as he was a gentleman in every way qualified to fulfil the duties of his position with credit to himself, and with prosperous results to the country.' The Despatches of Governor Blanshard to the Secretary of State, 26th December 1849 to 30th August 1851, subsequently printed at the government ofnce, New Westminster, contains all the letters sent to Earl Grey by the governor during his stay upon the Island. DOUGLAS APPOINTED GOVERNOR. 283 to weaken him in his position and pave the way toward his final overthrow, the supreme power on the Pacific was vested in a board of management, consisting of chief factors McLoughlin, Douglas, and Ogden. After the retirement of McLoughlin, Douglas and Ogden continued to manage matters as a board, with their head-quarters still at Fort Vancouver, Finlayson meanwhile remaining in charge at Fort Victoria. In midsummer 1849, nine months prior to the arrival of Governor Blanshard, Douglas completed the removal of the company's head-quarters to Fort Victoria, and took up his permanent residence on the Island.12 Subsequently he erected for his family a commodious dwelling on the south side of James Bay. Dugald McTavish was left in charge at Fort Vancouver, Finlayson assumed the position of chief accountant at Fort Victoria, and the affairs of the company still continued to be administered by chief factors Douglas and Ogden, who constituted the board of management on the Pacific.13 Thus under this mighty pressure of gnat-straining and camel-swallowing passed the first two years of attempts at colonial rule on Vancouver Island. In September 1851, James Douglas was made governor of the colony, and took the oath of office the following November. Thus at last were united in one person the authority and interests of the Hudson's Bay Company and the authority and interests of the colonial government. Wiser in his day than Blanshard, Douglas succeeded in securing to himself a salary of eight hundred pounds a year as governor of the colony in addition to his emoluments as chief fac- 12 It was about the middle of June that Douglas with 11 family removed to Victoria. An obituary notice in the British Colonist, c f 8th Aug. 1877, places the date of his arrival ' a few months after' that of Governor Blanshard, and others give other dates. But Michel Muir, who landed in June 1849, states that Douglas came from Fort Vancouver with his family four days after his arrival. Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 21. 18Crate, in H. B. Co. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, 107-9; Finlayson's HiM,. V. L, MS., 33; Brit. Colonist, Aug. 8, 1867; McKinlay's Nar., MS!, 8. 284 GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHED. tor of the Hudson's Bay Company. From this time up to 1859 he continued to fill both positions. And now all is serene again throughout this region. The fur-traders have triumphed. They have obtained not only a crown grant, but a crown government. On Vancouver Island they are the crown; and until the settlers shall become stronger than the company, their absolutism is assured. The next chapter I devote to the life and character of James Douglas. CHAPTER XVII. JAMES DOUGLAS. Birth and Fducation—Enters the Service of the Northwest Company — Friendship of McLoughlin — Opportunity — What He should Know—His Life in New Caledonia—Overcome by Love—Meets and Marries Nelia Connolly—Establishes Fort Connolly—His Attention to Business and his Strict Obedience—Becomes Chief Trader —Then Chief Factor—Visits California—Accountant and General Superintendent of Forts—Active in the Establishing of Fort Victoria—His Coldness toward Emigrants—Quarrels with McLoughlin—Removes to Victoria — Is Made Governor — And Knighted — Visits Europe — Physique and Character — Douglas and McLoughlin Compared. James Douglas was born in 1803 at Jamaica. His father was a descendant of the earl of Angus, the Black Douglas of Scottish history; his mother was a Creole. At an early age he was taken by his father to Lanark, Scotland, where he was educated. He was scarcely seventeen years old1 when he entered the service of the Northwest Company as apprenticed clerk, and was sent to Fort William, on Lake Superior, where McLoughlin was then stationed. Upon the coalition the following year, Douglas was about to retire to Scotland in company with two dissatisfied brothers then leaving the service; but he was persuaded by McLoughlin, who had taken a fancy to him, to remain. 1This according to Mrs Harvey, Life McLoughlin, MS., 37. Waddington, Fraser Mimes, 35, says he was only fourteen years of age when he left England, but this authority is not reliable. Among the manynotices and testimonials extant of local writers and speakers, one would expect to find something concerning the early career of such a manj even the family archives are singularly silent in this regard. (285 *> 28(3 JAMES DOUGLAS. "Stay with me, my lad," he said, "and you shall be to me as a son." So when McLoughlin was appointed to what was then termed the Columbia Department, he wrote the directory requesting that Douglas might accompany him, which request was granted,2 and young Douglas made ready to cross his Alps. Here, indeed, was opportunity. Look at it. Nineteen years of age, full of youthful vigor and enthusiasm, the friend and companion of the chief factor in command upon the Northwest Coast. In such a country, at such an age, and under such conditions, we shall see in due time how he availed himself of them. McLoughlin was determined his protege should enjoy every advantage, consistent with his duty to the service, which might tend to his advancement. And this might best be accomplished, not by confining the young man too closely to office and warehouse work, or to one particular or permanent thing, but by giving him a succession of duties which should finally make him proficient in all. He was already a good accountant, one of the best in the service, and thoroughly familiar with the French Canadian idiom. It was now for him to become familiar, in all its minutest detail, with the ponderous and most perfect machinery of the united companies. He should know not only the kinds and cost of trading goods and fort supplies in London, and the expenses of transportation to the distributing post on the Columbia, and thence to the several interior stations; the kinds, and qualities, and prices of furs; the rules of the company in regard to traffic, presents, and credit with the natives; the wages and duties of the men, and the allowances due them: but he should become familiar with the vast country over which his 2 My very good friend, John Tod,lNew Caledonia, MS., 46-7, who told me all he knew, and somewhat more, respecting his former associate and chief, hrings Douglas to America in or before 1811,-at which time he was eight years old; and this assertion he backs by the remark, 'Mr Douglas remained east of the mountains at Fort Ecla, Athabasca District, for five or six years, bringing him across the mountains in 1824, CONNOLLY'S DAUGHTER 287 chief held sovereign sway; he should know its configuration and climate; its mountains, plains, and. valleys; its forests and prairies; its lakes and rivers; its fruits and animals, and plants, and all its possibilities. Most of all, he should study well the aborigines, with whom his predecessors and superiors had taken so much trouble to establish commercial intercourse. Something of their languages he should know, that he might personally converse with ;them. Of the bent of their minds and passions, their present wants and future hopes, their intellectual endowments, and, so far as possible, of their several idiosyncrasies he should make careful analysis. To this end it was expedient he should spend several seasons in the field; and first of all in New Caledonia, then the Siberia of the company, and the most distant department of McLoughlin's dominion, the north-coast establishments not having yet been founded. Therefore, instead of taking him at once to head-quarters at Astoria, he gave him in charge of James Connolly, a jolly Irishman, who with his family and twenty-four men crossed the mountains from York Factory in the autumn of 1824, with supplies for New Caledonia. Mr Connolly succeeded John Stuart in these parts The young Scot was by no means averse to this arrangement; for while studying life under new conditions, he might study love, which was likewise new to him, and exceedingly comforting. James Connolly had a daughter, a blushing half-breed beauty, then some fifteen years of age.3 How should a bold, high-spirited, handsome young man but find favor in her eyes? how should a warm-hearted, lovely, and modest maiden but find favor in his 1 Her presence sweetened toil; his presence made smooth to her the ruggedest mountain-trail. How many thousands of 3 These particulars I get from Mr Tod, New Caledonia, MS., passim, who, if his memory proves not treacherous—for he was very old when he gave me his dictation—may be counted correct, for he was there at the time, and recited only what came under his own observation. 288 JAMES DOUGLAS. volumes of unwritten romance are there in the early doings upon this western slope; tales of love as deep and true as ever mailed knight carried beneath his armor, true tales \ of daring venture, with mingled failure and success, more thrilling, more noble, more difficult and self-sacrificing than any fiction cudgelled from prolific brain.4 John Tod was then at McLeod Lake, having crossed the mountains in 1823, and was in charge of McLeod Fort for a period of nine years. Connolly and Douglas went first to Fort St James on Stuart Lake, and the following year the latter was left for a time in charge of the post. It was here, and at this time, that Douglas played his first bloody tragedy in which the victim was the murderer of certain of Yale's men, young Connolly and Douglas the executioners, the latter finishing the performance by becoming prisoner—all of which I have fully given in a previous volume.5 The courage and coolness displayed in this encounter with the savages brought the young man fame and favor not only among his associates, but among the natives themselves. Connolly as well as Douglas had much to learn about the natives; first of all, that there was as much difference in their individual and tribal character as is found among the civilized nations of Europe; and next, that environment affected man here as well as elsewhere. There was a vast difference between mountaineers and the dwellers upon the sea-shore, between hunters and diggers, boatmen and horsemen, fish-eaters and beast-eaters. It happened on one occasion, as Connolly was descending the Columbia with eight bateaux, the proud and chivalrous Nez Perces gave him a lesson. On reaching the Dalles, his boats being lightly manned, he engaged the na- \ Tod, New Caledonia, MS., 28-32, gives a graphic picture of what he calls Robinson Crusoe life in this region at the time. The skins of elk or other animals served as clothes, and their meet for food; or if other sources failed, they did not hesitate to sacrifice the dogs that drew their winter sledges. 5 See History Northwest Coast. AMONG THE NEZ PERCES. 289 tives, for so* much tobacco, to assist him at the portage. Their work being well and promptly done, they hastily came forward in a body for their pay—so hastily and in such numbers, in fact, that Connolly was frightened, and dropping the promised tobacco on the rocks, beat a rapid retreat to his boats. The savages paused, and cast toward the flying trader a look of ineffable disdain. "Are white men thieves and murderers that they think all others so % " exclaimed the chief, swelling in dignity and stature as he spoke. "Go! we scorn you, and will not touch your trash!" Saying which, the Nez Perces turned loftily away, leaving the tobacco on the rocks. Upon seeing this, certain Palouses, fishing in the river near by, did not scruple with hot haste to sweep the stones of the precious weed to the last shred. Under such developing environment the course of true love ran rapidly and smoothly. There were no factious influences at work in form of oppugnant father, subtly scheming mother, rival lover, or heavy villain, so essential to the orthodox love-story. James Douglas was glad to win the love of Nelia Connolly, and she was equally glad to give it him. When he asked her to be his wife, she had not the remotest idea of declining, nor had her father. So they were counted man and wife, and began the half-century of serene happiness which followed in the rugged region of New Caledonia. When Beaver, freshly bleached by St Peter's successor, arrived at Fort Vancouver with a church-bound wife, the aboriginal marriage ceremony was denounced as devilish, and beside this immaculate pair all wives there were only concubines, and their progeny bastards, with whom it were disgraceful to associate. And so for the sake of peace, Douglas, among others, was remarried by Beaver in 1837 or 1838.6 6Roberts, Recollections, MS., 57, says 1839; but in this instance he does not recollect correctly. Hist. Bbit. Col. 19 290 JAMES DOUGLAS. Near the western limit of New Caledonia in 1826, Douglas built a post which he called, in honor of his wife's father, Fort Connolly, on Bear Lake, sometimes called Lake Connolly at the head of a branch of Skeena River. After several years of this kind of service, many incidents of which I have detailed elsewhere, and in which persistent fidelity to business and temperate conduct toward the natives were ever manifest, Douglas was called to Fort Vancouver, where he proceeded with his family in 1828, there to render his friend and patron the more immediate assistance which the increasing requirements of the service seemed to demand. There he rose rapidly, and soon stood second only to his chief in all the Northwest Coast, if not at once in name, yet in power and importance almost immediately. There was an abundance of time and opportunity, however, to become proficient in all the minutest details of the service, and this not in theory alone but in practice. He revised and greatly improved the system of accounts which required all the posts of the Pacific to make annual returns to Fort Vancouver. Several times he took charge of the York Factory oxpress, which duty was by no means unaccompanied with difficulties and dangers.7 In 1830 he was made chief trader, and two years after, chief factor.8 Much of his time was now employed in selecting sites and superintending the establishing of posts. Annual visits of inspection were 7 \ Sir James used to be one of the clerks who went across with letters. Mr Anderson went once; Dr Tolmie went once, but he went to England to visit his country. They used to have a little difficulty with the Indians, but not much.' Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 4. 81 take this date from McKinlay, Narrative, MS., 8, and Finlayson, Hist. V. I., MS., 30, who agree. Anderson, Northwest Coast, MS., 25, says that it was in 1835 he was made chief trader. But the time is not at all essential. Tolmie, Puget Sound, MS., 2, saw him in 1833, when 'he was second in command at Fort Vancouver, where he acted as accountant.' He was now fast becoming famous for his geographical and practical knowledge. In Reply U. S. to H. B. M. Treaty of Washington, 21, he is pronounced 'one of the most enterprising and inquisitive of men, famous for his intimate acquaintance with every crevice on the coast;' a high compliment from such a source. A NOBLE DEED. 291 made to the several stations, both of the interior and of the seaboard. In the summer of 1840 he was up the coast on important business; in the winter of 1841-2 he visited California, a full and interesting account of which is given in his journal. There is something sublime in that quality inherent in noble natures which cannot overlook a duty, even though its performance leads toward death. In fording the Nisqually Biver, while en route northward in April 1840 to take possession of the territory leased from the Russians, and to build Fort Tako, Lassertes, leading man of the party under Douglas, was swept away and carried some distance down the river. Just before reaching a drift of logs and debris, under and through which the furious water was surging, threatening instant destruction to any on whom it might once lay its grasp, he caught the end of a fallen tree and held to it as his only hope of life. Even to those accustomed to daily dangers, and to prompt unflinching action whenever a comrade needed help, the position of Lassertes was so perilous, the destruction of whomsoever should attempt his rescue so probable, that the bravest of these brave men drew back appalled. The air and water were icy cold, so that the limbs would be quickly benumbed, tending to render effort powerless. Fear fell upon the companyr Lassertes was growing every moment weaker; he was apparently a doomed man. "The contagion weighed upon my own mind," says Douglas, " and I confess with shame that I felt not that cheerful alacrity in rushing to the rescue as at other times." Douglas soon saw that if he did not make the attempt no one would. It were easy enough to hold back, to dally, to seek for means less venturesome than such extreme personal perils that man's life was not worth half as much as his own; no blame could by any possibility ever be attached to .him.; let him go. 292 JAMES DOUGLAS. He could not do it. His nature was not made of such stuff. "Even then," he writes in his journal, "I could not allow a fellow-creature to perish without an effort to saye him, while the inactivity of all present was an additional incentive to redouble my own exertions. With a sensation of dread, and almost hopeless of success, I pushed my horse by spur and whip nearly across the river, sprung into the water, and rushed towards the spot where the nearly exhausted sufferer was clinging, with his head above water, to the end of a tree that had fallen into the river. Upon its trunk I dragged myself out on all fours; and great was our mutual joy when I seized him firmly by the collar, and with the aid of a canoe that arrived soon after, landed him safely on the bank, where a blazing fire soon restored warmth to both. And to my latest breath may I cherish the remembrance of Lassertes' providential rescue from a watery grave, as I could never otherwise have enjoyed tranquillity of mind."9 Which sentiment, supplementing such an action, to me is fragrant with the highest nobleness of soul. During the early part of his career he was rigid in his obedience to the orders of his superiors, and in manifestations of respect toward them; and in later years when he began to rule, he demanded the same respect and obedience from others.10 9Douglas' Journal, MS., 4, 5. 10 As well to afford the plainest insight into the character of this remarkable man as to clear myself from any possible charge of captious criticism in regard to him, I give the following extract from the book of Matthew Macfie, a personal acquaintance and countryman of Douglas: ' There is a resident in the country who, in consideration of his past official relation to it as first governor of British Columbia, deserves passing notice in this place. I refer to Sir James Douglas. This gentleman is completely unknown in England, except at the colonial office and to a few directors of the Hudson's Bay Company. But being a local celebrity, the reader may not object to be introduced to so interesting a character. In stature he exceeds six feet. His countenance, by its weather-beaten appearance, still tells of many years spent in fur-trapping adventure in the wilds of the interior. Introduced at the age of fifteen or sixteen from the West Indies, the reputed place of his birth, into the service of the company, and deprived, during the greater part of his life, of the advantages of society, except that of Indians, half-breeds, and persons like himself occupying humble situations in the employ of the company, every praise is due to him for not being indifferent to mental cul- JOINT MANAGEMENT. 293 Both before and after 1843, Douglas was active in choosing a site and establishing Fort Victoria. When the board of management was organized in order gradually to relieve John McLoughlin of his rule preparatory to his final discharge, Douglas was a member. Before the retirement from the Hudson's Bay Company's service of McLoughlin in 1845, papers were signed by* himself and Douglas jointly, snowing that the latter was gradually coming to the front. These were troublous times for McLoughlin, and they were ture in those mountain solitudes in which the flower of his manhood was passed. The stateliness of his person, of which he always seems proudly conscious, and his natural force of character, suggest the reflection to an observer, how vastly more agreeable would have been his address, and powerful the influence of his character and abilities, had he enjoyed in early life a liberal education and intercourse with persons of refinement and culture. De Quincey describes the well-known Dr Parr as the Birmingham Dr Johnson, an expression signifying that the former was but an electro-plated imitation of the latter. The application of this remark may be left to the reader in reference to the pretentious deportment of Sir James. His efforts to appear grand, and even august, were ludicrously out of proportion to the insignificant population he governed, numbering less than the inhabitants of many a country town in England. When he spoke to any one within the precincts of the government house, his Quixotic notions of his office, which he evidently though^ splendid, prompted him to make choice of the sesquipedalian diction he employed in his despatches. The angle of his head, the official tone, the extension of the hand, the bland smile which never reached beyond the corners of his mouth, all these stiff and artificial arrangements were carefully got up and daily repeated by him, under the delusion that the public imagined him to be natural . and a perfect Brummell in politeness. His manners always gave one the impression that to make up for early disadvantages he had religiously adjusted his whole bearing to the standard of Lord Chesterfield, and it is needless to say how amusing was the combination of his lordship and this dignified old fur-trapper. ' His attitude toward the officials serving under his government was austere and distant. This he had acquired under the sort of military regime observed between the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. I have heard magistrates addressed by him in a pompous manner that no English gentleman would assume toward his porter. But Sir James solemnly felt that the machine of state could only be kept in motion by his delivering commands, with head erect, and with that rotund and peremptory utterance which at once betrayed and excused vulgarity. He was rarely visible at his desk or in the street without being arrayed in semi-military uniform; but the climax of his extravagance was probably capped by his being followed perpetually, whether taking an airing in the country or going to visit,, by an imposing orderly, duly armed and in uniform. In so small and practical a town as Victoria, the temptation of the local wits to satirize so preposterous a spectacle was irresistible. Petty diplomacy was a passion with Sir James, doubtless developed from his youth, in the wheedling mode of transacting business with the Indians adopted by the company in the interior. He never sent away any suppliant for governmental favours without holding out some hope, which, at the same moment, he in many cases determined to frustrate. A favorite plan of his with any whom he thus sought to keep in good humor was to exhaust their patience by expedient and indefinite postponement of 294 JAMES DOUGLAS. the darkest in the memory of Douglas; for it was then he first deemed it his duty to present himself as a barrier to the liberal dealings of McLoughlin, and a supporter of the more merciless policy of his company. When McLoughlin had fairly left Fort Vancouver, however, and Douglas was fully installed as his successor, he returned to the old and wise ways which had been characteristic of Northwest Coast management since 1824, which increases the suspicion that Douglas was not just then wholly the object desired.' If I might be allowed a Yankee's random guess I should say that Mr Macfie himself was one of those disappointed office-seekers upon whom Sir James so unprofitably smiled. After Douglas had assumed the duties of governor of Vancouver Island, the Americans across the border used to ridicule, not always with the best of taste, what they regarded in him as unwarranted pomposity. I herewith extract the following from the Olympia Club Conversazione, MS., 9^13, which though exaggerated to the border of the burlesque, nevertheless contains a tincture of truth: ' Mr Evans—The old governor used to walk the streets of Victoria preceded, about as far as from here to that door, by a big Scotchman with a drawn sword. You have seen that, haven't you ? ' Mr Billings—Yes [laughing]. Mr Evans—I have seen that. I saw it the very first time I went to Victoria. ' Mr Billings—It was Lieutenant Bowden, now chief of police. ' Mr Evans—I went one time into Hibben & Carswell s bookstore, and Douglas and this man came in after me. The next day, about the same time, I went to the photograph saloon on a little alley that turns off from Government street, and there he went into the lower story as I went upstairs. I made some remark about it, and a man told me that that was always the case with the governor when he went out about five or six o'clock. I Mr Billings—That is what Mason tells me, Lieutenant Bowden was the head of his body-guard. He was a large man, weighing 260 pounds. ' Mr Evans—I have talked with Douglas when he was governor under the appointment of Queen Victoria, and governor by virtue of his being chief factor in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs. The last time I was there, when he was chief factor in charge, was when the Russian officers taken from Petropavlovsk had a reception given them. Captain Pease, of the revenue cutter Jeff Davis, had a reception, and these officers had a reception. j Mr Tarbell—After he was appointed governor under the queen, he had a paid servant. This man Bowden was brought out, and Sir James took him as his servant; but I never saw him going with a broadsword. ' Mr Evans—He was a great big fellow, and walked five or six feet ahead of him. I have seen it as many as four or five times. He was there walking ahead, in uniform. i Mr Tarbell—This man came out with Moody, and was detailed from that service. He was a servant of Sir James Douglas, after he was governor, and after he was knighted. I Mr Evans—I was a great admirer of Douglas, and I thought that this was a good deal too much humbuggery. So I made fun of it in my way. It was remarked that that was the usual way; that the governor never went out otherwise. My recollection in regard to the matter is, that when he was SUPERSEDES McLOUGHLIN. 295 true to his most generous instincts, that he was not at all grieved to have McLoughlin out of the way and himself in his place. I do not say that he acted a dishonorable part in the accomplishment of this result. Call it legal or commercial honor, and I do not think he did act dishonorably; but on the other hand, had their positions been reversed, McLoughlin never would have permitted the London directors to frown out of office his superior because of actions too noble for the digestion of the corporation. Douglas not only permitted it, but assisted it, and then gathered the spoils. With himself high chief, and Peter Skeen Ogden second in command,11 Douglas not only ably followed up the system of farming and general business arrangements originated and so long successfully practised by McLoughlin, but he became suddenly kind to the emigrants, and in short benevolently committed all those crimes of charity for which McLoughlin had been dethroned. Routes having been opened to the interior by way of Fraser River in 1848, and all being prepared for a full transfer of the head depot from the Columbia on duty it was: "Make way for the governor, please." There was much ceremony. Douglas himself was the greatest man to stand on dignity you ever saw. ' Mr Tarbell—0, of course when you went into his office he wanted you to take your hat off the moment you went into the door. ' Mr Evans—He had a man there with the bagpipes. ' Mr Billings—That was on the occasion of a reception. ' Mr Evans—Well, I guess the old man always adhered to that. ' Mr Swan—It was a national trait; most Scotchmen are fond of the bagpipes. ' Mr Evans—I am a great admirer of Douglas. I think he was a great statesman, and I think it was an unfortunate thing that they supplanted him at the time they did.' The simple fact of the matter is, that Governor Douglas had a servant who sometimes accompanied his master, armed, and he may upon occasion have exhibited his weapon to open the way through a crowd. Victoria during the flush times was filled with a rough element, not too much in love with rigorous rule. Although punctilious to what Americans might call a fault, I am very sure that he possessed too much sound sense ever to have played the buffoon, or to have made himself ridiculous in the eyes of intelligent, fair- minded men. 11 Says Jesse Applegate, Views of Oregon History, MS., 13: 'Visiting Fort Vancouver annually for supplies, I there met Mr Ogden in 1845. He was then second to Mr Douglas m command.' 296 JAMES DOUGLAS. !River to Vancouver Island, in 1849 Douglas removed with hisfamily to Victoria.12 In 1859 he retired from the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and disposed of his entire interest in that concern.13 We shall see in the succeeding chapters of this volume how James Douglas behaved as governor of Vancouver Island, and governor of British Columbia, which latter position he held until 1864, when he made a visit to Europe, and how he conducted himself in the many trying positions in which he was placed during a long and eventful public service. In 1859 he was created C. B., and knighted in 1863. He died at Victoria the 2d of August 1877, at the age of seventy-four years. The world unites in according the highest praise to Douglas as well as to McLoughlin. It is the histo- rian's duty, however, to inquire further, and note in the persons brought before him the distinguishing characteristics which make every individual to differ from every other individual. Perhaps we may reach the inner temple of the Douglas tabernacle the more effectually by placing him beside the man he most resembles, and then marking the difference. The lives of both were essentially material. Possessing high mental and spiritual capabilities, they were without moral companionship or intellectual food; yet their intellects, like their bodies, seemed healthful, fresh, and vigorous. Their minds were fashioned, to a great extent, by the same early precepts and the same commercial training. Then later there were the same interests, ambitions, and discipline, the same fort life, forest travel, and primitive domination, which for a score or two of years were 12 McKinlay, Narrative, MS., 8, states in his bungling way that this move was made ' in 1847, upon the retirement of Governor Blanshard, who had been appointed from England, and whose ofiice expired on account of the transference of Vancouver Island to the Hudson's Bay Company by the British government.' } 13 Deposition of James Douglas on behalf of the Hudson s Bay Company, H. B. Co. Claims, 49. TWO MAGNIFICENT MEN. 297 their constant environment, and entered largely into the composition of their character. We can scarcely conceive the powerful influence of the iron rule of a commercial corporation on the plastic mind of youth, which fashioning power is increased tenfold in this instance by its isolation and absolutism. More than intuition, tradition, and early education all combined, the Hudson's Bay Company made its servants. The very first thing for a novice to do on entering the service was to creep into the ever-ready mould, and the quicker and more effectually he fitted himself to it, the more useful and successful he became.14 Standing apart, both of these men present a distinguished front; both are lavishly praised by their contemporaries. I need not repeat here what has been said of McLoughlin. Burnett, once governor of Oregon, and one competent to judge dispassionately, pronounces Douglas "a man of irreproachable character, ... of very superior intelligence, and a finished Christian gentleman;" and further: "In his position of governor of British Columbia, he was censured by Mr John Nugent of California, as I must think, without sufficient cause. Errors of judgment Governor Douglas may have committed, as almost any man would have done, at times, in his trying position; but he must have radically changed since I knew him, if he knowingly acted improperly."15 Grover of Oregon •on 14 'I was sorry to hear of Douglas' death,' says the garrulous old Oreg< spitfire, Daniel Waldo, Critiques, MS., passim. ' I thought a heap of him. He was a man born to command men—a martial fellow. He never gave an evasive answer... McLoughlin and Douglas were a good deal alike. The doctor would flatter you a little; Douglas would not. I do not know but Douglas was just as liberal. He trusted everybody just the same as the doctor did, after the doctor went out.' One of the most intelligent and fair-minded of Oregon's pioneers, Early Days, MS., 2, thus writes: ' I recollect very distinctly the difference in our personal intercourse with Governor McLoughlin, who was then the chief factor, and Sir James Douglas; he was then Mr Douglas, and second in command at Vancouver. The latter was a devoted believer in Victoria's right to all she could maintain, while the other rose above that. Douglas would do what a civil gentleman was compelled to do towards assisting the poor emigrants, and nothing more. The one was cold, and showed by his manner that he did not wish the Americans to come here, while the other was warm, hearty, and friendly.' 15Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 94-5, 273-4, 298, 301-3. 298 JAMES DOUGLAS. says he was very judicious in settling diflaculties with the American miners in 1858; that on one occasion, when a little war was liable to be stirred up in regard to rents, licenses, and water rights, he proceeded to the mines in person, and made public speeches which induced that rough element to settle their affairs peaceably.16 The author of a pamphlet published at Victoria in 1858, and who seems to me somewhat hypercritical, remarks: "So far, his acts, though tardy, have been judicious and liberal, considering circumstances and the many difficulties he has bad to contend with."17 Another writes: "The long service of Sir James Douglas to the Hudson's Bay Company, his intimate acquaintance with the various tribes of natives, and his knowledge of the requirements for developing the resources of this the most important colony of England in the Pacific, rendered him at that epoch eminently qualified to fulfil the duties of governor of our Northwest American possessions. I have no object in bepraising him other than a desire to record my humble sense of his eminent merits. But such I know to be the verdict of all unbiassed men who had the advantage of living under his wise and able administration."18 These are stronger testimonials even than those of countrymen and partisans, of which I have many. I He performed the duty of governor of the two colonies," says one, "with exceeding prudence and great success." 1 " He made himself popular by contributing to the general good feeling existing among the settlers," remarks another.20 He "worked his way gradually up to the highest rank by perseverance, sobriety of conduct, and earnest application to busi- 16 Grover's Public Life, MS., 65-6. 17 Waddingtons Fraser Mines, 36. 18 Poole's Queen Charlotte Island, 66-7. 19 Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 62. 20 Good's British Columbia, 1. PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 299 ness."21 Malcolm McLeod testifies: "He was an officer eminent for his skill, energy, and daring, and his compeers ranked high in those qualities, for the service then was- one essentially militant, and extremely perilous."22 Says Mr Cridge:23 "Governor Douglas treated the Indians with the affection of a father. This coupled with his justice and firmness gave him unbounded influence with them. When they came from the north in such numbers as to cause serious apprehension, he achieved by his personal authority what under another might have cost blood, and induced them to return. At the time of the influx of gold- miners in 1858, when some ten thousand men were encamped in Victoria, whose population at that time might be some three hundred souls, he conferred with them as a father and a friend; met and counselled them oh the eve of their various expeditions; and on one occasion, when they were being misled, caused a letter to be printed and circulated among them, signed M. F.—miners friend—with the happiest results." More were superfluous. In personal appearance Douglas was little less peculiar than McLoughlin. Both were striking, grand; anywhere in the world, in an American forest or a London thoroughfare, in a fur-trading fort or in a legislative hall, either would have attracted notice as something out of and above the ordinary man. Six feet and more in height,24 but so admirably proportioned that one would not imagine him so tall until one stood beside him; erect in his carriage, measured in his movements, but natural and graceful withal, Douglas had not his like in all the Northwest. 21 Finlayson's Hist. V. I., MS., 30. 22 McDonald's Peace River, 25. 23 Characteristics of James Douglas, MS., 3-5. 24 Applegate, Views, Or. Hist., MS., 13, says seven feet seven inches; but this was evidently a lapsus lingual. Many have placed his height at six feet six or seven inches, but Finlayson, Letters, MS., places it at six feet. 300 JAMES DOUGLAS. Toward the end of his life his long face seemed to grow longer, his large features and high forehead to assume yet more massive proportions, and the always- firm and earnest purpose which his eyes and mouth presented, to deepen into seriousness akin to melancholy. McLoughlin's was a very handsome face, full and well proportioned, with exquisite features, eyes, nose, and mouth not too large, the whole exceedingly pleasing, fascinating, denoting no great powers either of intellect or intelligence, but with paramount integrity of purpose and will enough to enforce it. It is an exceedingly delicate task to press a closer analysis in this instance; and yet I see palpable differences in these chiefs so singularly alike. And first, and most salient, their predisposition. McLoughlin was one to be loved; Douglas one to be respected. Throughout his whole career, McLoughlin displayed a broad benevolence, an artless consideration for his fellow-man of whatsoever creed, color, or nationality. This generous temper was from a native spring which poured forth purest kindness as the bird its song, because it could not help it.25 Douglas was kind and just; but his benevolence was not always untine- tured by policy, nor his sympathy by selfish interest. Fort life was in many respects like that of a feudal 25 How boundless must be the human kindness of a refined nature which undergoes trial like the following without ever suspecting it to be a trial! Speaking of the wife of McLoughlin, the widow of McKay who was lost on the Tonquin, Mrs Wilson, Oregon Sketches, MS., 19-21, says: * Though his wife was a half-breed of the Ojibway nation, coarse, bent, fat, and flabby, he treated her like a princess. In public and in private he was as loyal to her as if she had been a daughter of Queen Victoria,>. .He would suffer no indignity or slight to her. His fine handsome form beside the uncorseted figure of the old Indian woman presented a strange contrast, as she waddled beside him like a being of another species. His gallantry to her knew no bound. On state occasions, straight as an arrow and magnificently apparelled, he would stand like a splendid statue, while this female aboriginal rolled out before him in plain clothes and no figure whatever.' In a country where legal marriage was not the rule, he was thrice married to his wife, if we may believe Roberts' Rec, MS., 66, once 'at Fort William by a Mr McKenzie, and afterward by Mr Douglas' in his capacity of justice of the peace, * at Vancouver, and again by Archbishop Blanchet.' COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS. 301 court. Both these factors were strict disciplinarians,26 to which they had been trained from youth, and without which they could not have held their position. Before those who looked up to them as superior beings, they were the embodiment of a commercial polity, of commercial probity, of commercial success; to which business policy the individual must surrender himself wholly: body, family, and life itself. Both possessed great powers in this and other directions, but the authority of Douglas was of sterner stuff than that of McLoughlin. Both were men of practical sagacity, possessing minds of penetrating insight, but while one reached conclusions quickly, as if by intuition, the other was slower, and pondered well before opening his mouth. Douglas was the stronger; McLoughlin the purer. McLoughlin was weakened by his good qualities; Douglas was strengthened by his bad ones. Sin sometimes breeds unhappiness; so do noble actions. Far more misery has been engendered in the breast of middle-aged respectability by benevolent acts than in the breast of villany by vicious acts. Intemperate generosity and injudicious trustfulness drove McLoughlin into unhappy old age. Douglas can boast no unhappy old age. Douglas was possessed of a cold, proud, formal egoism, wholly apart from the warm and generous sympathies of McLoughlin. His sluggish impulses were in the right direction, but they must all be made to play within the hard, passionless limits of conventionalism and aristocratic tradition. McLoughlin was in temperament Gaelic; he was 264Both the doctor and Douglas,' says Roberts, Recollections, MS., 65, ' were disciplinarians, and their success was largely owing to that. I've often been amused to see how courteous Douglas could be to the roughest pioneer, and even force outward symbols of respect from men who had probably shown as much to no one before.. .The captains of^en had to resort to the doctor or Douglas; the latter was much the firmer.' I cannot agree with what I find written in Compton's Forts and Fort Life, MS., 2, where McLoughlin is mentioned as one whose '• name will go down from generation to generation, when Sir James Douglas will be lost.' McLoughlin's name will always live; at the same time, that of James Douglas will never die. JAMES DOUGLAS. lively, social, ^ hospitable. He could be diplomatic, but not deceitful; hence his diplomacy often fell to the ground. Douglas was hard, lethargic; more reserved and haughty, less charitable, more unbending, presenting a moral outline of stony rigidity; one who thought much of himself, which the other seemed never to do. Their constant association made them in a marked degree conformable in character, to the improvement of one of them at least. Though conforming in the main to the rules of his commercial order, McLoughlin's life was plainly one of impulse and instinctive action. He would do no wrong: be- cause his company commanded it. The ideal of obligation was outlined in his mind as distinctly as was Mt Hood before his physical vision. McLoughlin loved what was genial, noble, honest; Douglas loved what was imposing, successful, honest. The former more than the latter was confined to the humdrum duties of a prosaic life, and yet we find in the factor of Fort Vancouver far more of sentiment, of warm, tender, all-enfolding sympathy, than in his more stiff and stolid subordinate and successor. Douglas venerated the institutions under which he was born, the conventionalities under which he lived, and thence proceeding, soon learned to venerate himself, which important figure he never for a moment lost sight of. Without knowing it, the comings and goings of McLoughlin were directed by a spirit of magnanimous disinterestedness. That one could drop early instilled traditions and adopt another faith, as McLoughlin is reported to have done, shows at least independence of thought, and, to some extent, freedom from sectarian bondage. Douglas never changed his religion; nor could he, any more than the leopard could change his skin.^ Deprive the one of his church ceremonies, and his religion was gone; whereas the practical piety of the other shone out from the depths of the wilderness through every act, and a thousand miles away from ritual, JOHN McLOUGHLEST. 303 book, or priest. The loyalty of Douglas was to the full letter and spirit of the law; McLoughlin lived in the loyalty of his divine manhood, and though obedient to the law, was yet above it. The truth is, if I must confess it, McLoughlin's piety, like Tolmie's temperance, was a garment for occasions, and not to be worn if it interfered with more practical matters. For example, while prayers were being solemnly read on Sunday in the great hall of Fort Vancouver, business was sometimes going on as briskly as ever. An expedition was perhaps on the tapis, when, in the open space without, saddle-horses were being lassoed from a band of two or three hundred squealing, galloping animals, the thundering of whose hoofs, no doubt, added solemnity to the responses. So Tolmie, though professing strictly total abstinence before his sons, being a physician, took the liberty of prescribing for himself liberal potations when in other company. And yet McLoughlin was pious, and Tolmie temperate. Douglas was of the strictest sect a pharisee., abounding in meaningless forms more hollow than he himself imagined forms could be. Forms to him were indeed not forms, but actualities; shadows were more substantial things than the unseen substance that cast the shadow. McLoughlin was of quick perceptions. Glancing over the accounts of an adventure, he could tell you the profit or loss and the cause of either before another had fairly begun his calculations. Douglas, on the other hand, was slow, methodical, exceedingly careful, and he never would be hurried. His work would be done, and to have it well and properly done he was willing to make any sacrifice of personal comforts or pleasure, but he must have time. He pondered a matter long, but once resolved, he smote with vigor and effect. Both were men of dignity and lofty bearing; but the awe McLoughlin sought to inspire was for the 304 JAMES DOUGLAS. great corporation represented in him, while the pomposity of Douglas sprang rather from personal pride. McLoughlin was not only the wealth, the property, and profit of the place, but he was the law, the morality, and the religion of a vast area occupied by every shade of savagism and civilization, which, without proper and enforced example, must quickly resolve into chaos. Douglas worshipped his God and his king, and endeavored to do his duty; but yet he always reserved a full share of adulation for himself. In bent of mind, in carriage, conduct, and the management of affairs, Douglas copied closely from his master, McLoughlin; so closely, indeed, so honestly and faithfully, that the imitation almost equalled the original. Although they differed in many respects; although Douglas was cold and calculating, even as McLoughlin was warm-hearted and benevolent; although the virtues of Douglas were manufactured, while those of McLoughlin were spontaneous; although Douglas was civilization's courtier, while McLoughlin was nature's nobleman—yet they were much alike; so alike, in fact, that there could have been no fitter successor to McLoughlin than Douglas. Both were able, honest men, both obedient to the call of the higher powers; yet while the highest power that Douglas recognized in the affairs of business was the voice of his superior, McLoughlin used to listen to the voice of humanity, and recognize something nobler in this universe than obedience, even though the edicts were thundered by the mighty men of Fenchurch street. After some forty years of service, the only reproach McLoughlin's directors could cast upon him was that of too much kindness to settlers. The company wanted no interlopers; neither did McLoughlin want them, and he used every effort to discourage their coming. But once there, his humanity would not let them die of cold and hunger. See the poor emigrants as they come straggling POLICY, POLICY, POLICY. 305 down the river, staggering under fatigue and starvation ! They are not pleasing specimens of the outside busy world, they are neither educated, intelligent, nor gentlemanly; they are coarse, uncouth, dirty, haggard, ragged. They are ground-tillers, who frighten away the"game; they are aliens, who would usurp the territory. They are improvident, foolish, and had much better have remained at home. They bring discomfort, sow discord among the natives, and are exceedingly unprofitable every way. But they are men; suffering, sorrowing men. And this is enough for McLoughlin. He sends out bateaux, gathers them in, brings them within the palisades, feeds, clothes, and comforts them. Warmed into manhood under his benignant sympathy, they yet lack every means of support—seed, supplies, and implements of agriculture. But McLoughlin's company does not desire the soil disturbed; neither does McLoughlin. Yet he credits them, these strangers; and when his directors complain, he tells them to charge it all to him. Perish factorships and fur corporations, he cannot see helpless human beings starve. I tell you this Canadian Scotchman was the very Christ of Northwest occupation I Now, Douglas likewise was humane; to the children of the forest he was as a father. But Douglas was an exceedingly just man. He was kind to the settler, to the miner, to the poor of every caste; but he was scrupulously alive to duty. No earthly power could make McLoughlin disloyal to his humanity; no earthly power could make Douglas disloyal to his company. "My father always liked him," says Mrs Harvey. "Toward the last something happened; I do not know what. I could not learn what it was. He was against my father in something, and my father was very angry about it." 37 Life of McLoughlin, MS., 3 Hist. Beit. Col. 20 27 306 JAMES DOUGLAS. We know what it was. In the unpleasant discus- sion between McLoughlin and the London directors, relative to assisting emigrants, Douglas took sides against his old friend and benefactor, and so made capital with the company. Douglas himself soon became ashamed of his conduct, and repented; and after McLoughlin's retirement, he pursued the righteous- policy of his predecessor. But this was not until after the London directors had become ashamed of their conduct—for there was really no profit in it, it being impossible to prevent immigration by any such means. After this exhibition of his heart to his patron and superior, McLoughlin saw in Douglas what he had never seen before, and never after that were they the same to each other. In all this Douglas made no mistake. The company remembered and rewarded him. He was a model man for the company. McLoughlin's mistakes were all errors arising from the nobleness of his nature. Some men are too coldly calculating ever to make mistakes. Obstinate and rigid as he was in his high, aristocratic policy, Douglas was ever free from any un worthiness; he lacked the sweet weaknesses of humanity, whence unworthiness is engendered. To be a little faulty is lamentable; but* to be absolutely free from fault may be more lamentable. For virtue, concrete and absolute, is unnatural, and to be unnatural is crime against nature. Douglas would be a party to no virtuous disloyalty: no, not for his soul's sake. If less than his superior in innate nobleness, he would be the greater in outward appointment. Ujatil selfish interest interfered, Douglas cherished for McLoughlin a filial affection. But within the breast of the younger man there did not dwell sufficient kindly feeling or generous sympathy to permit a sacrifice of self-advancement. His path of honor always lay in the direction of his company's interests. Douglas could satisfy the requirements of a merciless COLD AND HARD. 307 corporation better than McLoughlin; for McLoughlin's duty was always on the side of charity, while the charity of Douglas was made subservient to duty. In guile McLoughlin was an infant; in everything covert or cunning he was unsophisticated. He had spent his life, or at least the greater part of it, among responsible men, whose words were single, whose assurances signified something. They were business asscciates, business brethren, strict in their dealings, slower to promise than to perform. Thus the cold, keen world and the darkest side of humanity had remained hidden from him. He had not found it in the forest or in the camp. He had never met many bad men, except among classes so far below him that their wickedness excited his sorrow rather than his anger. The natives were thieves, liars, and murderers, some of them; yet even these it was the policy of his company to trust, because in giving them credit they derived profit. Surely there could not be among white Christians greater villany than among these scalping heathen. Alas! it was forced upon him to know before he died that there were worse men in the world than savages; that there were, even among those who claimed to be upon a better footing with the Almighty than were some others, men more cunning, more treacherous and vindictive, greater ingrates and scoundrels, more diabolically wicked, than the average aboriginal. The incoming settlers to the Northwest Coast were of a class totally different from any McLoughlin had hitherto seen. They were well beaten and battered men of the world. Many of them were conscientious and honest; most of them were pecuniarily irresponsible; too many were unreliable in their word; some few were downright dishonest. Few Hotspurs, few Mercutios, were found in the ranks of the Hudson's Bay adventurers; all here were under inexorable 308 JAMES DOUGLAS. commercial rule; one must look away upon the mountains, among the camps of the free-traders for Mer- cutios and Hotspurs. It is scarcely to be wondered at; it is exactly what we should expect, when the single-hearted ruler of Fort ^Vancouver, now well past middle age, was brought into jarring relationship with such an element as this, that by some of them he should be badly treated, sadly imposed upon; that after the most disinterested kindness he should be cheated, vilified; such being the way some have in cancelling obligations. Douglas might boast fewer enemies than McLoughlin, because he had granted fewer favors. During the last years of his life, McLoughlin sometimes showed signs of impatience, of which he was afterward heartily ashamed. When much excited, he would rub his stomach, swear hotly for a moment, and in the same breath beg God's forgiveness. It was laughable, except to one who knew the man and the occasion. Yet with all his injuries he did not become a misanthropic Timon. In the singleness and noble purity of his soul, he could not but believe that most men were honest; he could not believe that men are •as bad as they are, and he never regretted having befriended the unfortunate. To the end he was gentle and tolerant, though his sensitiveness to ingratitude and wrong was often manifest. Now, if in order to detect some slight flaws in the grandest and most faultless character of British Columbian history, it has been necessary to view it by the light of one of the grandest and most faultless characters of any history, it only shows our more just :and lively appreciation of the man. To the proper- minded writer of history, it is indeed refreshing to find the central figure in the early affairs of a colony or commonwealth so worthy of the proud pedestal on which it is his greatest pleasure to place him. Neither Douglas nor McLoughlin ever did a base or ignoble act; and side by side, even as in life they were so often LET BOTH BE PRAISED. 309 found, their names shall forever stand unsullied in the annals of the great Northwest.28 28 The life of James Douglas is in truth the history of British Columbia from its beginning, through all its early changes and vicissitudes, down to about 1875. I have in this chapter only outlined the salient characteristics of this remarkable man, for a fuller knowledge of whom I must refer the reader to the other parts of this volume, scarcely a page of which is not affected by his influence. My authorities for this chapter are: Douglas' Private Papers, 1st ser., MS., passim; Douglas' Journal, MS., passim; Douglas' Private Papers, 2d ser., MS., passim; Harvey's Life of John McLoughlin, MS., 36 et seq.; McLoughlin's Private Papers, ser. i., ii., iii., MS., passim; Finlayson s Hist. V. L, MS., 30-3, 67; Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 14, 25, 59-63; Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 2; McKinlay's Narrative, MS., 6; Good's British Columbia, MS., 1; Grover's Public Life, MS., 65, 66; Olympia ClubConvs., MS., 9-13; Roberts'Rec, MS., 57, 65: Burnett's Rec, MS., i. 94-5, 273-4; McLeod's Peace River, 25; Wilkes' U. S. Expl. Ex., iv. 351-9; Address and Memorials upon tlve Retirement of Sir James Douglas, passim; Reply, U. S. to H. B. M. Treaty of Washington, 74; Waddington's Fraser Mines, 35-6; H. B. Co. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, 49; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 46-7; Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 279; Cridge's Characteristics of James Douglas, MS., 3-5; Waldo's Critiques, MS., 13-14; 27th Cong. 3d Sess., H. Rept,. Com. No. 31, i. 56, 57; Or. Pub. Rec, MS., 4; Compton's Forts and Fort Life, MS., 2; Bacon's Mer. Life, MS., 20-1; Moss' Pictures, MS., 20; Pettigrove's Or., MS., 1-6; Saxton's Or. Ter., MS., 131-41; Minto's Early Days, MS., 2; Wilson's Or. Sketches, MS., 19-21. The biographical notices given by the public press in different parts of the world upon the occasion of his death, of which there are too many even to make mention, are remarkable not only for the information they do not contain, but for the remote distance from truth of the statements given. CHAPTER XVIII. THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. 1851-1859. Reconciliation of Antagonistic Elements—The Terms op Settlement Unjust and Impolitic—The Inauguration of Government Premature—No Government but the Best Government—Continuance of the Domination of the Monopoly—The Puget Sound Company-— Provisions of the Crown Grant in Regard to Government—Expi ration of the First Five-year Term and Renewal—The Offices of Governor and Magistrate at First United—Illegality of Delegating Imperial Authority to a Colonial Governor in Council— Organization of a House of Assembly—Farcical Performances of the First Legislators—The Wild Beasts and Savages Survive the Result—Touching Display of Family Affection in the Manipulation of Government Affairs—Douglas Compelled to. Relinquish Some Portion of his Honors and Emoluments. With the inauguration of James Douglas as coh> nial governor, two of the oppugnant elements which during the past two years had ruffled the usual serenity of the Island were harmonized. The management of Hudson's Bay Company affairs and the rulership of the colonial government being vested in one person, factor-in-chief of the commercial monopoly and representative of the queen's authority, it only remained for him to reconcile to himself differences between the company and the crown according to policy or conscience. The third element, the colonizers, was, fortunately for the peace of the Island, insignificant at the first, and was now since the inauguration of the new governor rapidly diminishing. If there was too little governing south of the 49th parallel, north of that line there was now altogether too much. Upon (810) TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT. 311 the devoted head of the poor settler, surrounded by jealous savages and under the most arbitrary and insane restrictions that ever emanated from a free government favoring free colonization, rested the incubi of monarchy and monopoly. Not alone must the pound per acre for wild, and thus far worthless, land, stolen from the savages, be paid the imperial government, but to the representative of the government as the representative of a crushing monopoly must the settler go for every necessity, every article of comfort or form of requirement, paying therefor often two or three hundred per cent on London cost; to this same hydra-head he must carry his produce, and receive for it whatever the company might please to pay. Who among nineteenth-century Englishmen would leave his happy English home with all its hallowed memories, and take up his residence in this far-away north-west wilderness only to breathe so stifling an atmosphere as this?. Nobody. And so Douglas traded skins and ruled, though he presently had few subjects except his own hired servants. He had now, I say, only to reconcile to his policy or conscience any infelicities arising between imperial and commercial interests, but I do not say that Douglas was disposed to deal unfairly in regard to either trust. He was wise enough to see that self-interest lay in equitable adjustments. He was wise enough to see that henceforth throughout this domain commercial power must diminish and imperial power advance. The combined sovereignty was not beyond his capabilities, yet both were not essential to his permanent advancement. He could live upon the emoluments of his chief factorship, or upon his salary as governor. At present the two combined were better than either singly; he would be true, so far as in him lay, to the interests of both; but ready at any time to relinquish either. When relinquishment became irresistible, he would let go the lesser and hold to the greater; which would be permanently the greater, 312 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. and which the less, his discriminating judgment and clear foresight had already told him. Between 1851 and 1856, in the absence of settlers, the duties of imperial rule were light. The monopoly, having everything its own way, managed matters, in the main, to suit its own interests. Whatever was to be done for England on these shores, that Douglas did well and faithfully. The tranquillity of the northern fur-fields was somewhat disturbed by the Indian hostilities south of the border, but Douglas was too well versed in aboriginal traffic to permit open rupture with the natives so long as he could have them to himself, and away from the demoralizing influence of strangers. During this time the Hudson's Bay Company, to all intents and purposes, enjoyed monopoly the same as if there had been no colony and no colonial government. There were no merchants on the Island, no manufacturers, no miners, other than the adventurers of England, for none could compete with them. There was no money on the Island; all business was barter. There was no intercourse with the mother country or with the world, except through the medium of the monopoly. Even in agriculture, in practical manipulation, at least, there was also monopoly—grasping, overshadowing, merciless monopoly. With nearest and best lands secured, and every resource at command, whatever was required for home consumption and more, whatever could be profitably exported to Russian America, the Hawaiian Islands, or elsewhere, the Puget Sound Company could furnish at prices below what would be cost to the distant and isolated settler. In granting the Island to the fur company for colonization, it had been stipulated by the crown, among other conditions, that at the end of the fifth year from 1849, unless certain progress in settlement was made, the charter should revert to the imperial government OVERREACHING. 313 And now, says Finlayson, owing to the hesitation of colonists to come forward, "the company began to get anxious." They began to see that there was such a thing as overreaching themselves in continuing too far the exclusive system. They were in no haste to colonize, but they could not hope always to hold the balance of power if there was no settlement. Hence they released some of their reserved lands, influenced some of their servants to become settlers, and made fresh efforts to induce families from abroad to make the Island their home. To give further color to their proceedings, a number of the officers, Douglas and Work, Tod, Tolmie, and Finlayson, bought wild lands, paying therefor the one pound per acre. The Puget Sound Company appointed bailiffs, who, besides a salary of sixty pounds a year, were given one quarter of the farm profits, with liberty to draw goods from the Hudson's Bay Company stores at cost and expenses chargeable to the farm account.1 It must not be supposed that such of the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company as had become landholders and settlers on Vancouver Island shared with the London management the desire for a 1' The company object to bringing the goods of settlers into the island, but not to taking goods away; the inference being that they object to any- thinglike competition.' Cooper, in Rouse of Com. Rept., H. B. Co., 1857, 204. The Reverend Staines »became much dissatisfied with things, with Mr Douglas and his administration as governor of the colony, others joined with him, leading to a division among the settlers. And now a portion of the Hudson's Bay Company traders also became dissatisfied with the course of Mr Douglas and his officers. They complained that the governor could not do justice to both parties; that the chief factorship should be separate and distinct from the governorship; that the goods for fur-trading purposes were transferred to the Puget Sound Company's colony at cost and charges, whereas they were worth seventy-five per cent on the prime cost, for cash, in the open market. This was the complaint of the company against the representatives of the colony, and they wished for a separation.' Finlayson's V. I., MS., 53-4. 'There are some queer stories afloat respecting these times; such as emigrants brought out and imprisoned on their arrival for not choosing to work; of others peremptorily forbidden to locate on certain lands, or the company would not protect them; of respectable emigrants coming over to obtain the necessary information and settle and leaving in disgust; of workmen flogged for trifles; of a miner having his skull cracked with a blacksmith's hammer by a foreman of the company at Nanaimo, and receiving a compensation in land or money to make him hold his tongue; of agreements subscribed on the Island, promising never to speak ill of the company, etc. Some of these stories have been probably exaggerated.' Waddington's Fraser Mines, 34, 314 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. continuance of fur-trading rule. The settlers' petition to parliament, made in the autumn of 1853, to which I have before alluded, asking that the company's grant should not be renewed at the expiration of the five years' term; tha't the Island should be taken under the immediate management of the imperial government; that a governor and subordinate functionaries should be appointed and paid by the home government; that courts of justice should be established; that the executive council should be separate from the legislative; that a majority of the legislative council should be elective for four years, by such of the colonists as held not less than two hundred acres of land, and the house of assembly to consist of nine members, to be selected every three years; that the elective franchise, now enjoyed only by persons holding twenty acres of land, should be extended so as to include persons occupying houses or paying rent to the amount of ten pounds per annum, or owning farming lands to the value of ten pounds, or city lands to the value of twenty pounds, and that the price of public land should be reduced to ten shillings an acre, payable in five annual instalments, with interest at the rate of five per cent per annum—the petition to parliament, I say, asking these things, was signed not only by Staines, Grant, Muir, Blenkhorn, Wier, Langford, Atkinson, Hall, Sangster, Yates, Hawkins, Wilson, Russell, Downie, Perry, McKay, Humphreys, and others, directly opposed to the Hudson's Bay Company in almost all their interests, but by the highest company officials themselves, by every member of the governor's council, even by Tod, Cooper, Finlayson, Tolmie, Work, Kennedy—all, in short, except the governor, his family and more immediate retainers. No disloyalty to the company was attached to this proceeding; it was only an expression of opinion that at the expiration of the present five years the interests of the government and the company should be wholly distinct. They saw that Douglas, in his present EXPIRATION OF THE TERM. 315 anomalous position, was doing justice neither to himself, his company, nor his government, and the quicker these several interests were segregated, the better for all concerned.2 The truth is, these shrewd Scotchmen saw nothing for themselves in the present arrangement. They could manage the affairs of the company as well, or better, untrammelled by imperial forms. It was well enough for Douglas, with his eight hundred pounds a year salary as governor, but the others were now land-owners and settlers as well as fur-traders, and these new interests were rapidly assuming proportions paramount to the older ones. Governing could never be profitable to them unless England was willing to pay something for the satisfaction of numbering among her colonial possessions the Island of Vancouver. If the government of the colony was to be borne entirely by the colonists, they had better be without it, for the natural wealth of the country they could gather themselves. Hitherto under the grant of 13th of January 1849, giving absolute lordship and proprietorship of the Island, its lands and minerals, at a yearly rental of seven shillings, with the privilege on the part of the crown of resuming possession at the expiration of five years by reimbursing the fur company its colonial expenses, little had been done in the way of governing. There was, indeed, no special need of a government; in the absence of settlers, the old relations between Indians and Europeans were the best, and these could be maintained by the fur-company alone; the imperial parliament was powerless to rule American savages. They might exterminate, but they could not govern. As the expiration of the term of five 3 ears covered by the grant drew nigh, the fur-traders saw that unless they would lose their colonization charter something must be done. A series of plausible excuses might 8This document with all the signatures is too lengthy to give here; it may. be found in full in the Olympia Columbian, Oct. 29, 1853. 316 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. be framed, which, if backed by sufficient of the right kind of influence when placed before the government, would be all-sufficient. First, they had carried out the requirements of the charter; therefore it was no fault of theirs that colonization had thus far failed; and finally, it was the fault of the government in making such absurd conditions. These weighty excuses at length prevailed, and in 1854 the Hudson's Bay Company succeeded in obtaining from the British government another agreement granting them Vancouver Island for purposes of colonization for another period of five years. We have seen how Douglas began his colonial reign as chief of the provisional council appointed by Blanshard just before taking his departure, James Cooper and John Tod being the other members of the council. After having been made governor in the autumn of 1851, seeing no immediate necessity for any change, Douglas continued to administer imperial authority by the aid of a council, adding only the name of Roderick Finlayson to the former number.3 Thus government affairs drifted on till 1854, when ended the five years' term of the grant,4 after which the name of John Work was substituted for that of James Cooper as member of council. Nor was it difficult for the company to obtain an extension. They pointed to their peaceful reign, to the absence of crime on the Island; they expressed their willingness—nay, their earnest desire—to adopt any means the government might suggest for the extension of colonization. And so the grant was renewed for another five years; and the Hudson's Bay 3 Cooper, Mar. Matters, MS., 1-28, says that the avowed object to be accomplished by the formation of this council was to hold in check the autocratic power of the Hudson's Bay Company. If this were the real instead of the pretended purpose—and, as I take-it, it was real with Blanshard, and pretended by some others—it was manifestly no less puerile in its conception than farcical in execution. 4 'In 1853,' says Deans, Settlement V. I., MS., 14, 'Mr Tod, Mr Finlayson, and Captain Cooper formed the council.' So Mr Finlayson, Hist. V, L, MS., 56, ' was appointed to the council which stood in 1852-3.' RENEWAL OF GRANT. 317 Company, with Douglas chief factor and governor, continued to rule Vancouver Island until 1859. Soon after this arrangement was made, however, the question began to arise in the mind of British statesmen conversant with the principles of colonial law, whether the crown, in a settlement of Englishmen, could legally convey authority to make laws to any council or legislature not elected wholly or in part by the settlers themselves. Upon the founding of the colony of Vancouver Island, Governor Blanshard in his commission and instructions was directed to summon general assemblies of freeholders, qualified by their ownership of twenty acres of land, with whose advice and the advice of his council, to consist of seven members, he was to make laws for the good government of the people. Governor Blanshard's commission contained another ^clause, introduced for the purpose of permitting the governor, if possible, to form a legislature which should provide for the immediate necessities of the colony before an assembly could be convened. This clause empowered the governor to make laws with the aid of his council alone. The governor, at his discretion, should divide the Island into electoral districts, fix the number of representatives, and exercise the usual power of proroguing or dissolving the assembly at pleasure. The legislature thus constituted should have power to make laws, levy taxes, and regulate the affairs of the Island, always subject to the approval of the crown. It was the intention of the imperial government in these instructions, no doubt, that an assembly should be formed as soon as possible.5 We have seen how, by the high price of land, the presence of an overshadowing monopoly, and the at- 5 ' I am convinced as well by the general tenor of the documents themselves as by the information which I have been able to obtain of the intention of her majesty's government in framing them, that it was then contemplated that such assemblies should be summoned as soon as it should be practicable to do so. Labouchere's Despatch to Gov. Douglas, 28th February 1856. 318 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. tractions over the border, colonization had been retarded. We have seen the difficulty, the impossibility, of summoning an assembly of freeholders, chiefly for the reason that there were no freeholders to summon. Or if there were landholders, being mostly servants of the Hudson's Bay Campany, it was not regarded a& exactly the thing to organize a popular tribunal solely from the ranks of the monopoly. Hence it was that Governor Douglas, for some time after Blanshard had resigned, deemed it advisable to act on the power apparently given him to manage matters with the advice of his council only, and to pass such laws as the exigencies of the time required. And this action on the part of Governor Douglas met the entire approval of the imperial government. But at length the time had come when the true spirit of English law must be given free play,, even in this far away and still almost tenantless isle. If it were true that the crown could not legally confide the law-making power to a governor in council, then the clause in his commission on which the governor relied was unwarranted, and his acts under it invalid. At all events, it appeared best that steps should be taken to establish a legislature for Vancouver Island in accordance with the spirit of the English law. Hence on the 28th of February 1856, Labouchere, secretary of state, writes Governor Douglas, instructing him without delay to call together an assembly according to the terms of his commission and instructions. By the ninth clause of his instructions, the governor had power to Hx. the number of representatives, and if he should deem it essential, to divide the Island into districts, with polling-places in each. To the assembly thus summoned, the governor, with the advice of his council, might suggest such measures as seemed to him requisite. Among the first steps to be taken by the assembly, the secretary suggested that the acts of the government already performed without the authority of an assembly should be made valid. A LEGISLATURE. 319 The maintenance of a constitution on the model of larger colonies, with a house of representatives and a council, Labouchere goes on to say, in so small a community might be inexpedient for the present, and perhaps for years a smaller body might satisfactorily perform the requisite functions of government. Such a body, however, could be organized only by enactment of a legislature authorized by the commission, which would be an assembly acting with the governor and his council. That is to say, a legislature might be formed unoer the provisions of the commission, and when thus legally constituted, it might, for convenience or for purposes of economy, surrender its powers into the hands of a single power as had been done successfully elsewhere. "I leave it to you to consider," continues Labouchere, "with the advice of the local authorities, the number and proper qualifications of the members of such a single council; but in the event of your deter^ mining to introduce the elective principle into it, a certain proportion, not less than one third, should be nominated by the crown. The power of assenting to or negativing, or suspending for the assent of the crown, the measures passed by such a council should be. distinctly reserved to yourself. And it is very essential that a constitutional law of this description should contain a proviso reserving the initiation of all money votes to the local government. An additional reason in favor of the course which I now prescribe, namely, that of calling together the assembly, and then if the legislature so created think proper, establishing a simpler form of government, is to be found in the circumstance that the relations of the Hudson's Bay Company with the crown must necessarily undergo revision before or in the year 1859. The position and future government of Vancouver's Island will then unavoidably pass under review, and if any difficulties should be experienced in carrying into execution any 320 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. present instructions, a convenient opportunity will be afforded for reconsidering them." To these instructions Governor Douglas, on the 22d of May, thus replies: " It is, I confess, not without feelings of dismay that I contemplate the nature and amount of labor and responsibility which will be imposed upon me in the process of carrying out the instructions conveyed in your despatch. Possessing a very slender knowledge of legislation, without legal advice or intelligent assistance of any kind, I approach the subject with diffidence, feeling, however, all the encouragement which the kindly promised assistance and support of her majesty's government is calculated to inspire." While averse to universal suffrage, or to making population the basis of representation, the governor deemed it expedient to extend the franchise to all persons holding in the colony a fixed property stake, that class being more numerous than the other, and having equal interest in the permanent welfare of the colony. He therefore asked permission of the imperial government to extend the franchise so as to give the representation a wider basis, but was told in reply that it was thought best, for the present, not to alter the commission, but to convoke the first assembly in strict accordance with its provisions, and then bring before that body a measure for extending the suffrage. The council at this time consisted of John Tod, senior member, James Cooper, Roderick Finlayson, and John Grant. Calling a meeting of the council, the governor laid before it the secretary's instructions concerning the summoning of assemblies of the freeholders, and on the 4th and 9th of June the same were duly considered. The result was a proclamation issued the 16th of June 1856, dividing the Island into four electoral districts, apportioning the number of representatives, and appointing returning officers for each.6 6The four districts were as follows: Victoria to be represented by three members, Andrew Muir returning officer; Esquimalt and Metchosin, two members, H. W. 0. Margary returning officer; Nanaimo, one member, C. E. Stuart ELECTION 321 Seven members were to be returned, wnose qualification was the ownership of freehold estate to the amount of three hundred pounds or more.7 The property qualification of voters remained as fixed by the governor's commission, twenty acres or more of freehold land. " There will be a difficulty in finding properly qualified representatives," writes Douglas to Labouchere, " and I fear that our early attempts at legislation will make a sorry figure: though at all events they will have the effect you contemplate of removing all doubts as to the validity of our local enactments." Following the example of British Guiana, the agents of the absentee freehold proprietors were allowed to vote in place of their principal.8 Writs calling a general assembly of freeholders for the purpose of electing members to serve in the general assembly were made returnable the 4th of August following. Elections were duly held according to notice; and in three of the districts the electors were so few in number that the returns were little more than mere nominations. In Victoria district, however, there were no less than five rival candidates, who fiercely contested for the honor of membership of the first house of assembly of Vancouver Island. And thus were chosen "seven fit and discreet persons," into whose hands the plestiny of the nation was for the time being confided.9 returning officer; Soke, one member, John Muir, junior, returning officer. Victoria district comprised the country east of the Victoria Arm and of a line running in a northerly direction toward Saanich, so as to include Peers Farm; Esquimalt district, the countryeast of Victoria Arm, and east of Pedder Bay, including McKenzie's and the farms west of Colquot's River; Soke district from Pedder Bay to Otter Head, the headland beyond Soke; Nanaimo district simply the town. The returning officer of each district was at the same time directed to give notice when and where the poll should be taken. 7 ' To have fixed upon a higher standard of qualification would have disqualified all the present representatives, leaving no disposable- persons to replace them, and it appeared to me impolitic as well as unconstitutional to dispense altogether with the property qualification.' Letter from Douglas to Labouchei-e, dated 22d July 1856. 8 ' The governor laid down as a principle that the custom or practice observed in England should, as far as possible, be adopted in this colony in framing the rules for elections.' Minute of Council, 9th June 1856. 9Their names were John Muir, Soke district; Thomas Skinner and J. S. Helmcken, Esquimalt district; John F. Kennedy, Nanaimo district; J. D. Pemberton, James Yates, and E. E. Langford, Victoria district. Hist. Beit. Col. 21 322 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. The august body convened the 12th of August, and the first house of assembly was declared open for business. "The affair passed off quietly," wrote the governor, with a naivete which, in a less unsophisticated statesman, might be regarded as sarcasm, "and did not appear to excite much interest among the lower orders."10 Then followed the governor's address, which, though a kind of congratulatory wail, was delivered in a dignified and impressive manner.11 10 Who the lower orders upon the Island at this time were, I am at a loss to know, unless we should seek them amongst the oily Indians, or Parson Staines' pigs. 11 Herewith I give the governor's address in full: § Gentlemen of the Legislative Council and of the House of Assembly .* I congratulate you most sincerely on this memorable occasion; the meeting in full convention of the general assembly of Vancouver's Island, an event fraught with consequences of the utmost importance to its present and future inhabitants, and remarkable at. the first instance of representative institutions being granted in the infancy of a British colony. The history and actual position of this colony are marked by many other remarkable circumstances. Called into existence by an act of the supreme government, immediately after the discovc "j of gold in California, it has maintained an arduous and incessant struggle with the disorganizing effects on labor of that discovery. Remote from every other British settlement, with its commerce trammelled, and met by restrictive duties on every side, its trade and resources remain undeveloped. Self-supporting, and defraying all the expenses of its own government, it presents a striking contrast to every other colony in the British empire, and like the native pines of its storm-beaten promontories, it has acquired a slow but hardy growth. Its future progress must, under providence, in a great measure depend on the intelligence, industry, and enterprise of its inhabitants, and upon the legislative wisdom of this assembly. ' Gentlemen, I look forward with confidence and satisfaction to the aid and support which the executive power may in the future expect to derive from your local experience and knowledge of the wishes of the people and the wants of the country. I feel assured that, as public men holding a solemn and momentous trust, you will, as a governing principle, strive with one accord to promote the true and substantial interests of the country; and that our legislative labors will be distinguished alike by prudence, temperance, and justice to all classes. * Gentlemen, I am happy to inform you that her majesty's government continues to express the most lively interest in the progress and welfare of this colony. Negotiations are now pending with the government of the Urited States, which may probably terminate in an extension of the reciprocity treaty to Vancouver Island. To show the commercial advantages connected with that treaty, I will just mention that an impost duty of thirty pounds is levied on every one hundred pounds' worth of British produce which is now sent to San Francisco, or to any other American port; or in other words, the British proprietor pays as a tax to the United States nearly the value of every third cargo of fish, timber, or coal which he sends to any American port. The reciprocity treaty utterly abolishes those fearful imposts, and establishes a system of free-trade in the produce of British colonies. The effects of that measure in developing the trade and natural resources of the colony can, therefore, be hardly overestimated. The coal, the timber, and the productive fisheries of Vancouver's Island will assume a GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS. 323 The first legislature would scarcely be called a wise or imposing body of men, or the representatives of a powerful state. Exclude the rocks, trees, and sav- value before unknown; while every branch of trade will start into activity,, and become the means of pouring wealth into the country. So unbounded is the reliance which I place in the enterprise and intelligence possessed by the people of this colony, and in the advantages of their geographical position, that with equal rights and a fair field I think they may enter into a successful competition with the people of any other country. The extension of the reciprocity treaty to this Island once gained, the interests of the colony will become inseparably connected with the principles of free-trade, a system which I think it will be sound policy on our part to encourage. * Gentlemen, the colony has been again visited this year by a large party of northern Indians, and their presence has excited in our minds a not unreasonable degree of alarm. Through the blessing of God they have been kept from committing acts of open violence, and been quiet and orderly in their deportment; yet the presence of large bodies of armed savages, who have never felt the restraining influences of moral and religious training, and who are accustomed to follow the impulses of their own evil natures more than the dictation of reason or justice, gives rise to a feeling of insecurity which must exist as long as the colony remains without military protection. Her Majesty's government, ever alive to the dangers which beset the colony, have arranged with the lords commissioners of the admiralty, that the President frigate should be sent to Vancouver's Island; and the measure will, I have no doubt, be carried into effect without delay. I shall nevertheless continue to conciliate the good-will of the native Indian tribes by treating them with justice and forbearance, and by rigidly protecting their civil and agrarian rights; many cogent reasons of humanity and sound policy recommend that course to our attention; and I shall, therefore, rely upon your support in carrying such measures into effect. We know, from our own experience, that the friendship of the natives is at all times useful, while it is no less certain that their enmity may become more disastrous than any other calamity to which the colony is directly exposed. * Gentlemen of the house of assembly, according to constitutional usage, with you must originate all money bills; it is therefore your special province to consider the ways and means of defraying the ordinary expenses of the government, either by levying a customs duty on imports, or by a system of direct taxation. The poverty of the country and the limited means of a population struggling against the pressure of numberless privations, must necessarily restrict the amount of taxation; it should, therefore, be our constant study to regulate the public expenditure according to the means of the country, and to live strictly within our income. The common error of running into speculative improvements entailing debts upon the colony, for a very uncertain advantage, should be carefully avoided. The demands upon the public revenue will, at present, chiefly arise from the improvement of the internal communications of the country, and providing for the education of the young, the erection of places for public worship, the defence of the country, and the administration of justice. 'Gentlemen, I feel in all its force the responsibility now resting upon us. The interests and well being of thousands yet unborn may be affected by our decisions, and they will reverence or condemn our acts according as they are found to influence, for good or for evil, the events of the future. ' Gentlemen of the house of the assembly, I have appointed ChieJ justice- Cameron to administer the oath of allegiance to the members of your house,, and to receive your declarations of qualification; you may then proceed to- choose a speaker, and to appoint the officers necessary for the proper conduct of the business of the house. James Douglas, Governor' 324 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. ages, the wild beasts and fishes from their constituency, and there was little left.12 Indeed, that the forest was not called upon to furnish Solons was almost a wonder, for the fiat had gone forth that there should be a colony and a government, and search the Island through, not more than six or seven men might be found eligible for the important trust, and these must be returned by one or two voters each. There were then upon the Island but about two hundred and fifty white men, although there had been more. Most of these were servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and few of them were land-owners. J. S. Helmcken was chosen speaker, and took his seat smiling audibly. Before the heavy work of the day was fairly undertaken, the machinery of government was brought to a stand by reason of questions being raised as to the property qualifications of two of. the members, and the validity of the election of one, thus leaving an efficient force of but three members besides the speaker. Again the governor found himself in a dilemma. To one of the immortal seven, objections had been raised purely from party motives. Possibly these might be quieted or overruled. "In the territorial government of the United States," writes Douglas to Eabouchere the 20th of August, "the practice in ,such cases is for the governor to grant certificates of qualification to a majority of the members, who then proceed to constitute the house; but I am not certain if such a course would be in harmony with English law; nevertheless, if the house should appeal to me •on the subject, I will have recourse to that expedient." But happily the governor was saved from pursuing so questionable a course. After adjourning from day 12 * There was a farcical affair in the shape of a legislature house of assembly, where two or three voters returned as many members to the house. As there was no revenue to expend and no power conceded to the house, their legislative efforts could only be and were abortive. This assembly died a natural death in 1859.' Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 12. See also Cooper's testimony before the select committee. House Com. Rept., 192. LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 325 to day, meanwhile practising to the best of their unenlightened ability the political gyrations and genuflections most effective on such occasions, party differences were adjusted in so far as to admit of the forming of a committee, which proceeded at once to inquire into the qualification of members elect. The return of Mr Langford was declared void, on the ground of his not possessing sufficient pronerty, and J. W. McKay was elected in his place. By the 13th of November, after numberless vicissitudes, the house declared itself ready for serious business; and there was nothing of more sombre concern than the ways and means of money-raising; so that at first the financial capabilities of the colony and the detail of the expenditures occupied attention. On the 18th of December a bill passed the assembly and was carried to the council, granting the sum of one hundred and thirty pounds for the payment of the servants and the defraying of the ordinary expenses of the house. "I am now preparing a bill for imposing a custom duty on imports as a means of meeting the ordinary expenses of the government," writes Douglas on the 9th of January 1857; "but the subject .must be approached with caution as there is a very general feeling in both council and assembly against taxation under any form, and I am prepared to encounter much clamour and opposition in carrying so unpopular a measure through the house." A French dancing-master in a Parisian salon could not have been more painfully polite than were these blustering Scotch and English fur-hunters in this western wilderness. However far \ short of its imperial model the incipient government might fall in points of learning and intelligence, dignity and courtesy should not be wanting. Scarcely a message is transmitted between the son-in-law speaker and the father-in-law governor unless accompanied by fulsome flattery. The governor sends "Mr Speaker and Gentlemen 326 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. of the House of Assembly" a dry document on finance; on receipt of which it is resolved first of all, "that the thanks of this house be presented to his excellency the governor for the communication." With more insignificant detail the governor "highly appreciates the complimentary message," whereupon the legislators immediately resolve "that the speaker be requested to thank his excellency the governor on behalf of this house for the information so courteously and promptly afforded," which, as usual, constituted the burden of the communication. But the climax of public affection is reached when, on the 10th of December 1856, on the receipt from the father-hvlaw of an abstract of the income and expenditure of the colony, the son-in-law "on the part of the house of assembly begs respectfully to acknowledge the receipt this day of a gracious communication and an abstract of the income and expenditure for the year 1856 from his excellency the governor, and to inform his excellency that the house of assembly unanimously resolved that the thanks of this house be presented to his excellency the governor for the same." Surely this man's merriment was only exceeded by his family affection. Nor is it at all difficult to perceive in this connection who was the government.13 They were, forsooth, a happy family, these fur- hunting legislators. The Douglas was all in all, lord paramount, dominator, imperial viceroy, and fur- traders' factor-in-chief. Work, Finlayson, and Tod, chief factor, chief trader, and ancient pensioner, respectively, of the Hudson's Bay Company, comprised both secret council and house of lords. The seven wise men, representing the seven districts of the Island as a house of assembly, were in their several vocations almost wholly of the monopoly. Helmcken was staff doctor of the company; Pem- 13 Return to an address of the Honorable the House of Commons, dated 26th June 1857, for Copies of Extracts of any Despatches that have been received by her Majesty's Secretary of State for the colonies, on the subject of the establishment of a Representative Assembly at Vancouver's Island. END OF SECOND TERM. 327 berton, surveyor and ardent attache; McKay, clerk of the company; Muir, former servant of the company, and father of the sheriff; Skinner, agent of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company; Kennedy, a retired officer of the company appointed by the governor and council to represent the district of Nanaimo; Yates, by the grace of the company, merchant. D. Cameron, brother-in-law of the governor, was chief-justice, and A. C. Anderson, retired chief trader, was collector of customs. After the performance-of their important duties, which appear principally to have been provision for the payment of their own expenses, the first house of assembly lapsed into oblivion.14 Thus the government of Vancouver Island continued until 1859, at which time terminated the second five years of Hudson's Bay Company colonial domination. During his term of office, four distinct and often antagonistic interests looked to Douglas as their head; namely, the Hudson's Bay Company's fur- trade, the colony of Vaucouver Island, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and the Nanaimo Coal Company. It was impossible for him to do justice to each of these several trusts. No man can serve two masters. No honorable man will permit himself to serve as a manager of a corporation, or of a commonwealth, where his fullest capabilities are not permitted free play in the performance of his duty to shareholder or citizen. During this entire term it was obviously impossible "for Douglas to throw his entire strength and influence upon the side of every one of his several oppugnant trusts, and he should have long since resigned, or rather he should never have accepted more than one of them at once. But he loved the power, ^'This took place in July, two years ago,' says Alfred Waddington, writing in 1858, * and nobody can tell me, nor do I believe it is known, when the assembly is to be renewed, unless it be at the will of the governor.' This assembly died a natural death in 1859. Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 12. 328 THE ISLAND UNDER DOUGLAS. and he loved the emoluments. For a very great man or a very ambitious man, the whole of this northwest wilderness, and all that it contained, was at best a small sovereignty, which, to cut into parts, some of them wellnigh hollow, were an exceedingly petty business. But the time had now come when he must relinquish his hold on some of his several trusts. He must cease either to be factor or governor.15 Thus the case was put before him by his company. It was not difficult to determine which power was in the ascendant. Therefore Douglas chose to abandon traffic, and hold to ruler ship. The result was, that in this year of 1859 the management of the several associations was given up, and the governorship retained. Douglas abandoned forever all interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, and Work, Tolmie, and McTavish became the new board of management. With the retirement of McLoughlin and Douglas the glory of the corporation departed from the Pacific.16 151 The fur-trade was the company's commercial operations proper; the Pugot Sound Company was distinct altogether, although some of the Hudson's Bay Company's officers belonged to this company likewise. The coal company was carried on by shareholders of the company, in which the officers here had nothing to do. These four interests were under the superintendence of Mr Douglas until 1859, when he had to sever his connection with the Hudson's Bay Company altogether. He had his choice to remain with the company or become governor of the colony.' Finlayson's V. I. and N. W. C, MS., 55. 16My authorities for this chapter are: Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 34-50; Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 12, 13; Finlayson's Hist. V. I., MS., 40-7, 5G; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 22. Let it be obserqed that every member of the first council here gives in his evidence, all being in manuscript. I may further mention the San Bernardino Guardian, Jan. 11, 1868; Brit. Colonist, April 4, 1877; Victoria Standard, Aug. 8, 1877; Waddington's Fraser Mines, 35; Ellis, in House Commons Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 334; Cooper, in Id., 19G; Finlay's Direct, i., 389, 90; Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 33; and McDonald, in Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 36. CHAPTER XIX. THE JUDICIARY. 1853-1859. The Questions of Vancouver Island Government and Justice in Home Political Circles—There is no Money in it—And Therefore They iiay Safely be Left to Themselves—Blanshard, the First Governor, Likewise the First Judge—Douglas as a Man-tamer and Measurer of Retribution—The i Thetis ' and the I Trincomalee j Expeditions—Bloodless Victory over the Cowichins—The Brightest Virtue of James Douglas—David Cameron Made Chief-justice— His Antecedents, Duties, and End—His Successors, Needham and Begbie—Revenue—Land and Liquor—The Mighty Power of Rum. Naturally among the first questions arising in the minds of office-holders, but more especially of office- seekers, when it became certain that the grant of Vancouver Island to the Hudson's Bay Company would be consummated, were, How is the new colony to be governed? How is justice to be administered there? We have seen the first question answered in the persons of Mr Blanshard and Mr Douglas. The other required more delay and further legislation; for, as matters now stood, the law required offenders on the British Pacific coast to be sent to Canada for trial. This would no longer do, now that Vancouver Island was a colony. Therefore, when in the house of commons on the 27th of March 1849, Mr Gladstone asked the under-secretary for the colonies if it was the intention of the government to introduce during that session any bill for altering any existing statute touching Vancouver Island, the answer was, None, except to establish there courts of judicature. The bill was accordingly introduced on the 25 th of (329} 330 THE JUDICIARY. June. It was supported by Earl Grey, and became a law. In supporting in the house of lords the bill for the administration of justice on Vancouver Island, Earl Grey remarked that it was the object of the imperial government to reserve judicial power to the local legislature of the Island, with right of appeal from the courts so constituted to the privy council. No political power was given by the grant to the Hudson's Bay Company. The governor might be selected by the company, but their choice must be approved by the crown. It was not proposed to enter immediately upon legislation and taxation, but the governor might summon a legislative council whenever there were sufficient colonists to make it advisable. As an excuse for the grant in the first instance, he said that it was necessary that the rights of the crown should be defined at once, that regular authority should be planted there to prevent irregular occupation, and, if the government were to do all this, it would prove expensive. The result was that quite a little economical delay happened before English gold was spilt for Vancouver Island government or justice.1 Justice under English law was first administered on Vancouver Island by Richard Blanshard, the first governor. As there were no colonial funds, no means of paying a recorder or other administrator of justice, the governor was obliged to act in that capacity.2 And so under Douglas, until legislators could be convened, who should provide the means of payment for judges, and sheriffs, and the usual paraphernalia of 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser. ciii. 1371; cvi. 1066-82. 2 \ So that you were governor and justice?.' asked Roebuck; 'had you constables ?' ' Yes,' replied Blanshard, ' when I wanted a constable I swore one.' House Commons Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 290. 'They had no courts for trial west of the mountains. Governor Blanshard was the first to institute courts here. He himself used to adjudicate in cases. In one case he came into collision with the late Sir James Douglas in a matter in connection with shipping, and in which the power of Mr Douglas was called in question by Mr Blanshard. The latter stated that Mr Douglas in the case had no authority to act. Mr Douglas was summoned before "h&x Blanshard. And this was the first time that English law was felt here.' Finlayson's V. I., MS., 100. THE VOLTIGEURS 331 law courts, justice must be administered by the governor in council. And in the place of sheriffs and standing armies, a mounted police, called voltigeurs, was organized from among the settlers and servants of the company.3 Up to 1857 there was but one constable upon the Island. There was no military force, if we except the voltigeurs, so that settlers scattered about the country were at the mercy of the savages. Yet outrages were extremely rare, thanks to the uniformly wise and humane management of the Hudson's Bay Company in this regard. Still, an occasional display of superior power was not without wholesome effect. In the only two instances of trouble occurring prior to this time, the natives had been induced voluntarily to give up offenders to punishment by the appearance of men-of- war, on one occasion by the Thetis, and on another by the Trincomalee. In December 1852, one of the company's shepherds, Peter Brown, at Christmas Hill, was killed by two natives, one of whom fled to Cowichin, and the other to Nanaimo. The settlers were greatly alarmed, fearful lest the terrible Cowichins should annihilate them, which, indeed, they might easily do. Kuper, captain of the war-vessel Thetis, lying at Esquimalt, volunteered assistance, which Douglas gratefully accepted. A force sufficient for the purpose was taken from the Thetis, and placed on board the company's vessel, Recovery, which was then, the 4th January 1853, towed by the steamer round into Haro Strait, Douglas being in command. Anchoring off the Saanich village, Douglas went on shore and began to talk to the heathen. The offenders were not here, but the governor took this occasion to impart a healthful lesson. He told those present s The settlers were much annoyed by cattle-thieves, which was in fact the origin of this organization. Cows were shot within call of home. 'One farmer lost thirty-six head of cattle in three years.' Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., 15. 332 THE JUDICIARY. of Queen Victoria and the British parliament, of law and love, gunpowder and perdition. He assured them if white men injured them they should have redress, and if they injured white men they should be punished. Then, with his blue-jackets and marines, he proceeded to Cowichin, arriving thereon the. morning of the 6th, and throwing the village into quite a flutter of excitement. The usual demand was then made, that the murderer should be delivered up. The chief asked time to consider, which, as Douglas desired to avoid bloodshed, was granted. A meeting was appointed for final conference next day on shore, the savages being afraid to trust themselves among the voltigeurs and others on board. At the appointed time the forces from the vessels landed, the Cowichin chief, with a few attendants, receiving them; on a knoll a tent was pitched, and the white men waited the attendance of the rest.. The chief advised the withdrawal of the troops a little out of sight, lest his people should be afraid to land. This was done, and yet nearly an hour elapsed before any of them appeared. Then two canoes were seen making their way quietly out of the river After them soon came six others, larger ones, all in a line. Paddling slowly along the shore, chanting their war- song, drumming on their canoes, and whooping like demons, they passed by the council-ground and landed a little beyond j then rushing up the hill, shouting, and clashing their arms as if to shake with terror any army daring to oppose them, they stood glaring ferociously at the intruders. It was with difficulty Douglas could restrain his men from firing; gradually the. savages became quieter, however, and then they produced the murderer, armed, and painted from head to foot. A grandiloquent defence was then made by the prisoner, which would have done honor to any criminal lawyer, the burden of which was that he was wholly innocent. After PUNISHMENT OF CRIME. 333 more parleying, he was finally handed over to the white men, to be tried at Victoria. More fatherly advice was now in order. "I informed them that the whole country was a possession of the British crown," writes Douglas, though how he could reconcile such a statement with his prayer- book precept, Thou shaft not steal, which with such determined persistence he endeavored always to impress upon their minds, the unsophisticated savage could not tell. Nevertheless, for the tobacco which was to follow, they promised loyalty, and white and red each went his way. On the 10th, the expedition appeared before Nanaimo and demanded a conference, which was promised for the following day. Meanwhile Douglas ordered twenty-one voltigeurs under McKay to conceal themselves during the night in a canoe near the mouth of the Nanaimo River, and when the natives assembled about the vessel, should the other criminal not be forthcoming, to search the village for him, while the chief, who was the father of the murderer, would be seized, and kept on board as hostage for their safety. Morning came, and with it the savages, bringing to the Beaver piles of valuable peltries in lieu of the murderer. But they were informed that no amount of property could buy the man's acquittal. The arihed boats proceeded to the village. There all was deserted. Making themselves as comfortable as possible, though without destroying anything, the white men patiently awaited events, and were finally rewarded by the murderer being delivered into their hands without bloodshed. Surely nothing could be more noble than conduct like this on the part of the governor. It would have been so easy, so less trying to patience and dignity, to bave given the word to fire, and so to have mowed down a hundred innocent men for the crime of the one guilty. " On one or two occasions," writes Douglas to Tod, immediately after the capture of the first 334 THE JUDICIARY. criminal, "the affair had nearly taken a serious turn, a misfortune which could hardly have been avoided had it not been for the perfect arrangements of Lieutenant Sansum, and the admirable temper and forbearance exhibited by the force in circumstances infinitely more trying to brave men than actual conflict . . . The surrender of a criminal without bloodshed, at the requisition of the civil power, by the most warlike tribe on Vancouver Island, is an epoch in the history of our Indian relations which augurs for the future peace and prosperity of the colony. Tell the settlers to be prudent and vigilant; but at the same time entreat them to dismiss those idle terrors of Cowichin invasion which have so often distressed their minds." Arrived at Victoria, the Indians underwent a form of trial, and were executed.4 Not long afterward a white man was shot, but not mortally, at Cowichin, and soon the governor was there again with the Trincomalee towed by the Otter, Yet more peremptory conduct on both sides marked this occasion. The natives refused to give up the culprit, and desired to fight. Though considerate and humane, there was none braver or more determined than Douglas. He would not harm the poor savages if he could possibly avoid it; but he would have the offender and satisfy justice if he swept the Island into the sea. The governor landed his forces, and each side drew up in battle-array; the red with tremendous and fearful noise, the white with mountain-howitzer and musket. Douglas beckoned the chief forward, and a parley ensued, but without favorable result. The white men then encamped where they were. Next morning the governor stood before the Cowichin village, still in the interests of peace and humanity. Behind him were the muskets and howitzer ready pointed awaiting his signal to fire. Instead of the chief, the murderer 4Douglas' Private Papers, 2d ser., MS., 31-4; Deans' Settlement V I, MS., 14. BLANSHARD AND DOUGLAS. 335 himself, armed and painted, came out, hesitated a moment, then quickly raised his gun and pulled the trigger. It missed fire, else the governor had probably been slain. And yet he did not give the signal to fire. Coolly and calmly he stood his ground, while the savages seized and bound the offender, and handed him to the governor for justice. The trial took place immediately, and the Indian was hanged there before all his people.5 Such was the administration of justice during the first years of the Douglas rule. But the governor did not relish it. In his less dignified days he had fought Indians and hunted criminals to his heart's content. And now to continue in himself the offices of sheriff, judge, and executive, together with a dozen others, was more than he cared for. Might he not make a judge even before legislators were convened, and afterward get government to sanction the proceeding, and the colony to pay the cost? There was, about the time of this last occurrence, at Cowichin one David Cameron, Hudson's Bay Company clerk, and superintendent of the coal-mines at Nanaimo He was a brother in-law of the governor— it is wonderful hew prolific was the family when offices were vacant; but we must also bear in mind how scanty was suitable governing material at this time. Here was an opportunity foi a little stroke of business. And it was all business, civilizing, christianizing, colonizing, and governing What shall I gain by it?, was the question and that not in heaven or hereafter, but here and now Cameron nad been brought up a draper; he once had charge of somebody's estate m the West Indies; and. he now received from the company one hundred and fifty pounds a year for his services. Though he knew 5 ' Court would sometimes be hold a* which Indians were tried. Flogging was sometimes inflicted upon thv. natives, which they deemed very disgraceful. The death-penalty was inflicted on Indians. McDonald, m Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 22, 336 THE JUDICIARY. nothing of law, never having been called to the bar, yet he might make a most excellent judge, being brother-in-law to the king. In civil cases, at least, where human life was not at stake, he might serve well enough; the company being always one of the parties in such suits, all he had to do was to decide in favor of the company. The matter of salary was worthy of consideration; but with his pay as clerk he might live; it would cost nothing extra to act as judge; there was honor in it, the first chief-justice of the colony, and all that; besides, it would not do to let so important an office go out of the family or out of the company. Suppose some big-wig having a knowledge of law and a mind of his own should come out from England armed with the authority of determining here, there, everywhere, what might and what might not be done, one who might even presume to instruct the governor in his duties, and prescribe limits to the power of the monopoly. It would be fearful; entailing, besides, heavy expenses upon the colony for the luxury of a curse. No! Since Blanshard's day, matters were not so bungled. Appoint Cameron; get government to ratify the appointment; then let him serve without pay for the present, trusting that all will come out profitably in the end. And so it was done. The supreme court of civil judicature of Vancouver Island was created, and the draper became chief-justice of the colony.6 Rules to be observed in the supreme court for the administration of justice in civil cases were submitted € {Was there any dissatisfaction expressed at the time of his appointment ?' asked Mr Christy of Mr Cooper before the select committee. ' Strong remonstrances were made by petition to the governor, and by petition to the house of commons, was the reply House Commons Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 202. 'The settlers at Red River in 1849 petition the removal of the recorder, Adam Thorn, because of his favoring the fur company in his decisions. Caldwell, in Id., 301. Mr Coopei before the select committee remarked of Mr Staines: ' He was persecuted most vilely, 1 believe, myself, through the instrumentality of this Mr Cameron, for he was a prominent party there; he, Rev. Mr Staines, was no doubt obnoxious to the authorities, and he was persecuted on that account.' House Commons Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 193. DAVID CAMERON. 337 by Chief-justice Cameron to the governor and council, and were approved the 17th of February 1857. A copy of these rules was transmitted to Mr Labou- chere for final approval, and proclamation made of the same on Vancouver Island.7 Cameron received his nomination from Douglas in 1853,8 and his appointment was confirmed by the colonial office about the end of the year, at which time he was still at Nanaimo. Early in 1854 he took up his residence at Victoria, where he remained to the day of his death.9 Cameron was superseded by Needham10 in 1858, he by Begbie in 1859. But a government cannot be carried on forever without money. It had been stipulated that the proceeds from the sale of public lands might be devoted to colonial development. Before leaving the Island, Governor Blanshard had been informed by the Hudson's Bay Company that no salaries would be paid public officers out of the proceeds of land sales. Such salaries must be raised either by taxes or duties. " This is, in fact," remarked the governor, repudiating the clause in their grant which binds them to provide, at their own expense, all necessary civil and military establish ments; their own arrangements tend to prevent a tax- paying population settling here; and that the harbors shall be open to all nation for the purposes of trade is prominently put forward in the prospectus they have published."11 After the departure of Blanshard, however; after every element and person obnoxious to fur-trading traditions had been removed, when all revenue levied and collected should fall into the pockets or honorable clerks, traders, and factors—there was no longer ques- 7 House of Commons Returns to an Address, dated June 25, 1857, 18. 8This according to Cooper. Finlayson dates his appointment 'after the departure of Blanshard,' say in 1852. Hist. V. L, MS., 100. 9He died at Belmont, V. I., the 14th of May 1872. Olympia Transcript, 25th May 1872. 19' Mr Needham was then knighted and appointed to a similar position in the island of Trinidad, West Indies.' Finlayson's V. I.t MS., 101. n Blanshard's Despatches, 11. Hist. Beit. Col. 22 338 THE JUDICIARY. tion as to the right disposition to be made of the proceeds of land sales.12 Some revenue might be secured from sales of land if settlers would come forward and pay their pound per acre; but if the lands did not sell, the privilege was of little avail. Was there no other agency whereby patriots might secure profit as well as honor for their services 1 Yes: there was rum. As a civilizer, rum had been always king. Whoever heard of the accomplishment of great things in the new world—of conquests, conversions, pacifications, and occupations— without the aid of alcohol? White men and red men both loved it, and would lay down their life for it. Let this stimulant, then, do what every other stimulant failed to accomplish; let whiskey energize where philantrophy, enlightenment, and progress could not inspire. Let justice be supported by the emoluments of vice, and let the noble institutions of Europe be planted in America with empty rum-barrels for their foundation. So, by order of the governor in council, liquor-dealers in Vancouver Island were made to pay each an annual license of one hundred and twenty pounds. At the time when the first house of assembly met there were four of these licenses on the Island, one held by the Hudson's Bay Company, and three by retail dealers. By paying this annual license, keepers of public houses might freely import liquors and sell without further restriction. There were no duties on spirits or groceries, and on this license liquors might be sold in any quantities or to any persons except Indians. No license was required to sell any article except spirits. And although this license was by many deemed exorbitant, yet if there had been no more unwise provisions in colonial regulations, as colonization goes, immigrants would have been more than usually fortunate. By this means, in due time, the sum of 12' The revenue of Vancouver Island prior to 1858 arose principally from the sale of land.' Finlaysons Hist. V. I., MS., 84. REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE. 339 one hundred pounds per annum was provided for the chief-justice.13 For the year ending November 1, 1855, the public expenditure of the colony was £4,107 2s. 3d The income from all sources, including duty on licensed houses and sales of public land, was £693 2s. lOd Among the items of expenditure were government premises, £7 15s. lOd; surveying department, £683 18s. Id; roads and bridges, £1,388 5s. EL Victoria Church,parson tge and chaplain, £1,362 17s. 5d; public schools, £320 4s. lid; poor-rates, £10 10s. 3d; administration of justice, £100; jail expenses, £30 9s. 2d; militia, £81 8s. 8d From land sales were received £334 17s. Gd., and from duty on licensed houses £340. On the 6th of December 1856, the house of assembly asked the governor what the revenue of the colony might be. The reply was, "that the house can exercise a direct control only over the revenue raised in the colony through the act of the general legislature. The revenue derived from the tax on licensed houses- is therefore, I conceive, the only fund absolutely at our disposal; the proceeds arising from land sales, royalties, and timber duties being remitted and placed to the account of the reserve fund in England, which is, however, also exclusively applicable for colonial purposes, with the exception of ten per cent allowed by virtue of the charter of grant to the Hudson's Bay Company." The revenue received from licensed houses; was, in 1853, £220, in 1854, £460, and in 1855, £340.14 13 And now, besides the £150 as clerk, Cameron 'receives also another £100 per annum from what is called the license fund. There are heavy licenses from the publicans; they pay about £120 per annum. I believe that gives an income to the colony of about £400 or £500 per aunum, and he receives £100 out of it.' Cooper, in House Commons Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 193. "Between the 12th of July 1855 and the 10th of October 1856, there were sold of public lands 2,137 acres. 'The extent of unimprovable rock,' says William Gr. Smith, secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company, in his statement rendered the governor, the 16th of October 1856, 'added to the allowance made for roads, somewhat exceeds 837. acres, leaving 1,299 acres, three roods, and 26 perches chargeable to purchasers; on which £512 17s. Qd. has been already paid in, and there remains payable by annual instalments the snm of £787 0s. I0d.' In addition to above, £6,193 was received from the Hudson's Bay Company for lands purchased or reserved by them. Up to the 19th of July 1855, the total amount received from land sales was £6,871 9s. 4d. The 340 THE JUDICIARY. An appropriation for £130 passed the assembly the 18th of December 1856, and was approved by the council and governor the 14th of February 1857. The items, all of which were to be paid out of the duty derived from licensed houses, were as follows: £50, to be placed at the disposal of the governor, to pay for copying documents for the use of the house; £10 to Robert Barr for .services as clerk of house; £5 to Andrew Muir for services as sergeant-at-arms; £25 for salary of clerk of house for 1857; £15 for salary of sergeant-at-arms and messenger for 1857; £20 for heating, lighting, and furnishing house of assembly for 1857; £5 for stationery for members of assembly.15 The truth is, government on the Island thus far, with, the sole exception of the legally appointed governor, who could have performed all the duties of that office equally as well had he been only chief factor in .charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs, was mere sham. The council was a sham, incompetent to ordain; the chief-justice was a sham, the hireling of the monopoly, knowing no law; and the legislature was a sham, for there never had been given, by act of parliament, sufficient power to constitute a legislature. All that had been done was done by the power of the cro^. The colony was first ruled by a governor in council, which government soon came to a standstill becar.oe it proposed to levy duties on spirits, or issue liquor licenses, when it possessed no authority; then it was that an abortive attempt was made to set up in the Island a free legislature. moneys received by the Hudson's Bay Company were remitted to London. By the 10th of October 1853, they had remitted £3,577 5s. 2d.', the Puget Sound Company had paid in London £2,574, and £120 had been paid by W. C. Grant and J. Huggins in London. House Commons' Returns to an Address, 14. 15 Minutes of Council 14th Feb. 1857 in House Commons' Returns to an Address, 19. CHAPTER XX. THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. 1858. Gold ! Hail All-powerful and Most Worshipful !—Its Presence not Secretly Known to the Fur-traders—Discovery on Vancouver Island—On Queen Charlotte Islands—On Skeena River—In the Cascade Mountains of Washington—At Colville—At Kamloop— On Thompson River—On Fraser River—The Tidings Spread—The Matter Laid before Government—Effect on California—Rush to the Mines—Routes and Methods of Transportation—Whatcom versus Victoria—Trail-making—Overland Expeditions—Licenses and Imposts—Effect on the Fur-traders. High above all principalities and powers, above religious fanaticism or love of empire, above patriotism, philanthropy, family affection, honor, virtue, or things supernal or infernal, there now arises in this Northwest wilderness an influence which overshadows every other influence, which shrivels into insignificance fur companies, licenses to trade, pounds per acre, settlement, skins of wild beasts or lives of wild men, missionaries, governors, parliaments, houses of assei i bly, and even rum. Here history begins anew. It is as though nothing had been; as though all was present and to come. Amongst the many sins charged upon the Hudson's Bay Company, by the hungry horde that invaded their territories during the wild excitement of 1858, was one in effect that the existence of gold on the upper Fraser and elsewhere had long been known to the company's officers, prior to that unwelcome appear- (341) 342 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. ance, and that such knowledge had, through motives of policy, been kept secret. While it is not of the slightest importance to any one, least of all to those then upon the gound in search of the metal, how long fur-traders had known of its existence, if of that pestiferous crew there are any now living to whom the fact that such previous knowledge did not exist can bring comfort, let them henceforth possess their souls in peace. It would surely seem the last thing of which sane men could complain, for had such knowledge been published, where now would be their chance? Bather let them thank the good traders for keeping the secret. The fact, however, had not been known.1 Beticent as were the traders by law and by instinct, they could not long have kept secret a knowledge of the existence of any large quantity of precious metal, even had it been to their interest to do so. And as to their interest, when such knowledge was almost sure to spoil forever their dearly loved hunting-ground, how could those doubt who were unaware how near their end the company were before the great gold excitement, how a renewal of their exclusive trade license had already been refused them, how great might be their harvest with all their superior facilities of men, ships, fortresses well stored with goods, of organization, capital, familiarity with the natives, and knowledge of the country, should the region rapidly fill with energetic humanity? But although gold on the upper Fraser was not uncovered to any one long prior to the so-called Fraser River excitement, its existence in supposed inconsiderable quantities elsewhere in British Columbia had been openly and for some time known. The silly suspicion of the miners, that the knowledge 11 No suspicion of the fact ever existed, as I can personally aver. Indeed, it was not till after a considerable interval, and after mush careful research by- experienced miners from California, that the riches of the Cariboo mines were partially developed.' Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 116. I EARLIEST GOLD INDICATIONS. 343 existed and was kept secret, never was true of any part of the country, or at any time. When during the summer of 1850 Joseph W. McKay was exploring for farming lands between Victoria and Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, he found in various places particles of gold, but nowhere in sufficient quantities to warrant further investigation. Nevertheless, it was a gold-field that he had found, and mines were worked there subsequently.2 During this same year, the mania for gold then raging in California having penetrated savagedom, a native of the Queen Charlotte Islands appeared at Victoria with a bag of specimens.3 Writing Earl Grey the 29th of March 1851, Governor Blanshard says: "I have heard that fresh specimens of gold have been obtained from the Queen Charlotte's Islanders. I have not seen them myself, but they are reported to be very rich. The Hudson's Bay Company's servants intend to send an expedition in the course of the summer to .make proper investigations."4 The brigantine Huron was despatched accordingly, ostensibly to trade, but really to search for gold. Failing in which, and for want of something better to do, the men broke up part of a quartz ledge, 2 In August 1858 there was quite a flurry of excitement in Victoria respecting the presence of gold in that vicinity, as if it were then a new thing. \ One account asserts positively that five ounces were taken from diggings south-east of Victoria,... while another changes the location to a nearly opposite point.' Victoria Gazette, Aug. 19, 1858. Rumors increased, until within a week, afterward gold was everywhere—under the governor's houses, at Silver Lake, at Saanich, and at Dead Man's Creek. 'It has been found back of Nanaimo, and is known to exist on other islands in these waters.' Victoria Gazette, Aug. 26, 1858. * One location about twenty miles from Nanaimo is now, 1878, being worked by Chinamen.' McKay's Recollections, MS., 11. 8 « Gold had been discovered in Queen Charlotte's Island in 1850, but only in small quantities.' British Columbia and Vancouver Island, 127, by William Carew Hazlitt. This little book, a 16mo of 247 pages in yellow boards, was published in London in 1858 with a map to all appearance much older in its compilation than the text. Mr Hazlitt is evidently a journeyman author, whose wages were too low to warrant good work. His book is mostly extracts, well selected, and from widely extended sources, the original parts being desultory, and lacking both preciseness and consistency. * Blanshard's Despatches, 10. The governor was not very definite in his ideas of metals, or precise in his use of words. 344 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. and carrying the pieces on board their vessel, returned in triumph to Victoria. Again on the 12th of May, Blanshard observes: "Beports are current of gold having been found by the Cowitchin Indians, in the Arro Canal, but they are so vague as scarcely to deserve notice." Rowland of the sloop Georgina from Australia had a mate named McEwen, who had been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. In one of his expeditions to the north, McEwen professed to have landed on Queen Charlotte Islands, and to have chiselled some gold out of a quartz seam. This was exhibited by Rowland and McEwen at Olympia in the autumn of 1851. It was their opinion that if they could organize a company and go to the spot in sufficient force, they could load their vessel with gold. An expedition was fitted out at Olympia, which sailed in the Georgina in November 1851. Being forced to come to anchor at Neah Bay, on account of bad weather, the Dameras Cove, Captain Balch, was encountered at the same place. Balch was out on an oil and fur-trading expedition, but on learning the destination of the Georgina—in spite of the mystery that surrounded it— he followed the sloop northward.5 The unfortunate ending of this venture is given elsewhere. In the summer of 1851, the Hudson's Bay Company, without further showing, despatched the brigantine Huron with a number of men, who had experience in mining, to the spot indicated by the native who had brought the specimens to Victoria some time previous. They spent several months prospecting the islands, and though they failed to find placers at the place indicated by the native, after considerable searching along a quartz outcrop they succeeded in finding a good ledge which showed free gold in nearly every specimen. They were not prepared to undertake quartz- mining operations; and as it was now late in the season, they gathered about half a ton of specimens 5 Weed's Queen Charlotte Island, MS., 9-19. QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 345 and returned to Victoria, intending to resume their work on the ledge better prepared the following spring.6 McEwen's specimens seem to have come from the same place, and not improbably they were obtained from the same native. It was in a little harbor on the west coast of Moresby Island, the southern island of the group, subsequently known as Gold Harbor, also as Mitchell Harbor, named after Captain Mitchell of the Recovery. In the following spring of. 1852, Queen Charlotte Islands witnessed the arrival of numerous expeditions. There were five vessels in Mitchell Harbor at one time; and the hills were full of prospectors. A party of miners from the Nanaimo coal-mines, taken there by the Una on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company, was well provisioned and provided with every requisite for blasting on a large scale. The whole ended in disappointment. A quartz vein seven inches in width, traceable for eighty feet, contained in some places twenty-five per cent of gold, but the hope of loading vessels here with gold was forever abandoned. In the Fort Simpson journal, the 8th of April 1852, is found written: "This day one of the chiefs from Skenar River that arrived here yesterday brought a few small pieces of gold ore to the fort; also two large pieces of quartz rock with a few particles of gold ore introduced. The chief... tells me that it would take me seven days to go where the gold is to be found and return back to the fort. I am told by others that we can go to the place in two days, or forty-eight hours, by trail. The chief tells me that the gold is to be seen in many places on the surface of the rock for some distance, say two miles. This is a most important discovery, at least I think so, and may prove more convenient for us to work than the diggings on Queen Charlotte Island. I shall go or send to have a look at this and examine this new discovery so soon as possible. I gave the chief that 6McKay's Recollections, MS., 12-15. 346 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. brought the rock and ore a larger canoe, value five elk-skins, which pleased him much. We showed him other civilities. I hope the company, and myself also, will reap some benefit from this discovery, as I have ten children that would be much pleased to finger a portion of the precious metal. Who knows but this discovery may prove more valuable than the diggings in California." To which prayer the sailor McNeill affixed his initials. The 24th of the same month the fort scribe enters: "Pierre Lagrace with his son and four Indians had started in the morning to visit the place where gold has been found at Skenar River. They had not proceeded far when the steamer was seen in the distance, and they turned back, together with four other canoes which had also started for the river on a trading excursion ... We were most pleased to hear that all our friends to the south were well, and that the Recovery, one of our vessels, had gone to Queen Charlotte Island to hunt for and obtain gold. Captains Mitchell and Stuart and Dr Kennedy were the superior officers of the party, in all forty souls." . May 5th: "About noon Chief Factor Work with Pierre Lagrace, Quintal, and four Indians started in a canoe for Skenar River to examine the gold regions said to exist up that river. They will probably be absent about fourteen days." Punctually to the hour Work returned and reported no gold on Skeena River, and his journey a failure. The 8th of May word came to Fort Simpson from Kennedy on board the Recovery, that "two American vessels are lying in Mitchell's Harbour, viz., the Tepio from Liverpool, and the Susan Sturgis from Nisqually. The vein had been worked out by some vessel, and he had no hopes of obtaining gold. Six more vessels were expected soon from the Columbia and San Francisco. The Recovery had been leaking both at sea and in harbour. This will be another bad .speculation in my opinion," concludes the Fort Simpson journal- SKEENA RIVER. 347 keeper. Nevertheless, Kennedy wanted more mining tools, an outfit of which, with beads and cod-hooks, was despatched by canoe on the 12th, and charged to the account of the Recovery. Letters received the 16th reported that "no gold had been procured by blasting," and that "the American vessels had all gone away quite disappointed."7 Another chief, arriving at Fort Simpson on the 5 th September from Skeena River, reported gold. Chief Factor Work was fast catching the fever. For these many years furs alone had filled his brain. Now he found room for metals. It would be so pleasant to have his old age made mellow with gold. The natives of Nass River had brought in specimens of various metals from their country, and thither, on the 13th, Work set out in a canoe to see what he could make of it. If, indeed, another California might be found in the north, how happy would be the Hudson's Bay Company! Nevertheless, Work returned from his adventure unsuccessful. "Nothing like gold was seen during his cruise," writes the anxious father of ten children. Thus years before the great excitement, all along the coast, from Fuca Strait to Skeena River, were thought and talk of gold; and when men looked for it, they generally found evidence of its presence. George B. McClellan in 1853 found gold in considerable quantities, as he expresses it, on the military 7Fort Simpson Journal, MS., 1852. See also Compton's Aboriginal Brit C6L, MS., 60. William M. Turner elaborates to the extent of seven pages in the Overland Monthly, Feb. 1875, a statement to the effect that in Feb. 1852 one Jack McLean, a Scotch sailor, once in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, arrived at San Francisco, and reported gold at Englefield Harbor, Queen Charlotte Islands. The fur-traders were then there, he said, gathering the metal, and jealous of any intrusion. On his way town he had been wrecked. On the evidence of some specimens he showed, sixty-five persons embarked at San Francisco the 29th of March on board th ■> brig Tepic, Captain Lortt. Arrived at Englefield Harbor, they were soon overhauled by the first mate of the Recovery, who informed them that they were within British dominion, and that they were requested to depart from that coast. To which they gave an impudent answer, and pushing ashore began prospecting. Their manhood and independence thus vindicated, after a month's stay they returned whence they came. 348 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. road survey through the Naches Pass in the Cascade Mountains, between Walla Walla and Fort Steilacoom, and in his Northern Pacific Railway explorations at Similkameen, his men panning it out at the rate of two dollars a day. Alfred Waddington, a former Mariposa miner, saw in 1854 an Indian chief in the Colville country who had placer gold in his possession. Henry De Groot, an indefatigable explorer, prospector, and writer upon mining developments, having visited British Columbia in 1858, states that Chief Trader McLean at Kamloop procured gold-dust from the natives in that vicinity as early as 1852, since which time more or less gold has been received from the natives at that and other posts, though not enough to awaken a .suspicion in the minds of the traders that paying diggings existed in the country; and that various parties at different times prospected the banks of the Thompson between 1855, the date of the discovery of the Colville mines, and 1858. It was at Nicommen, on the Thompson near its junction with the Fraser, according to some authorities, that the first gold was found in paying quantities in British Columbia. Chinese and Indians were engaged in mining at that place in favorable seasons as late as 1876. The account of the first discovery at Nicommen was very circumstantially given by Douglas in his diary under the date of August 14, 1860, without stating the date of the discovery. " Gold," he writes, "was first found on Thompson River by an Indian, a quarter of a mile below Nicommen. He is since dead. The Indian was taking a drink out of the river; having no vessel, he was quaffing from the stream, when he perceived a shining pebble, which he picked up, and it proved to be gold. The whole tribe forthwith began to collect the glittering metal."8 Mr Finlayson says gold was first found in crevices 8Dawson on Mines, 40; Douglas' Private Papers, 1st ser., MS., 124-5; HazlittI B. C, 127; De Groot's B. C, 13. THOMPSON AND FRASER RIVERS. 349 of the rocks on the banks of the Thompson River. McLean, the officer in charge at Kamloop, inspected the ground, and then sent down to Victoria for some iron spoons for the purpose of digging out the nuggets. The spoons were sent up as requested, and McLean was instructed to give every encouragement to the natives to have them procure and bring in the gold, and to obtain all that he could. Shortly afterward, an American named Adams, a miner of some experience, began washing for gold on the Fraser. He gathered a small bag full of fine dust, which he exhibited, according to Mr Finlayson, on Puget Sound and at other places. The news so attested went from mouth to mouth, and spread rapidly through Oregon and California.9 Mr Anderson states that the first intimation the Hudson's Bay people had of the existence of gold in the interior was in 1855, when Angus McDonald, clerk in charge at Colville, "wrote down to Fort Vancouver that one of his men/while employed hauling firewood, had almost undesignedly amused himself by washing out a pannikin of gravel on the beach near Colville." Particles of gold were found, which excited curiosity and invited further search; parties went out to prospect, and at the north of Pend d'Oreille River near the boundary, diggings were found which were moderately remunerative. According to his account, it was in 18 5 7 that the existence of gold was ascertained near the mouth of the Thompson, and it was the exaggerated report of this discovery reaching California, he believes, that caused the great rush of 1858.10 Douglas noticed a later commnuication of McDonald's in a letter to Labouchere of the colonial office, dated Victoria, April 16, 1856, in which he states that according to McDonald's report from the upper Caledonia district in March 1856, gold had been found on the upper Columbia in considerable quantities, the daily earning of persons then employed in the dig- 'Finlayson's V. I. and Northwest Coast, MS., 56-60. Adams' doings are here confused with McDonald's. 19 Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 117-18. 350 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. gings being from ten to forty dollars to the man. James Cooper testified before the British parliamentary committee investigating the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1857, touching the particulars of the discovery, expressing the belief that it was highly important, and that there would be a great rush into the country. His language was prophetic, for it was but twelve months later when from thirty to forty thousand people came into British Columbia from the south. Waddington affirms that some Canadians from Fort Colville went over to the Thompson and Bonaparte, and thence to the Fraser above the Big Falls. They prospected on their way, found gold almost everywhere, and concluded to tarry among the natives on the Thompson in order to.try their fortune at mining. It was the report of the results obtained by these men which induced others in the season of 1857-8 to embark in mining; and results exceeding expectations, the news was spread over Puget Sound and thence carried to San Francisco. De Groot's version is that in the summer and autumn of 1857 a number of persons from Oregon and Washington territories, familiar with the operations at the ;£olville mines, accompanied by a sprinkling of Canadians and half-breeds, formerly in the Hudson's Bay Company's service at Colville, made their way to the junction of the Thompson with the Fraser. They found several rich bars in that vicinity, and worked them with good success. He also states that it was the news of their success- which caused the Fraser River excitement. McDonald and Adams, two partners who were engaged in mining on the Thompson and Fraser, in 1857-8 brought down some of the first gold from the bars where the first profitable workings were carried on. At the mouth of the Fraser, McDonald jMUed Adams and secured his gold, which he carried to Olympia, and there displayed it.11 11 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 5; De Groot's B. C, 13, referring to Wad- dington's second party. Douglas, in Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 351-4; Cooper s QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP. 351 The officers of the fur company at Victoria were well informed at the same time of the mining operations that were going on in the valley of the Fraser, and its tributary the Thompson, but not coming in contact directly with the miners who emerged from the mountains in the spring of 1858 with the evidences of the auriferous wealth of the great river of British Columbia, or for some other reason not explained, they did not realize fully the importance of the facts, nor anticipate the effects that might be produced. Douglas, in a letter, to Labouchere, dated Victoria, December 29, 1857, speaks of the Couteau mines, so named after the natives of the Thompson and Shushwap countries, as having attracted attention. "The auriferous character of the country is becoming daily more extensively developed," he writes, "through the exertions of the native Indian tribes, who, having tasted the sweets of gold-finding, are devoting much of their time and attention to that pursuit." The product exported through the agency of the Hudson's Bay Company, from October 6, 1857, to the end of that year, and supposed by them to be all that was carried out of the country, was three hundred ounces. Douglas mentions the fact in the same connection that the reported wealth of the Couteau country was causing much excitement in Washington Territory and Oregon.12 At Olympia, Ballou, Garfield, and Williams, as partners, were merchandising during the winter of 1857-8, and more or less gold came to them from the Fraser. The specimens showed them by McDonald particularly attracted their attention, and the attention of others. Ballou doubted the report of the company's officials, that the gold was mostly found by the natives, on the ground that more would then have been realized. Deeming the discovery Mar. Matters, MS., 11; BaUou's Adv., MS., 3. The alleged killing of Adams rests wholly on Ballou's opinion. "Douglas to Labouchere, in Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 347-54. 352 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. of sufficient importance to outweigh all other considerations of trade, Ballou, accompanied by John Scranton, Governor McMullin, Secretary of the Territory Mason, and several others, early in the spring went to Victoria to ascertain what the Hudson's Bay people knew about the matter. They confirmed all the reports. Instead of going to the gold-fields, Ballou proceeded at once to San Francisco. Having undergone the excitements of the southern mines, and subsequently of the northern mines of California as an expressman, he conceived the idea that whatever might be the merit of the mines, there was certain profit in the express business, and hence he forthwith started Ballou's express from San Francisco to the Fraser River mines.13 The state of knowledge of the mines, and the facts on which the gold excitement was based, may be further deduced from the official acts and the correspondence of Governor Douglas. Christmas week, 18 57, at Fort Victoria, had been enlivened by the substantial communications, accompanied with gold-dust, that were received from Chief Trader McLean at the post nearest the forks of Thompson River, the results of the washings by the Indians already referred to. On the same day that he despatched the information to the colonial office, December 29, 1857, Governor Douglas issued a proclamation declaring that all the gold in its natural place of deposit belonged to the crown, referring in particular to the gold found within the Couteau country, embraced by the Fraser and Thompson districts. This proclamation "forbade all persons to dig or disturb the soil in search of gold 13Ballou's Adv., MS., 3. Billy Ballou, as he was called, was a wild waif, a hare-brained adventurer of French descent, who since 1846 had been floating about the mountains and shores of the Pacific. Beginning with the Mexican war, he passed through a pioneer experience in California and the Sound country before going to British Columbia. He was much broken in health when I took his dictation at Seattle in 1878, and died shortly afterward. His information was certainly as varied as that of. any man I ever met, and he gave it me in good faith, yet while I have no reason to doubt his word, before placing implicit confidence in an important statement, I should prefer to see it verified. SPOLIATION OF THE MAINLAND PARK. 353 until authorized in that behalf by her majesty's colonial government." Douglas acknowledged in his communication of December the 29th to Labouchere, that he had no authority to make such a proclamation in regard to a country beyond the jurisdiction of his government, but pleaded in excuse the fact that he was invested with authority over the domain of the Hudson's Bay Company, and that he was the only representative of her Maj esty within reach. A li cense of ten shillings a month was demanded, in virtue of which persons were permitted to mine under prescribed limits and conditions. On the 14th of January 1858, Governor Douglas reported further news from the mines to the colonial office. " From the successful result of experiments made in washing the gold from the sands of the tributary streams of Fraser River," says Douglas, " there is reason to suppose that the gold region is extensive, and I entertain sanguine hopes that future researches wjll develop stores of wealth perhaps equal to the gold-fields of California—the geological formations observed in the Sierra Nevada of California being similar in character to the structure of the corresponding range of mountains in this latitude." On the 6th of April he wrote to Labouchere " that #the search for gold up to the last dates from the interior was carried on. almost exclusively by the native population, who had discovered the productive mines, and washed out almost all the gold, about eight hundred ounces, thus far exported from the country; and that they were extremely jealous of the whites digging for gold," "In addition to the diggings before known on Thompson River and its tributary streams, a valuable deposit has recently been found by the natives on the bank of the Fraser River, about five miles beyond its confluence with the Thompson; and gold in smaller quantities has been found in possession of the natives as far as the great falls of the Fraser, about eighty Hist. Brit. Col. 23 354 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. miles above the forks." Seventy or eighty Americans had gone to the mines without procuring licenses. By a despatch dated April 19th the arrival of George Simpson, bearer of despatches from Chief Trader McLean, was announced, bringing news from the forks of the Thompson, to April 4th, which was very flattering, but not supported by a large return of gold- dust. "Simpson reports," says Douglas, "that gold is found in more or less abundance on every part of the Fraser, from Yale to the forks, but I presume those diggings cannot be very productive or there would have been a larger return of gold."14 And here begins the infection which spread with such swift virulence in every direction. Though Cooper considers it "almost imposible to trace the origin of the gold excitement," it seems to me we have it plainly enough before us. It is noised abroad that gold abounds in British Columbia. Then men everywhere throughout the world begin to study their maps, to see where is situated the favored isle that guards the auriferous Mainland. California is to be outdone, as the rivers of British Columbia are larger than those of California. The glories of Australia shall pale before this new golden aurora borealis.16 As in California the precious metal was most abundant near the sources of the streams, and was thought by some to have flowed in with the streams from the north, so in the north, it is now expected, may be found the primitive source where the deposits were originally formed. And so the settlers on Vancouver Island, on the Cowlitz, and on the Columbia, leave their farms; then the servants of the monopoly fling off allegiance; the saw-mills round the Sound are soon idle; and finally wave after wave of eager adventurers roll in from the south and east, from Oregon 14 Douglas' Official Correspondence, in Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 343-363. 15 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 5; Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 116-17; Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 14. PROGRESS OF THE FEVER. 355 and from California, from the islands and Australia, from Canada and Europe, until the third great devil- dance of the nations within the decade begins upon the Fraser. Ellwood Evans remarks that the newspapers of Oregon and Washington Territory continued silent in regard to the existence of gold in the Northwest until March 1858, not believing that it would ever be found in quantities sufficiently large to attract immigration in that direction. Gold, said they, had been reported as found by the Northern Pacific Railroad exploring parties in 1853. It was reported, and by some surmised to exist, in large quantities on the bars of the Upper Columbia, but the metal was not forthcoming in quantity, and not really believed in. The matter failed to excite the attention of the Hudson's Bay Company till Angus McDonald reported the Colville excitement to Governor Douglas March 1, 1856.16 On the 5th of March 1858, the Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, one of the first papers published in Washington Territory, announced the rumors of " Reported Gold Discoveries," brought from Victoria* by the schooner Wild Pigeon. March 12th the same journal contained "Good News from the Gold Mines"1 of Fraser River. March 26 th it had an account of "The Gold Regions of the North, Highly Favorable Reports." April 9th there was " Further Encouraging News." April 16th there was a spread of "Late Reliable and Confirmatory Tidings." The San Francisco Herald, on the 20th of April 1858, recorded that the excitement was fully equal in extent to that which arose in the Atlantic States from the reports of gold discoveries in California in 1849. At one leap British Columbia had become the rival if not the peer of California herself. The Fraser River excitement began and was spread from Puget Sound. Captain Prevost of H. M. S. Satellite, stationed at Esquimalt, on the 7th of May 1858 16Evans' Fraser River Excitement, MS., 12-20. 356 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT wrote to the admiralty office that the excitement was much greater in Washington and Oregon than on Vancouver Island, several hundred persons having at that time gone to the Fraser River mines from Puget Sound, where all the vessels were lying deserted by their crews.17 These vessels were the ordinary means of communication with San Francisco from that part of the coast carrying lumber. Douglas' announcement in 18 5 6 had been received abroad with comparative disbelief. No sooner was the fact of the existence of gold upon the Fraser in paying quantities established beyond a doubt, than a logical effect worked itself out upon the Californian mind. Action as prompt as the idea was the result. An excitement arose throughout society, which caused an unparalleled exodus. To the California miner the deduction followed naturally that the history of California was to be reproduced. The foundation of the idea was clearly expressed by Douglas in his despatch of January 14, 1858, the extension to the north-west of the same mountains and geological formations, a fact well known in a general way from the reports of the Oregonians and Canadians who had l>een to the California mines. Only the additional fact was needed that the Fraser was another Sacramento, to lead logically to the clearest demonstration that' a great gold area was washed and sluiced by the Fraser and its tributaries. Vague as were the ideas touching where or how the gold would be found, whether in the Cascade canon or on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, there was needed no further evidence than that to remove every doubt touching the vast importance of this discovery. In the blind hopeful way of the gold prospectors, it seems to have ibeen anticipated that the richness of the sands of the Fraser would be found in some proportion to the size of that river. Doubtless many who made this venture reasoned more accurately—that the discovery was simply important in a degree proportionate to the 17 Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 365-6. EFFECT IN CALIFORNIA. 357 area of the new country to be opened by the mines, and made accessible by the valley of the Fraser. Untold auriferous wealth in connection with the great commercial-and agricultural region of British Columbia with its European climate, though predestined for discovery under the developments of time with the necessary conditions thereto, justified these hopes without rewarding the energy and enterprise of the adventurers of 1858. In California, the seaport of San Francisco was almost in the gold-mines; the mines were near the sea, with no intervening difficulties. A different kind of test was in reserve for the mining industry in the north, where the lofty sierra, and five hundred miles of distance, and much geographical and geological exploration had to be undergone, with trials and failures, before all the conditions of general prosperity to miners and traders could be fulfilled. Nor was it all misfortune that was in store for those who ventured blindly in search of profitable gold-deposits; for how could the knowledge be obtained without chance to open the door, or action to seize the prize under impossible conditions? California was now rapidly losing population. Men of aU classes abandoned their occupations in the interior, and followed the crowd to San Francisco. Money was borrowed at exorbitant rates of interest to be advanced on goods for British Columbia. It was not strange that the first fair opportunity would be seized by the journals of San Francisco to stem the current by giving to the northern regions under the guise of the mistake of the Fraser mines, the worst possible name. The whole of California in April 1858 was in a ferment. Business in the interior was deranged, and in many places broken up. Hundreds too impatient to wait for the steamers mounted horses and hastened overland, especially from the northern counties of California, making the distance in eighteen days. While towns in the interior were being deserted. jm 358 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. San Francisco derived the benefit of the influx and of the outfitting of the miners, and the shippers rejoiced at the prospects of the Fraser trade. Shrewd store-keepers in the mountain counties hurried down to establish themselves in San Francisco.18 During April and May, the rumors more or less fabulous of gold discoveries in the north continued to circulate throughout California, and Oregon and Washington territories. Vessels left San Francisco carrying three times the number allowed by law. John Nugent, special agent of the United States, estimated that in May, June, and July, twenty-three thousand persons went from San Francisco by sea, and about eight thousand more overland—safely thirty thousand or thirty-three thousand in all in the course of the season; and that out of these there returned before January 1859 all but three thousand.19 None were too poor and none too rich to go. Young and old and even the decrepit. Some out of restlessness or curiosity; others for profit or prey. "In short," says Lundin Brown, "never in the history of migrations of men has there been seen such a rush, so sudden and so vast."20 18 Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 11-18. Says the Nevada Journal of May 14, 1858, editorially: 'The spirit of '49 is partially aroused, and quite a large number will probably leave the country in quest of adventure in the far north.... Nine years' experience has taught us never to be in a hurry to chase new and marvellous reports to their source. We have found it rarely pays.' C. C. Roberts, a correspondent of the Bulletin, from Grass Valley, June 7„1858, says: ' The Fraser excitement had the effect to augment the difficulties experienced by the quartz-mining interest, by drawing away a great number of the underground hands, and by increasing <jbhe rate of wages, so that many of the mills and mines had closed; and it would inevitably, if the rise of wages continued, close the rest.' 19 Nugent's Rept, 35th Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc, S, p. 3. 20 Brown's Essay, 3, 4; Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 11-18. One of the best painted pictures of the time was published in the Overland Monthly of December 1869, by Mr Wright. The worm-eaten wharves of San Francisco trembled almost daily, he said, under the tread of the vast multitude that gathered to see the northern steamer leave. The crowded stages landing the people from the mining counties of California at Sacramento and Stockton; the spirit of speculation rampant at Victoria and Whatcom; the helpless and confused mass of humanity swayed hither and thither by each conflicting report from the gate of the Cascades in British Columbia; the towns of canvas at Victoria, WHatcom, Langley, Hope, and Yale; the upturned craft found among the islands of the beautiful Haro archipelago, constituting the only record of THE GRAND RUSH. 359 The first load of four hundred and fifty adventurers left San Francisco on the steamer Commodore, on the 20th of April 1858. Between April 20th and June 9th, twenty-five hundred miners, mostly from the interior of California, had taken passage by steamer from San Francisco; and it was estimated that five thousand more were at the same time collected in Puget Sound, on their way to the Fraser. Governor Douglas, in a letter to the head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in London, dated Victoria, April 27, 1858, speaks of the arrival of the Commodore on the 25th. The passengers were well provided with tools. Said Douglas: " There seems to be no want of capital or intelligence among them. About sixty were British subjects, sixty Americans, and the remainder Germans, French, and Italians."21 On the 27th, the Pacific Mail steamer Columbia landed eighty more passengers at Fort Townsend, all bound, says Douglas, for the Couteau District. The Fraser Biver excitement was encouraged by the steamboat owners, who coined money as long as it lasted. At first the crowds that came to Victoria went from there to Whatcom, under the belief that the great town of the north would spring up on the Mainland. They brought plenty of money to invest in land and other speculations, as much as two millions of dollars being at one time deposited in Victoria. The only safe in the country was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, so that the money passed through the hands of Mr Finlayson, the treasurer of the company. It was presented in sacks, which Finlayson, many too impatient for inaction, who had been swamped in the sudden storms and treacherous tide-rips, reported by others who had wandered for weeks among tortuous passes, and at last returned to Victoria, not caring to venture across the Georgian Gulf; the toil against the rapid current of the Fraser by the bolder and stronger, towing their boats along the shore, climbing over fallen trees, creeping under hanging bushes, and becoming from sheer necessity almost amphibious; the mosquitoes; the riffles and whirls of the unknown stream, which carried them back half a day's journey, when they were obliged to cross—all these matters and more are told as they can be told only by one who had seen. 21 Douglas, in Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 361. 360 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. refused to receive unless they were sealed with the names of the owners, as it was impracticable to count the money. When any one wanted money, he would take out his bag, get what he needed, and return it. Not an instance ever occurred of complaint, says Finlayson with pride, of supposed loss.22 To the staid and plodding officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, the advent of the thirty thousand "half-wild Califor- nians," distributing themselves broadcast over their possessions, caused a degree of uneasiness of mind amounting to a commotion. "The rough-and-tumble rascals," said McDonald, "had not come for nothing;" and their notions of meum and tuum did not appear to them to be very well defined. This army of gold-seekers that besieged Fort Victoria threatened the supremacy of the crown as well as the stability of the territorial claims of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific Coast. The miners, three thousand of whom arrived at Victoria in one day, encamped in tents around the fort. In regard to the general orderly character of the pilgrims, there is cumulative testimony from all sides, notwithstanding the fact that the jealousy and the unreasonable exactions of the Hudson's Bay Company, practically in charge of the government, met the strongest opposition, and called forth the unqualified animadversions of the miners. In order to quiet the difficulties thus arising, and to remove the restrictions against the immigration of Americans, John Nugent was finally sent to the country as commissioner and consular agent by the United States.23 The stringency of the laws 22Finlayson's V. I. andN. W. Coast, MS., 56-60. 23 California must have been pretty nearly emptied of loafers and gamblers during the Fraser River excitement. ' Smithers' was depicted as one of the typical characters of the time by a sketch in the Morning CaXL He had come to California at an early period, and had wonderous tales to tell of '49 and 50, and of the times when he was a millionaire; but 'the great conflagration of 1851 had done the business for him completely,' and he could no longer get trusted in San Francisco for a drink. A large number of the gamblers that came to Victoria did not like the appearance of things on Vancouver Island, and crossing over, established themselves at Whatcom. Whenthat town came to naught in consequence of the'successful navigation of the Fraser by steamers to Yale, they removed in a body to the latter place. ARRIVAL OF VESSELS. 361 united with the general good sense of the miners had the effect to deter the many doubtful characters— gamblers, thieves, and swindlers—that flocked into the country in the hope of obtaining rich spoils from the industrious and unsuspicious, and force them to quit the field. Perhaps the scanty product of the Fraser River bars, in comparison with those of the American, the Yuba, and Feather rivers, had something to do with their graceful yielding to the stern authority of Mr Justice Begbie. Nearly all the Californian emigration was landed at Victoria, in consequence of Governor Douglas refusing to grant permits and mining licenses elsewhere. A large quantity of shipping, both sail and steam, enlivened the aboriginal quiet of Victoria and Esquimalt harbors. From the middle of April 1858 for several months, while the excitement was daily increasing, not only at Victoria but in San Francisco, the halcyon days of '49 appeared to have come again, and fresh dreams of wealth floated through the minds of multitudes. In the fortnight between the 5 th and 20th of June, there arrived at Victoria from San Francisco the ships Georgina, a new craft under an old name, and the William Berry, the barks Gold Hunter, Adelaide, Live Yankee, and Madonna, the schooners Giulietta, Kossuth, and Osprey, and the sloop Curlew. Besides these, the steamers Republic, Commodore, Panama, Cortes, and Santa Cruz landed passengers and freight during the same fortnight, making in all a contribution of about six thousand souls within the period named. The return of the steamers to San Francisco was awaited by crowds impatient for news. The Panama and Pacific had returned to San . Francisco on the 5th and 8th of June, from which time there was no fresh intelligence from the mines until the 19th, when the Republic returned, several days earlier than was expected, amidst intense excitement along the waterfront and at the hotels. When on the 22d, 23d, and 362 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMEN1. 24th of June the steamers Republic, Oregon, and Commodore sailed respectively, there were twenty other sailing vessels lying at the wharves announced for immediate despatch. Some of the smaller sailing vessels went to Fort Langley, stopping at Victoria only long enough to get the necessary permits. First- class passage by steamer was sixty-fixe dollars; steerage passage thirty-five dollars; by sailing craft the rates were from twenty-five to sixty dollars. To the 20th of June Cornwallis estimated that fourteen thousand eight hundred persons had embarked at San Francisco by steam and sail.24 All that the adventurers desired was to be landed as near as possible to the mining region on the Fraser, but the considerations which governed the shippers modified the general desire. Fort Victoria was the head-quarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, of the government of the country. Situated on Vancouver Island, with sixty miles of inland sea to be traversed to the mouth of the Fraser, and eighty miles to Fort Langley, the entire immigration would have sought the Mainland for a landing. An American port would have been preferred, other things being equal. As opposed to Victoria, Port Townsend was first chosen by the representatives of the Pacific Mail Company; but that was not satisfactory to the miners, who found themselves left unnecessarily remote from their destination. Then Whatcom was made the objective point, being conveniently situated for a land route to the diggings. Dense forest, however, obstructed the way, and a trail had to be cut, requiring both time and money. The Fraser itself was inaccessible, it was thought, for ocean-vessels; or what was equivalent, the owners of vessels did not choose to incur the risk of going up to Langley. Above Langley it was not expected that river steamers could go far enough to be an object to the miners. 24Anderson's Northwest Coast, MS., 277; Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 141-51 WHATCOM AND VICTORIA. 363 The general inquiry was for canoes from the most convenient port. Under the specious cover of American patriotism, Whatcom obtained the ascendency; Victoria being only called at to procure the official documents prescribed by Governor Douglas to admit the miners to the freedom of the country, which sanction it was charged was granted only at Victoria for the purpose of bringing business. But it is doubtful whether Victoria would have gained the ascendency so soon, but for another circumstance more potent than the government regulations. It was found that the Fraser could be navigated all the way to the diggings, so that the trail from Bellingham Bay, which was cut in order to avoid the navigation and landing from shipboard in British territory, was at once discarded. Steamers now began to run directly from Victoria to the mines, leaving Whatcom aside. So long as the miners were dependent entirely upon canoes, Whatcom had continued to hold its own under the prospect of the speedy opening of the pack-trail and proposed wagon-road. But the trail was not opened soon enough; much less the wagon-road through the canon of the Fraser, which alone could have presented claims in competition with the lower Fraser and gulf of Georgia navigation. The mud-flats of Whatcom being objectionable, also, the annex called Sehome soon took the place of Whatcom, and the buildings of the town became tenantless with the departure of the loose population to Yale. Some of the longheads, as they were called, then went to Semiahmoo, and two. paper towns were laid out on opposite sides of the bay; but the Fraser travel could not be beguiled over land to Semiahmoo merely because the distance was short. Whatcom was early in the field as a prospective town, as the earliest mining below the Fraser canon was carried on by people from Puget Sound, who went to the mines and sent out their gold by way of Whatcom. In March or the beginning of m 364 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. April 1858, while the Fraser River was at its lowest stage, parties of Canadians and others from Puget Sound had managed to get up the river, and were working some of the richer bars below Fort Yale. Some of these even continued their operations beyond the forks of the Thompson. They made their way along the shores of Puget Sound in canoes. The current to the mines from Puget Sound did not follow the route by way of Vancouver Island until business of every sort was running in a well-established groove to Victoria. The first body of miners that struck out from Victoria in April crossed the gulf in skiffs, whale- boats, and canoes. Numbers of these were believed to have perished, as the craft employed were mostly makeshifts constructed by the miners themselves. At that time all American steamers were jealously excluded from the Fraser. Inadequate steamer communication was carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company. At length, Douglas, on the payment of a royalty for every trip, permitted American steamers to enter the river; and the Sea Bird, Surprise, Umatilla, Maria, Enterprise, and others began running, usually from Victoria to Langley and Hope. Their use, by the inflowing and outgoing miners, proved the deathblow to Whatcom. However, even after the steamers afforded abundant facilities, many of the miners, finding the twenty-dollar fare too high, continued to make their own boats at Victoria, and to navigate them to Yale. In July, nearly all the miners had left; the majority, so far, in boats built by themselves. One authority states that hundreds of them were never heard from after leaving Victoria, and were supposed to have been drowned in the tide-rips, or in crossing the water.25 If they escaped the dangers of the gulf, or the currents and counter-currents of the 25 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 5-10; TarbelVs Vic., MS., 2; Nugent's Rept. Ex. Doc. cxi., 35th Cong., 2d Sess., 2; Finlayson's V. I. and N. W. Coast, MS., 56-60. Nugent says t the freight per ton from Victoria to Hope, 160 miles, was $40, and from Hope to Yale, 20 miles, $20.' Nugent's Rept., 4. ROAD-BUILDING. 365 Haro archipelago, it was only to encounter the swift current of the Fraser, with its occasional sedgy borders, and its whirls and rapids between Hope and Yale. Thus, over many a manly heart so lately filled with hope, rolled the waters of oblivion. By midsummer, the miners had crowded all the bars of the Fraser as far up as the Thompson. I They climbed back and forth over the cliffs above Yale, carrying their own supplies upon their backs. At length a petty Indian war broke out, which drove them all down to Yale.26 The absorbing topic of the time was the solution of a problem calling for all the energies that were developed by the stirring days of the excitement—how to transport supplies to the front. It soon became obvious that it was necessary to have this done in the cheapest and most expeditious manner. Some returning miners were guided by Indians, from Lilloet through Harrison Lake and river, and over the Douglas portages, where a pack- road leading into the interior could be constructed at a comparatively moderate cost.27 In order to open a trail along this route Douglas hit upon the following expedient: There were five hundred miners at Victoria on their way to the mines. It was proposed that in consideration of a deposit of twenty-five dollars by each person accepting the terms, and an agreement to work upon the trail until it was finished, the Hudson's Bay Company should transport them to the point of commencement on Harrison River, feed them, and at the conclusion of the work furnish them there with supplies at Victoria prices, or return the money if desired. The length of trail to be opened, including the lakes, was j seventy miles. No difficulty was experienced in getting the miners to accede to this proposition. The money was paid in, and the work 26 Mallandaine'8 Mrst Victoria Directory, 14; Waddington's Fraser Mines, 22-4. "Spence in VoweWs B. C. Mines, MS., 27, asserts that it was the first route utilized for the transportation of freight by animals. Early doings of course are now ignored. 366 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. executed under the arrangement. It was really a very pretty by-play between credit, cooperation, and labor. When the work was done, though they had given the company the use of twelve thousand five hundred dollars, and their labor, they all received their money back, their passage being a sufficient reward for their labor, while the company was left with a valuable piece of toll-road, worth much more than the transportation and provisions had cost them. Those who became tired of the bargain before the trail was completed disposed of their scrip to others for what they could get, and went their way rejoicing. Disagreements arose at the end in regard to the delivery of the supplies promised in lieu of the money deposits, the miners claiming that the freight should be delivered at the upper end of the seventy miles, while the company claimed the agreement required of them only to deliver it at the lower end. This point was compromised satisfactorily to both parties by delivering it in the middle. Beans at the time were worth one and a half cents a pound at Victoria, five cents at Port Douglas, the lower end of the trail, and one dollar a pound at the upper end. Nearly all the provisions on the Eraser above the canon in the summer of 1858, with the exception of the little packed on the backs of the miners and Indians, was brought there from the upper Columbia by the half-breed traders of the Colville country. Between the gulf of Georgia and the interior plateau there were only trails, and in their competition for popular favor the partisans of each declared the other impracticable.28 That from Whatcom striking the Fraser at Smess, twenty-five miles above Langley, was subsequently used for local travel from Puget Sound. The movements from Oregon to the Fraser mines went east of the Cascade Mountains, striking the Fraser near the mouth of Thompson Kiver. Though an effort was made in Minnesota, where the 28 Overland from Minnesota to Fraser River, 45-7. FROM THE UNITED STATES. 367 Fraser excitement was also felt, to inaugurate travel by way of St Paul and the Saskatchewan River, none but trappers and explorers of the hardier sort ventured the route till a later date, the current from the Atlantic States flowing through the established channels to Oregon and California. Two notable inland expeditions from Oregon may be cited as examples of numerous others. Owing to the dangers from hostile Indians it was necessary to organize and to travel in force. David McLaughlin's company made their rendezvous at Walla Walla early in July 1858. In ten or twelve days one hundred and sixty men were gathered, all well armed with revolvers, ninety rifles and twenty-five other heavy arms being in the party. They had about three hundred and fifty horses and mules. Before starting, Mr Wolfe, a trader from Colville, arrived at Walla Walla and informed them of the hostile attitude of the natives along the proposed route, advising a thorough military organization. Four divisions were accordingly formed and placed under the command of James McLaughlin, Hambright, Wilson, and another. The Walla Wallas, Palouses, Okanagans, and other tribes were hostile. The party passed through the Grand Coulee to Okanagan. On their way over the Columbia plains a German who lagged behind was seized by the savages and killed. Two or three days' travel after crossing the Columbia near the boundary line on the east side of Okanagan River, the whole party was attacked by the Indians in force, posted on a hill behind rude fortifications on each side of the road where they had to pass through a canon. McLaughlin discovered an Indian's head peering over a rock before the firing began. The men took promptly to their work and fought till night. None of the animals stampeded, but were retired in good order with the trains to the plateau below. While the riflemen continued after night-fall in possession of the ground 368 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. facing the Indians, a detachment prepared rafts to cross the river, the intention being to flank the defences and formidable fastnesses which the Indians had evidently prepared for them. Hurley, Evans, and Rice, all three Cahfornians, were killed, and seven others were wounded, but recovered. In the night the Indians set fire to the grass, and the gold-hunters set counter-fires without either of them succeeding in burning the other out. Next morning the white men proceeded to bury their dead, and discovered that the Indians had abandoned their stronghold. It had about a hundred breastworks, each made to shelter one Indian, and was occupied at the time of the attack by eighty savages. Two or three days after, the party was again attacked on the west side of the Okanagan River. A hundred mounted warriors rode down upon them, trying to separate the company from their animals; their purpose was anticipated, and prevented. After some further trouble and parley, they made a peace wfth the hostile tribe, the Okanagans, and the gold-hunters continued their march without delay. Notwithstanding the peace assented to, immediately afterward sixty head of Wolfe's cattle were stolen by the Indians, and a detachment of McLoughlin's men surprised two of them engaged in jerking the beef from the slaughtered cattle. They were taken along as prisoners, but at this juncture Chief Trader McDonald from Fort Colville came up with a train 'bound for Hope, and at his request the Indians were discharged. The same Indians afterward robbed a Spanish packer who had been left in the rear attending to his animals, and the savages with hostile and thieving intent continued to follow them to a point within three days' march of Thompson River. They came upon that stream twelve miles above its mouth. Joel Palmer and thirty-five others, among them P. H. Lewis, went to the Fraser mines from Portland with wagons, also following the inside or plateau INTERIOR TRAFFIC. 369 route. The company encamped at the Dalles, and departed thence in July, driving their own teams all the way through to the Thompson. There were nine teams, each consisting of three ot four yoke of oxen, the majority of them belonging to Palmer. Four * boys' from Yreka, California, were the cooperative owners of one of the teams. Provisions constituted the cargo, three thousand pounds to the wagon. The route was by way of Wallula and Okanagan to Kamloop. Steamer loads came from California to Portland and fitted out at that place for the inside route. Companies of four hundred and five hundred men accompanied by pack-trains, moving more rapidly than was possible for the wagons without a road, overtook and passed Palmer's train on the way.29 The latter, under Palmer's experienced generalship, found occasion to make use of all the arts of travel in the form of the organized semi-military expeditions developed in the Oregon emigrations of 1842-8. At the point of rocks twelve miles above Priest Rapids, the country was found impracticable for three quarters of a mile on the east side of the river. Wagons and freight were accordingly conveyed around this in canoes. At Okanagan the Columbia was crossed in the same manner, the cattle swimming. Two canoes were lashed alongside and placed endwise to the bank; the wagons were then rolled or lifted into them empty, and the freight was stowed in the bottom or in the wagon- beds, as was most convenient. Three wagons and their contents were taken over at one time in safety by four men, one each occupying the bow and stern in both canoes.80 When the expedition reached Okanagan Lake it was 29 McLaughlin's Ex., in Oregon Statesman, Sept. 28, 1858; Lewis' Coal Discoveries, MS., 13-15. M Palmer, in Oregon Statesman, Feb. 14, 1860. Palmer wrote a four-column article giving the results of his expeditions of 1858 and 1859, and making out that in carrying freight to the mines the route could compete with the roads then existing along Fraser and Harrison rivers. HIst. Beit. Col. 24 370 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. found necessary to build rafts in order to pass some difficult forest-covered country, cut up by ravines. Wagons and freight were taken upon several large rafts, poled and towed along shore with ropes, while the cattle were driven, under the direction of explorers, to a point where the country was more open* Palmer had a party of men in advance all the way, exploring and making a road, or cutting timber as far north, on his second trip in 1859, as Alexandria, and later to Lightning Creek, where he established a trading-post and sold out his oxen for beef.31 Douglas' frequent communications to the colonial office, touching the gold discoveries in British territory, left the government prepared for action as soon as the news of the breaking-out of the Fraser excitement and the exodus to the north had reached England. On the 8th of July, Sir C. B. Lytton, secretary of state for the colonies, brought the matter before the house of commons in the form of a bill for the government of 'New Caledonia.' Lord Lytton in presenting this bill did justice to the subject in an able speech, pointing out the importance of the new gold-fields as a part of the British possessions in North America, and of the empire in its future commercial relations on the Pacific.32 One of the earliest communications of Douglas had raised the question of taking advantage of the gold excitement for revenue. Before the Fraser excitement had fairly begun, in December 1857, he had prescribed a monthly tax of ten shillings upon every miner, afterward increasing the amount to five dollars, though the country was not under his jurisdiction as governor of the colony of'Vancouver Island, and the Hudson's Bay Company had no rights in the territory, beyond their license to trade. If the motive and the exceeding of his authority as the nearest representative of the crown 81 Palmer's Wagon Trains, MS., 55. 32 Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 11-18. DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 371 were not approved or deemed a sufficient excuse in the premises, he wrote to Labouchere Jn the colonial department, it would be easy for Douglas on receiving the colonial secretary's reply to permit the miners' license to become a dead letter. But as the license and other similar acts in regard to the Mainland were afterward continued in force, it would appear that the temporary assumption of authority by Douglas was overlooked, if not approved. Additional exactions of the same kind were imposed upon the inflowing masses before the erection of the Mainland region into a colony. Besides the six and twelve dollars ' sufferance' for every open and decked boat or canoe that entered the mouth of Fraser River, collected by the gun-boat Satellite, the treasurer of the Hudson's Bay Company, Finlayson, who officiated at the same time as customs officer and treasurer of the colony of Vancouver Island, exacted a ten percent ad valorem tax upon the supplies of the miners,, comprising goods of every kind that went to the mines.33 Where domination was so autocratic and so reticent as that exercised by the fur-traders under the Douglas regime, the purest motives were not always; ascribed to the Hudson's Bay Company for their acts.. By the miners it was thought that the company was, averse to their taking possession of the territory; that they preferred to have the natives find the gold and bring it to them with their furs, receiving therefor goods at exorbitant prices. Elwood Evans and John Nugent both appear to have had the idea that the Hudson's Bay Company officials knew of the existence of the gold in the valley of the Fraser for several years before the Fraser excitement; that they must have had something to do with creating and exciting the rush, but that they judiciously held back till a certain time, and then unscrupulously fostered the excitement to ^Finlayson's V. I. and B. C, MS., 56-60. 372 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT, the utmost.84 But it is not difficult to interpret the motives that governed their action under the progress of developments, without indorsing these clashing opinions, or attributing to them unworthy motives. Douglas had reason to fear the American invasion, for he had seen Oregon pass out of the possession of the company and of the crown by a similar peaceful invasion. That the company preferred, were it possible, to hold the Mainland with its furs and gold exclusive, there can be no doubt; that they resorted to dishonorable measures when they saw the inevitable upon them is not true. Like any other bloodless and mercenary association, when they saw their fur-field despoiled by invaders whose presence they were powerless to oppose, they turned to the best account they were able their facilities for transportation and trade, which was unquestionably their privilege. As I have before observed, I can but regard the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company upon the Pacific Coast, in points of integrity and humanity, as far above the average corporation monopolist. In California it implied not merely the loss of population and revenue, but of business and of commercial supremacy. At first the reports were considered doubtful, and only a few of the most venturesome went to investigate for themselves; and when they were confirmed, sceptical writers still cited Gold Lake^ Gold Bluff, Kern River, and all the other ttotal or partial delusions of their day. When the news was received in a reliable form, and from persons well known in California, all agreeing that there was xeally much gold in the sands of the Fraser, and that it existed in extremely fine particles, though accompanied by the warning that the high-water season s* Evans* Fraser River Excitement, MS., and Nugenfs Rept. Ex. Doccxi.^ 35th Cong., 2d Sess., both attribute a great deal to the manipulation of tha company. THE ORTHODOX THEORY. 373 was just commencing, which would render the bars of the rivers, the only good ground so far known inaccessible for several months, every old miner in California understood the significance of the fact. The theory so well understood in every gold-mining country in the world, of fine gold necessarily coming from a coarse-gold region, furnished the plain, unvarnished, and all-sufficient cause for the unparalleled stampede. Adolph Sutro at the time called attention to the fact that the information received from Fraser River alone did not suffice to produce the extraordinary result; but that the miners had learned to place implicit confidence in the theory of fine gold, the fineness corresponding with the distance travelled, and that the bars of the Fraser were understood by them to be nothing else than the farthest tailings of a sluice, where only such particles were found as were minute enough to be carried away by the waters. It was concluded by many of the most intelligent miners and prospectors of California, that there must be an extensive gold-mining district in British Columbia, perhaps hundreds of miles above the bars yielding the fine gold.85 I have already shown that to test this theory was not a matter of years, but the season rendered it impossible at this time. For some time past attention had been directed to the Fuca Strait by geographers, but more particularly to Puget Sound, by that portion of the Oregon emi- 35 Sutro's Review of Fraser River and the Gold Prospects of New Caledonia, in & F. Bulletin, Aug. 27, 1858. Finding the water high over the bars, the miners had pressed on to Yale and encountered other insurmountable obstacles, the great Fraser a foaming torrent hemmed in by perpendicular rocks on either side. The timid turned back and denounced the theory as fiction. Others waited through dreary months; but a daring few, with a fortnight's or a month's provisions strapped on their backs, climbed the rocks and slopes of the Fraser canon seventy miles farther to La Fontaine, where they found good diggings, but only to prospect them before they were obliged to hurry back to avoid starvation. 'Fraser River,' says Sutro, 'has been put down as a humbug by the majority of the California people, and why ? Have they carried out their original intention to explore the country above ? No, they have not.' Compare Wright's"Cariboo, in Overland Monthly, Dec. 1869, 524, for information of this motive. 374 THE GREAT GOLD EXCITEMENT. gration which was imbued with commercial traditions or influenced by nautical antecedents. Under the act which initiated the Pacific Railway explorations by the engineer corps of the army between 1853 and 1856, Governor Stephens of Washington Territory led one of the best executed series of explorations over the line of the proposed Northern Pacific Railway, terminating on Puget Sound. Notwithstanding the existence of gold in California, it was believed by many that Puget Sound was to be the terminus of the great future trunk railway of the northern states.86 The immediate effect of the gold excitement was to lay the foundations for the Canadian Pacific and Northern Pacific railways as commercial enterprises, each of which had, however, to await the more permanent kinds of mining development before the superstructure could be properly carried forward. Evidently the final great value of the discovery of the new gold- fields in British Columbia to the colony, to the Dominion of Canada, and to the Empire of Great Britain, consisted mainly in the crowds of adventurers that were attracted into the country, from whose energetic proceedings permanent developments were to follow in many ways. Communications for traffic and general intercourse thus sprang forward at a bound, and the country was 36 In the midst of the Fraser excitement, California newspapers quoted Lieutenant Maury's opinion on the subject. The great telegraphic plateau on which the Atlantic cable was laid was reported by Maury to extend around the world, the Minnesota divide between the gulf and Arctic waters forming a portion of it. The whole country between Lake Superior and Puget Sound was claime.d to be less barren and less rugged than the country south, and coal as well as timber was known to exist in abundance on Puget Sound. Maury showed that the course of a ship from China to San Francisco, ' until she gains the offings of the straits of Fuca, would be the same as though she were bound into Puget Sound or the Columbia River,' and that the nearest way from China, Japan, and the Amoor to the Mississippi Valley was by way of Puget Sound. Attention was also directed by Maury to the isotherms, and wind and ocean currents of the north-western Pacific coast. See Nevada Journal, June 11, 1858, and Letter to President of St Paul Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 4, 1859, in Rawlins' Confederation, N. A. Provinces, 217. POSSIBILITIES. 375 transformed as by magic from staid savagery to pandemonium. Agriculture, and shipping to carry away the products of the soil in exchange for the many returns of commerce, became a possibility for the great Northwest, and in virtue thereof Vancouver Island, commanding the north Pacific coast, was distinctly outlined as the England of the Pacific. So far as could be seen into the immediate future, it then appeared superficially that only gold and silver were wealth. What varied experiences or revolutions this country would have to undergo before its wealth in the precious metals should be fairly realized, or its metals become precious in fact by the fulfilment of their special and only precious function, the setting in motion of human industries, were at that time as undefined as the shadow of the moon. CHAPTER XXI. DEATH OF THE MONOPOLY—THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ESTABLISHED. 1857-1858. Shall the Charter be Renewed ?—Discussion of the Question in Parliament—Referred to a Select Committee—Who Think the Charter SHOULD NOT BE RENEWED—GOLD AS A REVOLUTIONIST—DOUGLAS Stands by for England—Late Fur-factors—Dugald McTavish— William Charles—The. Hudson's Bay Company's License of Exclusive Trade with the Natives of the Mainland Revoked— Repurchase of the Island of Vancouver by the Imperial Government—Change of Company Organization—Canada Purchases Rupert Land and the Northwest Territory—Liberal and Humane Policy of the Company in Regard to Gold-seekers and Speculators Nations die; worlds grow old and perish; and so, thank God, sooner or later must every monopoly. Not that the honorable Hudson's Bay* Company now fails, becomes defunct, or otherwise disappears. It is only that branch of the association which might well be labelled tyranny and despotism that is now doomed. The adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, trading on and between three oceans, holding as a hunting-ground for wellnigh two centuries an area equal to all Europe, must now step down from the royal pedestal on which they were placed by Rupert and Charles, and become as any other adventurers trading in any other region. In a word, the company's exclusive license to trade, now expiring, is not to be renewed; the country between the Rocky Mountains and the sea is to be thrown open to settlers, and the Mainland is to be colonized THE EXPIRING CHARTER. 377 and have spread over it the mother-wing even as hitherto it has been extended over the Island. We have seen how in 1821, when after a rivalry which well nigh consummated the ruin of both, the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies united their interests, parliament granted the new association the exclusive right to trade for furs in the region west of Rupert Land for twenty-one years, and how in 1838, four years before their term had expired, their license was renewed for another twenty-one years, which latter term would expire in 1859. Three or four years before the expiration of the trade license under which they held control of the Mainland, the Hudson's Bay Company began manoeuvring for continuance of power, and during the winter of 1856-7 the directors flatly asked the government for a renewal of their license. If they were to retire, they should know it; and if the imperial government was to take charge of affairs, they should have time in which to prepare for it. The claims of the company were then laid before the ministers, who referred the matter to parliament. On the 5th of February 1857, Mr Labouchere asked in the house of commons for the appointment of a select committee to consider the state of those British North American possessions which were under the administration of the Hudson's Bay Company, or over which they held license to trade. Labouchere said that although the extensive regions referred to were for the most part adapted only "to fishing and fur-raising, yet, besides containing great mineral wealth, there were large districts fit for agriculture, and for the support of industrial populations. Imperial policy, justice, and humanity alike prompted government action. Although by reason of long occupation under royal charter, their claim to Rupert Land might be deemed valid, it was not so with regard to the region west of the Rocky Mountains, their tenure to that district being the result of a royal 378 THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. license giving them exclusive trade with the natives, and this license would now soon expire. So far as he knew, the company had performed its obligations to the government, and throughout their whole domain the twelve hundred servants of the company had treated the three hundred thousand savages under them with due regard to humanity. Mr Roebuck remarked that he did not like to see a country such as the United States grow so great as to become insolent, and dominate the rest of the world; therefore settlement should be encouraged in Canada in order to balance this power. Mr Adderley thought every one would anticipate with eagerness the expiration of the company's license which should open the whole country to settlement. If England did not do it, American squatting, and annexation to the United States, would be the result. The giving of Vancouver Island to the fur-traders was the greatest blunder a colonial minister ever committed. Por Nootka Sound Mr Pitt had risked a Spanish war. The country should be free from the grasp of the monopoly, he thought, at any hazard. Edward Ellice1 next rose, and remarked that the 1 Edward Ellice, member of parliament, and for half a century or more a prominent partner in the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies, in his testimony before the select committee, affected to regard colonial affairs with indifference, and the government of colonies as detrimental rather than otherwise to the interest of fur companies. If Canada coveted the management of Red River affairs, he thought there would be no difficulty in coming to terms with the Hudson's Bay Company. The company were then in possession of Vans couver Island, but were very ready to give it up; if the government did not deem it advisable to avail itself of the services of the company, it had better assume the management itself. It was a wise move, he thought, on Lord Grey's part, particularly in an economical point of view, the granting of the Island to the company. In answer to the question, f Do you think that the right of exclusive trade by the Hudson's Bay Company could be rendered compatible with the territory being given to a colony?' Ellice replied: 'Why should it not be so? It is compatible with the government of this country, and it would be compatible with the government of a colony. I do not think that it should exist one hour longer than the colony, or the legislature or government of that country, thought it for their good. The Hudson's Bay Company have no claim to it; it is not like the Hudson's Bay territory. 1 may add that beyond the Hudson's Bay company being paid for their outlay, which payment they are entitled to under the agreement with the crown, I do not think they have any claim upon the public on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, otherwise than as you may think it for your interest to employ them.' House Commons Rept., 336. Up to this time the company PARLIAMENTARY DISCUSSION. 379 honorable gentleman knew nothing of what they were discussing, else they would know that northern North America was wholly unfavorable to colonization. Then, should the present benignant rule of the Hudson's Bay Company be withdrawn, how would they govern, how would they hold the country? Throw it open to free-traders, and you would speedily see as bad a state of things as has ever obtained on the United States border; and surely the imperial money-vaults must be overloaded when statesmen are so eager to set up and keep in motion civil and military machinery for the government of a wilderness of savages and wild beasts. On behalf of the directors he might say that the company were ready for the fullest investigation and the fairest adjustment. For the five hundredth time in public, the history of the company was reviewed and their doings discussed by Mr Gladstone, who favored investigation and equitable and amicable adjustment. Others followed in similar strain on one side and the other; "had expended in bringing out settlers and coal-miners, and in performing "the other obligations of their trust, according to their account, eighty -thousand pounds. All was outlay; there was no return. Politically the Island was an interesting possession; its position was superb. Opportunity was there for investing money in improvements to an unlimited extent. Rocks might be turned into palaces, forests into gilded temples, and the land and the water become alive with industry. But the wealth requisite for all this was not to be found in the Island. Like the mother country, it must have interest elsewhere to become great. ' The sooner the public reenter into possession, and the sooner they form establishments worthy of the Island, and worthy of this country, the better. From all accounts which we hear of it, it is a kind of England attached to the continent of America.' Ellice, in House Commons Rept, 335. Either the company were now in reality becoming tired of their bargain in regard to the Island, or else, foreseeing they could hold it no longer, they pretended to be tired of it. But their actions did not always accord with their expressed sentiments. All that was to be made out of this colonization scheme they had made, some of them thought. And in a pecuniary point for themselves they had done well. There was profit for them in connection with their other business, in carrying emigrants in their own vessels, provided there were any to carry, in manipulating land sales, especially in setting aside the best part of the Island for themselves, and in performing various little duties for the government. An account like this with the .government was exceedingly convenient in many ways; it grew on their books easily and naturally, and assisted the company in carrying out its plans in many ways. But now all had been done that there was to do. The settlement had been begun, but the settlers were dissatisfied. The plan was in "fflrefc a failure. Clearly it was now to the interests of the company, so some of them argued, to give up the Island and get their money back. 380 THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. after which the vote was- taken, and the motion sustained.2 The governor-general of Canada was notified of the intention of government to institute this inquiry, in order that an opportunity might be afforded that colony of giving such information and advancing such opinions as they might deem proper. Accordingly Chief-justice Draper was commissioned by the government of Canada to watch proceedings. The legislative assembly of Canada likewise appointed a committee of their own to investigate these same affairs, a full report of which was laid before the parliamentary committee. The law-officers of the crown were freely called upon from time to time during the investigation for their opinion respecting title and various points connected with the company's charter. After sitting for nearly six months, the prorogation of parliament occurring in the mean time, and subjecting twenty-four witnesses to the most searching examination, the committee found the territory over which the company exercised rights to be of three descriptions: the land held by charter, and called Rupert Land; the land held by license, called the Indian territory; and the land held by crown grant for purposes of colonization, which was Vancouver Island. The wishes of Canada, the committee said, to annex such territories as were available for settlement should be met. The Red River and Saskatchewan districts should be ceded to Canada. The connection of the Hudson's Bay Company with Vancouver Island should be terminated, and means provided for extending the colony over the whole or any portion of the Mainland. Such portions of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories as were not required for settlement, it would be well to leave in the hands of the company with their present-rights of exclusive trade with the natives.3 2 See Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., cxliy. 219-41; cxlv. 97; Levi's Annals of British Legislation, iv. 224-39. 3 The result of the labors of this committee is a folio volume of 547 pages, DEATH OF THE MONOPOLY. 381 Indeed, the company had no objections at this time to the government assuming control of the whole * country, provided the license of exclusive trade with the Indians on the Mainland was left them. There was little danger of an immediate influx of settlers, unless some excitement should spring up like that which did in fact follow; so that if the expense and responsibility of protection could be thrown upon the government, while the profits of trade should be left exclusively with them, nothing would suit them better. If gold should be found in any quantities on the Mainland, as it was even now talked about on the Island, that region would be lost to the fur-trader in any event. Even were the government willing, a reckless, promiscuous population would not long submit to the arbitrary rule of a private corporation. All this the company foresaw, and shaped their policy accordingly. And now suddenly in these primeval shades each man finds himself in a whirl of unrest. The cold and barren desolation of New Caledonia is all at once transformed into a field of glittering promise, of promise so radiant as to draw innumerable human bats from every quarter into it. The position of Douglas entitled Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to be Printed 31 July and 11 August 1857. The committee consisted of nineteen persons, as follows: Henry Labouchere, chairman; Messrs Gladstone, Roebuck, Lowe, Grogan, Gregson, Fitzwilliam, Gurney, Herbert, Matheson, Blackburn, Christy, Kinnaird, Ellice, Viscounts Goderich and Sandon, Sir John Pakington, and Lords Russell and Stanley. The committee sat from the 18th of February to the 31st of July, and examined 24 persons, namely, John Ross, J. H. Lefoy, John Rae, Sir George Simpson, William Kernaghan, C. W. W. Fitzwilliam, Alexander Isbister, G. 0. Corbett, Sir John Richardson, J. F. Crofton, Sir George Back, James Cooper, W. H. Draper, .David Anderson, Joseph Maynard, A. R. Roche, David Herd, John Miles, John McLoughlin, Richard Blanshard, William Caldwell, Richard King, James Tennant, and Edward Ellice. These gentlemen were all either experts in Hudson's Bay Company affairs, or had Been in some way connected with the company. Some of them were accidentally in London at the time, some were there by appointment, and some were permanent residents of England. There were among them those both in favor of a continuance of the license system and those opposed to it. A large mass of valuable evidence was drawn from these witnesses, of which I have made free use in writing this history. 382 THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. becomes an exceedingly important one. The northwest fur-fields seem doomed. Beside this tempest, the occupation of Oregon was summer quiet. What shall the governor say to these panting new-comers; what shall the chief factor do? The company, with the license of trade as its only weapon, cannot hold at bay the hungry thirty thousand. They must be permitted ingress, else they will obtain it without permission; they must be overawed and governed, else they will riot in lawlessness. Months must elapse before action here can be directed by imperial powers, and meanwhile to hesitate is to be lost. In this emergency, as he is the chief and almost sole representative of the British crown on the Northwest Coast, Douglas determines to act for his government in matters pertaining to the Mainland, as best he may, until definite instructions reach him. He will levy contributions for the benefit of his government on those entering the domain for its treasures, and maintain order among the uncouth comers to the best of his ability. As from the depths of primeval slumber affairs now awake to the wildest activity. There is no further need of anxiety over the absence of colonists. Who would have thought as the company were bringing out here a farmer and there a coal-miner, religiously entering all expenses in the colonization account to be presented to the crown on that fearful day of reckoning, to see so soon these thirty thousand thus maclly pressing forward, well nigh burying both company and crown beneath their too heavy presence? Head of the Hudson's Bay Company affairs on the Pacific coast, after the retirement of Douglas, was Dugald McTavish, chief factor in charge, with Tolmie and Finlayson as associates, the three comprising the board of management. To the succeeding manager at Victoria, Mr William Charles, I am indebted for many favors. In ransacking for me the company's THE NAME. 383 archives, in bringing from distant posts the fort journals, and in the generous sympathy he has ever extended to my work, he has won my lasting gratitude.* When the investigation of the attitude and conduct of the company was first approached, the question with the imperial government was whether the exclusive license to trade with the natives of the Mainland should be revoked at the expiration of the term granted the company for the colonization of Vancouver Island. The publication of the gold discovery, and the influx of population, however, put an entirely different aspect upon affairs. The fur-trade in its ancient proportions was at an end, and the prevention of demoralization and disorder was as essential to the company as to the crown. It was better on both sides that all exclusive rights of the monopoly on the Mainland should at once and forever cease. Hence on the 2d of August 1858 parliament passed an act to provide for the government of British Columbia, by which name hereafter should be designated the territories between the United States frontier on the south and Simpson River, now Nass River, and the Finlay branch of Peace River on the north, and between the Rocky Mountain summit and the sea, including the Queen Charlotte and all other adjacent islands, except Vancouver Island, and investing the queen, by order in council, with power to appoint a governor, provide for the administration of justice, 4Dugald McTavish was senior member of the board of management from 1859 till November 1863, when he was called to England. He was a nephew of John George McTavish, and brother of William McTavish, who, prior to the transfer of the north-west territory to the dominion government, was governor of Hudson's Bay Company affairs at Red River. Dugald McTavish came to the Columbia in 1840, and was stationed at different times at Fort Vancouver, the Hawaiian Islands, and Yerba Buena. He died in his bathing- room in Montreal, about 1873. He ' was a bachelor who could at any time start upon a journey at a half-hour's notice. An excellent accountant, an office man, and had long been manager of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs at the Sandwich Islands. He was a clear-headed, able man, small, stout, compactly built, large head, large perceptive organs, dark complexion, large light eyes, a very practical man, not much imagination about him. Sold out Yerba Buena for a song before the gold excitement, as agent for the company.' Tolmie's Hist. Puget Sound, MS., 51. See also Anderson's Northwest CoasL MS., 82-3. 384 THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. make laws, and establish a local legislature. One month later the license of exclusive trade granted the Hudson's Bay Company for twenty-one years from the 30th of May 1838, with right of revocation reserved, in so far as it covered the territories comprising the colony of British Columbia was revoked. James Douglas was appointed governor of British Columbia, his commission for Vancouver Island being renewed. This is the last of the great monopoly as such. There is a vast mercantile machine in fair running order which still offered great advantages to the old association, but there are here no more exclusive privileges for them. Their million or two of square miles of domain, with their several hundreds of pacified nations, are now free, nominally and actually open to any others of the British nation for purposes of hunting, trading, or colonizing on the same terms as at present enjoyed by the late monopolists. But for some years in certain back parts of this region, such is the influence exercised by the company upon the natives, such the advantages of their established posts, their knowledge of the country, their facilities for communication, that this abrogation of their former rights makes but little difference and is but little felt. Competitors sometimes enter the field, but almost as often withdraw baffled. In the more proximate precincts, however, in mining and agricultural settlements, and about some of the northern seaports, where interlopers and squatters now begin in a restricted way to plant themselves, their autocratic rule rapidly declines. By law they are now simply subjects of Great Britain, possessing no more rights than other subjects. A letter was directed to Governor Douglas by John Work and Dugald McTavish, chief factors, under date of November 24, 1858, calling the governor's attention to an accompanying list of 'claims, consisting of fourteen forts, including New Fort Langley, with the THE GOVERNMENT TAKES VANCOUVER ISLAND. 3S5 surrounding lands, asking that the same might be in due time confirmed to them by her majesty's government. With the expiration of the term of the company's exclusive license to trade with the natives of the Mainland, the imperial government repurchased the company's rights in the Island of Vancouver for £57,500, the last instalment of which was paid the 6th of October 1862. An indenture of relinquishment of rights was executed on the 3d of April 1867, the company retaining, besides the fort property, certain town lots and farming lands amounting to several thousand acres. By 1863 the Hudson's Bay Company's stations in British Columbia were reduced to thirteen, as follows: Fort Simpson, W. H. McNeill in charge; Port Langley, W. H. Newton; Port Hope, W. Charles; Fort Yale, O. Allard; Thompson River, J. W. McKay; Alexandria, William Manson; Fort George, Thomas Charles; Fort St James, Peter Ogden; McLeod Lake, Ferdinand McKenzie; Connolly Lake, William Tod; Fraser Lake, J. Moberly; Fort Babine, Gavin Hamilton; Fort Shepherd, A. McDonald. Among the above traders are many names long familiar to us, but which at this day belong mostly to the sons of those we first knew. In Fort Victoria and other posts on Vancouver Island the amount invested in 1856 was £75,000. In 1871 the organization of the company was changed; there were more factors and traders and fewer clerks, and lessened operations and expenses. In fact the association now partook more of the nature of a copartnership than of a corporation. Meanwhile, Canada purchased the company's right to Rupert Land and the Northwest Territory, and out of the purchase made the province of Manitoba. During the incipient stages of the government the Hudson's Bay Company were of far more use to the government than the government was to them. "At Hist. Beit. Col. 25 f 386 THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. this moment," writes Douglas to Lytton the 26th October 1858, "I am making use of the Hudson's Bay Company's establishments for every public office, and to their servants, for want of other means, I commit in perfect confidence the custody of the public money." It was but human nature for the foreign rabble, gold-hunters from California and elsewhere, to cry down the Hudson's Bay Company, cursing it as an all-devouring monopoly, and holding up the fairest transactions as atrocious tyrannies. How ignorant and unreasonable men are! Had they not been blinded by wrath and stupidity these wise ones might have seen that now for the first time on the Northwest Coast, the Hudson's Bay Company had ceased to be a monopoly. It is but fair to say that in this emergency the company behaved liberally, nobly. Never at any time did they ^eem to desire to take unfair advantage of the necessities of others, but employed their power and position to keep the prices of supplies within reasonable bounds. Undoubtedly they reaped a rich harvest, as was their right. Their system of trade was attended by .large accumulations of merchandise, a year's supply or more being kept always in store against emergency. When they saw the incoming multitudes they replenished their forts from their abundant resources. Knowing the country, and being provided with means of transportation, they were assuredly in a condition to compete with any. But the Scotchmen were slow and careful by nature, and it was against fur-hunting tradition to advance prices at once five or ten fold. And the only way the hot speculators, who were the loudest in their denunciations of the company, could carry prices to the desired height was first to exhaust the company's supply by buying it, and so control the market for the season, which was in many instances done. Douglas even went so far POSITION OF DOUGLAS. 387 as to refuse permits to steamboats charging exorbitant freights.6 It could scarcely be expected otherwise than that Douglas and the company would eventually quarrel. The monopolists were grasping upon principle, inordinately grasping, for had they not before this been frequently dissatisfied with the half of North America? They had quarrelled with McLoughlin, their best man on the Northwest Coast, quarrelled with him because of his innate nobility and manhood, which could not descend to the plane of their mercenary abasement; and now they quarrelled with their second best man, because he could not perform impossibilities, because he would not risk his position and popularity with the imperial government. He had been made governor of two colonies, with a double salary. Lytton had praised him, though he had early warned him not to allow the fur-traders to get the better of him; and he would not give him as much of the mother's money as he would like. But Douglas as usual held fast to the stronger; as in the troubles between his old friend McLoughlin and the company he had stood by the company, so now in the disagreements between the company and the government regarding the lands claimed round the forts, and expenses of colonizing Vancouver Island, Douglas stood by the government. He stood by the government because, first, it was- right, and secondly, no fur-trader could knight him. 5For revocation of license see B. C. Acts and Ordinances, 1858. 'The- company had obtained a charter for Vancouver Island on condition of promoting its colonization; but it being evident that they w,ere unable or unwilling to do this the license was withdrawn, compensation being made them for the amount they had expended in the attempt, amounting in all to £160,- 000.' British North Am., 254. This writer is somewhat confused in his facts. See also Olympia Club Convs., MS., 19, 20; Deans' Settlement, V. I.t MS., 5; Tacte'8 Northwest, 63; Waddington's Fraser Mines 26-7; Howard and Bar- nett's Dir., 1863, 144; U. S. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, 78: Fmlayson's V. I., MS., 103; Tarbell's Victoria, MS., 4; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 1st ser. 90-108. A copy of the relinquishment of rights may be found in Langevin's- Rent., 237-40. For discussions of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs in the- colonies see Victoria Gazette, July 7, Aug. 31, Sept. 2-5, and Oct. 5,1858; and for discussions in parliament see Hansard's Par. Deb., cxlviii. 1266-9, 1368:. cxlix. 1494; cli. 1788-1844; clii. 1676-7; clxvii. 497-9, 1404-12. CHAPTER XXII. GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. 1858-1863. Authority at Victoria Disregarded by the First Comers—Douglas Looks into Affairs—What the Natives Think of It—Douglas as Law and Magistrate Maker—Indian Wars—Overtures of the Imperial Government to Douglas—Revenue—Loan—Public Lands —Miners' License—The British Cry Economy—Putting Things in Order—The Unauthorized Acts of Douglas Legalized—Arrival of British Vessels of War—Men of Authority Appear—The United States Represented—Inauguration of the Governor at Langley— The Moody-McGowan Affray—New Westminster Founded—Officers of the New Government—Smuggling. In the beginning of May 1858, information reached the factor-governor of Vancouver Island that swarms of small craft from the United States shores, laden with passengers, arms, and merchandise, were entering Fraser River in violation of her majesty's customs laws, and to the damage of the honorable Hudson's Bay Company. Wherefore, on the 8th of this month he issued a proclamation warning all persons that any vessels found in British northwest waters after fourteen days, not having a license from the Hudson's Bay Company and a sufferance from the customs officer at Victoria, should be declared forfeited, and he called on Captain Prevost of H. M. S. Satellite for men sufficient to enforce the measures proclaimed. Then the factor-governor proposed to the agents of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company that they should place steamers on the route; carry Hudson's Bay Company's goods into Fraser Biver, and no others; carry no passengers except such as had a gold-mining COMMERCIAL MEASURES. 389 license and permit from the Vancouver Island government and compensate the Hudson's Bay Company by the payment of two dollars for each passenger carried —if so the Pacific Mail Company might monopolize the traffic for one year. It was certainly very prettily arranged, and no wonder Douglas hoped, in writing to Lord Stanley the 19th of May, "from its so thoroughly protecting every interest connected with the country," that it would meet his approval. The factor-governor would do this for his company and his country if he could; for he was now convinced that it was impossible to keep closed the gold- fields against foreigners, and there remained as alternatives whether they should enter and help themselves free of duty, or be made to pay for the privilege. Although invested with no specific authority to act for the imperial government upon the Mainland, James Douglas was the man to whom all looked, both in England and in America, as the one to assume control of affairs in the present emergency. As governor of Vancouver Island he was the nearest to Fraser River of any representative of the queen, and as chief fur-factor he had exclusive right of access for the purpose of trading with the natives. It was but natural and right, therefore, that he should regard the interests of his sovereign in the premises, as well as those of his company. With the originating and executing of much that was wise, and which permanently remained, there is little wonder that he fell into some errors. For example, in his declaration that no goods should be carried to the Mainland except by or for the Hudson's Bay Company, and that no shipping, save the company's vessels or those sailing under the company's permission, should carry passengers thither, he somewhat overshot the mark; he forgot that it was only exclusive trade with the natives that his company could claim, and that so long as strangers did not so traffic, their right was as full and free to go anywhere and 390 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. take whatever they should please as was that of the fur-traders. Very sound in many matters, however, was the practical mind of the factor-governor. He knew he should be safe enough in asserting the dominion of the crown over the gold-fields, in declaring all lands and minerals the property of the government in fee; though what kind of righteous robbery that should be, others besides savages might wonder. For where was the European sovereign who ever yet had taken offence at the assertion of his rights to American lands or gold, by whomsoever made? He stationed the Satellite at the mouth- of Fraser River with revenue officers on board to collect toll from those entering the territory; he called the Plumper to assist in enforcing his regulations, and employed the company's vessel, the Otter, in the government service; and he notified the fur-traders at the several posts along the boundary to watch inroads in that direction, though in all this he was wrong, for he had no right to enforce a tax for entering the country; any one might enter, only, until the company's exclusive license should be annulled, none might trade with the natives; and as for the license duty which he saw fit to impose on miners, that could be legally collected from those who actually did mine, and not from those who simplytentered the domain. But to govern this rabble, so he argued, would cost money, and the rabble themselves must pay the charge; at all events, he would try it, though, as a matter of fact, he was soon checked in this proceeding. Early in the season Governor Douglas went over to the Mainland to see for himself the workings of this wonder. Ever alive to the maintenance of peaceful relations with the natives, he made that matter his special care. And he acted none too soon; for how could this uncouth, obstreperous element from the purlieus of civilization be turned into quiet aboriginal ATTITUDE OF THE NATIVES. 391 hunting-grounds without collision with the natural lords of the domain ? The simple savages believed the gold their own; they were not versed in the laws of Christian nations that made might right. In their own crude way, they were well aware that they must defend their domain, else their neighbors would take it. But this was savagism, in which were no betterments inculcating precepts of love and honor and happy future reward conjointly with rum and strange diseases. The fur- traders had taught the natives to regard them as friends who had come among them to do them good, to bring them blankets, and guns to kill the deer, that thereby they might the more comfortably provide for their families They paid for what they got, and dealt justly with them; so that they had come to regard the Hudson's Bay Company as their friends and allies. With regard to strangers it was quite different. Those who came into the country by the route east of the mountains struck the Fraser at two points, namely, Lytton and the Fountain. There they began to dig for gold without a license, and there Douglas found them, and. made them pay.1 The natives knew and cared nothing for any license imposed by others; it was they who must have pay for their gold, or for their sticks or stones should foreigners desire such articles, even as they had always received pay for their furs, and if white men would not treat them fairly in the matter, they would fight for it. Meanwhile Douglas ascends the river in the Otter with the Satellite's launch and gig in tow. At Fort Langley, where it was thought probable might be -Palmer, in the Oregon Statesman, Feb. 14, 1860, charges upon Douglas the motive of securing to his company the traffic which would accrue by forcing the foreign mining population, so far as possible, to enter through the front gate, namely, by way of Victoria, rather than of obtaining revenue for the government. In this, however, I must differ from him. I find nothing in the conduct of Douglas to warrant the suspicion of any desire on his part to favor unjustly either the company or the government one against the other. See Papers B. C, pt. i. 1-15 et seq. 392 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. the Mainland metropolis, he finds speculators seizing lands and staking out lots.2 Sixteen unlicensed canoes are there, which he takes into custody, but releases them, and grants passes on the payment of five dollars for each canoe. The owners of certain merchandise for trade, found there, fare worse, their goods being seized and held as contraband. With a warning to the squatters against their illegal and fruitless proceedings, he continues his journey toward Fort Hope on the 27th of May, stopping frequently to converse with the excited people who pass and repass him on the way.3 Letters are received from Mr Walker, in charge at Fort Hope, saying "that Indians are getting plenty of gold, and trade with the Americans. Indian wages are from three to four dollars a day. Letters from Fort Yale dated 18th inst. state that there are miners working two miles below Fort Yale, who are making on an average one and a half ounces a day each man. The place is named Hill Bar, and employs eighty Indians and thirty white men. Pierre Maquais has built a log-house and store below Fort Yale, and another store about five miles beyond the fort. York has put up a log boarding-house a short distance beyond the fort." Thus the fur-trade is forever ruined, the natives themselves having caught the gold infection as badly as others. Before the queen's authority reaches them, after the old California fashion the miners of Hill Bar inaugurate self-government. On the 21st of May are posted laws regulating mining claims on that bar. A claim consists of twenty-five feet frontage; one man 21 Several applications for preemptions of land rights were made by parties desirous of settling on Fraser River. Refused to entertain the said applications for want of authority, 'ihink we ought immediately to commence the sale of land, for if we refuse to make sales, people will squat on everjr part of the country, and there will be a great difficulty in ejecting them. Discovery on Fraser River, in Douglas' Private Papers, MS, Diary of Gold Discovery 1st ser. 90. James H. Ray staked off 1,200 acres, and began selling lots. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 14, 1858. 3 He is much interested in returns from the mines, and his diary is full pt statistics on that subject. EXPEDITION OF DOUGLAS. 393 can hold two claims, one by preemption and j one by purchase, provided he works both; any white man caught stealing, or molesting Indians, shall be punished as a committee of the miners shall direct; he who sells or gives spirits to the natives shall for the first offence pay one hundred dollars, and for the second offence shall be driven from the bar. For mutual safety a captain and two lieutenants are elected and endowed with power absolute. And of this first meeting of law-makers thereabout, P. H. Furness is president, and George W. Tennent secretary. Arriving at Fort Hope on the 29th, Douglas makes his head-quarters there. Owing to the mineral discoveries in this vicinity, Hope is now the most important place on the Mainland, and serves for present and practical purposes as the capital of the country. It is here the queen's representative sets up his little government, and publishes a plan for establishing order and administering justice on Fraser River. Douglas now calls at the several mining-camps in the vicinity. Gold is everywhere plentiful; more plentiful the miners think than formerly in California; strange some one should not have found it before. Provisions are scarce; pork, coffee, and flour each one dollar a pound, and that with the fur-trading posts so near. At Fort Yale he meets a number of chiefs, Copals of Spuzzum, Tellatella Quatza of the falls, and Lay- kootum of Sposun, and converses with them upon the strange destiny so suddenly falling upon their country. To keep any of his men he is obliged to raise their wages ten pounds per annum, but where this sum could be dug out of the ground in a single day, the increase of wages proved a temptation only to the more stolidly virtuous. As revenue-officer for the district of Yale he appoints an Englishman mining there named Richard Hicks, with a salary of £40 a year, to be paid out of the revenue of the country. 394 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. At Hill Bar, besides creating George Perrier, a British subject, justice of the peace, he appointed Indian magistrates, who were to bring to justice any members of their tribes charged with offences. For this atom of authority every chief was ready to subscribe himself a slave. Other things were also talked about at this camp at Hill Bar. The natives were now threatening to sweep the country of the white men, whose presence became every day to them more distasteful. Bands were arming at various points, and no small tumult had been raised at this bar. Douglas called up the savages and lectured them roundly; to the white men he talked as plainly; then he went his way hoping all would be well. But all was not well. Within a fortnight a hundred natives appeared at Robinson Bar, armed, to fight the eighty white men there. Some half-breeds, who felt themselves aggrieved in the settlement by the miners of a dispute about a claim, retired in wrath, and told the Indians that the white men had prohibited all but themselves from working there. When they were assured to the contrary, they laid down their weapons and went to work beside the white men in apparent peace; but the stripped and headless bodies of prospectors and straggling miners that came floating down the Fraser, told of the inauguration of a new era in British Columbia society.4 The Oregonians and Californians who came to the mines by the plateau route in July encountered the alternative of returning, or fighting their way through the hostile tribes on the Okanagan,5 while the Hudson Bay traders from Colville were moving through the same country and encountering the same bodies 4 Victoria Gazette, July 29, 1858; Papers B. C, pt. i. 16; Good's B. C, MS., 57-8. 5 Mr Tucker, formerly of Tehama, California, at Yale Aug. 17th, reported that he had left the Dalles with a party of 160 men and 400 animals, .\nd that they had a severe fight, with the Indians near Fort Okanagan, three whites being killed and six wounded before the Indians were beaten off. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 24th, 1858. INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 395 of Indians unmolested.6 In the canon of the Fraser, disputes between white and red frequently arose about canoe transportation and mining-ground, and m consequence of the scarcity of the means of subsistence. The strife led to retaliations, and there came a time when, through evil counsels, possibly derived by affiliation from the plateau, it appears to have been decided upon by the Indians to forcibly arrest the advance of the miners above the canon. Demonstrations in force had been made by them on several occasions, but open hostilities were prevented for some time through the personal intervention and influence of Governor Douglas, with miners as well as Indians. Finally, about the 7th of August 1858, two Frenchmen were killed on the trail above the Big Canon, and when the news reached Yale, a party of forty miners organized immediately, under Captain Rouse, and left with packs on their backs to force a passage to the forks. At Boston Bar they were induced to combine with the miners who had gathered there to the number of one hundred and fifty. On August 14th, the hostile Indians were encountered near the head of Big Canon, and a three hours' fight ensued, wherein seven braves were killed. All the Indians in this part of the canon, whether hostile or peaceable, were thereupon driven out, and the company returned to Yale.7 6 It does not follow that the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company countenanced the hostile attitude of the Indians, nor were they suspected of doing so. On.the contrary, it was through their influence that an Indian war was avoided on the British side of the boundary line. On the American side, severe engagements took place between Colonel Steptoe and the Indians of the upper Columbia, who were actuated by the feeling that the Americans, being settlers, and not merely traders, should be opposed, and prevented from occupying the country. 7 It is evident that the Indians were not prepared for a commencement of general hostilities at this time. Their chastisement had been hastened by the overt acts of a few thieving and fighting braves, who, relying on the general disaffection among the Indians, had imposed upon the miners to a degree that became unbearable. Three accounts were published of the expedition afterward, varying somewhat in details. One announced the return of the last of the rifle company, on the 19th, bringing in as prisoner the chief Copals. Smith, the expressman, attributed the immediate cause of the fight near Boston Bar to a robbery committed on an Irishman at Spuzzum, and he reported that ten Indians, one white man, and a white woman, from Hill's Bar, were killed, 396 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. Meanwhile the miners came flocking into Yale from the surrounding camps, and on August l?th over two thousand attended a meeting to consider the manner of dealing with the Indians The majority were in favor of a demonstration in force, partially to overawe the renegades in the camps of the well-disposed Indians, but mainly to reopen communications, to exact assurances of good behavior by every effective peaceable means, and to chastise such bands as they might encounter which could not be dealt with in any other manner. This policy found expression simply by the election of its representative, H. M. Snyder, to a captaincy, and by the enrolment, under his .command, on the 17th and 18th, of the largest number of men. A minority were in favor of teaching the Indians a severe lesson of the sort just administered by Captain Rouse; and for their commander they elected Captain Graham. Over one hundred and fifty men were enrolled, three fourths under the leadership of Snyder, and of his aid, Captain John Centras, who represented the French Canadians. Without deciding upon a plan of campaign, the whole party set out the same day, provided in part with arms from the Hudson's Bay Company's establishment and carrying a few days' provision. They camped for the night at Spuzzum rancheria, where the force was increased to nearly two hundred men from among the large number of miners who had abandoned the upper bars to seek refuge here. Snyder now called a meeting, and represented the necessity for united action in order to carry the expedition to a speedy and successful close. He also pleaded in favor of conciliatory measures, and after some discussion, he managed to overrule the blood-thirsty policy of after which the Indian camps were burned. According to James Stewart, nine Indians were killed, one of them a chief, several were wounded, and three taken prisoners! Quite a number of packages of powder and lead, supposed to have been furnished by the Chinese, were found in the Indian camps. Three rancherias were burned above the Big Canon, and two below. Snyder s Letter from Yah, Aug. 17th, in Victoria Gazette, Aug. 24, 1858. CAPTAINS SNYDER AND GRAHAM. 397 Graham, and to gain an almost unanimous approval for his own plan. By this vote he was practically recognized as commander-in-chief of the expedition.8 Snyder now proceeded with the main portion of the expedition to Long Bar, where a treaty was made with the most troublesome of the tribes, who professed a desire for peace. Five natives were thereupon sent with a white flag down through the canon to Graham's party, which was niet four miles above where they had promised to wait. Graham took the flag, threw it on the ground, trampled it under foot, and camped on the spot. During the night an attack was made on the camp, and Graham and his lieutenant fell at the first fire. This act is supposed to have been prompted by the outrage on the flag,9 and may 8 One report divides them into four companies: Captain Snyder's, with 51 men; Captain Centras', with 72 men; Captain Graham's, with 20 men, mostly from Whatcom; and Captain Galloway's, with about the same number. Another account gives Snyder 75 men, and mentions two other companies of 20 men each; all of whom left Yale on the 18th with five days' provisions. The organization, in the manner of an army of foreigners commanded by a foreigner, was not wholly to the liking of the cautious Hudson's Bay men at Yale, who characterized Snyder's expedition as a mob acting without authority. W. T. G., Yale, Aug. 28th, cor. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 1, 1858. The Victoria Gazette of August 25th gives the captains now as Snyder, Graham, and Yates, and places the total force at 194 men. A little below the Spuzzum rancheH%, Snyder fell in with some Indians, and persuaded the chief to call them all together to have a talk. He with Centras and an interpreter accompanied the chief down the river two miles, when the latter gave a whoop, and instantly about 70 Indians emerged as if by magic, out of the rocks. These were peaceable Indians, simply alarmed at the attitude of affairs, and in hiding. They were delighted with Snyder's reassurances, and bound themselves to keep the peace. At the rancheria Snyder's command found 500 white men, the greater part of whom had come down the river on account of the Indian difficulties. From this point the force was increased to 1C0 men in all, who proceeded toward the Big Canon, Yale. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 1, 1858. 9 The first report as published by the Victoria Gazette, Aug. 25, 1858, says that at the ranclieria near China Bar, Snyder called together 200 Indians, made a treaty with them, and left a letter for Graham informing him of the fact. On the 20th Graham arrived at the same place, Snyder's command having gone on. The Indians foisted a white flag, ancl showed Graham the letter. The party camped at the ranclieria with four or five men out as sentries. At night they were suddenly attacked, and Graham and his lieutenant were killed at the first fire. The news of this so far inaccurately related event as it reached Yale and Victoria was in the first few days exaggerated into a general massacre. All but two of Graham's men were reported killed. A German who escaped into the bushes was said to have witnessed the Indians mutilating 38 of the bodies, and throwing them into the river. I* confirmation of the alleged massacre, sixteen of the bodies, many of them decapitated, were reported to have been picked up along the river, including 398 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. account for the fact that only the leaders were killed. At China Bar, Snyder's command, August 19th, adopted a resolution, the matter having been duly submitted to them, that in consequence of the report believed by many that the Chinese had been selling ammunition to the Indians, if not inciting them, the former should all go below, while they were assured possession of their claims as soon as peace could be established. Snyder's party left on the 20th, accompanied by the chief of the tribe above the Big Canon. Boston Bar and all the bars above the rancheria were found deserted. Nineteen miles above China Bar another tribe was brought under regulations by a treaty. On the 21st two more tribes signed treaties of peace, and shortly afterward Snyder's command fell in with Spintlum, a noted Thompson River chief, accompanied by six other chiefs and three hundred Indians, and speeches were made which were considered very sensible on both sides, regretting the overt acts of the bad white men and bad Indians. On the 22d of August, Snyder and his men reached Thompson River, made treaties of peace with several additional tribes, and at 2 p. m. on that day they began the return march, impelled thereto chiefly by the lack of provisions. Yale was reached on the 25 th. Five chiefs of those with whom treaties had been concluded accompanied the party voluntarily, Snyder pledging himself for their safety. Two thousand Indians in all had submitted between Spuzzum and the Forks. In the course of the whole campaign thirty-one Indians were killed, nearly all by the rifle company in the bodies of Johnson of Whatcom and Miller of Yale. From a later account it appeared that a party of Indians who were returning from a scout at 11 P. M., and unaware of the treaty formed, finding Graham's company camped near the rancheria referred to, at once fired upon them, but that the friendly Indians whom Snyder had met the day before as promptly interfered. Of the eight bodies of white miners that were taken out of the river on the 19th and 20th of August and later, some were drowned, and only part of them were headless. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 26, 1858. This unfortunate event, instead of still further rousing the blood-thirsty minority composed chiefly of the Whatcom men, tended rather to conciliate them to the peaceful policy of Snyder, whose plans were no longer interfered with. SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS. 399 their onslaught at the beginning. The Indians killed were innocent, the killing of white men was traced by Snyder to the Big Canon tribe, enemies of the tribe below, whose rancherias had been burned by the rifle company.10 No sooner had the expedition returned than the miners were again at work on their claims; and the trail was again crowded on the 25th of August with individual miners carrying their packs up the river toward Lytton.11 The Indians above Yale were reported to be quieter, frendlier, and more accommodating in the first week of September following the campaign than they had been at any time since the gold excitement began. The Indians along the Fraser, indeed, proved themselves useful ever afterward in keeping order among the miners, by rendering assistance in the arrest of gamblers and other outlaws who upon occasion saw fit to move out of the reach of the local magistrates.12 Douglas wrote the colonial office, August 27th, that he proposed to make a journey to the front himself, accompanied by thirty-five sappers and miners, and twenty marines from the Satellite, though he considered that force " absurdly small for such an occasion." But as the occasion for it had passed, the soldiers and sailors were not called into action at this time, nor until January 1859, when arose the Mc- Gowan alarm, to be hereafter described, of which the present sudden development of armed forces may have laid the foundation in part. 10 During the progress of the campaign and for three weeks in August ending with the return of Snyder's expedition, the bodies of white men in a more or less mutilated and only partially recognizable condition were daily fished out of the river and picked up along its banks. In the origin of these difficulties it was conceded that the whites were not free from blame. On the 24th the men marched 38 miles over the worst part of the canon trail under the incentive of hunger, their provisions having by that time entirely given out. Yale cor. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 1; also Aug. 26, 27, 28, 1858. ^Victoria Gazette, Aug. 26, 27, 28, and Sept. 1, 7, 1858. The Yale correspondent, *T. W. G.,' of the Gazette, Aug. 28th, dated the start and return of Snyder's expedition a day later than the official report, which I have assumed to be correct. 12AUan's Carbioo, MS., 19. 400 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. In the mean time Douglas had returned to Victoria. On the 9th of June 1858 James Yates, fur-trader, and five others, petitioned him on behalf of the public, who had met four days before, to remove the restrictions imposed upon trade by the fur company; but he refused. As the miners were suffering for food, he permitted the Surprise and the Sea Bird to make each one trip, and for the present no more. In July, Sir E. B. Lytton, secretary for the colonies, writes asking Douglas in case he is appointed governor of the Mainland at a salary of £1,000 per annum for six years, if he will sever his connection with the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound companies. Lytton likewise proposes to send out an engineer officer with two or three subalterns and one hundred and fifty sappers and miners, to survey the parts of the country most suitable for settlement, designate where roads should be made, and suggest a site for the seat of government. Lytton further insists on kind treatment of the natives, and that no jealousy be shown Americans; he suggests a council of advice to be formed partly of British subjects and partly of foreigners. Although tlie revenue collected by impost was considerable, it was regarded as too small in the present emergency by Douglas, who asked the home government first for money, and next to guarantee a loan. Both of these requests were at first refused, but finally permission was granted to borrow one hundred thousand pounds at six per cent. Among the first suggestions of the colonial secretary, was that public lands should be sold, and towns laid out, and the lots disposed of. Douglas was not slow to act on the hint. He sent Pemberton and had town sites surveyed beside the forts of Langley, Hope, and Yale. The government price of land, except town sites and mineral lands, which were to be sold by auction, was fixed at ten shillings an acre, half cash and half DOUGLAS' SECOND SURVEY. 401 in two years. The miners' license was five dollars monthly. Lytton never failed to instil into the mind of Douglas the colonial principle of self-reliance. A youthful and vigorous community must find means to defend itself, to govern itself, and to improve itself. The mother would hold over it a ready protecting hand, but the child must learn to walk by itself. Any course tending to engender ill-feeling, or to bring about a bloody conflict between the government and the adventurers should, if possible, be avoided. But in the event of the failure of pacific measures, and the inability of the colonial government to maintain order and defend itself, England's sword would always be ready. The infant colony should not burden itself with debt; the officers should work together in harmony; free representative institutions should be established, but in this as in all things precipitate action should be avoided. The electoral franchise should be framed to suit the community. In a second visit Douglas arrived at Fort Hope the 3d of September in the steamer Umatilla, and was received with demonstrations of respect. The governor was much interested in the cutting of a road from Hope to Yale. He saw Spintlum, chief at the Forks, as the place at the junction of Fraser and Thompson rivers was then known, then the objective point of the gold-seekers, and after making him a present instructed him how he should treat the miners. For the establishment of public government measures were taken on the 6th in the appointment for Fort Hope of one justice of the peace, two regular and ten special constables; for Fort Yale, one sub-commissioner, ten troopers, and ten special constables; for the Forks, one sub-commissioner, ten troopers, and a warden of the river. He committed King for the murder of Eaton13 13Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 103. A case of stabbing arising out of an old quarrel. King was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to transportation for life. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 16, 1858; Papers, B. C, pt. ii. 4. Hist. Beit. Col. 26 402 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. on the testimony or six witnesses from Hill Bar, and visited Murderer Bar. On the 7th Douglas gave directions to lay out the town of Hope, granting titles to lots by sufference, terminable at one month's notice,* the monthly sum of ten dollars paid by the occupant to be considered as part of the purchase-money when valid conveyance was made.14 Wednesday, 15th September, "met the people and read them a short address," Douglas writes. "Gave notice of the opening of court to-morrow. Granted permission to occupy town lots. The document issued is not a lease at all, but simply permission to occupy the land on certain conditions... If administered with economy, a very moderate sum will be required to meet the expenses of the government. The chief expenses will be the salaries of the different officers, and some necessary improvements, such as court-houses, roads, etc., which will cost a considerable sum, and providing public buildings. The revenue of the country will fully meet that, and soon yield a large excess for other purposes." Douglas was attended at this time by George Pearkes, crown solicitor, who presided at Fort Yale, bringing several offenders to justice. B. C. Donnellan, formerly of the police force in San Francisco, was made chief of police there, and P. B. Whannell justice of the peace. At Lower Fountain- ville, a trader, Alexander McCrellish, was appointed police magistrate. * The 4th of September, the governor proclaimed at Fort Hope that any person convicted before a magistrate of selling or giving spirituous liquors to the natives of Fraser River or elsewhere would be mulcted in the penal sum of from five to twenty pounds. Aliens might hold lands, subject to forfeiture by the crown at any moment, for three years, after which time they must become naturalized British subjects, 14 'Front street to be 120 feet wide, the other main streets to be 100 feet, and the cross streets to be 80 feet broad.' Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser, i. 102-5. WAYS AND MEANS. 403 or lose their lands, or convey them to British subjects. The 22d of December, to defray the expenses of the new government, Douglas imposed by proclamation at Victoria a duty of ten per centum on all articles not otherwise specified, entering British Columbia.15 The port of Victoria, which was free, as concerned Vancouver Island, was declared the port of entry for British Columbia, and a collector of customs was appointed. On the 4th of October Douglas answered Lytton, agreeing to withdraw from the Hudson's Bay Company, promising to sell his Puget Sound stock, and to accept the office of double governor. But £1,000 a year was too ridiculously small a salary for so high an office, he said. He supposed the government wished its chief officer to live in a manner befitting the position, which would cost, he estimated, at least £5,000 per annum. And for general purposes he thought parliament should grant the new gold colony either as a gift, or as a loan, £200,000. In reply Lytton talked economy as usual; hoped that the colony would want nothing given it outright by the imperial government but the governor's salary, which for the Mainland and Island should not exceed £1,800, except, indeed, the excess be raised by the colony, in which event England was not at all particular how much he got. The imperial government would advance the money to pay the engineers sent out from England, but it must be in due time refunded. In the main the secretary sanctioned the unauthorized proceedings of Douglas; he acknowledged his difficulties and praised his zeal. Nevertheless, he warned him against the use of his authority as governor for the profit of the Hudson's Bay Company. 15Flour paid 2s. Id. a barrel; bacon, 4s. 2c?. per 100 lbs.; spirits, 4s. 2d. a gallon; wines, 2s. Id. a gallon; ale, Q\d. a gallon; beans and pease, 6£d. per 100 lbs.; barley and oats, 6%d. per 200 lbs. Coin, quicksilver, fresh meats and vegetables, timber, hay, wheat, books, and baggage were free. The duty on spirits was advanced the following year to 6s. 3d. 404 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. In the first flush of the Fraser Biver discovery, and while yet the hallowed exclusiveness of the company was not seriously disturbed, Douglas proclaimed that for vessels other than their own to navigate the Fraser was an infringement of the rights of the company. This Lytton flatly denies; the rights of the company extended to exclusive trade with the natives, and to nothing else. So when Douglas ordained that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company should carry the Hudson's Bay Company's goods and no others, and passengers having a miner's license and no others, the secretary said no; men might wish to go there for other purposes than to mine or trade with the natives, and the fur company must. not prevent them. Miners' licenses were well enough, but they must be required of those intending to mine. On the 17th of October there arrived at Esquimalt H. B. M..ship Ganges, three decks, eighty-four guns, and seven hundred and fifteen men, in which Admiral Baynes came from Valparaiso to command the naval fleet which was to guard the newly found wealth of British Columbia. The admiral called on the governor, and the Satellite fired her guns; then all was calm; and in the forest the wild beasts revelled in unwonted freedom, while savage and civilized alike scrambled for gold. The Ganges sailed for Valparaiso in December. The steam frigate Tribune, Captain Hornby, and the steam corvette Pleiades, Captain Michael de* Coucey, anchored in Esquimalt Harbor on the 14th of February 1859; also the ship Thames City, with government stores. On the 8th of November Chartres Brew, of the Irish Constabulary, who had served with distinction in the Crimea, came to Victoria under appointment to organize a constabulary police in British Columbia. Joseph D. Pemberton was colonial surveyor, under whose auspices was established a land-office at Victoria, where districts were laid out, and one-hundred- acre sections offered at fixed rates. Pemberton was ANOTHER NOTABLE EXCURSION. 405 nominated surveryor-general of the Mainland, but the colonial secretary made other arrangements. W. T. U. Hamley was appointed by the queen collector of customs for British Columbia, and later G. H. Cary was sent out as solicitor-general. Travaillot and Hicks were nominated assistant commisioners of crown-lands at Thompson River and Yale, and W. H. Bevis revenue officer at Langley. Owing to the large number from California, Oregon, and Washington among the ranks of the gold-seekers, it was deemed advisable by the United States government that a commissioner, or special agent, should be appointed, the result of which was the sending of John Nugent to British Columbia. At a dinner given him on the eve of his departure by his countrymen at the Hotel de France, Victoria,, the 10th of November, Mr Nugent paid a high compliment to Captain Prevost and his officers of the Satellite, who, while true to the interests of their own government in guarding the peace of the Mainland during the heat of the gold excitement, had not been unmindful of those of the subjects or citizens of other governments. The United States steamer Active had taken her station in Victoria Harbor the 2d of August previous. Again, on the 17th of November, in company with Bear-admiral Baynes, David Cameron, chief-justice of Vancouver Island, and Matthew B. Begbie, chief- justice of British Columbia, embarked on board H. B. M. steamer Satellite for Fraser Biver, the Otter attending. At the mouth of the River was moored the Beaver, and at Langley the Recovery, now turned into a, revenue-cutter by the Hudson's Bay Company. Arrived at Fort Langley, Begbie and others holding imperial appointments took the oaths of office, and Douglas was sworn in as governor of British Columbia. Proclamations were read revoking the Hudson's Bay Company's license, indemnifying past irregularities,. 406 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. and adopting English law. Guns were fired, flags flaunted, and amidst a drizzling rain mother England was delivered of a new colony. Thus the Mainland wilderness, called by the fur- traders, according to its respective parts, New Caledonia, and the districts of Thompson River, the Columbia, and the like, was erected, into a crown colony under the name of British Columbia,16 with for a time the governor of Vancouver Island its governor, and the capital of Vancouver Island its capital, William A. G. Young acting as colonial secretary. Such acts as had been performed by Douglas, or by his order, for the collection of revenue and the main- ten ence of order while the country was yet without law or established government, were by proclamation of the governor made valid. English law was then declared in force in British Columbia, and the governor, by proclamation, was enabled to convey crown- lands. After Hope, Langley was for a brief period distinguished as the capital of the Mainland. The former site of the old fort and the land about it was surveyed by Pemberton and Pearse, and laid out as a town, to which was given the name Derby. On the 25th, 26th, and 29th of November the lots, sixty- four by one hundred feet, were sold by auction at Victoria at an upset price of one hundred dollars. Adjoining the town site were ten square miles of land reserved by the Hudson's Bay Company. The sale occupied three days. About 400 lots were sold at from $40 to $725, aggregating $68,000, a pretty sum for a piece of swampy wilderness; but Derby was at this time to be the capital of the 16 Several names were suggested by various persons for the Mainland. In parliament, Hansard's Par. Deb., ili. 1347-8, Facifica was proposed. Some thought the extension of the term New Caledonia over the Mainland appropriate. But the name Columbia, from the advent of the Northwest Company to the present time, had been the favorite appellation for a large and prominent part, and often at a distance for the whole, of the Northwest Coast, and so British Columbia became the favorite. MOODY, GOSSET, AND CRICKENER. 407 Mainland, and play the Sacramento to Victoria's San Francisco.17 Richard Clement Moody, colonel of royal engineers, was sent out by Secretary Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, September 1858, as chief commissioner of lands and works, and office for the sale of public lands and the direction of public works, with a dormant commission as lieutenant-governor of British Columbia, to administer the government of the colony in case of the incapacity or absence of the governor. He was also chief in command of the royal engineers destined for British Columbia, his second being J. M. Grant, who arrived at Victoria with the first detachment of twelve men on the 8th of November; the main body coming round Cape Horn in the Thames City. Among the officers were H. R. Luard, A. R. Lempriere, H. S. Palmer, and Siddell, surgeon. Moody's regimental pay was £330, and his colonial allowance £1,200, making £1,530 per annum. Begbie's salary was £800. At this time Moody was senior officer commanding all her majesty's land forces in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. It was expected that the royal engineers would act in a military as well as in a civil capacity, as occasion required. Among them were a few experienced in cavalry and artillery drill who might form a nucleus for further increasing the military force of the colony by enlistments of disappointed British gold-seekers, should occasion require. Those who came with Grant were first stationed a Langley, and material was furnished with which to build themselves houses. Moody arrived Christmas-day, took the oath of office, Cameron administering it the 4th of January 1859, and domiciled himself for the time being at Victoria. With Moody came W. Driscoll Gosset, treasurer of British Columbia, and B. Crickener, 7 'Proved a failure, and many persons lost money purchasing lots which turned out of no value.' Finlaysons V. L, MS., 60. Tenders were asked in January for building a church, parsonage, court-house, and jail at Langley, which naturally excited the people to expect great things of the place. 408 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. afterwards chaplain at Yale. The Plumper, Captain Richards, formerly there in 1857 to determine the point at which the 49th parallel touched the sea, and the boundary line thence to Fuca Strait, had since assisted the Satellite in her duties, and was in the present emergency generally useful. The rumors of the miners' disturbance at Yale, in which figured Edward McGowan, of inglorious memory, brought the Plumper to Derby only to find that Moody, with twenty-five of his engineers, had gone before in the Enterprise. Between the fiery justice of Begbie, who was present, and the span-new arms of the engineers, the roughs of Hill Bar had nothing to say, and soon her .Majesty's forces were permitted to fall back to Hope, where they found the Plumper awaiting them. The story is told in this wise, and begins back with the opening of this memorable season of 1858. The boundary line not being then clearly plain in the minds of some, there were those who believed, or affected to .believe, that the lower Fraser, including Langley and Hope, were in United States territory. The fur monopoly, the restrictions on shipping, the duties on goods, and the tax on miners had rendered the government at Victoria very unpopular among the adventurers, who were accustomed to think and act for themselves. On various occasions during the spring and summer, in a spirit of bravado rather than of open resistance, the incomers had quietly defied the authorities, who in return held the rude strangers in some little awe. Not that Douglas entertained any fears as to the result in case of war. In various ways he held the miners at a disadvantage. Besides the force which at any moment might be brought from the British men-of-war at the mouth of the river and at Victoria, he could have cut off their supplies of food, and have turned in upon them ten thousand savages. But such measures were not for a moment to be thought of; Douglas 'and Lytton were LAW IN THE MINES. 409 both decidedly opposed to bloody encounters except as a lost resort. Acting with his accustomed promptness and precision fortunately, American ideas were not allowed belligerently to germinate in British Columbia; so that the present incident, dignified at the time by the word ' outrage,' was the only occasion of a combined military and naval campaign in the settlement of the country. Hill Bar was now the richest and most populous mining camp on the river, and the head-quarters in the nature of things of the opposition element. This consisted, firstly, in village rivalry, and secondly, in the ascendency of the foreign element, which protested against the onerous restrictions by which Douglas had aimed to prevent the country from being quite overrun and ruled by the Americans. Yale was conservative and commercial; Hill Bill was inhabited exclusively by miners, and was consequently radical, if not revolutionary, regardless of everything in fact but gold, with fair play as its single tenet serving as a code of law. Under such conditions, nothing beyond a pretext was wanting to create an event characteristic of the situation. First there grew up a rivalry between the magnates who served as magistrates of the two places. In December 1858 the resident magistrate of Hill Bar, Perrier, took occasion to claim jurisdiction over a prisoner named Farrell, from the Bar, whom his constable had arrested for an offence committed at Yale. He was incarcerated at Yale by the rival magistrate, Whannell, who in the exercise of his judgment and prerogatives considered it also his duty to arrest and to incarcerate for contempt of court the arresting constable of Justice Perrier, and to refuse to give up either of his prisoners. To enforce the majesty of the law, as administered at Hill Bar, Justice Perrier thought proper to swear in special constables from the Bar, to recover his own constable by force, and to bring the original prisoner, 410 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. Farrell, with the rival Justice Whannell, under a charge of contempt before the court at Hill Bar.18 Among the specials so sworn was a miner from Hill Bar, who had attained some notoriety as an object of attention from the Vigilance Committe of San Francisco, an ex-judge of California, the redoubtable Ned McGowan. The posse from Hill Bar, under the leadership of special constable Kelly, effected the removal of the three prisoners. Whether from his notoriety as a rough, or the part enacted by him as a special constable, McGowan was made out to have figured conspicuously in the affair, but further than countenancing the transaction, and guiding it within lawful bounds, such does not appear to have been the fact. Meetings were held both at Yale and at Hill Bar for the purpose of supporting their respective justices. At Hill Bar one hundred and fifty men placed themselves 'under arms' in the cause of magisterial dignity as represented by Justice Perrier. FarrfcH was tried according to law at Hill Bar, and fined seventy-five dollars; the Yale constable was released, and Justice Whannell was adjudged guilty himself of contempt, and fined fifty dollars, and then allowed to return to his bench at Yale. The outraged magistrate of Yale next invoked the aid of the army and navy. Despatches were sent down the river to the 18 The particulars of the origin of this early case of mutual contempt in the legal history of the colony are as follows: Farrell and Burns, two miners from Hill Bar, on the 25th of December 1858, went to Yale and got drunk. They Went into a barber's shop, where they fell into an altercation with the proprietor, a colored man named Dickson, who was severely beaten by a pistol in the hands of Farrell. Complaint having been made before Justice Whannell, warrants were issued for the arrest of the offenders. The Yale constable not being able to make the arrest, the Hill Bar constable, Hicks, belonging to Perrier's court, arrested the miners, and brought them before Justice Whannell at Yale, but saying something which offended Whannell, was himself locked up with his prisoner. Justice Perrier then issued a warrant for the arrest of Justice Whannell for contempt. Kelly, the special who was deputed for the service, along with McGowan and others from Hill Bar, managed the business so well that no violence was done, nor was the letter of the law transgressed. McGowan took care to participate in the proceedings only as adviser and spectator. The difficulty arose from the overbearing manner, and perhaps also the want of legal knowledge, of the justice at Yale. Victoria Gazette, Jan. 8, 22, 1859. ON THE WAR PATH. 411 effect that the notorious ex-judge, an outlaw of the worst character, was at the bottom of it all, and the ringleader of a dangerous body of men of his" own stripe, and of American sympathizers who had violently rescued a criminal from the clutches of the law at Yale. Hill Bar was reported to be the headquarters of "as desperate a gang of villains as ever went unhanged."19 The gold commissioner at Hope notified the governor, who applied to Colonel Moody of the army, and to Captain Bichards of the navy, for assistance in the maintenance of the law. Stories were rife of the deeds by which the supposed ringleader of the incipient rebellion had gained his notoriety. Several companies of marines, sappers, miners, and police were sent to Hope and Yale to unravel the farce. Early in January 1859, Moody started from Langley with the company of engineers stationed there, numbering twenty-five, who had just arrived in the colony, forming the advance guard for the scene of action. Prevost, of the Plumper, sent a party to support Moody, and lieutenants Gooch and Mayne embarked with a hundred marines and sailors from the Plumper and Satellite, taking also a field-piece. This detachment proceeded as far as Langley in the Plumper, Moody having gone on in the steamer Enterprise, the only steamer on the river at the time capable of navigating above Langley. Mayne was sent on with despatches from Bichards, requesting instructions. The police force under Brew joined the excursion. Mr Yale, the Hudson's Bay Company's officer in 19 Victoria Gazette, Jan. 11, 1859. A later issue of the same journal, on Jan. 15th, gave the transaction quite a different coloring, i nd the Bar a better name. Justice Perrier came out in a defence of Hill B fc as an unusually orderly place, and explained further that it was by the insi lious advice of an individual not named that Whannell had committed the acts which caused the difficulty. This person proceeded down the river after the denouement in the courts, and ' by his lying and drunken reports wherever he stopped on his way to Victoria, caused serious alarm/ Perrier's letter, in Victoria Gazette, Feb. 1, 1859 412 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. charge at Fort Langley, supplied Mayne with a canoe and nine stout paddlers, four half-breeds and five Indians, under the command of Mr Lewis. Before starting, Mr Yale harangued the crow to impress them with the importance of the service, and presented each man with streamers of bright red, blue, and yellow ribbons, which were. attached to their caps as a substitute for war-paint. Travelling through the night in midwinter, among floating blocks of ice, the Indians chanting dolefully to the movement of their paddles as they passed the miners' cabins on the shore, the successive camps were startled and the sleepers awakened to conjure visions of murder as the only probable cause for such a movement at such a time. The gold commissioner at Hope was surprised at the promptness with which his requisition for troops had been honored by the governor, and was apparently a little embarrassed, having learned in the mean time that the rebellion was exaggerated, and that the feeling of the mining population at Yale and elsewhere had been grossly misrepresented. Leaving Grant and the engineers at Hope, Moody, Begbie, and Mayne accompanied the commissioner in his canoe to Yale for a parley. The town was quiet, and Moody was surprised on entering it to meet a reception the most cordial, accompanied by lusty cheering. Finding the situation peaceful, and the next day being Sunday, Moody, instead of projecting redoubts and parallels, performed divine service in the court-house—the first occasion of public Christian worship in the town of Yale. But after church Moody crossed the path of. Ned McGowan. The consequence was, that McGowan said something and did something which was construed as insulting, as an unprovoked assault upon the majesty of the law represented in the person of Moody. Probably it was: Ned was fully capable of such things. Finding sundry other suspicious circumstances significant of insubordination on the part of NED THE UBIQUITOUS. 413 McGowan's friends, Moody directed Mayne to drop quickly down the river' at night and order up the forces. The utmost precaution was taken to maintain secrecy. Allard, of the Hudson's Bay Company's establishment, had a small canoe launched in the dark- •mess and taken a mile down, the river to a point on the right bank, where Mayne embarked. The latter was afraid even to light his pipe until he had passed Hill Bar, fearing that he would be stopped by the mob. But the miners had the advantage of him in this movement, being well aware of it, and considerably amused thereat. To the surprise of every one, however, Grant and the whole body of engineers appeared at Yale the next morning by daylight. The flotilla of canoes lay bows on beneath the bluff. When the sleeping diggers awoke, the atmosphere appeared belligerent. Meanwhile, Mayne sped on to Langley on board the Enterprise, arriving the same afternoon. At nightfall the Enterprise was turned up the river with the marines, sailors, police, and the field- piece on board. At Hope the officer in charge received despatches from Moody to the effect that only the marines were to be sent on to Yale. When they arrived at Yale the next morning they found the war was over. McGowan, having enjoyed the sensation, paid the gold commissioner a formal visit, tendered a gentlemanly apology for his assault on Moody, proved satisfactorily that he had been acting only the part of special constable under the orders of the magistrate, committed himself frankly into the hands of justice for making the assault under supposed provocation, and paid his fine. With characteristic impudence, he then took upon himself to do the honors of Hill Bar. Conducting Begbie and Mayne over the diggings, he washed some dirt for their enlightenment, and joir. ed by a dozen others, gave them a champagne collation, which all enjoyed. And so the affair passed off. Perrier and his constable were 414 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. dismissed from office for straining a point of legal dignity.20 The fears of Douglas, concerning the danger to be apprehended from the unchecked life of the early mining period in these parts, appear to have been allayed after the event just described. In his despatch of January 22d to the colonial office touching the "outrage at Yale," he testifies to the fact that the Americans and other foreigners had developed a state of feeling of the best description. " Their numbers," he says, "are now so much reduced that the danger of insurrectionary movement on their part is not imminent." McGowan's career in this part of the world was brought to a conclusion by shooting at a man at Hill Bar, but though he missed his mark, he remembered the cut of Begbie's features, and deemed it valor to depart, which he did, escaping across the boundary.21 On his way up the river, Moody had closely scrutinized the banks with a view to the best site for the metropolis of the Mainland. He did not like Derby; perhaps because of its distance from the mouth of the river, of the swampy character of the ground thereabout, of the difficulty of approach by sea-going vessels; perhaps because Douglas had selected it, and the Hudson's Bay Company had ten square miles of 20 Mayne's B. C., 58-70. Douglas said Whannell was not properly supported by the Fort Yale police, who fell away at the first appearance of danger. Despatch Jan. 8, 1859, to the colonial office, in B. Col. Papers, ii. 55-6. The movement from Hill Bar was evidently organized and timed with a view of preventing the chances of a collision. 21 Mayne comments appreciatively upon McGowan's gentlemanly traits and on his published autobiography. While at Hill Bar he was the owner of a rich claim, and popular among his fellows. Not having either the love or fear of British rule in his heart, he was a character obnoxious to the authorities at this juncture. It the course of this difficulty he had also a personal altercation with M. W. Phifer. See Victoria Gazette, Jan. 22, 1868, and in San Francisco Bulletin, Feb. 28, 1859, article entitled ' Ned McGowan and his colony,' in which a writer speaks of the judge as ' lord of the manor,' who 'entertains on behalf of his subjects all distinguished strangers...personal like or dislike of the host is not considered.. .pledges the queen's health in champagne... There was a ro^ but McGowan apologized and pledged him- salf against any recurrence.' FOUNDING OF NEW WESTMINSTER. 415 land in reserve adjoining it. Of what avail were the royal engineers with their technical training if they could not see further into the mysteries of forest- taming and empire-building than common fur-traders ? On the north bank of the river, just above the delta, a high beach had been noticed, a beach which was thought a fitting place for an imperial city. The approach from either direction was magnificent, and any ship that could enter over the bar at the mouth of the river might moor beside its wharves. True, the expense of city-building there would be greater than at Derby; the former spot was high and thickly forested, while the latter was low and open: but surely gold was now plentiful enough to allow them to choose the best. So that when the Plumper dropped down the stream some fifteen miles from Derby to the beach before mentioned, it was determined that both from geographical and strategical points of view, this was the best place on the river. The men therefore were put to work cutting trees, and soon a field of stumps appeared which outnumbered the houses built for twenty years and more.22 To this imperial stump- field was given at first, and until her majesty should indicate her royal pleasure, the name Queensborough; but when such pleasure was known, it was called New Westminster.23 Notice was given by the governor the 14th of February 1859, that it was intended immediately to lay out, on the north bank of the lower Fraser, the site of a city to be the capital of British Columbia, the lots to be sold by auction in April, one fourth of them to be reserved in blocks for purchasers in other parts of her majesty's dominions. Purchasers of lots in 22 ' Dr Campbell and I went to examine a part a little north of where the town stands, and so thick was the bush that it took us two hours to force our way in rather less than a mile and a half.' Mayne's B. C, 72. 23 On the 20th of July 1859, it was publicly proclaimed that the town heretofore known as Queensborough or Queenborough should be hereafter called New Westminster. 41b GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. Derby the November previous were at the same time informed that they might surrender such lots and receive their equivalent in Queensborough property. Already a revenue officer was stationed near Queensborough to collect tolls from those failing to call for that purpose at Victoria,24 and from the 15th of June the port of Queensborough was the publicly declared port of entry. Beturning to Victoria, the Plumper spent a week surveying the harbor; then on the 10th of April she sailed for Nanaimo, crossed thence to the mouth of the river, embarked from her the marines brought out by the Tribune, and with twenty engineers landed them at Queensborough, which place was already the military head-quarters of British Columbia. Pitching their tents a mile east of the town site, they joined in the work of clearing. Grim as was the pleasure of inexperienced axemen in felling trees, that .labor was light as compared with removing the logs, stumps, and the network of roots which the centuries had been veaving underground. Nevertheless a church, a treasury, and a court-house soon disputed possession with the bears; also dwellings, restaurants, stores, and wharves.25 And so affairs continued until the first gold flush had passed away. Moody took up his residence at New Westminster, built the government house there, opened roads, and sold lands, Douglas spending most of his time at Victoria.26 More gun-boats were wanted 24 Open boats not carrying liquors, nor more than 400 lbs. of provisions for each passenger, and not having cleared at Victoria, were now allowed to pass up the river by paying forty shillings, and five shillings for every passenger. 25 The sale of Queensborough lots did not take place until the 1st of June, at which time 132 lots 66 by 132 feet found purchasers at prices from $110 to $1,375 each, aggregating over $40,000. This for the first day onlyj at the second day's sale an equal number of lots was disposed of, but at lower prices. Victoria Gazette, June 2, 1859. 26 For the government of the colony of British Columbia the following provisional appointments were made by Governor Douglas, between January 1 and June 30, 1859: Stipendiary magistrate and justice of the peace at Queensborough, W. R. Spaulding; at Langley, Peter O'Reilly; at Lilloet, Thomas Elwyn; at Lytton, H. M. Ball. High-sheriff at Port Doilglas, Charles S. INCORPORATION OF THE METROPOLIS. 417 by Douglas, and the Termagant, Topaze, and Clio were ordered to join the north-west squadron. In regard to revenue and expenditure, thanks to the paternal precepts of the secretary of the colonies ever inculcating self-support and economy, these were well managed. Including mining and spirit licenses, customs duties, and sales of lands and town lots, and after paying for road-building and other public works, extra pay for services performed by the Satellite and the Plumper, government expeditions, and salaries of magistrates and other officials, there was a balance on the 8th of April 1859 of over £8,000 in favor of the colony. Smuggling was practised largely from the first appearance of the gold fever. Particularly along the United States border it was found impossible, where all was hurry and helter-skelter, and goods were carried on men's backs as well as by horses and canoes, to prevent large quantities of merchandise from passing the line untaxed. So great became this contraband traffic, that a serious commercial depression which prevailed at New Westminster in the winter of 1860-1 was charged directly to it. This view of it, however, the governor did not take, but thought it rather the result of over-importation. In the summer of 1860 the inhabitants of New Westminster asked the privilege of incorporating their town, appointing municipal officers, taxing themselves, and improving the metropolis. The powers of the council, which was to consist of seven members, were limited on the one side by the commissioner of lands Nicoll. At Fort Yale, assistant gold commissioner, E. H. Saunders; chief clerk colonial secretary's office, Charles Good; chief clerk of the treasury, John Cooper; clerk in the custom-houso, W. H. McCrea; registrar of the supreme court, A. I. Bushby; revenue officer at Langley, Charles Wylde. Other officers were appoined at other times and places as necessity seemed to demand. Colonial officers residing at New Westminster in the autumn of 1860 were R. C. Moody, lieutenant-governor, military commander, and commissioner of lands and works; Matthew B. Begbie, judge; Chartres Brew, chief inspector of police; W. D. Gosset, treasurer; F. G. Claudet, assayer; C. A. Bacon, melter; Wymond Hamley, collector of customs; W. R. Spauld- mg, postmaster. Hist. Beit. Col. 27 418 GOVERNMENT OF THE MAINLAND. and works, and on the other by the tax-payers. The proposed tax for each of two years was two per cent on the^ assessed value of town property. The governor recommended the measure, and it was duly proclaimed at Victoria on the 16th of July 1860. To begin with, it was ordered that upon notice given every man should fell the trees on his own lot. Lytton asked Douglas what they should do with the Indians, and if they had not better settle them in villages, and give them law, taxation, religion, and work. Douglas answered yes; that is the best that can be done with them, better than the United States way, that and a land reserve with civilized self-supporting savages. The natives themselves, had they been asked, might have solved the difficulty better than any kingdom or republic, better than any minister or governor in Christendom. "Let us alone," they would have said, "or, if you will not, what matters || by what rules of strangulation you rob and murder us?"27 27 Further reference may be made to De Cosmos, Gov. B. C, MS., passim; Cooper's Mar. Matters, MS., 13-17; Olympia Club Convs., MS., 19; Good's B. C, MS., 63;Evans' Fraser River, MS., 12-20; Langevin's Rept, 1; McTamh'8 Dep., passim; H. B. Co. Ev., in H. B. Co. Claims, 58; Douglas' Addresses and Mem., 51; Annals Brit. Leg., viii. 160-5; B. C. Acts and Or., 1858-70; Hansard's Par. Deb., cli. 1347-^8; cliv. 522-5, vote £42,998 for support of government, 1189-95 and 1401; clx. 1363-4, £15,000 more voted midst much grumbling; cbdv. 1028; clxvii. 496-7; clxxii. 514-17, where complaints against government officers of Vancouver Island are introduced; Forbes' Essay, App., 17; McDonald's B. C, 374-7; Canell's Hist. Eng., viii. 525; Cornwallis New El Dorado, 13; Mallandaine's First Vic. Dir., 12; Brit. Col Blue Boohs, passim; Victoria Gazette, July 28, Sept. 21-3, 30, Oct. 1, and Nov. 18-25, 1858, and March 10, May 12, 14, 17, 19, and June 4, 1859; Hibben's Guide B. C, 1; B. C. Colonist, May 19 and Dec. 22, 1871; Taylor's Brit. Am., 13, 14; Barrett-Lennard's Trav., 299-307; Macfie's B. C.t c, xiii.; Gov. Gazette, 1863-4; Tolmie's C. P. Railway Route, Int.; TarbelVa Victoria, MP,, 5. CHAPTER XXIII. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 1856-1880. Justice without Form—Inauguration of the Judiciary System— Jurisdiction of Canadian Courts Withdrawn—Pearkes Drafts a Plan for the Mainland—Lytton Refers the Matter to Begbie— The Gold-fields Act—Appointment of Matthew Baillie Begbie— On Uniting the Courts Disestablished and Reorganized—Needham Declines to Retire—Two Courts both Supreme—Character of Begbie—He Assists Douglas in Organizing Government—Justice at Cariboo—Jurors Rebuked—Stipendiary Magistrates— Justice at Kootenai and Metlahkatlah—Convict Labor—Nobles along the border—vigilance committee. We have seen the forms of justice, or rather justice without form, as administered by the factors and traders of the fur company, by poor Blanshard who could not afford to keep a judge, by the petty justices of the Island and Mainland, and by the brother-in- law, Chief-justice David Cameron. And must we confess it, that although far-reaching and strong enough, justice hitherto has been barely respectable, appearing oftener in elk-skin than in ermine, and quite frequently with gaunt belly and tattered habiliments. Now we come to the refined and assayed article; no more retired drapers, but a genuine judge, stamped sterling by her Majesty's commissioner, and bearing upon his brow nature's most truthful impress. The administration of justice under a formally constituted judiciary began with the order in council of April 4, 1856, wherein her Majesty created the supreme court of civil justice of the colony of Vancouver Island with a chief-justice, registrar, and sher (419) 420 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. iff. By patent from the governor, the functions of the chief-justice were extended to criminal cases; he acted also as judge of the vice-admiralty court of Vancouver Island. Prior to the establishment of a legislative council and assembly, the statutory laws, as well as the common law of England, were in force. Of the supreme court, there were two branches, the supreme tribunal and the summary or inferior court, the latter having original jurisdiction in sums not. exceeding fifty pounds. On Vancouver Island there was a police magistrate and constabulary force, and at Victoria, Esquimalt, Nanaimo, and Barclay Sound there were in all six or seven persons holding com- missions as justices of the peace; in 1862 there were three practising barristers, and four practising solicitors. In the province of British Columbia, in 1875, there were three supreme court and five county judges. The act of parliament of the 2d of August 1858, authorizing the establishment of a colonial government for the Mainland, annulled the jurisdiction of the courts of Canada, which had hitherto extended over this region. On being asked to draw up a plan for a judiciary on Eraser River, George Pearkes, crown solicitor of Vancouver Island, appointed by Douglas, proposed a supreme court with a chief-justice and two puisne judges, holding nisi prius and assize in the several districts, a registrar, a district judge presiding at the court of quarter-sessions, two or more justices of the peace, a, high-sheriff for each district, and an efficient constabulary. Being referred to Lytton for his approval, the secretary for the colonies remarked that it appeared well adapted to the purpose, being simple and practical, but that Begbie had by that time arrived, and that it might as well be referred to him. Acting upon the suggestion of Lytton, made the^d of September 1858, on the 31st of August following was instituted by proclamation at Victoria the gold- fields act of 1859, under which gold commissioners GOLD COMMISSIONER. 421 appointed by the governor might grant licenses to mine for one year for five pounds, which gave the miner holding it the exclusive right to his claim during the time covered by the license. Leases of auriferous lands might likewise be granted by the gold commissioner for a term of years. In so wild and extended an area, with population drifting hither and thither before whirlwinds of excitement, the creation of this office was a most wise and beneficent measure. Such an office properly filled, and its duties properly enforced by the United States, would have saved to society some of the worst features of the California '49 Inferno. In the absence of other imperial authority, executive or judicial, the gold commissioner was both governor and'judge. He was guardian of government interests and custodian of government property within his jurisdiction. In such places, where one but not both the offices of gold commissioner and justice of the peace were filled, the former fulfilled all the functions of the latter, and vice versa, appeal being had to the supreme court from penalties beyond thirty days' imprisonment or a fine of twenty pounds. Mining- disputes were determined absolutely by the gold commissioner, who, without a jury, was sole judge of law and facts. In the larger districts, mining boards were instituted, consisting of six or twelve members, elected by the free miners, with power to make and execute mining regulations, subject to the approval of the governor. Under the gold-fields act of 1859, it was ordained that mining claims must all be, as nearly as possible, rectangular in form, marked by four pegs, the size, when not otherwise locally established, to Ipe for dry- diggings twenty-five by thirty feet, or if bar-diggings, a strip twenty-five feet in width across the bar from high-water mark down into the river; quartz claims one hundred feet along the seam. The first discoverer of a mine was entitled to two claims, or, if a party of 422 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. four or five were first discoverers, then a claim and a half each. Claims must be registered, and could only be legally transferred by entry at the gold commissioner's office. Ditch and leased auriferous lands were under seven special regulations. Simultaneously with the appointment of Douglas as governor of the Mainland, that is to say, the 2d of September 1858, a commission was issued by the imperial government to Matthew Baillie Begbie as chief-justice of British Columbia, since which time to the present writing, through all the vicissitudes of consolidation and confederation, he has continued to hold it. It was proclaimed by the governor at Victoria the 8th of June 1859, that this should be the supreme court of civil justice, with jurisdiction in criminal cases as well. Begbie was at first commissioned only for the Mainland, and early in 1860 he took up his residence at New Westminster; but after no small talk among the magnates of the three governments, home and colonial, he became chief-justice of the whole of British Columbia, superseding Needham at Victoria, where he afterward resided. Accompanied by his high-sheriff, Nicoll, and by his clerk and registrar, Bushby, the 28th of March 1859, Mr Justice Begbie began a notable journey, notable by reason of the shortness of the journey, and for the length of its description.1 A report of the trip was addressed to Governor Douglas, who sent it to the duke of Newcastle, who gave it to the geographical society people, who printed it, which, when done, nothing more remained to be said of it; for the information it contains, however interesting at the time, is of little present or permanent value. David Cameron was permitted by act of the 11th of March 1864, to retire from the judiciary of Vancouver Island on a pension of five hundred pounds ster- xIt occupies eleven pages of the London Geog. Soc., Journal, xxxi. 237-48. MATTHEW BAILLIE BEGBIE. 423 ling per annum, to be paid out of the general revenue of the colony. A little tracasserie attended Needham's retirement. The.act of union terminated the court offices. Notice to that effect was served, among others, on Begbie and Needham, but accompanying Begbie's notice was his commission as judge of British Columbia. Needham took exceptions to Governor Seymour's abolition of the office of chief-justice on the Island, and appealed to England, and for a time he managed to sustain himself in his position. An anomalous state of affairs ensued. For a time there were two distinct judicial establishments, with nothing coordinate or subordinate between them; each was independent of the other, and neither possessed jurisdiction further than before the union. Begbie was the commissioned judge of British Columbia, and Needham was holding court upon the strength of what was, prior to the union, chief-justice of Vancouver Island. The source of the trouble was in the framing of the union bill, which, while consolidating every other branch of the colonial government, left the courts as distinct as ever. The Island office was finally in due form abolished, and Sir Matthew reigned alone Probably more than to any one person the commonwealth of British Columbia owes obligation to Mr Begbie for its healthful ordinances, for the wise and liberal provisions of its government, and for the almost unbroken reign of peace and order during his long term of office. More than any person I have met in my long historical pilgrimage from Darien to Alaska, he was the incarnation of justice, the embodiment of that restraining influence which society is so strangely forced to place upon its members, a man most truly sans peur et sans reproche. Setting aside his early training, his education, which gave him great advantage over his associates, and placing him upon the plane of inherent manhood, there were none to match him. Physically as fearless as Tod, Mc- 424 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. Tavish, or Yale, in that highest attribute of humanity, moral courage, he far surpassed Douglas. In studying the requirements of the colony, in maturing plans for the administration of affairs, and in bringing in and punishing offenders, Mr Begbie was ever active. " Although invested with the very important office of judge," wrote Lytton to Douglas, "he will nevertheless have the kindness, for the present at least, to lend you his general aid for the compilation of the necessary laws," which was efficiently and faithfully done. For, reporting to the earl of Newcastle the 26th of January 1860, the governor says: "The day after the arrival of Mr Begbie, the judge, he accompanied me to British Columbia, and after his return to Victoria, he was of the greatest assistance to me in discharging the functions of attorney-general, which office he kindly fulfilled with the concurrence of her majesty's government. Since the arrival at Victoria of the attorney-general, Mr Begbie has passed long periods in and has been on circuit over the greater portion of British Columbia, and his personal communications to me upon his return have been most valuable, and have assisted me materially in framing laws, and in adapting the general system of government to the actual requirements of the people." He was an eccentric man, but his eccentricities seemed always to take a sensible direction. Unlike Needham, he came to the colony while yet his brain was active and his thoughts original and fresh, and before being wholly and hopelessly bound to the service of foolish traditions. He was an ardent lover of music, and also of athletic sports.2 It is impossible that such a man should live without 2 On the 29th of January 1859 the Victoria Philharmonic Society was organized, with the chief-justice as president; Selim Franklin, vice-president; Arthur D. Bushby, secretary; Alexander F. Main, treasurer; John Baily, conductor; and Augustus Pemberton, A. C. Anderson, Joseph Porter, James Leigh, B. W. Pearse, Lumley Franklin, and James F. Crowly, directors. Victoria Gazette, Feb. 1, 1859. D. G. FORBES MACDONALD. 425 making enemies. Every bad man was his enemy. Every sycophant; every politician whose ambition was greater than his honesty; every coward who dare not maintain the right in the face of public opinion; every schemer for personal profit or advancement at the expense of public good—these and the like were his natural opponents. With Douglas, who loved too well at times to try to reconcile public polity to personal caprice or interest, and at other times would ignore legal forms altogether, he was not always on the best of terms. As to the succeeding governors, who were most of them professional politicians, serving for place or pay, he troubled himself but little about them. His own duty was always plain, and he did it; and the service he rendered was a fit sequel to that so well begun by the Hudson's Bay Company. Considering the circumstances surrounding the beginning, the unruly wild men and the unruly gold-gatherers, society during these incipient stages was, I say, a marvel of order and obedience to law. It is true that when lawless men first flocked in along the Eraser, and began shooting natives after their old fashion, with as little compunction as they would shoot deer, the Indians retaliated, and between the two there were many murders. But when the miners found by experience that crimes committed upon the person of a savage were as swiftly and as severely punished as were crimes committed by savages, they were more careful how they threw their shots about. I have found no one more ready to find fault with the administration of justice, as indeed with most other matters in the early days, than D. G. Forbes Macdonald, who with many initials of honor to his name wrote a book3 on this country in 1862, elegant enough in typography and paper, but not wholly truthful. \ Columbia and Vancouver's Island, comprising a description of these dependencies, etc. The book reached a third edition in 1863. A later and much more reliable authority.says: 'The people are a law-abiding people, 426 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. "How is it that crime is on the increase?" he exclaims. " Neither life nor property, female chastity, house nor home is safe from the depredations of the many villains who sojourn there." " Because," he answers, "punishment is invariably over-lenient!" Were it any other writer I should regard his words as intended irony. Begbie over-lenient! The man is difficult to please, and were he once on trial before Sir Matthew, as he deserved to be, he would erase from future editions the lies he has told, in which case, indeed, there would be little left of his book. When we consider for how many unknown centuries the savages had been righting their own wrongs, how revenge with them was the highest form of justice, how widely scattered they were, and so comparatively little under the influence of white men, it is wonderful how quickly they were brought to place themselves under restraint, especialljrwhere white men were concerned. C. A. Bayley, coroner at Nanaimo in 1853, was cognizant of as many cool murders among the natives as one often finds in Christendom. "Indian law prevailed for many years," he says, " until the colony had formed a legislative and executive council, and the colonists felt they had the power to enforce the laws." The natives were quite curious as to what was going on among the white men, and would often come from a distance and in large numbers to see the strangers. They came down from Queen Charlotte Islands during summer, in bands of from live to fifteen hundred; and the little colony at Fort Victoria, near which they encamped, was seriously frightened by them in crime of any serious moment being almost unknown. I should think it quite within the mark, that not more than one per cent of the Indian population of the upper country are found in our prisons, which speaks volumes in behalf of their respect for law, and may be said to be in part attributable, first, to their admirable management under the Hudson's Bay Company's regime; second, to the impartial administration of justice; and third, to the efforts made in their behalf by the various missionary enterprises which have been engaged undertaking to promote their truest welfare.' Good's Hist. B, C, MS., 116. INDIAN-KILLING. 427 1854. The Haidahs were fierce and in bad repute; they had captured many white men, Laing, the shipbuilder, and Benjamin Gibbs, and others from a United States vessel, and held them as slaves until ransomed. On this occasion, Douglas called his council to sit upon the matter, and loaded die fort guns; but the Haidahs did not mean mischief now. They only happened to remember this summer what their old warrior-god Belus had long ago told them of the coming of white men with whom they should shake hands and trade. During the Fraser excitement the savages as well as others swarmed at Victoria on their way to and from the mines, and so great was their love for the profligate life of civilization, that it was only by moral suasion and force combined that they could always be induced to move on. They were not long in learning how to dig for gold; or, having it, how to dissipate it. I have noted the individual issues, seldom bloody, between the white fur-buyers and the red fur- sellers that sprang from this intercourse up to the time of settlement. Then came the affair ending in the appearance of Douglas with a vessel of war at Cowichin in 1853. The first old-fashioned American massacre in the interior of British Columbia was that on Fraser River in 1858, when, if we may credit Waddington, the miners from California surprised and massacred thirty-three innocent persons of a friendly tribe.4 The brig Swiss Boy, Captain Welden, of San Francisco, on the way from Port Orchard to Victoria, put into Nitinat Sound about the 31st of January 1859. Next day several hundred savages appeared, seized and stripped the vessel, and held the captain and *Vowell, Mining Districts B. C, MS., 31-2, states that on this occasion fifty men under one Snyder, an American, made the onslaught, and that great suffering followed the survivors of the massacre, in which all their food was destroyed. Ballou, Adv., MS., 12, affirms that the Indians first killed white men, and that the slaughtered under Snyder numbered eighteen, and that this was the only Indian war there. 428 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. crew prisoners for several days, they at length luckily escaping with their lives. The Satellite immediately went and recovered the brig and cargo, which was of lumber, but everything that could be carried away was missing. ^ Seventy canoes from Queen Charlotte Islands with six hundred Haidahs on board entered Victoria Harbor on the 30th of March. And these were but the vanguard of a general convention reported by the steamer Labouchere as on the way hither. They encamped near Finlayson's farm, and the whole town turned out to see them. The company consisted of men, women, and children, with their effects. A second arrival the 21st of April increased the number to thirteen hundred. A few of them had a very little gold-dust to sell. Besides the Haidahs, there were Stikeens, Chimsyans, Bellacoolas, and other savages, numbering in all at the encampment three thousand persons. Their visit was to them apparently very pleasant; they traded a little, drank a great deal, and if there be anything worse they did that too. Victoria grew uneasy under the association, and invited the redskins to leave. A party sent out in 1864 by Waddington to open a trail from Butte Inlet across the Chilkotin plains toward Fort Alexandria, was attacked the 30th of April and thirteen out of seventeen slain. Interference with their women on the part of the white men had so exasperated the Chilkotins that they resolved to rid themselves of the evil by the most direct means. A pack-train under McDonald, en route from Bentinck Arm to Fort Alexandria was attacked three weeks later by the Chilkotins at Nancootioon Lake. Three were killed and several wounded. The savages took the train worth $5,000, and committed other murders in the vicinity. The marines at New Westminster, and volunteers from Victoria and elsewhere, set out immediately and caught a portion only of the murderers, and with the loss of McLean of the Hudson's WARLIKE SCENES. 429 Bay Company. The criminals caught were tried and hanged.5 In the autumn of this year, Capcha, chief of the Ahousets, decoyed the trading schooner Kingfisher to the shore near Clayoquot, pretending that he had some oil to sell. Then Capcha and his warriors killed the captain and crew, and plundered the vessel. H. M. S. Devastation and Admiral Denman in the Sutlej hastened to the spot and demanded the offenders, and as they failed to appear, opened fire and destroyed several villages. Yet on the whole Capcha regarded his business operation as a success. The Clio the following year was obliged to throw a shell into a native village near Fort Rupert before the inhabitants would give up a murderer. These events are the nearest approach, to war between the natives and the settlers of British Columbia that I have to record. The savages fought each other lustily, and it was some time before the law thought best to interfere. Even the superrefined race sometimes saw things in a violently different manner. There was what was called in local annals the Grouse Creek war, which was a dispute between the Canadian Company and the Grouse Creek Flume Company. Some ground claimed by the Grouse Creek Flume Company was in the early part of the season of 1867 'jumped' by the Canadian Company and held in violation of the orders of the sheriff. That official accordingly organized at Williams Creek a small army of several dozen men, armed them with such weapons and such nerve-and-muscle-generating equipments as the service required, and marched over the mountain- trail like Lochinvar. The Canadians doggedly refused to surrender. Governor Seymour then went into the field and succeeded in compromising matters so far as to arrange for a new trial. John Grant, the head of 6Good's B. C, MS., 39-42; Bayley's V. I., MS., 56-7; Whymper's Alaska, 52-6; Victoria Chronicle, May 14, 1864; Portland Adv., May 21, 1864. 430 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. the Canadian Company, was meanwhile committed to prison for three months for contempt; the remainder of his rebellious company being let off each with two days' imprisonment. Several months later Judge Needham decided the case adversely to the claims of the Canadian Company.6 The miners of Cariboo did not like Mr Justice Begbie's method of construing their mining laws; so they met in mass-meeting, the 23d of June 1866, and denounced him, after which they felt better, although the chief-justice still lived. It was the largest concourse ever convened in the colony, they said, and I may add, the most foolish. It was the peculiar way that Begbie had of setting aside the verdicts of their juries and the decisions of their gold commissioners when manifestly illegal and absurd that they did not like. He was arbitrary, partial, and dictatorial, they said, and they desired his removal and a court of appeal. Nevertheless, simultaneously with the publication of these proceedings, comes the report of the foreman of the grand jury of Cariboo, who "is highly pleased to notice the absence of all crime in the district," which, indeed, was the stereotyped clause in all grand-jury reports throughout the country all through Begbie's entire term. He was loudly complained of by a certain class at New Westminster, Lilloet, and Victoria; nevertheless he continued his course, retained his place, and wTas finally knighted in recognition of his services, as he richly deserved. Begbie was almost as good as a vigilance committee; sometimes quite as good; ofttimes even better. There 6 Victoria Colonist, July 23, Aug. 6, 13, 20, 27, Sept. 10, Oct. 1, 8, Nov. 5, 1867; New Westminster Columbian, May 11; B. C. Examr., July 27 and Aug. 28,1867. See also, for the Queen Charlotte Islanders and other Indian troubles, Victoria Gazette, i. Nos. 10, 27, 29, 30-2, 35, 44, 46, 59, and 61, 1858> ii 39; House Com. Rept, H. B. Co., 1857, 192; Cariboo Sentinel, i.1; Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, March 18, 1859; Colmb. Missn., 8th Rept., 36; Gov. Gazette, ix. No. 8; Sproat's Scenes, 9; VoweWs Min. Dists., MS., 31-2; Brit, Col. Sketches, MS., 29; Olympia Club Convs., MS., 13-15; Deans' Settlement V. L, MS., 20-4; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 34-6. DIRECT JUSTICE. 431 were in his rulings the intensity and directness which render popular tribunals so terrible to evil-doers without the heat and passion almost always inseparable from illegal demonstrations. Although in common with jurists generally he placed law before justice, suffering the guilty to escape and go in search of further prey provided they could not be convicted by the book, yet he never was so blinded by the book as to take wrong for right because the law affirmed it. And he would sometimes do right even in spite of the law. All through his long and honorable career he was more guardian than judge. He was not satisfied to sit upon the bench and with owl-like gravity listen to the wranglings of counsel hired for the defeating of the law's intention, and with much winking and blinking to decide according to law and then go unconcernedly to dinner. He felt the peace and good- behavior of the whole country to be his immediate care, and woe to any constable or magistrate derelict in his duty in bringing criminals to justice. Babine Lake was no farther from his arm than Government street, and an injury done an Indian or a Chinaman was as sure of prompt punishment as in the case of a white man. The consequence of it all was that never in the pacification and settlement of any section of America have there been so few disturbances, so few crimes against life or property. And when we consider the clashing elements that came together just as Begbie reached the country, the nature and antecedents of these wild, rough, and cunning men, it is wonderful. First of all there was the savage, physically unweak- ened thus far by contact with Europeans, though in mind subdued somewhat by the more comprehensive intelligence of the shrewd Scotchmen. The country was his, and he was as fierce and as ready to fight for it as ever. The fur-traders were their friends, but these interlopers who seized their lands and robbed them of f 432 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. their gold were their enemies whom it were righteous to kill. The ancient professional prospectors and diggers with whom the gold-fields of the north were plentifully sprinkled, were many of them but little higher in the scale of humanity than the Indians. Among them were many despicable men who regarded the natives as brutes whom to kill was no crime. Add to this the presence of intelligent and good men who were the real dominators of the realm, and scatter them over a wilderness area of five hundred miles square, and we may form some faint conception of what it was to hold the inhabitants in order. And yet the intensity of character and personal influence of the chief-justice were everywhere felt. His presence permeated the remotest parts of the country like that of no other man. When once it was understood by savage and civilized alike that justice in his hands was swift, sure, and inflexible, the battle was won. No one cared to kill, being sure he would hang for it. It is not often we hear from the bench such refreshing words as frequently fell from his lips. They purified the atmosphere, so that even Ned McGowan found it somewhat stifling, as we have seen. "There were not many of that class on Fraser River," said Billy Ballou. "They soon cleaned them out there. Old Judge Begbie soon made them understand who was master. I saw a fellow named Gilchrist," he continued, "who had killed two men in California, on trial there. He killed a man on Beaver Lake, in the Cariboo country, who was gambling with him. Whil sitting at the table a miner came* in, threw down his bag of gold-dust, bet an ounce, and won. Gilchrist paid; the man bet again, and won again, flippantly inquiring of the gambler if there was any other game he could play better, as he drew in the stakes. Gilchrist took offence at the remark, and lifting his pistol shot him dead. Gilchrist was tried, and the jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter. Turning to the prisoner, the judge said: "It is not a pleasant duty for me to e RIGHTEOUS JUDGES. 433 have to sentence you only to prison for life. Your crime was unmitigated murder. You deserve to be hanged. Had the jury performed their duty, I might now have the painful satisfaction of condemning you to death. And you, gentlemen of the jury, permit me to say that it would give me great pleasure to see you hanged, each and every one of you, for bringing in a murderer guilty only of manslaughter." Sproat tells some good stories emanating from his experiences as magistrate in 1864, one of which was an attempt at an inquest at Alberni over the body of a native shot unintentionally to death, while stealing potatoes, by a pea-loaded gun in the hands of an American. Determined to close their eyes to the facts, the jury first brought in a verdict of "worried by a dog," and when returned from a second attempt, found "he was killed by falling over a cliff." The American was finally sent in charge of a constable to Victoria, but effected his escape. The stipendiary magistrates, or county-court judges, at the time of confederation, were A. D. Bushby, New Westminster; W. R. Spaulding, Nanaimo and Comox; P. O'Reilly, Northern Mines; A. F. Pemberton, Victoria; E. H. Saunders, Lilloet; H. M. Ball, Cariboo. Salaries, from $2,250 to $3,400. An act was passed by the province of British Columbia March 2, 1874, for the better administration of justice, but failed to receive the governor-general's confirmation The county judges did not approve of a certain provision of this act which enabled the lieutenant-governor in council to appoint the times and places at which court should be held; hence they petitioned against the act. An act enabling the lieutenant-governor to divide the country into county- court districts was passed the following year. There were other righteous judges in the land; and in due time the people began to like justice and hate bribery and corruption. Those who cared least for popularity became the most popular. On his way Hist. Brit. Col. 28 434 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. across the country in 1872 Grant talked with them about it.7 Since 1874 the influence of the mounted police of the Northwest Territory has been felt along the border. Numbering in all about three hundred, and established in camps of from fifty to seventy-five men, their presence in those wild, thinly peopled regions was most beneficial. They wore the scarlet uniform of the British army, and made it their business to protect at once border settlers and travellers from hostile bands of natives, and well disposed natives from white ruffians and liquor-sellers. This was a Canadian rather than a British Columbian institution; the nearest port available on the western slope was about one hundred miles from Kootenai. Shortly after taking up his residence at Metlahkat- lah, Duncan, the missionary, was requested by the colonial government to act as magistrate. It was an exceedingly strange mixture, both of duties and material, that this man found himself called upon to encounter. Here was law and barbarism, divinity and demonism, incoherently mingled until the poor fellow scarcely knew his own mind. The liquor traffic troubled him exceedingly, and also the retaliation principle of the natives, who murdered the last murderer, in theory at least, ad infinitum, until none were left to kill. Three Indians murdered two white men. The natives gave up two of the murderers, a life for a life being their idea of justice; the other, after six months, gave himself up, was sent to New Westminster to be tried, and was acquitted. This was brought about by the magistrate by means of his religious influence. 7 * There isn't the gold in British Columbia that would bribe Judge O'Reilly, was their emphatic indorsement of his dealings "with the miners. They described him arriving as the representative of British law and order at Kootanie, immediately after thousands had nocked to the newly discovered gold-mines there. Assembling them, he said that order must and would be kept, and advised them not to display theirrevolvers unnecessarily, "for, boys, if there is shooting in Kootanie there will be hanging;" such a speech was after the miners' own hearts, and after it there were no more disturbances in Kootanie.' POPULAR TRIBUNALS. 435 Convict labor began to be utilized in 1859. The jail at Victoria was then the general receptacle for Island and Mainland, and in it were some sturdy fellows with nothing to do but to attempt escape. The chain-gang system was then adopted, and finally a penitentiary was built. To George W. Bell belongs the honor of being the first white man hanged on Vancouver Island, which was done on the 5th of November 1872, for killing one Datson the previous Msy. It was perhaps more difficult than might be imagined for a person to commit a theft or a murder, and escape the country. Obviously his way out by water was difficult, for every movement on the coast was watched. Then, throughout the interior, the natives were always ready to lend their aid, as of old, in catching criminals; and they constituted a widely extended, swift, and sure police. In the immediate vicinity of the United States border it was more difficult to maintain order. Horses were plentiful. No man so poor that he could not own one; or if he was, he might steal from his neighbor. Hence to place himself, if not beyond the reach of justice, at least where justice soon became entangled in difficulties, the offender had but to mount and ride southerly. On Perry Creek, where in 1871 was a customs station, a case occurred, insignificant in itself, but illustrative of the times and place. A merchant received one day some hams in bond, on which he had not the money to pay the duty. A hungry miner swore he would have a ham; the merchant offered no objection; so attended by several comrades, he proceeded to the edifice called the custom-house, kicked open the door, and carried away a ham. Swearing in special officers, Carrington, the constable, after a show of fight on the part of the offenders, succeeded in arresting them and conveying them, ironed, to the jail at Wild Horse Creek. Haynes, the Kootenai judge, being absent, Carrington, after waiting a while, started with his 436 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. prisoners for Victoria, intending to commit them there for trial. But meeting Haynes on the way, the party returned, and the prisoners were finally discharged on condition of their leaving the country. I have often been assured, and by those who should know, that there never was a case of popular or illegal hanging in British Columbia. Sir Redmond Barry made the same statement to me regarding Australia. I am satisfied that my informants were in error regarding both countries.8 A mob may sometimes catch and hang a man, making little stir about it. A hanging scrape at Jack of Clubs Creek in the Cariboo country in 1862 is mentioned by R. Byron Johnson in Very Ear West Indeed, While the writer cannot be called a very truthful or reliable man, judging from all the circumstances, I do not think this story is wholly fiction. While Johnson was absent from his claim, his partner, Jake Walker, engaged a man at Williams Creek to help him sink his shaft a few feet lower. One day, while Walker was in the shaft and the hired man at the windlass, the latter deserted his post, robbed Walker's cabin, and leaving the owner in the ditch to die, make tracks across the mountain. Contrary to the villain's expectations, Walker succeeded in climbing out. The first question with Walker was then whether he should pursue the man alone, and kill him, or summon the neighbors to his assistance. He chose the latter course. The tnan was caught, brought back to the cabin, and there tried by the miners, and executed.9 In my Popular Tribunals, i. 644-51, I have given several cases of arbitrary justice, a native, however, being generally the victim. 9 My authorities for this chapter, which I am obliged to make brief, are Allan's Cariboo, MS., 19; Finlayson's V. I., MS., 101, which says of Begbie: 'He dealt (out justice with a stern and vigorous hand, and was a terror to evil-doers, especially in the gold excitement of '58 and after years;' Ballou's Adv., MS., 10, 11; Vowell's Mining Districts, MS., 3-6; Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., 14; Waddington's Fraser River, 20; Grant's Ocean to Ocean, 316-16; Hayes' Scraps, iii. 66; Olympia Standard, Nov. 16, 1872; Consolidated Laws, B. C, 1877; Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxi. 243, 247-S; Victoria Gazette, Dec. 30, 1858; Victoria Direct., 1863, 179-89; Isbister's Proposal, passim; Revised AUTHORITIES 437 Laws, B. C, 1871; Gov. Gazette, Aug. 9, 1873; Cariboo Sentinel, June 25 and July 2, 1866; Pemberton's V. L, 128-9; Nanaimo Free Press, April 22, 1874; Forbes' Essay, 32; Colonist, Jan. 19, 1864; Apr. 10, June 11, Dec. 11, 1866; Nov. 26, 1867; Jan. 30, Aug. 29, 31, Sept. 2, Dec. 17, 1869; Feb. 9, Aug. 24, 1870; Feb. 22, Dec. 30, 1871; Dec. 18, 1872; July 28, Aug. 6, 10, 12, 15, 18, 25, 29, Sept. 26.. Oct. 10, Nov. 4, 1875; March 4, June 2, Nov. 15, 1876; Constitution Sup. Court Acts and Or., 1858-70; Sproat's B. C, 32; Sessional Papers, 1877, 437; Standard, May 21, 23, 1877; New Westminster Herald, Aug. 9, 1873; Milton and Clieadle's N. W. Pass, 341; Barrett-Lennard's B. C, 61-3; Macfie's B. C, 460-1; Mayne's B. C, 58-70; Johnsons Very Far West, 108; Sproat's Scenes, 44-9, 72-7. CHAPTER XXIV. FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. 1858-1878. New Developments in the History of Mining—Character of the Mines —Mining Towns—Sluicing at Hope and Yale—Routes to the Diggings—Steam on the Fraser—Boats Ascend to Hope and Yale— Extension of Mining Area—Rush to Lytton—Roads—Prospectors Push Northward—Bars Named—Field—Region Round Lilloet— Fountain, Canoe, Quesnel, and Thompson Mines—Quartz on Cherry Creek—The Mines oe the Fraser Valley—Character of the Dry- diggings—Terrace Composition—Gold Distribution and Yield. It is as necessary to tell what the Californians who sought gold on the Fraser River did not find, as to tell what they did find; that is to say, what failed them in their expectations, and what they found new which will profitably illustrate the mining history of the coast. First of all, then,, the forbidding grandeur of the Fraser canon overwhelmed them, and drove thousands of them southward no richer than they came. Nevertheless, despite this reaction, the country was settled; towns were built; and in the course of several years after the Fraser excitement, mineral resources and lines of transportation were developed in the great northern interior of the Pacific slope, which were destined to assume a national and continental significance. The temporary drawbacks were due to the physical features with which the advancing tide of population had to grapple. No road nor trail practicable for animals existed along the Fraser canon during the early stages of the gold excitement, so that THE FROWNING FRASER, 439 it was quite impossible to follow up and to support any large number. Hence all but a few fell back until the completion of the road, which Douglas caused to be opened through the western rim of the high plateau. The twenty thousand who went to Fraser River from California in 1858 were warned that the bars where gold was reported would remain inaccessible on account of the high water until after midsummer, and that to wait for the opportunity to mine in that wilderness would be costly, to say the least, and might be death.1 But reasoning from their experience in California, too little importance was attached to this feature of the new mines, as it was concluded that in the mean time the ravines and the smaller tributaries could be more or less profitably worked. But here arose the first and most grievous disappointment. They found no ravine diggings like those in the mountain counties of California, with gold lying in a concentrated form on the bed-rock, and the latter exposed by the eroding streams. Such of the higher bars of the Fraser as were accessible, including the flats occasionally forming the banks of the river, and prospected in the early stage of the mining excitement, failed even to yield the prospects of the American and Yuba rivers. It was almost entirely fine gold distributed in thin streaks of gravel and sand, and through the benches and terraces of the hills and valleys running back often far from the river. That fine gold was also found concentrated in really rich deposits in some of these bars is beyond a doubt, but it consisted of thin layers or lenticular patches, covered 1 Fraser River is at flood height annually in June and July. Arrowsmith's Map of B. C, London, 1859. Its gold-bearing bars are really accessible to advantage only for a few months in the autumn. After November the frosts set in, and mining can be followed only at intervals during the winter. After the severe weather and before the snows are melted, between February and April, there were two months of favorable mining season. Although there is low water about the 1st of January, both the climatic conditions, and where quicksilver is used, the amalgamating conditions are'unfavorable at that time. Simple and well known as were these facts by the settlers, the miners of 1858 paid dearly before they became acquainted with them. 440 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. frequently by very heavy masses of barren ground. In this respect it was comparable to the higher ground deposits of the ancient rivers of California, the profitable handling of which rendered indispensable an outlet grade and the use of the hydraulic pipe. On the Harrison and other tributaries coarse gold was to be found. Before the river fell, thousands had left the country under the conviction that the water would never fall sufficiently, or that they had seen enough; yet the diggings were overcrowded when this event took place, notwithstanding the fact that the size of the claims was limited to twenty-five feet square. Those who had no claims, or whose claims were worked out, advanced up the river, clambering over the rocks of the canon in the direction of the fork of the Thompson, where there was room enough for all who could obtain supplies. The greatest number were employed between Hope and Yale, but among the best diggings were those at the Fountain, six miles above the great falls, and for some time the northern limit of mining.2 From Murderer or Cornish Bar, four miles below Hope, innumerable bars, signifying simply accessible river-bottom formed by the angles in the current, were prospected, and most of them worked, for a distance of 140 miles along the Fraser, and along the Thompson to a point fifteen miles above the mouth of the Nicola.3 Nearly all of these were wiped out of memory as the inhabitants migrated and the traces of their existence were washed away by the recurring floods of the rivers; so that a few only have found a permanent place in the geography of the country. The first place above Langley which contained gold in appreciable quanity was Maria Bar, between the Sumas and Harrison, followed by Murderer Bar, four 2 A few of the adventurers penetrated to the Canoe country in latitude 51° 3(y, named after Canoe Creek, a tributary of the Fraser, where Simon Fraser in 1808 left his canoes. Nugent, in IT. S. Ex. Doc., iii, 85th Cong., 2d Sess.; AUan's Cariboo, MS., 1-4. 3 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 8. GOLD-BEARING BARS. 441 miles below Hope, and subsequently known as Cornish Bar.4 Between these existed other bars which were disregarded at first, owing to the fineness of their gold. The localities above Hope are given as Mosquito, or Poverty, Fifty-four Forty, Union, Canadian, Santa Clara, Deadwood, Express, American, Puget Sound, Victoria, Yankee Doodle, Eagle, Alfred, Sacramento, Texas Hunter, Emory, Rocky, Trinity, Hill, Casey, Yale.5 It was observed by Douglas that the bars grew richer in ascending order, Hill Bar being the best, and appearing to bear a resemblance to some of the river bars of California. Discovered early in 18586 by Hill, an American, it progressed so rapidly that in September Douglas laid out a town here on the system followed at Hope. Two months later, the bar proper being worked out, the benches were resorted to, and in 1859 a ditch was constructed at a cost of twelve thousand dollars, which yielded a monthly profit of fifty per cent. This ground also declined, and the population was transferred to Yale.7 In June 1858, the miners were distributed between Langley and the canon thirty or forty miles above Yale, and advancing in successive stages toward the Forks, where it was known that the authors of the Fraser excitement had been mining successfully dur- 4 Douglas found 125 men at work here in September 1858, and doing fairly. Private Papers, MS., i. 103; Trutch's Map of B. C, 1871. 6 To these may be added Cameron Bar, which was discovered by Thomas Spence, a steamer striking the bar and revealing the gold to him. VowelVs B. C. Mines, MS., 26-7. Waddington's list of bars is the most complete, as given in Victoria Gazette, Sept. 15, 1858. Douglas records a shorter list at the same time, in Private Papers, MS., i. 104-5. Trutch's Map, 1871, locates American first, then Emory, and Texas Bar last and next to Yale. Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 285. O'Reilly, the gold commissioner in 1860, mentions also Trafalgar and French bars, and by Cornish Bar, below Hope, he places Prospect, Blue Nose, and Hudson bars. B. C. Papers, iv. 10. Several of the bars cannot be exactly located. 6 It was here that the first discovery of gold upon the lower Fraser was made, Emory's and Union being found next, followed by Chapman's and Boston, above Yale. Allan's Cariboo, MS., 1-4. Waddington names Hill as the richest, then Emory, Texas, and Puget Sound; the poorest as Fifty-four Forty, Express, and Yale. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 15, 1858. 7 Soon every vestige of Hill Bar was gone. Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 195; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 103-4, 106; Rowe's Col. Empire, i. 131. 442 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. ing the winter and spring, till scarcity of supplies and high water obliged them to retreat. By October, according to official estimates, a population of ten thousand was distributed along the river. The number between Cornish Bar and Yale, in November, was four thousand, Hope contained four hundred The Lower Mining Region. more, and Yale thirteen hundred.8 In Hope district an ounce a day was common wages, while some miners earned two or more ounces for weeks together; so that most of those who had been engaged with rock- sDougla8, in B. C. Papers, ii. 29. Waddington counted early in September 800 rockers actually at work between Hope and Yale, and dOttgH well. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 15, 1858. Smith, of Kent and Smith's express, reported to the same paper, of Aug. 20th, that Puget Sound Bar had 40 rockers and 120 men at work; Texas Bar, 8 companies, who were partly sluicing and SLUICES, DITCHES, AND FLUMES. 443 ers on these bars up to Yale, returned at the close of the season of 1858, with from two to four thousand dollars clear of expenses. Toward Yale sluicing entered largely into mining operations, and the yield rose as high as twenty-five dollars a day to the man, although the general average was considerably lower. Occasionally rich strikes were made, and created more or less wide-spread excitement. In October 1858 the benches at Yale developed some coarse gold, and the miners were with difficulty restrained from digging away the town.9 Sluicing yielded about twice the return obtained with rockers, but as this method involved considerable preliminary and often costly labor, the wooden pail, pan, and rocker retained the favor of the majority. Many places, particularly the benches and higher ground, could not, however, be worked advantageously without ditches, and these came into use quite early in the season of 1858. Between Cornish Bar and Hope alone there were thirteen ditches in operation in November, and more in process of construction.10 The yield of forty sluice-heads in April 1859 was six thousand dollars a day, and the ditch company at Hill Bar received five dollars a day from forty claims.11 making $15 to $40 to the hand; Sacramento Bar, 15 rockers; Emory, 36 rockers, averaging $6 to $8 to the hand; HUl, 100 rockers and 400 men, averaging $16; Yale, 9 companies, averaging $15 to $20 to the man. 9 The consequence was, however, that garden leases on the left bank between Hill Bar and Yale were refused, and the ground held for mining. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 105-6. In May miners here made an ounce and a half a day. Id., 90. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 15, 1858, classes the Yale diggings among the poorer. Five sluices here yielded in August $25 a day to the hand. Id., Aug. 24th; and on Aug. 13th the 150 rockers yielded 723 ounces. Id., Aug. 25, 1858, Macfie's V. I., 240. At Cameron Bar nineteen miners made each $75 a day for three weeks. Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 26-7; Cornwallis' N. Eldorado, 203-15. At Hill Bar the men were making from $2.50 to $25 a day. B. C. Papers, iii. 9, etc. Ten claims, each with 26 feet frontage, produced in June, July, August, and part of September, $30,000. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 106. Eight of these comp ,nies were making $15 to $40 a day to the hand. Victoria Gazette, Aug. 20, 18 >8. 10 Some cabins erected in connection with one of these er berprises received the name of Mariaville, after the steamerMaria. VictoriaGazette, April 19,1859. 11 Four men sluiced out $4,000 in six days. Douglas, in B. C. Papers, iii. 9. At Hudson Bar, just below Cornish Bar, a flume a mile in length was in operation in April 1859; and still further down the river was a wheel 30 feet in diameter, used in raising water for a sluice which paid five dollars a day to> the man. Victoria Gazette, April 19, 28, 1859. 444 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. In the spring of 1860, the Hope district was still occupied by over two hundred miners, who were making an average of six dollars a day on old ground.12 This rate was approximately maintained for a long time, chiefly by means of sluices, since the ground all along the river was in a sense inexhaustible. The winter of 1876-7 was particularly favorable for sluicing. The operations were desultory, however, and the field was left more open for Chinese and Indians, who followed improved methods, and continued year after year to dig up the bars and enter into the benches. Already in 1861 two thousand Chinese were digging around Yale.13 During the first half of 1858, Langley was regarded as the head of steam navigation, and consequently as the centre of Fraser traffic, to which the Otter and the Sew Bird were making regular trips from Victoria. Deterred by the passage rate of twenty dollars, canoes ventured also to cross from Victoria and other points,14 and proceeded up the Fraser direct to Hope and Yale, while steamer passengers were often detained at Langley for want of boats. This inconvenience induced the steamer Surprise to try the current above, and on June 4th she reached Hope without difficulty, transferring by this coup the head of steamboat navigation to the latter place. But this was only for a while, since the feat of the Surprise was surpassed on July 21st, when 12 The official report for the spring gave Victoria Bar 40 men, earning $3 to $5 a day; Puget Sound, 50 men, $3 to $5 a day; French, 15 men, $10 to $12 a day; Trafalgar, 9 men, $5 to $7 a day; Mariaville, 10 men, $4 a day; Union, 20 men, $4 to $5 a day; Cornish, 15 men, $3 to $4 a day; Prospect, 6 men, $4 a day; Blue Nose, 8 men, $4 a day; Hudson, 30 men, $8 to $10 a day. B. C: Papers, iv. 10. 13 B. C. Papers, iv. 46. In 1865, the Chinese between Hope and Yale were making $2 to $5 a day. Macfie's V. I., 240-1. A company of Indians took out $1,800 near 18 Mile Post in the spring of 1877; ancf some San Francisco capitalists applied for extensive terrace grounds opposite Yale. Rept. Min. Mines, 1872, 406-7. 14 On July 6, 1858, 50 boats with 400 miners left Victoria for the Fraser. Victoria Gazette, July 7, 1858. The following night there arose a gale which caused much fear for their safety. Id., July 10th. On July 13th another fleet of 75 boats left Victoria. Id., July 14th. RIVER NAVIGATION. 445 the American boat Umatilla succeeded in reaching Yale, and made this the steamer terminus. In announcing this triumph, Douglas informed the colonial office that he had licensed two American vessels to ply on the Fraser. He also claimed the merit on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company of having laid in large supplies and tools for the miners, and of selling them at barely remunerative prices; and, yet, a month later, the papers were complaining of the monopoly in Fraser trade and navigation in the interest of the Hudson's Bay Company.15 Canoes could readily come up to Yale near the falls, but beyond this the difficulty and danger of the journey were appalling, even at low water. The obstacle consisted in the rapids of the lower canon, four miles above Yale, and in those of the great canon, eighteen miles below the Forks. The route by land along the Fraser, from Yale to Quayome, afterward Boston Bar, was a mere goat-track with inclines of thirty to thirty-six degrees, and with yawning precipices.16 So long as the miners had to carry everything on their hack through these canons, partly for want of horses, mining was necessarily retarded; for travelling to and fro with heavy loads was a severe task on, energy, time, and labor, and this was besides interrupted by the snow and cold which set in with December. At Spuzzum, six miles above the Fraser falls and ten miles above Yale, an old horse-trail formerly reached the river from the Similkameen on the plateau, and followed the Kequeloose River for six miles. It had been opened in 1847-8, but was abandoned as impracticable, chiefly on account of the break caused by the falls. When the miners came into the field the 15 B. C. Papers, i. 23; Victoria Gazette, Sept. 2-4, 1858; Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 170-4. The Enterprise and Maria raised the freights in October from Victoria to Hope to $60 a ton. Victoria Gazette, Oct. 16, 1858. 16 Lieutenant Mayne declares it the roughest trail he ever travelled. B. C. Papers, iii. 46. Justice Begbie, who went up this way in April 1859, and Teturned by Harrison River, remarks on this roughness. Id., 17-24. 446 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. route up the Fraser, first used by them, followed the old Kequeloose horse-trail away from the river some distance, and then descended along Anderson River to. the Fraser at Boston Bar. From five to eight days were usually expended between Langley and the falls, and thence onward, according to the load. Another route for which great advantages were claimed was by the Whatcom and Smess trail, continuing along the Fraser to Hope, and thence across the mountains and along the plateau to Thompson River, by which it was possible to reach the mines above the canon independently of canoe navigation and canons.17 The achievement of the Umatilla decided the question in favor of the more direct road along the west side of the Fraser, and the marches then on the Hope and plateau trails were transferred to it, when the part between Yale and Spuzzum was opened for pack-trains in August 1858. At Spuzzum a bridge had been constructed by Frank Way, and a mile above he conducted the ferry which could carry ten loaded animals. Although the road was not yet quite clear, five hundred mules were on the way, and the first train reached the Forks September lOth.18 Pedestrians still preferred the foot-trail along the bluffs, and in 1859 a ferry was established at Boston Bar, which enabled them to pass by Spuzzum. This trail had the disadvantage of being blocked by snow early in 17 Some miners from Whatcom reached Hope by this trail about the first of July; but they were reported as sorry-looking objects, their clothes torn to rags, and they were represented as 'cursing the Whatcom trail.' The first party to reach the forks of the Thompson by this route came in August 1858. They were also represented as complaining of the route. But these reports came through the Victoria press, actuated by jealousy, perhaps, of a rival and outside route. The partisans of the route declared that it was as easy as it was direct. The trail had been cut for ten miles into the wood and then abandoned. Bay ley's V. I., MS., 42. 18 The trail to Spuzzum was opened by 50 volunteers. In September it was opened to the ferry. The freight by the first train was 46£ cents a pound from Yale to the Forks. Victoria Gazette, Sept. 1, 15, 1858. Many could ill afford this rate, and as the water fell they ventured to tow canoes through the canons at the risk of life and property. Seven men were drowned while Douglas was at Yale in October. B. C. Papers, ii. 6; Waddington's Fraser River, 8. ROUTES TO THE MINES. 447 the winter, a difficulty averted by the opening in November of the Harrison-Lilloet road. Another route to the upper country in 1858 was the McLoughlin trial by way of Priest Bapids, followed by the regular Oregon packers. It was more direct than the Palmer branch, and ascended the Similkameen to Red Earth Fork, whence it struck across a divide to Nicola Valley, reaching the Thompson at Nicaomeen, thirteen miles above its mouth.19 The oldest travelled route on the plateau beyond this was the brigade trail of the Hudson's Bay Company, which connected at the Forks with the Hope-Spuzzum trail, and passed northward by way of the Fountain. It had been brought into use on the abandonment in 1847 of the Columbia River route.20 The land and water route opened between Harrison River and Lilloet by October 1858, became for a considerable time the main line for traffic with the upper country. By October 1860, a new and easier road, practicable during winter, was opened between Yale and Lytton, and it needed only the Cariboo excitement to set in motion the transformation of the trail into a wagon-road, the cutting and blasting for which began at Yale in 1862. The road was gradually extended under different contracts, and by 1864 the era of freight-wagons had set Above the little canon at Yale, mining was prosecuted to a considerable extent even in 1858, notwithstanding the difficulty of transporting supplies; and Boston Bar and Lytton rose to be geographical points of note. Boston Bar lay at the mouth of the An- ™B. C. Papers, i. 79-83. M William Hutchings of California travelled by it in July 1858, on his way from Hope to the Fountain. In May the trapper Wolfe led 36 Oregonians to the same place by the old Colville brigade frail. Victoria Gazette, July 29, 1858. 21 Replacing the pack-trains, which had charged $1 to $1.50 a pound freight to Cariboo. The operations on the trail had been under the direction of Sergeant McCann; these were under Captain Grant, It. E. Finlayson's V. I., MS., 61; Victoria Gazette, May 5, July 7, Sept. 10, 1858: B. C, Directory, 1867,203. *' 448 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. derson River, midway between Yale and Lytton, and was the representative camp of the unnavigable portion of the canon. It-was often referred to by its Indian name of Anayome. The buildings were pleasantly situated on a low flat, and a ferry connected with the rich island bar on the opposite side. Between Xale and Spuzzum, known also as Rancheria, were named Wellington, Sailor, Pike, Madison, Steamboat, Humbug, Surprise, Washington, and Kelly bars; and between Spuzzum and Boston Bar, the ferry, Chetamn or Chapman, Steamboat, Cross, and Nicaragua bars.22 At all of these places mining was at first almost entirely confined to the river-bed, and within six inches of the surface, so that the deposit did not last long. Similar strata existed beneath, but they were not so readily found, nor so accessible on account of the water, combined with much barren ground. Most claims yielded early in 1858 twelve dollars to the man, but Sailor diggings were reported in June as the richest, and averaging one ounce, though four ounces were not uncommon.23 Before the completion of the mule-trail above Yale, mining was necessarily interrupted by intervening journeys for supplies, and in August the Indian campaign brought it to a standstill for a short time. In November 1858, the population of the district was three hundred, who carried on their mining throughout the winter, and made good wages, although the ground had frequently to be thawed by fires.24 22 Pierre Maquais of Hill Bar had also a store five miles above Yale, and York kept a boarding-house a short distance from the town in May 1858. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 90-1. At the rancheria were 6 or 8 wigwams with 200 Indians. The ferry was one mile and Cross Bar 9 miles above it, in the big canon. Victoria Gazette, May 5, 1859. 23 Douglas heard in June 1858 of 3 men here who had saved nearly 9 ounces a day to the hand; 2 others had made 4 ounces a day each with a rocker. Pork, flour, and coffee sold at $1 a pound. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., ser. i. 92-5; B. C. Papers, i. 13. McCaw got 50 ounces from Indians, with nuggets of $3 to $4 in weight. Overland from Minnesota to Fraser, 40. At Nicaragua Bar 5 men showed $118 as a day's yield. Victoria Gazette, May 5, 1859. „ U j_ 2*$25 a day. Victoria Gazette, May 5, 7,1859. 'In March 1859, 3 men took out $10,000. Id. Two men came from Boston Bar in April with 600 ounces of dust, washed out during the winter. B. C. Papers, iii. 6. ON THE THOMPSON. 449 The prevalent impression that the country at and beyond the confluence of the Thompson was rich and contained coarser gold, had attracted many to Lytton A party of miners returning from the Forks reached Victoria in April 1858, and reported one hundred and fifty men at work there, while as many more were on the way to the place.25 The mule-trail from Yale not being opened yet, the Forks were precariously situated from want of supplies, and several miners returned to Yale empty-handed in consequence, though the diggings were believed to be rich. The Hudson's Bay station at the Forks being the objective point of all those who advanced beyond Boston Bar, and the depot for the miners who reached the Forks, was itself so far reduced in June and July 1858, that the company's men were glad to avail themselves of berries for food, while the miners all along the river above Boston Bar were reported to be actually starving.26 The transportation difficulty was overcome in September, when the mule-trains and express companies poured into the camps, and mining was entered upon with spirit, chiefly within a circuit of six miles from Lytton. Before the close of the year some of the high branches were prospected, and found to yield coarse gold up to five-dollar lumps. In January 1859 a hundred men were digging around Lytton, and averaging eight dollars a day. Favorable reports were freely circulated by traders and others, and early in 1859 the influx from the lower country began on a large scale. By March 24th it was reported that three hundred boats, carrying an average of five miners each, had passed Yale, and were trying to work over the rapids during the low water. A still larger number proceeded by land, so that upward of three thousand persons had entered the Cascade region before the end of the month.27 Many of these 26 Douglas, in Cornwallis' N. Eldorado, 364. 26 Post, in Victoria Gazette, July 14, 1858; B. C. Papers, iii. 33. 87 Douglas, in B. C. Papers, ii. 62; iii. 6; Victoria Gazette, Feb. 5, 1859. Hist. Brit. Col. 29 450 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SEITLEMENT. remained round Lytton, which, in October 1858, had already attained to fifty houses or tent-dwellings, and promised to advance rapidly. Determined to further its prospects, Douglas, in September 1860, despatched a party to seek a route in the direction of Van Winkle Bar and Lilloet, and granted twenty-five hundred dollars for opening the road to Bonaparte River by way of Hat Creek. His object was afterward attained in a more decisive manner by the construction of the wagon-road along the Thompson to Cache Creek, which branched to Cariboo, and commanded the entire area between Kamloop and Okanagan Lake. In September 1860, Douglas found two hundred white and five hundred Chinese miners in Lytton district, yielding a license revenue of four thousand dollars. In 1864 several companies were still taking out considerable sums from the river-bed at Kanaka Creek, twelve miles below Lytton, and at other points, the dirt being secured while accessible, and washed afterwards.28' We have now ascended the Fraser to the borders of the region referred to by Douglas, in his despatches at the beginning of the gold excitement in British Columbia, as the Couteau mining country.29 At Lytton the Fraser receives the waters of the Thompson, a large river, which after draining the southern sides of some of the Cariboo parallels of the Rocky Mountains, traverses the northern plateau, containing the earliest found placers in the Fraser River basin. Here the stream of prospectors pressing inland in the spring of 1858 divided; but owing to the larger extent of the river bars, and profitable ground on the Fraser, the great majority continued up the main artery. In April 1858, both bank and river mining were in progress between the forks of the Thompson and the Fountain, and miners were reported to be 28 At Dog Creek some miners claimed that they could take out $250 a day each. Weekly Colonist, January 10,1865. Douglas'Private Papers, MS., 122-3. 29 Couteau, a knife. In the earliest mining on the Thompson crevicing was done with knives. FOSTER AND OTHER BARS. 451 making from eight to one hundred dollars a day, the average being from nine to ten dollars.30 By November the number of those engaged in mining between this point and the Fountain had greatly increased.81 Mormon Bar, Spindulen Flat, Cameron Bar, McGoffey Dry-diggings, Foster Bar, Willow Bank, and the great falls were localities in order between the Forks and Cayoosh, afterward known as Lilloet, at the junction of the Harrison River route with the Fraser. Robinson's Bar and French Bar were between Lilloet and Bridge River, and a few miles above that were upper Mormon Bar and the Fountain, the limit of extensive or profitable mining in 18 5 8. Wing-damming was tried at Mormon Bar, and succeeded well, even after the bed had been worked for some time. Ditches were also introduced at several bars with success, particularly at McGoffey Dry-diggings, where the benches were reported very rich. Lumps were obtained here weighing from fifty cents to twelve dollars, and at the falls coarse gold was found in considerable quantity up to six- ounce pieces.32 80 London Times, cor. from San Francisco, May 19th, quoted in Overland from Minnesota to Fraser River, 39. A miner who arrived at Victoria on May 8th from these diggings, estimated the total number of miners on the Fraser at 1,000. 81 Three thousand. Douglas' Despatch, Nov. 9,1858, in B. C. Papers, ii. 29. 82 At Mormon Bar, five and a half miles above the Thompson forks, Commissioner O. Travaillot reported in July 1858, that a single rocker obtained in eight days $830 from the bed of the river, another $800 in twelve days, and a third $248 in five days. B. C. Papers, i. 19. During the winter of 1858-9 two little wing-dams were constructed, from which several parties took out $4,000. In May 1859 the same parties dug a ditch to wash the bank. Curioso, Boston Bar, May 5th, cor., Victoria Gazette, May 17, 1859. Spindulen flat, fifteen miles above the Thompson forks, and named after an old chief, averaged from $8 to $10 a day to the man in May 1859. A small water supply was obtained from a little stream. Victoria Gazette, May 7, 1859. Cameron Bar, ten miles below Foster Bar, paid well with rockers in 1858. Early in the spring of 1859 a company of eleven men brought in at great expense a ditch upon* a flat opposite the bar, half a mile long by three hundred yards wide, where it was necessary to sluice off ten feet of surface ground before the pay dirt was reached. Foster Bar cor., May 5th, Victoria Gazette, May 17, 1859. At McGoffey Dry-diggings, three miles above Cameron, and seven miles below Foster Bar, was a wide flat overlooking a canon, on which McGoffey and Company had sluices, and were washing off six feet of surface dirt to reach the pay stratum. This was said to be rich, and the company were reputed to be taking out fortunes. At the great falls the Indians, in May 1858, were said to be 452 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. Foster Bar was one of the earliest and best known localities. Here Cornwallis and his party in July 1858 washed out with rockers, in six hours, from three to five ounces of gold each; and the Indians at the same time were carrying in skin pouches from $100 to $500 worth of gold-dust. In May 1865 there were still some sixty miners at this place, working chiefly with rockers, and making from $3 to $8 a day, while a sluice company was averaging $8 to the man. This bar was noted for the only case of open resistance to the authorities that took place during the whole of the Fraser excitement in 1858. A man named D. Brown being charged with some criminal offence, four of the miners posted themselves in a log-house and undertook to defend their companion against arrest. A severe fight ensued, in which Brown was shot, and the party was forced to surrender.83 Some distance above Foster Bar lay the Indian village of Cayoosh, where miners had been occupied long before the Harrison River route transformed the place into the trading town of Lilloet, which by May 1859 boasted of several houses and a number of tent- buildings. With the opening of this route mining sprung up at several points along its course, for the loam on Lilloet River covered a bed of clay which was associated with placers; while quartz veins cropped out along the banks of Lilloet Lake, and extended through the entire ridge to the Fraser at Lytton. The yield on Lilloet River was not very alluring, however, and varied in March 1859 from $2 to $4 with digging out great quantities of gold with the simplest of all implements— mere sticks. W. C. Johnson's Statement, in Douglas' Private Papers^MS., i. 99. Thirty miners from the great falls returned for provisions to Yale in May 1858, and reported to Governor Douglas that they had been making from $10 to $30 a day in coarse gold. Douglas' Despatch, June 10, 1858, in B. C. Papers, i. 14. At the Willow Bank, a locality near the falls, Cornwallis* party, in July, found in the gravel of the river-bed half a dozen nuggets weighing from four to six ounces. Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 203-215. 83 Douglas' Despatch, Dec. 24, 1858, in B. C. Papers, ii 46. A miner pursued hence a partner whom he accused of absconding with the joint savings. He found and shot the man at the mouth of the Fraser, in May 1858, and thereupon escaped across the boundary, but was arrested at Whatcom. Cornwallis' N. Eldorado, 203-15; Victoria Gazette, May 17, 1859. LILLOET AND VICINITY. 453 the rocker, and $5 to $8 with the sluice. These rates were still obtainable in 1867, when sluicing was carried on by several parties.34 Some of the most successful mining operations on the Fraser from June 1858, and throughout 1859, were witnessed between the great falls and the Fountain, including the Bridge River, which entered the Fraser a little above Lilloet. At Robinson Bar, near Lilloet, about one hundred miners were engaged in June 1858, making from $80 to $90 a day each during the first four or five days, after which the yield fell to $5 or $6.35 At French Bar, close above Lilloet, the prospects justified the construction of two ditches, each a mile in length, which were worked in the beginning of 1859 by a dozen miners. Their receipts in May were from eight dollars to twelve dollars, while rockers made about half of this amount to the man. Here a ferry crossed the Fraser to Fort Behrens, and connected with a trail to the Fountain.36 Bridge River, so named from the bridges constructed by Indians as well as white men, became popular in 1858 from the discovery of some coarse gold, not exceeding one and a half ounces in size; but it was soon found that the chief yield was scale gold, which required great care and much quicksilver. The river was prospected to the Cascade Mountains, wing-dammed, flumed, and mined in the bed as well as in the bank; and although the diggings were shallow, the prospect, as reported by Bishop Hill and others, was so encouraging that the faith in their productiveness became abiding. Nugent estimated that it possessed suitable placers for fifteen hundred miners. A little town was founded here by Fraser and Davis, ZiN. Westminster Examiner, July 6, 1867; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 98-9; B. C. Papers, ii. 67. , 35 Hutchings, in Victoria Gazette, July 29, 1858. Cornwallis records that when he reached this point in July 1858, another party had already diverged many miles in the direction of the coast mountains toward the south-west, where it was reported they had found good diggings. N. El Dorado, 203-15. Reference was here made probably to Cayoosh River and Anderson Lake. At Horse Beef Bar, three miles below French Bar, miners were digging out m February 1859 from $2 to $6 a day. 88 Lieutenant Palmer, in B. C. Papers, iii. 47. 454 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. which in May 1859 contained seven business houses and several tents.37 Impressed with the common belief that richer placers might be found farther up the river, the government fitted out a prospecting expedition under Andrew J. Jamieson, which started from Lilloet August 7th, and ascended the south fork of Bridge River for seventy miles above its junction with the main stream. Here was found a slate much resembling that of Williams Creek in Cariboo, with stream placers. The pay dirt was from three to five feet deep, and resembled the deposits of so many other places already described in not occurring on the bed-rock. Quartz veins and indications of silver were found everywhere, and on Grun Creek, a tributary of Bridge River, fifty miles by the trail from Lilloet, fine gold placers were discovered, yielding from six to fifteen dollars a day. One feature of the entire region was the abundance of black sand in the bed of the river. A map of the country explored was made, and exhibited at Victoria.88 The Chinese formed a large portion of the influx to the new field, and soon became the chief holders of claims, carrying on quite extensive dam operations. One of their wing-dam claims yielded in 1866 $55,000 to a party of twelve. Ten years later the Indians were in almost exclusive possession, and still securing fair returns.39 The Fountain, or Fountains, a few miles above Bridge River, at the mouth of Fountain Creek, on the left bank of the Fraser, was so named by the 37 It stood a few hundred feet from the mouth of the river, where this • firm had replaced the Indian bridge by a 40-foot toll-bridge, costing $1,450. Nugent's Report, in U. S. Ex. Doc., Ill, 85th Cong., 2d Sess.; Victoria Gazette, May 28, 1859; B. C. Papers, iii. 35. 38 Victoria Colonist, Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, 1865. 39 Brown'8 Essay, 35. The Chinese had costly fluming works thirteen miles above Lilloet, on,Bridge River, in Nov. 1865. Victoria Colonist, Nov. 28, 1865. ' Nodules of pu re copper' (copper pyrites) were found in the bed of the stream. Rowlings' Confederation, 117; iv. Westminster Columbian; Victoria Colonist, April 7, 1866. A family of Indians took out in March 1876 $1,500 ten miles below Lilloet. Min. Mines Rent., 1876, 423. One of the largest nuggets found in the Fraser country, $30 in weight, was obtained on this river in January 1859. Victoria Gazette, Feb. 8, 1859. THE FOUNTAIN. 455 French Canadians on account of some natural features of the vicinity. It was the ultimate camp of the mining emigration of 1858, and had in 1859 become a village of half a dozen log-huts and two or three large stores scattered over the lower of two vast terraces that swept around the base of the mountain behind.40 Its mining consisted in 1858 of dry- diggings, thirty yards from the bed of the river, which yielded remarkably well.41 The auriferous deposit came evidently from the hills, for a party of eight persons averaged two ounces a day to the hand with rockers, thirty feet above the highest water level in the river, and finding the ground rich from the level of the stream to an altitude of eight or nine hundred feet, they threw up a ditch seven miles in length, which was completed before the coming of frost in the autumn of 1858. In the first five days' washing, before they were interrupted by the frost, the company took out of the sluices one thousand one hundred and ninety-eight dollars.42 In 1876 the placers were still yielding a little gold, and the sixty Chinese then engaged on the river banks were making about two dollars and a half a day. One of them had just constructed a ten-mile ditch from the Fountain Creek, one third flumed, at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars, and was delivering five hundred inches of water along the left bank of the Fraser.43 Above the Fountain on the Fraser were Day Bar, Haskell Bar, Big Bar, and Island Bar in the Canoe country, and British Bar and Ferguson Bar, ex- 40Begbie, in B. C. Papers, iii. 17-24; Mayne, in Id., 35. a Douglas mentions in his despatch of July 1, 1858, that five different rockers were each averaging at this place $47 a day. B. C. Papers, i. 19. 42 Walter Moberly, who visited this ground in the winter of 1858-9, was of the opinion that the river gold, at the Fountain in particular, was rusty, and came primarily from the hills and mountains, then from the terraces and bluffs in slides, and did not travel far. Moberly's Journey, in Victoria Gazette, Feb. 17, 1859. Opposite the Fountain, on the right bank of the Fraser, was the upper Mormon Bar, where rockers in May 1859 were saving from $4 to $12 to the man, and sluices, $16 to $25. B. C. Papers, iii. 48-75. 43 The season for hydraulic mining lasted from March to November. Min. Mines Rept., 1876, 422. 456 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. tending for over one hundred and fifty miles to the mouth of Quesnel River and into the Canoe country, and forming the stepping-stones to Cariboo. The Canoe country so designated from Canoe Creek, in 51° 30', is described as beginning fifty miles above the Fountain, and extending indefinitely to the north, over the undulating plateau, through which the Fraser cuts a deep channel.44 In 1858 this region was scarcely touched except by prospectors. In May and June 1858, Aaron Post, a miner from El Dorado County, California, penetrated alone to near Chilkoten River, one hundred and sixty miles above the mouth of the Thompson, prospecting on every bar, and finding plenty of gold. His provisions giving out he had recourse to berries, and occasionally to horse-flesh, obtained from the Indians, though he reported them as generally hostile.45 Several prospectors followed in the footsteps of Post, and although none were able to remain for want of provisions, yet all brought gold and good reports. The opening of the southern roads brought to this region a fresh influx of permanent diggers, who made from five to sixteen dollars with rockers on the various bars, with occasional* rich discoveries. It was not rare to find places above high water which yielded better than those below it, but the bars remained the chief resort during 1859 and 1860. At Island Bar, so named from the island formed here at high water, were several parties who in December 1858 had each from eight hundred to three thousand dollars' worth of dust, yet this autumn had proved a hard time, for want of supplies, and numbers had been compelled to depart.46 44 The origin of the name Canoe Creek is thus accounted for by A. C. Anderson. In 1807 Simon Fraser of the Northwest Company, after descending the Fraser to this place, here cached his canoe and travelled on foot to the upper Teet village, on the site of Fort Yale. His Canadian voyageurs in referring to the cache called the village there Le Canot, and the stream La Riviire du Canot. Victoria Gazette, Feb. 1, 1859. 45 Post's Statement, in Victoria Gazette, July 14, 1858. 46 At Day Bar, two miles above the Fountain, worked by Captain Day and four others in the winter of 1858-9, the pay averaged from $8 to $10 to QUESNEL RIVER 457 The bars above Alexandria, as far as the mouth of the Quesnel, and also those of Quesnel River, were first occupied in the spring of 1859 by the advancing prospectors, who wandered restlessly from bar to bar, looking further all the while for coarser gold and more of it. As early as May 1859, rumors began to reach Bridge River of rich discoveries in this direction; vague as they were, they travelled fast, and attracted enough attention to induce many persons who were arriving at Bridge River en route for the lower Fraser to hesitate and turn back.47 Late in the season of 1859 definite reports came that the search for gold had proved successful on the Quesnel; and in 1860, by the time the pioneers of the column reached Antler Creek, six hundred white miners were said to be engaged on this river, making from ten to twenty-five dollars per day, and occasionally turning up nuggets weighing from six to eight ounces. Simultaneously with these developments, several bars above Alexandria were brought into prominence, and mining advanced so rapidly that this very year a gold commissioner was appointed, who stationed himself at Williams Lake. At British Bar, about fifty miles above Alexandria, the yield was so promising as to induce six Cornish- men, in November 1860, to open a ditch five miles in length. At Ferguson Bar, three miles higher, sixty dollars to the man were made for some time, and the sand overlying the pay streak was found sufficiently rich to justify the construction of a four-mile ditch, at a cost of $12,000. This region continued for years the man, and was better above high-water mark than below; the largest piece of gold taken out weighing eight dollars. Victoria Gazette, Feb. 17, 1859. Lieutenant Palmer states that in May 1859 rockers here were averaging from $8 to $12. B. C. Papers, iii. 47. Haskell Bar, eighteen miles above the Fountain, yielded from $6 to $12 with rockers, and $16 to $20 at sluicing; and Big Bar yielded at the same time from $5 to $6 with rockers. Id. 47 Victoria Gazette, May 28, 1859. i Curioso,' my authority in this instance, weighs in his own mind the points in .favor of going to these new diggings, being satisfied apparently that 'some few claims ' might be rich; but he describes the route as much more difficult and dangerous than any so far experienced, while the country was so far removed from the base of supplies as to render tlie venture extremely'hazardous. 458 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. to give employment to miners, and occasional rich strikes served to keep up the interest of prospectors.48 Thompson River, the principal tributary of the Fraser, and the first to disclose its auriferous ground after the announcement of the discoveries on the Columbia, had a comparatively insignificant mining record after 1858. Early in the Fraser excitement the small nuggets at Nicoutameen, ten miles from the mouth, attracted much attention; but the supply appears to have been soon exhausted. The whole course of the stream lay in a gold-bearing formation, but the yield never equalled that of the Fraser, nor was the mining population ever extensive, and the towns of Cache Creek, Kamloop, and Seymour grew up rather as transportation depots than as mining villages.49 In 1858, Wanquille River, on the north shore of Kamloop Lake, was prospected for some forty miles, and found to promise from five to six dollars to the man with sluices. Mining here attained a greater degree of permanency than elsewhere along the Thompson, and cradling and hill- digging were for several more years carried on by whites, Chinese, or Indians. The discovery of coarse gold in pieces up to three quarters of an ounce in weight, and of a layer of pay dirt three or four feet in thickness, above the level of the river-bed, caused an increased activity in 1861, with a larger yield.60 Several other parts of the Thompson, though less per- 48 Blackwater tributary, 45 miles from Quesnel, created a brief excitement in 1870. Victoria Colonist, July 20, 1870; B. C. Papers, iv. 41; Macfe's V. /., 243-4. 49 Victoria Gazette, Jan. 25, 1859; Overland from Minnesota, 39. 50 The Chinese were averaging $7.15 each in June 1861. Brown's Essay, 34. In 1867 forty men were at work here, many of whom settled down and cultivated gardens. Coarse gold was the chief attraction, but preparations were made to work the hill-diggings. N. Westminster Examiner, July 10, Aug. 3, 1867. Later still the mining population consisted of about 60 Chinamen, who were reported as taking out half an ounce to the man near the mouth of the river. Dawson on Mines 40. In 1876 there were 20 Chinese miners with 6 claims, yielding $7,000 for the season. In 1877 only a dozen remained, earning $3,500 for the season. Mm. Mines Rept, 1876, 18/7; B. C. Papers, iv. 55. THE UPPER COUNTRY. 459 manent, yielded good returns. At one place five men were in 1859 making nearly three hundred dollars a day with the sluice, while others obtained ten to twelve dollars with rockers. In September 1860, two hundred Chinese were digging near the mouth of the river, and in the autumn of 1861, one hundred and fifty miners were reported at work not far from Wanquille River, making sixteen dollars a day.51 The Upper Gold Districts. The deposits on the north branch of the Thompson came first into notice in 1861, when a tributary from the east, twenty miles above its mouth, was mined to a small extent and yielded eight to ten dollars a day. At the same time the Indians found coarse gold above the junction of the Clearwater, and on the Barriere River a community of French Canadians was making as ^Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 122-3; Rawlings' Confederation, 116; B. C. Papers, iii. 50. Seven miners on Lake Kamloop were in 1864 earning $16 a day. Macfie's V. I., 243. 460 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. much as fifty dollars a day.52 In that creek rich quartz and alluvial diggings were reported in the summer of 1869, and regarded as a rediscovery of the spot where a Swiss miner ten years before claimed to have found some ledges.53 Besides these localities, Moberly Creek, Adams River, Shushwap River, and Cherry Creek received considerable attention during the Big Bend and upper Columbia excitements, between 1864 and 1867. In 1864 Factor McKay brought the news to Victoria, that all along the Shushwap and its tributaries four to five dollars a day could be made with the rocker. This pay was also obtained on the Cherry Creek tributary, better known for its silver ledges. In 1869 a quartz-miner from Nevada opened the Cherry Creek silver-mine, without making any very substantial developments; and in 1876 the company of I. Christian was working an eight-foot vein which yielded one thousand five hundred dollars in a month and a half, while at the same time Bissett discovered a ledge of gold and silver ore, five feet in thickness, on the north branch of the Cherry. The following year new placers of coarse gold were found on a high bench further up the creek, yielding twenty-five cents to the pan, so that between quartz and placer deposits, Cherry Creek continued to stand high ramong mining localities.54 Moberly Creek, on the upper Thompson, was brought into notice at the commencement of the Big Bend excitement, by W. Moberly and Mountaineer Perry, who examined it in 1865, and gave a good report. Qn Adams Lake, and Adams Creek, extending into Shushwap Lake, there was found in July 52 Factor McKay of Kamloop reported in 1864, that seven or eight miles from there some Canadians were making $40 a day. Victoria Weekly Colonist, March 29, 1864; Rowlings' Confederation, 115-16; Map, in B. C. Papers, iv. 54. ' _. . 53 The Swiss died, says the record, without making them known. Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 31, 1869. S^ftiL 5*The Chinese were making from $4 to $10 in 1876. Victoria Dady Colonist, Nov. 16, 1876; May 18,1877. Victoria Weekly Colonist, March 29, 1864; July 24, 1869. CHARACTER OF DEPOSITS. 461 1866 a bed of gravel eight feet in thickness, yielding from three and a half to four dollars a day.55 The Thompson River bars continued on the whole to yield steadily throughout the decade of 1860-70, and Talie- sen, Evans, and others estimated the.annual product at from twenty thousand to thirty thousand dollars.56 Throughout the Fraser and Thompson placer districts the operations upon the bars led into the banks; and these on the Fraser and its tributaries consisted of benches rising in successive levels behind, each other to great altitudes. At first, all the remunerative gravel-beds a little above the level of the river were called dry-diggings, a classification which implied that the earth had either to be carried to the river to be washed, or that water had to be carried to the ground in ditches. This class of diggings did not receive much attention until the deposits accessible by the natural sluice-ways of the country were nearly exhausted! yet the line of demarcation between bench, bank, and river-flat diggings, where sluicing was carried on, was scarcely perceptible, as the river occasionally rose above them all. The term j dry-diggings ] came to be applied after a while more particularly to the higher ground, as equivalent to bench-diggings, which were never touched by the flood-waters, and, in short, to the terraces of the Fraser. The terrace deposits of the northern plateau covered many thousand square miles of territory, following not only the river valleys, but extending far back over the plains, and flanking the mountain ranges of the interior; and they consisted of the more or less rich gravel and sand so eagerly sought for by the river, placer, and hy- 55 This was underlaid by a solid blue cement, said to resemble deposits on Williams Creek. From ten feet down the cement contained plenty of quartz, washed gravel bowlders, sulphurets of iron, and black sand, with every indication of good placer ground. Fifteen miles below this, seven Frenchmen were engaged at sluicing in the summer of 1866. \B. D.,' in Victoria Weekly Colonist, Sept. 18, 1866. 66Overland Monthly, March 1870, 262; Yale Examiner; Victoria Weekly Colonist, April 24, 1869. 462 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. draulic miners. It was not long before the intelligent miner became aware that the. river diggings must soon yield to these extensive terrace and lake-shore deposits, for the bar formations were different from those of California streams; they were recent, made since the formation of the bars, while the bed-rock contained nothing of value. Bright prophecies were indulged in touching the yield of the higher benches; but the change was, on the whole, not to the taste of the diggers, and terrace operations form so small a portion of mining on the middle and lower Fraser, that in omitting the narration concerning them the incompleteness of the record is scarcely observed. Yet there is in reality no subject more vital to the mining history of these districts. The gold of the river bars consisted of fine flat scales, comminuted by long-continued hammering between bowlders during its transport from the original sources. All the gold found below Yale was so fine that even with the use of blankets in the rockers there was a loss of about half, and with the use of amalgamated copper plates and quicksilver there was still a considerable loss.57 The abundance of this fine gold in the river-beds of the great Columbia and Fraser was not unjustly regarded by the Californians, when the discovery was first announced to them in 1858, as evidence of untold wealth in these river valleys. Ninety per cent of the gold extracted during the first year of mining in the Fraser basin was fine gold, which had been distributed by river, lake, and ice agencies, and finally concentrated at different points. Moberly's observations at the Fountain traced the deposits from the dry-diggings into the higher terraces, and a number of transient geologists, travellers, engineers, and scientific explorers have followed similar investigations, the principal of them being attaches of the army and navy, stationed for a time at the 57 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 41. VARIATIONS ACCORDING TO LOCALITY. 463 colony;58 but the results were detached and incomplete, and before the beginning of the geological survey no systematic attention was given to the subject. The mining operations simply proved the fallacy of the Californian idea that the river itself had carried the gold from some extensive placer basin a long distance above, and the terrace or lake detritus completely baffled the pursuit of its sources. While the fine gold could be found along the Fraser from its sources to the sea, the coarse gold, indicating the origin of the particular fine gold on the middle and western plateau, coincided in its distribution with the slaty rocks of the Anderson River and Boston Bar series, recurring in spots of undefined area along the principal streams.59 Beyond the region of the ancient plateau, lake, or lakes, described by Begbie and Selwyn, far up in the slaty mountains of Cariboo, coarse gold was finally found in quantity within the reach of practicable mining operations—in the beds of the ancient streams, meandering beneath the bowlder clays and the ice-marked gravels of the modern river-channels. It has been asserted that the auriferous sections of California and of the Fraser do not bear any resemblance to each other; but on Lilloet Lake the eye readily detects many of the characteristics of the California gold-regions.60 In fol- 58 Doctors Forbes, Brown, and Rattray, Lieutenant Mayne of the navy, and Lieutenant Palmer of the army, made official reports. De Groot, Beg- blej Harnett, Sproat, and in fact nearly all the writers on British Columbia, touched paragraphically on the subject. 59 Dawson on Mines, 39. Scale and flour gold were found along the whole course of the Fraser without regard to the formations over which the river passed. Coarse gold was found besides at the localities of Nicoutameen, Great Falls, Bridge River, etc., already mentioned, also at Sitka Flat, near Lytton, and from that point down to Boston Bar. Id., 16. Begbie and Selwyn in their reports both noted the occurrence of slates along this portion of Fraser River. 68.' Curjoso>'aa intelligent and experienced Californian, who witnessed and described in a series of letters the mining in progress between Yale and the Fountain in 1858-9, stated, in summing up, that the fine flat scales found in the river were ' precisely similar to those found in nearly every part of the earth washed hundreds of feet above the present bed of the river,' in from one to fifty colors to the pan. 'This,' says the correspondent, j sustains the theory that the bars are the results of heavy landslides, the lighter soil of which is taken almost entirely away by the current.' The formations at Nicaragua Bar proved this to be a fact. The bars previously worked paid a second time 464 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. lowing the Lilloet River to Harrison Lake, the Californian is at home. Quartz, so scarce on the Fraser, here abounds; and the hills are of that reddish gravel with a blue clay from which so much gold has been extracted in California. Bridge River, which yielded so many nuggets, traversed the same formation. Dry-diggings first received particular attention between Hope and Yale about the middle of October 1858, when it was observed that they extended along both sides of the Fraser to the foot of the mountains. * Among those that were successfully worked in 1858 and 1859, named in ascending order, were Emory Bar and Hunter Bar diggings, seven miles below Yale; Bond dry-diggings, five to seven miles below Yale; the Prince Albert diggings, four miles below Yale; the benches at Hill Bar; the George dry-diggings, three miles above Yale; the benches at Nicaragua Bar in the great canon, a little below Boston Bar; McGoffey dry-diggings, seven miles below Foster Bar; the benches at Cameron Bar; Hovey bench-diggings on the left hand of the Fraser, eight miles below the confluence of Bridge River; and those at the Fountain already described. Bond, the George, Hovey, and the Fountain dry-diggings were worked in the autumn of 1858; the rest in 1859. At Lytton, and at many other places not mentioned, bench-diggings were tried in later years at times with rockers, but as a rule the benches were found to be unprofitable without the use of water delivered in ditches, a want which" could not always be supplied in a country where^ the rainfall itself was rather light. for working. The operations of the miners were almost entirely superficial, in being confined to the bars and immediate edges of the banks. Victoria Gazette, June 16, 1859. A correspondent of the London Times in 1863 also described fully, and dwelt largely upon, the fine gold contained in the terraces extending along the whole course of the Fraser from Hope to Alexandria. Lundin Brown described the gold of the Fraser 'as remarkably fine,* incapable of being saved without quicksilver, and as coming from the terraces. Browns Essay, 28. It was associated with black sand not unlike that of the Australian diggings. McDonald's B. C, 91-2. Specimens of the black sand of the Fraser were described by Dr James Blake. Proceedings Cal, Acad, Sciences, 61 Waddington's Fraser Mines, 46-7. COARSE AND FINE GOLD 465 Coarse gold was much more frequently met with in the terraces than in the river-beds; and the yield by sluicing ranged from four to twenty dollars a day to the man. At Prince Albert diggings the extensive terrace or table-land, which rose sixty feet above the highest water level of the Fraser, was pronounced highly auriferous, and extensive enough to give employment to four thousand miners, allowing each twenty-five feet frontage and five hundred feet depth. Shafts were sunk in October 1858, and as there was no water on the ground, several companies organized to bring in ditches. McGoffey diggings were among the richest in coarse gold, the pieces weighing from fifty cents to twelve dollars.62 Mr Justice Begbie was one of the first to comprehend the nature of the terrace detritus as observed during his journey to Lilloet in April 1859. To him the terraces recalled the Grampian formation in Scotland, and he traced in them the shores of a former lake covering most of the country brought into notoriety by the Fraser mines, and extending from Boston Bar to some miles above the Fountain, a distance of eighty or ninety miles. The fine gold phenomena of the river 62 B. <C. Papers, ii. 27. Bond-diggings, discovered by T. Bond, early in 1858, and located on the higher portion of Hunter Bar, yielded coarse gold, some pieces weighing six dollars. Victoria Gazette, June 25, 1858. At Hill and Emory bar, the bar-diggings were abandoned after 1858, and in March 1859 the miners began to construct ditches for sluicing the benches or tablelands. Douglas' Despatch, March 10, 1859, in B. C. Papers, ii. 67. The George dry-diggings yielded eight dollars a day with the rocker, and twenty dollars at sluicing. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 1st ser., 105-6. On the high terrace at Nicaragua Bar, 150 feet above the river, some miners were in April 1859 engaged in bringing in a ditch. Victoria Gazette, May 7, 1859. The gold was a dirty yellow, rather coarse, not water-worn, yielding $100 a day to the sluice. Jonah Yale, May 24th, cor. Victoria Gazette, May 31, 1859. The bar itself was at the same time paying handsomely. At Cameron Bar the sluicing, partly by costly flumes, was conducted at a considerable altitude, and yielded four dollars a day to the hand. Victoria Gazette, June 14, 1859. McGoffey dry-diggings were fifty feet above the river, and contained lumps o»gold from 50 cents to $12.50 in value. Hovey diggings were 125 feet above the river, and yielded, in the fall of 1858, 148 ounces of shot gold, in three weeks' time, to ten men using four sluices. Douglas, in B. C. Papers, ii. 39. The rocker-diggings at the Fountain were rich to an altitude of 800 or 900 feet. These developments established pretty conclusively that the sources of the fine river gold were in the terraces; but it existed there in a less concentrated form. Hist. Beit. Col. 30 466 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. above and below the outlet of the ancient lake, he compared to the results of the working of a rocker; remarking that all the gold found between Hope and Yale was transported 'flour gold,' not a 'scale' having ever been found below Yale; while at Lytton eighty- five per cent of the gold found was scale gold, and but fifteen per cent flour gold.63 The material of the terraces was shown by others to be neither more nor less than the ordinary detritus of the surrounding country—loam, gravel, sand, and more or less water- worn bowlders. Milton and CheacQe, who were in the country in. 1863, conceived that there were three successive tiers of terraces, representing, as in some other terraced countries, three successive epochs of elevation. They described them as universally impregnated with fine gold, and remarked upon their co-extension with the bunch-grass country of the plateau.64 The odium of the 'Fraser humbug' has been outlived. It is not necessary to do more than refer to that title, proclaimed as it was in 1858 and 1859, like a political shibboleth without fairness and for a single object—to turn the tide of emigration. But the dis- 63 B. C. Papers, iii. 17-20. Begbie expressed nis belief that the benches might pay under a sufficiently large system of mining. The terrace deposits, from 100 to 1,000 feet in thickness, contained in his opinion not a spadeful of dirt that was not auriferous. Whenever bench-diggings have been worked, said the correspondent of the London Times, VictoriaVJan. 20,1862, ' they have paid well, but they have been neglected for the placer-diggmgs.' With an abundance of water, and of timber for flumes, an inviting field here opened itself for English capital. Hazlitt's Cariboo, 138-43. ^Northwest Passage by Land, 389. Dr Robert Brown's scientific examination and description was the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, and he assumed that the terraces were formed by the successive cutting away of the barriers of interior lakes. Lond. Geog, Soc., Jour., xxxix. 125-6. The prairie character of so much of the terraced interior he showed to be due to comparative dryness, caused either by scanty rainfall or by the porosity of the soil, modified by prairie fires and other local causes. Id., 127-9. This was also the belief of Newberry, promulgated in his Origin of Prairies, Trans. Am. Scientific Association, Buffalo, 1866; and of Foster, in his Mississippi J%£ ley. Hector's study of the terraces of the Columbia, in connection with the Palliser expedition in 1869, extended through two or three years of exploration, and were very valuable. Mining in the Upper Columbia Bioer Basin. Selwyn made a comprehensive resume" of the whole subject, and added a good deal from his own observations made in a journey from Victoria to Yellow- head Pass in 1871. Canada Geol. Survey Report, 1871-2, 54-6. RUSHES AND REACTIONS. 467 appointments experienced by the thousands who went to Fraser Biver, and failing to be successful returned in misfortune, are worthy of a candid record in the history of the times, while a picture of the wave of depression into which the colony was plunged belongs to the history of the country itself. British Columbia was called the Land of Hopes Unfulfilled.65 Thirty thousand Californians rushed north to Victoria, and as hastily returned. A large part of this migrating population being moved by incentives of trade and speculation, incidental to the mining discoveries, came no nearer to the mines than this port; but those who approched them did so at the very worst time, when the river bars, then the only diggings looked for, were covered by water. They found themselves furthermore in a wild country, affording none of the comforts and conveniences of a miner's life in California, the greater part of it being beyond the reach of supplies and almost untrodden. To the natural difficulties were added the illiberal restrictions of trade enforced by the governor and officers of the Hudson's Bay Company,66 who allowed no trading with the Mainland and interior to be carried on by the merchants of Victoria and Whatcom till after midsummer. The only exception to their own monopoly of the trade of the mines was the permission granted by Governor Douglas to several parties to sell fresh meat and vegetables. The consequence was, that even the departure of the miners from Victoria into the interior after the first rush had the effect of making Victoria dull. The foundering of the steamer Brother Jonathan off Crescent City, July 8, 1858, with the loss of many of her passengers, was a shock which gave the final impress to the idea that the rush had continued too 65 Wright, in Overland Monthly, December 1869. 66 Some attributed the hard times to the fact that the gold-dust was kept out of circulation by the company's receiving it for goods, which were only paid for by bills of exchange on London. Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 306;. Waddington's Fraser Mines, 22-4; Brown's Essay, 3, 4. 468 FRASER, RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. long. The immigration suddenly stopped; and more: in a few months the adventurers were nearly all back again in J God's country,' as they called the sunnier regions of the south,67 full of-bitter denunciations of the route, the country, the resources, yet knowing no more, after their return, of the extent and wealth of the mines than they knew before leaving in quest of them. It was argued that the deposits on the lower Fraser must be small, and if the head-waters contained greater wealth, the remoteness, Indian difficulties, want of supplies, and the short duration of the mining season, would forever make them inferior to California as a mining resort. After the river fell there was a reaction, for a large number had with commendable patience remained to await this event, and now that the gold began to flow, the departures were not only checked, but a fresh influx took place. The yield did not come up to their expectations, however, and in November 1858 the winter exodus set in, a hundred persons leaving Victoria every week.68 Good, deputy minister of mines, who had access to every source of information, placed the total yield for 1858 at $500,000, and for 1859 at $1,600,000, while the known exports were $390,265, the respective years. To this one third may be added, to include what had been carried away by private hands. The number of miners actually employed in 67 Victoria Gazette, Sept. 9, 1858; Overland Monthly, May1869, 416. Hundreds were returning to Victoria with but little gold, and were leaving the country, to the dismay of the store-keepers. Business was dead. Wadding- ton's Fraser Mines, 38. In July and August the San Francisco newspapers were filled with the folly of the northern exodus. ' The mania,' said the Bulletin of July 12th, ' exceeded all bounds of reason and prudence.' Hunger and despair had now overtaken them. Hundreds who had left good employment were unable to return. When Nugent arrived at Victoria as consular agent of the United States, he found ' multitudes in a state of actual starvation,' and was obliged to send numbers of persons to California at the public expense. Tarbell's Victoria, MS., 6; McDonald's B. C, 121. Throughout the months of August and September the Victoria Gazette contained frequent admissions of the depressed condition of affairs. Vide Aug. 10, Sept. 25, 29, 1858. 68B. C. Papers, ii. 39; Lewis' Coal Discoveries, MS., 13^15. It was hardly just, perhaps, to compare the fields of British Columbia with California before her deposits had been fairly opened. GOLD YIELD. 469 1858 was assumed to be 3,000; in 1859, 4,000; and in 1860, 4,400. The highest estimates were those given by McDonald, who had the benefit of the books of McDonald and Company, and who claimed to have based his calculations on the returns of the bankers, the express companies, and the surveyor-general. He placed the yields of 1858 and 1859 at $2,120,000 and $1,375,000, and the total population in 1858 at 17,000; in 1859, at 8,000; in 1860, at 7,000; and in 1861, at 5,000—one sixth being British subjects. The United States consular agent Nugent, on the other hand, thought that the entire yield from May to October 1858 did not exceed $500,000; while the number of miners employed during the first three months could not have been less than 2,000, and during the remainder of the season 10,000. Leaving the first three months out of the question, he figured the average earning of each miner at $50 for the season, against $350 expenses. Waddington estimated the yield till October at $705,000, and the investment of labor and capital in steamers, wharves, buildings, real estate, and various improvements at Victoria and Esquimalt, with native and imported capital, at $1,560,000.69 69 Alfred Waddington made an attempt to show that the yield of the Fraser mines during the first six months was as good as that of California and Australia. During the same period, at the commencement of their mining history, California had made a showing of $240,000, Australia, $725,000, and Fraser River, $705,000; allowing for only $60,000 as a circulation in the Fraser mines in October 1858, though he thinks this must have been nearer $250,000, at $50 apiece, among 5,000 miners. Pemberton, another authority, states that the total product for that year amounted to $1,494,211, and for the following year to $2,000,000, or a total for the first two years of at least $3,000,000. The number of miners actually at work at any time during this period could not have exceeded 3,000—the number of miners' licenses issued indicating only $2,000—which makes the average annual earnings of each miner $500. Pemberton's B. C, 36-41; Vic. Gaz., April 19, June 9, 1859. The number of working miners in California in 1860 was estimated at 200,000, or one third of a population of 600,000; the yield being $50,000,000, or $250 to each miner. Douglas reported 10,000 foreign miners on the Fraser in August 1858, and upwards of 3,000 as actually engaged in mining. B. C. Papers, i. 27, 41. Douglas wrote in February 1858, that Thompson River had then produced an ascertained export of 500 ounces, and probably 500 ounces more which remained in private hands. Cornwallis' N. El Dorado, 368. The amount of gold-dust bought by the Hudson's Bay Company at Langley, up to May 25, 1858, was 648| ounces. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 91; 470 FRASER RIVER MINING AND SETTLEMENT. Whatever figures are correct, it is certain that the gold shipments were small in comparison with those of California, and herein was found a strong argument against the value of the mines. The process of depopulation and the stagnation in trade continued throughout 1859 and 1860. Of the thousands who had suddenly made Victoria a city, only about fifteen hundred remained. Affairs then reached the lowest ebb. There was but little business, and less in prospect. " Let us look disaster in the face," counselled the mentor of the local daily, as he reduced his issues and omitted the title of daily.70 The depression continued for some time after; hopeful intimations came at the close of 1860 from the fork of the Quesnel, followed by a gradually increasing flow of dust, which established beyond a doubt the existence of rich placers in the country.71 The history of mining on the middle and western plateaux was henceforth chiefly statistical in character.72 Enough had been found and accomplished U. S. Ex. Doc. iii, 35th Cong., 2d Sess.; McDonald's B. C, 82; Mm. Mines Rept, 1875, 1. The Otter arrived at Victoria, May 8, 1858, with $35,000 in gold-dust, and $20,000 was the estimated receipts at Whatcom during the week. Overland from Minnesota, 40-2; Victoria Gazette, Aug. 20, 1858; Salem Argus, Sept. 4, 1858. 70 Victoria Gazette. On May 28, 1859, the editor observed that the pay of three to five dollars a day offered by average claims was too even and low to attract the gambling spirit of Californians. The government was severely rated for its unwise regulations concerning land, roads, and mines, which it was alleged had repelled Americans. 71 This was owing partly to the remoteness of the mines, and partly to the want of hopefulness and energy among a not over-prosperous community. On the failure of the Big Bend excitement the editors were only too ready to moralize. , We are experiencing a season of depression and misfortune only equalled by the disastrous years of 1859-60. Quaxtz-niining was recommended as a remedy. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Sept. 11, 1866. 72 Wells, Fargo, and Company shipped from Victoria in 1858, $337,766; in 1859, $823,488; and in 1860, $1,298,466. Allen Francis, in U. S. Commercial Statistics, 1863, 194. All of that shipped in 1858 and 1859 was Fraser River gold, but a large part of the shipments in 1860 came from Quesnel Forks in the confines of Cariboo. A. C. Anderson augments these figures to cover the total export, thus: for 1859, $1,211,339; 1860, $1,303,329. Andersons Essay, appendix, iv. Charles Good, deputy minister of mines, gives ns the amounts actually known to have been exported by the express company and banks in 1858 at $390,265; in 1859, at $1,211,304; and in 1860, at $1,671,410. To these figures he adds a third to include the estimated amount carried away by private hands, making the total amounts, for 1858, $520,353; for 1859, $1,615,072; and for 1860, $2,228,543. The largest yield was in 1864, $3,73o, - EFFECT OF GOLD DISCOVERY. 471 during the Fraser mining developments to evolve a government; to open a road into the interior; to lead the way into several rich and lasting mining regions; and to suggest at once overland communication, and confederation with Canada. Until in the progress of development the new conditions foreshadowed should be finally brought about by the commencement of a railway through the Fraser pass to the Cascade Mountains, the dawning of a new era in mining and immigration had to abide its time. 850, after which it declined to $1,305,749 in 1873; it rose again to $2,474,- 904 in 1875, and then fell off a second time. Min. Mines Rept, 1875-1877. The number of persons engaged in mining during this test period—so differently estimated by Waddington and Nugent—was placed by Good at 2,000 in 1858, 3,100 in 1859, and 3,900 in 1860; while the editor of the Victoria Gazette, March 10, 1859, estimated the mining population in March 1859 as high as 4,000, and the anticipated mining population in May following, 5,500. The latter authority does not distinguish between the population in the mines and those actually engaged in mining, a fact which may account for the discrepancy. In 1860 the population of Vancouver Island was officially .estimated at 5,000, and the Mainland at 5,000. Cariboo Gold-fields, 69. Thus it appears that the tendency of the gold discoveries on the Mainland was to settle the Island rather than the Mainland even from the commencement, the population of the Island preponderating over that of the Mainland also in later years. Vide chapters on Railway. In 1861 the London Times' correspondent estimated that 3,500 miners were working in the Fraser and Columbia basins exclusive of Cariboo, where he allowed on general testimony 1,500 more, or 5,000 miners in all. Mayne's B. C, 442. Good's estimate for that year was 4,200; from which data it may be inferred that several thousand miners were still distributed along the Fraser as high as Fort George, and along Bridge River, Thompson River, and others of the lower Fraser tributaries. Along the Fraser they were earning from $3 to $15 per day, and supposed to be averaging $5 a day. Times' cor., in Hazlitt's Cariboo, 138-43. In 1871 Lilloet district yielded $15,000; Yale and Lytton districts together, $110,000, scarcely a tenth of the total yield of the province. Between $15,000 and $20,000 was annually contributed to the wealth of the province by the Indians mining on the bars of the Fraser and Thompson at low water in winter, bodies of them being seen at work cradling at favorable times during the coldest weather. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Nov. 27, 1872. In 1875 the statistics collected by the deputy minister of mines showed that 50 Chinese, engaged on bar-diggings in Lilloet district, washed out $50,000, while in Lytton district 26 Chinese and two white men took out only $1,600. In the Yale district only four Chinese were employed, getting $800. In 1876 the Lilloet district, including Bridge River, had 60 Chinese at work, but produced only $25,000; while the Yale and Hope districts had two white and nine Chinese miners who obtained $9,114. The latter in 1877 employed three white men and 13 Chinese, who«obtained $12,000. Min. Mines Rept., 1875-7. CHAPTEE XXV. GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. Cariboo Region—Its Deposits—New Mining Era—Golden Dreams- Early Developments—Roads and Mountain Trails—The Great Prospectors—The Influx—Quesnel River Mines—Horsefly and Quesnel L.'ke—Keithley and its Town—Harvey and Cunningham Creeks—Antler Creek Riches—Grouse Creek. On the head-waters of Fraser River the mining operations previously confined to the beds of the main rivers spread in 1860, 1861, and 1862 over a large area of elevated country which was somewhat indefinitely designated as the Cariboo Region.1 It may be described in general terms as situated between the head-waters of the main Fraser and its principal tributary, the Thompson, upon the inner or western ridges branching from the Rocky Mountains, in latitude 52° to 54° north, five to seven thousand feet above the sea.2 In the heart of the New Caledonia of the fur- traders, its principal river, the Quesnel, and doubtless a portion of the country itself, was more or less known to them as far up as the lakes of the Quesnel. The 1 Douglas said in regard to the name given to the region by the miners, properly it should be written Carrhceuf, or reindeer, the country having been so named from its being the favorite haunt of that species of the deer kind. Douglas' Despatch, Sept. 16, 1861, in Hazlitt's Cariboo, 117. Cerf-bceuf (deer* ox) appears to have been the original. This was corrupted in its application to the large species of reindeer inhabiting British America. 2 Lieutenant H. S. Palmer described this mountainous region as consisting of steep downs, clothed with tolerable grass, and dotted with small pine plantations, contrasting on account of their*bareness with the valleys and lower slopes in a manner so marked as to have received the title of the Bald Hills of Cariboo. Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., Sept. 1864, 186. The same region was described by E. M. Dawson as a 'high level plateau,'averaging from 5,000 to 5,500 feet in altitude, and entirely covered, more or less thickly, with drift or detrital matter concealing the greater part of the rocky substratum. Dawson on Mines, 6. (472) GOLD-MINING GEOGRAPHY. 473 Hudson's Bay fort of Alexandria and the old highway of the traders along the Fraser were in full view of the Cariboo Mountains, and but forty miles distant. These forts and lines of communication were established and held by the Canadians in the peaceful routine of their traffic for fifty years before the gold discoveries; yet the region had received no general distinctive name. The appearance upon the forest plateau of the upper Fraser in 1859 of a new and strange order of white men, whom the Indians, by this time well accustomed to the fur-trade, may be supposed to have distinguished as the diggers, introduces a new area of exploration tod occupation. The new-comers devised for its geographical titles, in their own peculiar way,3 under which the regions and the localities in question were at once brought prominently within the field of industry and of history. The Cariboo region seemed in the autum of 1860, when the first intimations were received of mining about the fork of the Quesnel, to be as remote and as difficult of access as the arctic regions. Impressed with the belief that the coarser gold of the country would be found higher, a handful of miners had this year penetrated along the main and north branches of the Quesnel to the Quesnel and Cariboo lakes. Launching their rafts, they voyaged along the winding and extended shores, prospecting the tributary streams with varied adventure and sue* cess. The particular scenes, characters, and incidents of their progress must be left to the imagination of the reader. The pencil of the artist will in a future day picture the wild beauties of these lakes and valleys. From Cariboo Lake was visible, a short distance to the westward, a group of bald mountains, subsequently known as the Snowshoe, and Mount Agnes Bald 8 In the early gold-mining geography of British Columbia, sixty miles above the Thompson River country began the 'Canoe Country;' to the north of which was the ' Balloon Country;' and beyond that again was the ' Cariboo Country'—terms of an indefinite character, yet generally used. Hittell's Handbook of Mining, S. F., 1861, 100. 474 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. Mountains. Behind these the prospectors were now penetrating. This was the core of the auriferous slate country, whence radiated the four great rivers of the Cariboo region, the Bear, "Willow, and Cottonwood rivers, and the north branch of the Quesnel, hitherto unexplored and unnamed, but destined to become famous through their respective tributaries, The Cariboo Country. Keithley, Antler, William, and Lowhee creeks—insignificant streams issuing from the same Bald Mountain group. A year later they were the sites of the principal mining-camps of the Cariboo region, known throughout the world; and the Snowshoe and Mount Agnes Bald Mountain chain, like the Sierra Nevada of California, the main range of the country, was DOUGLAS' REPORT. 475 rendered familiar to the sight of men in places where solitude and the wild animal had reigned from a primeval day.4 In August 1859, Governor Douglas was able to report to the colonial secretary that "the newly explored tract of mining country about Fort Alexandria and Quesnel's River" possessed "more of the general features of a gold country than any yet known part of British Columbia."5 This conclusion was simply a reflection of the opinions expressed by miners, who had reached the Quesnel Fork diggings, touching the character of the Cariboo Mountain region in its relation to the gold in the rivers; abundance of coarse gold having been found in the diggings, where it was evident it had remained in the vicinity of the gold-bearing rock. Here were mountains of gold-bearing slate, looking familiar to the Califor- nians; yet the diggings were not in all respects like those of the gold regions of California. It was apparent above all that this auriferous slate formation was more extensively developed than in the Cascade Mountain border of the plateau. There was no immediate geological connection between the fine gold of the Fraser mined in 1858 and the coarse gold discovered in the mountains of Cariboo;6 yet there was an actual and an historical connection as well as continuity. It was partly the theory concerning the origin* of the former that led to the discovery of the latter. Mining camps and mining districts on the Fraser and its tributaries, just as in California and elsewhere, were inevitably abandoned at a certain stage, under the supposition that they were exhausted, and Fraser 4 Like the Wasatch Mountains of Utah and the Bitter Root Mountains of Idaho, the range.was the western member of the system of the Rocky Mountains. In British Columbian-latitudes this mounta: i range performed the noteworthy function of giving origin to the great benus of the Columbia and Fraser rivers, which, flowing to the northward behind it, bent around to the southward after breaking through the gold-bearing range, and then struck over the plateau, in courses quite similar, to the sea. 6 Despatch, dated Aug. 23, 1859, in B. C. Papers, iii. 50. 6'Pine gold will not travel far without the aid of some earthy substance.* Harnett's Lectures. 476 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. River afforded a direct and speedy route for prospectors and their rear-guard in search of new and richer deposits on the plateau and within the parallels of the Rocky Mountains, so that the movement across the plateau from its western to its eastern flange was accomplished at a comparatively early day. In the course of a few years there was disclosed to the world a counterpart of California, equally rich, and extending at least from the Horsefly branch of the Quesnel and the Clearwater tributary of the Thompson at the south, to the Canon Creek tributary of the Fraser in the north-west, over two degrees of latitude, in the direction of the range. But a new lesson was to be learned by the gold-miners. Hitherto the surface had been skimmed with the aid of rocker and sluice, and a few insignificant hydraulic enterprises had been undertaken on the benches; but in Cariboo, the mystery and art of deep placer-mining in its true technical sense were to be practically studied and unravelled by means of shafts and drifts, pumps, and hoisting machinery. On the Fraser, as in the Columbia River basin, the richly concentrated gold leads of the ancient rivers lay in buried channels below the level of the modern streams, and drifting underneath the clay strata in search of these deposits became in Cariboo the main feature of mining. Exceptionally raised strata on the streams had in several cases revealed the richer leads below; but this indication was not always found, nor was the lead continuous. Peculiar difficulties were encountered in following the windings of the buried channels, confused and obliterated as they were by the later glacial action, which had, also, frequently modified or altered the courses of the modern streams. From Yale to Lilloet, from Alexandria to the Quesnel River, the miners only left one kind of deposit to enter upon another. Thus the 'Fraser River humbug' was, nevertheless, a continued mining operation; it was a repetition of the history of gold-mining in California; and the transition on EFFECT ON VICTORIA. 477 the Fraser, in view of the remoteness and inaccessibility of the diggings, was as speedy as it was successful. The significance of the discoveries in the Cariboo country did not become apparent at Victoria until very near the close of the year 1860. After the season of depression and depopulation which had been experienced almost from the commencement of mining on the Fraser, everything had the appearance of premature death and dissolution in the colony. But in November 1860, with the return of the successful miners from the fork of the Quesnel, came bags of nuggets which revived the fainting hopes of the trading community by the sea. These were the assurances that the country was safe. Hesitation in regard to erecting permanent buildings at Victoria gave place to confidence,7 and the town gained its footing for a substantial growth. Had the government been able to retain the twenty thousand Americans and other foreigners, whom they feared, to this time, what strides of development might have been made on the road to the Rocky Mountains in the north! What an aspect might have been given to commercial developments on the North Pacific had the first railway to the Rocky Mountains been completed in British territory! Fraser River and Cariboo became as famous and as widely known throughout the world as Sacramento River and Ballarat, and miners from California and Australia were emphatic in their declarations touching the comparative merits of Cariboo.8 With a population of fifteen hundred people, the district shipped iMacfie's V. I. and B. C, 73. 8 ' There were big mines in Cariboo. The Cunningham claim yielded six ounces a day to the hand.' Lewis' Coal Dis., MS., 16. 'A comparison of the returns, says Lieutenant Palmer, 'with those of the most notorious districts of California and Australia, encourages the belief that the auriferous riches of Cariboo are the greatest hitherto discovered.' Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., 1864, 171. The richest portions of California in its most palmy days, said Major Downie of Downieville, California, were as nothing compared with what he had seen since he left Victoria for Cariboo. Victoria Daily Press, Oct. 15, 1861, quoted in Hazlitt's Cariboo, 134. * Never in the history of gold- niining have there been such fabulous sums amassed in so incredibly short a space of time.' 478 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. to Victoria before the end of the season of 1861 two millions of dollars. Though the opportunity which had promised to place the Fuca ports on an equal footing with the harbor of San Francisco was lost, the developments now made showed what might follow at a later day, when the Canadian Pacific railway should place within the great Fraser basin a large" population; and the reports of its great mineral resources were not only apparently but really and undoubtedly justified. The first effect of these discoveries was to produce another movement of population from California and Oregon into the basin of the Fraser. The abundant yield of gold this time created a 'stampede' for the new mines, which held out with every element of genuineness, based as it was upon known developments rather than on a fanciful or imperfect and illogical deduction from mining experiences in California; and although comparatively insignificant in numbers beside that of 1858, the influx carried a purpose which left its mark upon the country. From 1861 to 1865, inclusive, the immigration continued,9 and the losses to the country in consequence of the abandonment of the lower Fraser after a temporary occupation were recovered in all but population. During the first summer foil owing the Fraser excitement, while mining upon the river bars was still at its height, small detachments of prospectors from the Canoe Country and the Balloon Country, above Fort Alexandria, found their way a distance of ninety miles up Quesnel River, and worked successfully upon its bars.10 Numerous letters were received at Yale exhausting every power of persuasion to induce miners to join their confreres on the Quesnel, especially at Quesnel 9 'A far greater stampede that that of the Fraser excitement.' Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., 6. 'The best years of.Cariboo were in 1863, 1864, and 1865. After that was a gradual decline.' Allan's Cariboo, MS., 11. 10Douglas' Despatch, Aug. 23, 1859, in B. C. Papers','iii. 60. THE RUSH OF 1861. 479 Fork, and at some localities on the southern tributary called Horsefly River. During the same season of 1859 the north fork of the Quesnel was ascended to the little and great Cariboo lakes; but no striking developments appear to have been made in that quarter until the following summer and fall. While a number of miners, led by Rose and McDonald, proceeded to the head-waters of the Bear River, and there developed rich ground, others continued up the north fork of the Quesnel to Cunningham Creek, to make almost equally great discoveries; but the excitement for the season was not fully started till the finding in January 1861 of the extraordinarily rich prospects on Antler Creek, about twenty miles from the mouth of Keithley Creek, constituting the principal attraction in the rush of 1861. The news spread fast; all who could go to Cariboo, or to the Cariboo lakes and their wonderful tributaries, went at short notice, until about one thousand five hundred miners from the coast, from Oregon, and from California had crossed the divide separating the waters of the Quesnel from Bear River, and speedily overflowed into the adjoining river valleys of the Willow and Cottonwood, around the flanks of Bald Mountain.11 llMacfie's V. I. and B. C, 74; Mallandaine's B. C. Directory, 1863, 201. It was the reflux to the seaboard of the successful miners on Keithley and Harvey creeks in the fall of 1860, and the exhibition of their gold at Victoria says Allan, that started the Cariboo excitement. Allan's Cariboo, MS., 3-4. During this first rush to Cariboo there was enough travel for a time to crowd to suffocation the steamer Enterprise, the only boat at that time plying between Victoria and the Mainland. From Yale the men carried their food and blankets on their back. Courierey's Min., B. C, MS., 3. On Antler Creek there were a few score of men in the autumn of 1860. Notwithstanding the secrecy the discoverers endeavored to maintain, the discoveries were so tempting that when the news reached the Quesnel a rush took place to Antler in the middle of the winter of 1860-1. Up to its falls, five miles below the little Cariboo Lake, the north branch had been found to contain more or less gold. Then there was a blank in ascending the valley of that stream, where scarcely anything was found. But the discoverers of the diggings at Antler Creek, not contented with these results, on their way thither had crossed the lower Cariboo Lake to the mouth of Keithley Creek, and ascended that stream into the midst of the Bald and Snowshoe mountains. From this point they were able to see to the northward in the direction of the descent of Antler, or Bear River Valley. The route from the fork of the Quesnel, taken by the body of pioneers who in the autumn of 1860 followed the discoverers to i£ntler creek, was up the left bank of the north branch to Mitchell's bridge. Mitchell .480 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. One important result to the country was the impetus given by these discoveries to road-building, arising from the necessity of carrying supplies into the mines. Both governments and individuals assisted at this, and before the close of 1861, efficient pack-trails gave free access to all important mining localities.12 Incited by the discoveries on Keithley, Harvey, Antler, and Cunningham creeks in the spring of 1861, a number of miners wandered farther in various directions to prospect. First Grouse Creek, forming with Antler Creek the head-waters of Bear River, was discovered to be equally entitled to attention, and from the head of this creek the valley of William Creek, on the head-waters of Willow River, was not only visible to the enterprising explorers, but within easy reach. The same ridge, culminating in Mount Agnes, disclosed to them on looking westward the valleys of Lightning and Lowhee creeks, tributaries of Swift and Cottonwood rivers. Nothing was wanting but the disappearance of the snows to enable the prospectors to descend these several valleys, and to complete the series of discoveries which in the course of that notable season made most of them famous.18 The actual mining developments of 1861 began with the arrival of additional forces from every mining district in the country, forming at the end of May a population of from one thousand to one thousand four hundred made bloaks and windlass, and built the piers of the bridge without assistance, a work reflecting great credit upon him for both skill and perseverance. Thence the trail followed the right bank to little or lower Cariboo Lake, distant from Quesnel Fork twenty miles. Crossing lower Cariboo Lake, it led to the mouth of Keithley Creek, ascended that stream for five or six miles, and struck north-east through the Bald, Snowshoe, and Swift River mountains. Nind, in B. C. Papers, MS., iv. 51. 12Hazlit's Cariboo, 115; Nind's Rept., March 1861, in B. C. Papers, iv. 51-2. See also Trutch's Map. Freight from Yale to Quesnel Fork in 1861 was $1 per pound. Thence to Antler, before the completion of the pack -trail, the Indians carried provisions in the early part of the season of 1861 for 86 cents to $1 per pound. By July the trails were opened, and pack-trains reached Antler, reducing the price of provisions to 55 and 65 cents a pound, and of beef from 50 cents to 20 cents a pound. B. C. Directory, 1863, 201. 13 On the completion of the Cariboo wagon-road from the month of the Quesnel to Lightning Creek in 1865, there was a reversal of the order in which the several streams became known to the world. CARIBOO IN CALIFORNIA. 481 miners, a large portion of whom were occupied with transportation trade in its various branches, and in road-making. Further accessions later in the season furnished a total prospecting, exploring, and actual mining population of about fifteen hundred.14 The country now for the first time became known as Cariboo. This was simply the extension to the entire region explored, of the name of the Cariboo Lakes, situated on the north fork of the Quesnel, from which the explorations may be said to have started. The Fraser excitement was never a more universal topic of conversation in California than was Cariboo at Victoria in the autumn of 1861; it seemed hardly credible even to those who had been accustomed to see rich diggings and lucky strikes. The news spread farther, and thousands of people from California, Canada, England, and every other quarter of the globe ascended the valley of the Fraser early in the season of 1862. Owing to the unexpected distance, and the difficulty of reaching Cariboo before the completion of the wagon-road, many turned back without entering the mines, while others consumed on the way the provisions intended for the relief of those who had wintered in the mines; consequently there was almost a famine at Cariboo.15 Exploration in 1862 was, nevertheless, vigorously prosecuted by an actual mining population estimated at five thousand in Cariboo district. Although extending over an area of fifty miles square, the operations were chiefly in contiguous ground, and resulted in the 14London Times' cor., quoted in Cariboo Gold-fields, 49-52. At the end of the season of 1861, the Times' correspondent modified somewhat his previous figures of 1,400 at the end of May, and gave the total number of actual miners in the Cariboo district, including Quesnel Fork and fifty miles below, during the whole season, at 1,500. London Times,'¥eh. 6, 1862, in Mayne's B. C, 442. He furnished no estimate of the proportion engaged in trade and transportation, but left it to be inferred that these were to be added. Probably the largest number of miners actually at work prospecting and mining at any one time during the season of 1861 never exceeded 1,000; while the general work of exploration under consideration engaged the whole 1,500. In June 1861, Douglas estimated the total population at 1,500. B. C. Papers, iv. 56. 10 Miners and prospectors together were obliged to travel out after provisions, paying one dollar to one dollar and a half per pound. Hist. Bbit. Col. 31 482 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. production of a total yield from Cariboo thus far of about $3,000,000.18 Of the heroic deeds of the early prospectors there is evidence on every hand, but such exploits were of every-day occurrence in the pioneer army that was advancing upon the strongholds of the country under the pressure of the gold mania; and it was not the 16 The American consul estimated the total mining population of British Columbia for 1862 at 15,000, three fourths of the people being from California, Oregon, and Washington. Allen Francis, in IT. S. CommercialRel., 1862, 148. Discoveries continued to be made as a matter of course every year after 1861, but they were of local rather than of geographical importance, and pertained chiefly to mining developments, in localities henceforth having a history of their own. i The three principal mining-camps in 1862 were William, Lightning, and Lowhee creeks, employing a total number of 5,000 miners. Cour- terey's Min., B. C, MS., 10. From these local discoveries important mining developments were made in all directions. On Last Chance Creek, a tributary of Lightning Creek, hill-diggings were found early in 1862 which were deemed highly important; Van Winkle, Davis, Anderson, and other gulches in the same neighborhood were successfully worked, and on Burns, Lowhee, Nelson, Sugar, and Willow creeks, similar developments were made the same season. B. C. Directory, 1863, 202. Up to 1864 the list of richer creeks developed by sinking shafts into the deep channels embraced Keithley, Goose, Cunningham, Lightning, Jack of Clubs, Grouse, Chisholm, Sovereign, Last Chance, Anderson, Fountain, Harvey, Nelson, Stevens, Snowshoe, California, Thistle, Sugar, Willow, McCallum, Tababoo, Conklin, Lowhee, and William creeks, etc. Macfie's V. I. and B. C, 146. A series of letters written in the autumn and winter of 1861-2, by Donald Fraser, the London Times' correspondent, pictured the discoveries and excitements of the preceding year in somewhat roseate but not overdrawn coloring. Fraser simply omitted the dark side of the picture; and he was particularly blamed by the English arrivals for speaking prematurely of the stage-coaches on the proposed wagon-road, when it appeared, to their grief, after travelling 7,000 miles, that a walk of 400 or 500 miles farther, carrying a load, would be necessary to finish the journey. Allan's Cariboo, MS., 8. In all several thousand British subjects, from England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, were induced by these letters to undertake the journey to British Columbia in the spring of 1862. Macfie vouched for the substantial correctness of the statements made by Donald Fraser. V. I. and B. C, 75. Some of the British immigrants brought with them placards of a speculative transportation company, circulated in England, where tickets were sold for Cariboo direct, picturing the stagecoaches that were to carry them from Yale. But the holders of such tickets ascertained as soon as they landed in America that there were no arrangements to make good the promise. On the way from Yale to Cariboo there were comparatively few houses, so that provisions had always to be carried at least from one to three days. • An overland party from Canada by way of Yellowhead Pass, late in 1862, abandoned their horses at the head-waters of the Fraser, and turning them loose, built rafts to float down the river to Fort George. Four of the party, not caring to venture on so perilous a journey, turned back, but not finding the horses, they finally undertook to reach Fort George on foot, two of the Rennie brothers perishing during a snow-storm. Those on the raft soon entered a canon where a number of them were drowned. Allan's Cariboo, MS., 15-18. In 1862, P. H. Lewis and other Oregonians went to Cariboo overland by way of Okanagan. Lewis' Coal Dis., MS., 16. THE HEROIC IN GOLD-MINING. 483 custom of the time to dignify the search for the sordid metals with any title of heroism. Yet had such deeds been performed in the name of war, science, or religion, doubtless their stories would have been told, and the names of the heroes preserved and honored. The prospector's fame depended upon his success in finding gold; and it was restricted to the small circle that shared in the benefits of the discovery, to be lost sight of as soon as the last nuggets parted company with him. The romantic and tragic extremes seemed naturally united in his career, but otherwise than as prospectors and discoverers, the lives of Keithley, McDonald, Rose, Dietz, and Cunningham were blank, and might have been fitted to any imaginary previous or subsequent career belonging to the scene. Rose, an American, and McDonald, a Canadian from Cape Breton Island, are credited by Governor Douglas as the greatest of the discoverers in Cariboo. McDonald worked hard for three years, and amassed considerable wealth, with which he came down to Victoria to recruit himself. Rose left shortly after this discovery in quest of new mines, and was found in the woods dead from starvation. William Dietz, the discoverer of William Creek, the richest stream of all, survived till 1877, only to die a pauper at Victoria. Keithley, who gave his name to the first discovered of the rich creeks of Cariboo, held a valuable claim at Quesnel Fork in 1860-1.17 "Keithley's claim at Quesnel Fork was on the hill-side, and was one of the richest in that vicinity. B. C. Papers, iv. 50. Keithley Creek, the first discovered of the characteristic rich creeks of Cariboo proper, was only twenty miles distant. In regard to the discoverers of Antler Creek, an entry in Douglas journal made at Lytton, June 5, 1861, mentions that 'Rose, an American, and McDonald; a Canadian, are the two great prospectors who have discovered the Cariboo diggings.' Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 1st ser., 146. In a despatch to the duke of Newcastle, written on his return to Vancouver Island, he said that \ the Cariboo gold district was discovered by a fine athletic young man of the name of McDonald, a native of the Island of Cape Breton, of mixed French and Scotch descent, combining in his personal appearance and character the courage, activity, and remarkable powers of endurance of both races. His health had suffered from three years' constant exposure and privation, which induced him to repair with his well- earned wealth to this colony for medical assistance. His verbal report to me is interesting, and conveys the idea of an almost exhaustless gold-field extend- 484 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. The hardships of exploration undergone in these remote and rugged regions afforded frequent examples of the miracles that can be wrought by the will over the body. From Quesnel Fork, the highest point in the basin of the Fraser River where supplies could be delivered by means of pack-animals in 1860, journeys of several months were undertaken through tangled forests, rugged canons, and over lofty mountains, burdened until late in the spring with snows. The prospector ventured hundreds of miles, in the face of starvation, into a country which contained little game, and was scarcely visited even by Indians. The adventurer of the Rose type threw himself into the mountains with reckless abandon, risking body and soul in their fastnesses, and trusting to the genius of the region to take pity and guide him into the subfluvial caverns lit up by the yellow light he loved so well. The miner, like the sailor, had glimpses of nature in supernatural moods. He learned the lesson of a solitary man's helplessness. Fancies and superstitions took hold on him in one form or another. Alone with his thoughts sometimes for days and weeks together, delving; in unfamiliar surroundings, under the influ- ing through the quartz and slate formations in a northerly direction from Cariboo Lake.' B. C. Papers, iv. 58. Rose was one of the most adventurous of the pioneers. Milton and Cheadle, Whymper and others, all tell the same stories of the first-named author, only differing from Douglas in calling him a Scotchman. When the crowd rushed in upon Rose, McDonald, and Dietz, on Antler Creek in 1860-1, Rose and Dietz left in search of new diggings. Rose disappeared for months. His absence gave no concern to his friends, among whom similar prospecting journeys into the wilds were of every-day occurrence. Finally, another party of prospectors happened to follow his track far into the wilderness, and came upon his body in the woods. Near it on the branch of a tree was hanging his tin cup, on wnich was scratched, with the point of a knife-blade, the legend, 'Dying of starvation, Rose.' N. W. Pass, by Land, 364-5; Whymper's Alaska, 35. William Dietz, the discoverer of the diggings on William Creek, ascended Bald Mountain from Antler Creek early in 1861, and was the first to report the position of the valley of Willow River. He afterward prospected its head-waters, but with little success, and announced the discovery of gold on the stream called William Creek by some, and Humbug Creek by others. Dietz died a pauper at Victoria in 1877. Another of the earliest miners on William Creek, who became wealthy as the owner of the Black Jack mine, was at Victoria in the winter of 1877-8, dependent on charity for his daily bread. Allans Cariboo, MS., 11. THE QUESNEL AND HORSEFLY. 485 ence of natural objects, encompassed by the evolution imps of the dark canon, the elevated region, the lonely lake, the unknown stream, not unfrequently his dreams or haps of a trifling nature formed his sole mental pabulum; and the imagination found wing in the direction of his desires, often shaped by some creed spiritualistic. Hera, the goddess who loved Jason and all his crew of adventurous Greeks, would keep an eye on his fortunes also, and would lead him straight to his goal, as among the thrice worshipful of the Argonauts. In some of these men a mental or moral bend due to prior life, furnished the tragic woof that ran through their web of romance, forming its most essential part. Everything had gone wrong; there was no human remedy. All that could be done was to throw themselves away, to give themselves wholly over to wickedness, since the worst fate staring them in the face might be modified and temporarily or partially escaped by the aid of the appreciative if not pitying spirit of evil. Whatever their fancies, scores of venturesome miners were lost; some never more to be heard of. Having accounted for the settlement of Cariboo, we are prepared to survey the history of the several creeks in detail. At Quesnel Fork, the Fraser River miners worked during the larger part of the season of 1859, and this was the first point, aside from Fraser River, to develop into a permanent camp. Quesnel Fork had an important geographical position, and was easily reached by the plateau trail from William Lake. It was the point of divergence in two or three different directions, chiefly along the north and south forks of the Quesnel, the latter branching into Horsefly River, and formed the supply depot for the Cariboo region during the discovery period, and even afterwards to some extent. The mining-camp here was beside the centre of an extensive mining district, with tunnels, dams, and water-wheels, and as such it 486 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. early assumed the dignity of a village or town.18 Though much of its prestige departed on the completion of the Cariboo wagon-road, by way of the mouth of the Quesnel, its permanency and local importance were sufficiently well established to maintain down to 1875 three well-filled stores doing a large business with pack-trains, and two butcher-shops, besides the usual miscellaneous establishments of a mining town; but the white miners had by this time abandoned the diggings to Chinese, who were content with the less yielding bench deposits.19 The enterprising men who worked the bars of the Quesnel in the summer of 1859 were most successful in the valley of the main stream or south branch, opening into Quesnel Lake. Proceeding on rafts along the shores of that lake, the}7 came to a large river entering from the south, which was named Horsefly River. They ascended the stream until it branched, and on the smaller tributary, Horsefly Creek, leading to Horsefly Lake, they discovered the richest placers 18 H. M. Ball reported to Governor Douglas under date of Lytton, Dec. 18, 1859, that at the fork of the Quesnel some miners had struck the *blue lead,' a deposit of auriferous gravel, * well known in California.' It was most extensively developed, wrote Ball, at Horsefly River, and was supposed to cover large areas of country. B. C. Papers, iii. 93. In the winter of 1860-1, during the low stage of the water in Quesnel River, mining was carried on actively and successfully in the bed of the river at the Forks. Several companies constructed wing-dams and water-wheels, extracting considerable quantities of gold from the river in that manner. The river formerly ran in different channels through the alluvial flats, and at different levels along the benches. Good prospects were obtained on the benches 100 to 200 feet above the river, which it was supposed would remunerate a large body of miners under more favorable conditions in the future. Keithley and Diller had a claim on the hill-side, sixty feet, above the river. This was discovered in 1860, and proved, after some tunnelling in search of the lead, remarkably rich. Afterward the lead appeared to have been lost. Niwl, in B. C. Papers, iv. 50. 'Both branches of the Quesnelle,' wrote Donald Fraser, in the midst of the Cariboo excitement, ' are highly anriferous. The returns for last summer, 1861, were that nine .out of ten of the claims paid over an ounce a day to the hand.. .The diggings must be rich to have retained any miners so close to Cariboo, where fortunes were made in the course of a few weeks.' London Times' cor., Vancouver Island, Jan. 20, 1862, in Rowlings' Confederation, 117-18. 19 In 1875 no white men remained in the diggings, nor in the district including Keithley Creek. In order to work the large flat back of the village of Quesnel Fork, a ditch a mile in length was constructed in 1875 by the Chinese, who anticipated that the ground would yield them from $3 to $6 a day each. Hare, in Min. Mines Rept., 1875, 13-14. COQUETTE AND CEDAR CREEKS. 487 found up to that time in the basin of the Quesnel, bearing a close resemblance, if the declarations of Californians could be trusted, to the 'blue lead' gravels in the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. One party of five miners working near the close of the season of 1859, with two rockers, took out one hundred and one ounces of gold in a week; after which they were obliged to abandon their operations on account of the severity of the weather.20 Owing doubtless to the common difficulty here encountered for the first time, in reaching and following the bed of the old channel, mining failed to be permanently profitable on the Horsefly and the region lying to the northward of Quesnel Lake. After 1867 operations came to a stand, to be revived for a short time only in 1876, when some good prospects created a rush. This failed to realize the expectations formed, and the district relapsed into oblivion. From Quesnel Lake to Fraser River, at the mouth of the Quesnel, extending all along Quesnel River, there was supposed, from innumerable developments, to be a good hydraulic mining country, which in the future would prove to be valuable. On the south branch, below the outlet of Quesnel Lake, mining continued to be prosecuted, and in 1872 a Chinese company was supposed to be still making ten dollars a day to the man.21 Meanwhile developments had been made at Coquette and Cedar creeks, pointing to the exist- 29 Ball's Report, Dec. 18, 1859, in B. C. Papers, iii. 93. It was reported before the close of 1859 that they had stiuck the identical 'blue lead,' presenting the same indications of an abundance of gold, and extending in a direction nearly north and south across Horsefly Creek, with a lateral extent of nearly ten miles. This ' blue lead' was traced ' a distance of thirty miles.' All the indications of the upper strata were said to be similar to those of the blue lead in California, the first gold stratum being found at a depth of twenty- five feet. There was a false bed-rock of 'bastard talc,' which the miners did not understand. The whole country to the southward of Quesnel Lake was found later to contain deep gravel deposits resembling the blue leads. Harnett's Lectures, 30; Dawson on Mines, 41. 21 They worked on a bench of the south fork of the Quesnel, 60 feet above the river, bringing water upon "their ground by means of a wheel. Cariboo Sentinel, Aug. 13, 1872. Being easier of access than William Creek, with better climate and longer season, and perhaps less expensive to work, these diggings were considered to have important advantages. Harnett's Lectures, 29. 488 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. ence, probably throughout the entire basin of Quesnel Lake, of a widely extended and important placer region. The Cedar Creek diggings proved to be valuable, yielding steadily as well as largely for some time. The Aurora claim, with flumes and sluices costing $8,000, yielded, mostly in 1866, $20,000; the Moosehead claim, costing $2,000 to open, paid $7,000 the first year; the Barker claim, also located in 1866, and costing $7,000 to open, paid $2,000 in a year; and the Discovery claim was yielding, in September 1866, $15 to $20 a day at a point where it was shallow. In August 1867, the Aurora was paying one hundred ounces a week, and other claims from $10 to $20 a day to the man.22 Coquette Creek failed to respond to the prospects first obtained in 1866, and was chiefly given over to Chinese.23 On the north branch of the Quesnel there were developments not unlike these on the south branch,24 22 Victoria Weekly Colonist, June 25, 1868. Cedar Creek was first ascended by a prospecting party in 1862, but was abandoned until 1865. In 1866 a party of miners from William Creek obtained there a prospect of $119, causing a rush. Id. In September 1867 both the Aurora and Discovery were averging $20 a day to the man. Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 26, 1867. The Discovery company, which had taken out several thousand dollars, expended that amount further upon their claim. A few miners still working in June 1867 were taking out from $5 to $20 a day. The pay dirt was from 6 to 8 feet thick. Visionary Californians pronounced it to be the ; blue lead' that had paid so well at William Creek, ' commencing on Horsefly Creek, and running directly through this section.' The Aurora Company, in July, 1867, completed a flume 2,000 feet in length, dumping into Quesnel Lake. Some of the ground on the bed-rock yielded $2.25 to the pan. Id., July 30, 1867. 23 The discovery of Coquette Creek was credited, together with that of Cedar Creek, to J. E. Edwards, one of the prospectors of the Aurora claim on William Creek, in 1866. Victoria Colonist, July 28, 1866. Another authority states that Coquette Creek was originally opened by a Cornishman, presumably Edwards, who lost the lead, whereupon it was sold to the Chinese. Harnett's Lectures, 29. No prospects were found by the company in the opening made by them on the supposed bed-rock, which it was recorded resembled an ash-pit, a cut 60 feet in width having been sluiced across the creek to test it. For twenty days expended in accomplishing that work there was a yield of only $52. Victoria Colonist, Sept. 25,1866. Lining and Company, after prospecting at another place for a month, also abandoned their ground. Id., Daily, Oct. 11th. The pertinacity of the Chinese in 1867 again attracted white men to the creek, but without producing any important results. u Black Bear Creek in the same range of mountains as Cedar and Coquette creeks, but on the opposite side, draining into the north fork of the QuesneL was mined by a discovery company in 1867. They sluiced into a blue clay, finding coarse gold. Victoria Colonist, Aug. 6, 1867. GENERAL MINING DEVELOPMENT. 489 particularly on the right-bank tributaries, the Keithley, Snowshoe, Harvey, and Cunningham creeks, draining the eastern slopes of the Bald Mountains, and whereon modern erosions had laid bare, for short distances, the deeper channels of the ancient streams. When the bed of the north branch was prospected in 1859-60, it was found to contain profitable placers as far up as the Cariboo lakes,25 but here in the absence of gold-bearing soil at the surface, want of success had the effect to throw back the advance upon Cariboo proper for' that year, so that Keithley, Harvey, and Grouse creeks were not worked until the autumn of 1860. On Keithley Creek mining was so successfully prosecuted in 1860 that several stores were erected there,26 and near its mouth the town of Keithley came into existence in 1861, as supply depot for the entire region of the north branch of the Quesnel.27 The gold on the creek consisted partly of solid nuggets paving the bed-rock within a few feet of the surface. A party of five men, in June 1861, divided one thousand two hundred dollars between them as the product of a single day's labor, and their daily average for some 25 In the spring of 1862 preparations were made on a large scale for wing- damming at different places; but an early thaw raised the waters of the lake and river, sweeping away all the dams and water-wheels, the result of several months of hard work in the coldest part of the winter. B. C. Directory, 1863, 200. The north fork was rich down to the bridge, where the trail from Quesnel Forks crossed it. Below that point the climate changed. Harnett's Lectures, 27. 26 Two store buildings were erected near its mouth at lower Cariboo Lake; another store was built and opened by Davis in advance of the first-mem- tioned six miles up the stream, on the line of the pioneer trail. Nind's Report, March 27, 1861, in B. C. Papers, iv. 50-1. Keithley was reached by Commissioner Nind in the winter of 1860-1; crossing over Cariboo Lake, he found the two store buildings not yet occupied, while Davis' store was already a centre of trade and mining. Many thousand feet of lumber were whip- sawed and ready in March 1861 at the latter point for fluming the bed of Keithley Creek. 27 In June 1861, the town of Keithley consisted of three grocery stores, a bakery, restaurant, butcher-shop, blacksmith-shop, and several taverns, kept in tents and log houses. Beef cattle were driven to that point from Oregon. There were, in June 1861, 200 men in the creek, of whom 75 were engaged in mining. Cariboo Gold-fields, 53-8. In 1875 it still supported three or four stores, one of them kept by a Chinaman. Hare, in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 13. It continued until recent years to be the principal mining and trading point in the vicinity of the Cariboo lakes. 490 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. time was said to be a pound weight of gold. In September 1861, several companies were making from fifty to one hundred dollars a day to the man in the bed of the creek, and one hundred dollars in the dry-diggings on the hill-side. Flumes were built of enormous size and length, and numerous wheel-pumps were set in motion.28 In 1867 the lead was lost; yet the Chinese' on the creek continued to make money, the claim at the mouth of the creek paying from twelve to sixteen dollars a day to the digger. After 1875 the yield fell off.29 Harvey and Cunningham creeks, also tributaries of the north branch of the Quesnel, and 'discovered in the autumn of 1860, received no attention until the Antler Creek excitement in 1861, and were not entered upon in larger force till 1864. On Harvey Creek the conditions and history of mining resembled those of Keithley. Droughts and floods and other serious difficulties of deep mining stood here also in the way of development; so that the stereotyped verdict of exhaustion was passed upon it in 1876. On Cunningham Creek, a stream about thirty miles in length, a number of claims were taken up in the middle of February 1861; and in the following }rear the deep diggings were prospected to some extent, but abandoned as unprofitable. In 1864 further developments were made which surprised the old miners who were acquainted with the ground. Four of the white men made a discovery near the mouth that the old bed of the creek was not beneath the present stream, but in a deep channel parallel to it, a hundred yards 28 The lumber was supplied by a saw-mill completed in September. This was a mine in itself, furnishing lumber at 25 cents a foot and upwards. London Times' cor. Victoria, Nov. 29, 1861, in Cariboo Gold-fields, 51-8. Joseph Patterson and brother informed. Governor Douglas that the miners at Keithley Creek in 1861 were making from two to three ounces a day. Douglas' Despatcli, Oct. 24, 1861, in Hazlitt's Cariboo, 124. 29 Harnett's Lectures, 27. The creek -was profitably worked as late as 1877, but the best ground was believed to be worked out. Keithley Creek was always subject either to a drought or a flood. Min, Mines Rept., 1876, 420; 1877, 399 VERY MANY CREEKS. 491 aside.30 The deeper they went into this channel the richer they found it, and in one day four hundred and sixty dollars apiece were obtained. The result was, that about two hundred miners located fresh claims on the creek, many of them yielding well.31 The excitement continued throughout 1865, and then followed another decline, the result of failure in tracing, or working the deep lead.32 Antler Creek, the original objective point of the gold-seekers who explored Cariboo in 1861, was the first in that region to attain a decided reputation after Keithley Creek, and the first to establish the character of the Cariboo region. Its fame, like that of Keithley and William creeks, also rested upon the circumstance that the present stream had in one or more places cut down into the ancient channel. The London Times' correspondent wrote that the bed-rock was found paved with gold. Every shovelful contained a considerable quantity, in some cases as much as fifty dollars. Nuggets could be picked out of the soil by hand, and the rocker yielded fifty ounces in a few hours.33 The secret of the wonderful riches of the deposit in Antler Creek was too important to be kept. It drew all the venturesome members of the population domiciled in the neighborhood over the dangerous winter trail of the Snowshoe Mountain in the months of January and February 1861.34 A single log-cabin 39 Hare, in Min. Mines Rept, 1876, 420; Ninds, in B. C. Papers, iv. 51. They had found that the channel worn in the bed-rock under the present stream had a rim on one side beyond which the bed-rock fell off into a deeper old channel to a depth then unknown. 31 Victoria Weekly Colonist, Sept. 6, 1864. The proprietors of the Kentucky claim engaged in ground sluicing, took out $750 one day in 1865, and $1,000 the day following. Id., July 11, 1865. 32 A Victoria company employing twenty men erected costly machinery upon the creek in 1876, for the purpose of exploring the deep ground, by all others so far unsuccessfully attempted. Bowson, in Min. Mines Rept, 1876, 418. 3&Macfie's V. I. and B. C, 244. The discovery was made so late in the autumn of 1860 that on the morning following it a foot of snow had covered the ground, and nothing could be done at mining until the spring of 1861. Wright, in Overland Monthly, Dec. 1869, 526. Commissioner Nind testifies that the bed-rock was but a short distance under the surface in a narrow valley. B. C. Papers, iv. 51. 34 Gold Commissioner Nind, who was called to settle mining disputes here, arrived at Antler Creek early in March, and found the snow six or seven feet 492 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. built by Rose and McDonald, the discoverers of the diggings in the fall of 1860, was at this time the only evidence of settlement, but by June ten houses and a saw-mill had risen, and during the following months mining was at its height Eleven companies were working with large profits, and individuals were making as much as $1,000 a day, while the yield of the several sluice and flume claims was 60 ounces a day to the man, and the daily aggregate of the creek during the summer of 1861 over $10,000. Much of the ground yielded $1,000 to the square foot. Three quarters of a mile below the town of Antler two partners were said to have obtained from 40 to 60 ounces a day each, with the rocker.35 The town of Antler grew as if by magic, and counted, in August, twenty substantial buildings, comprising stores, whiskey-saloons, and dwelling-houses, surrounded by a much larger number of tents,86 yet the community was on the whole remarkably sober, law- abiding, and quiet.37 deep, and the miners living in holes, which they had dug in the snow, subsisting on the scanty supplies carried in over the Snowshoe trails. The commissioner was occupied six days in ascerraining the claims to ground, and everything was finally settled without disturbance, for * English law,' it was maintained, could not be transgressed * with the same impunity as California law.' Nind, in B. C. Papers, iv. 50-1. 35 Water was selling at 50 cents an inch. Times' cor., in Cariboo Gold- fields, 53-8. In a leader of Feb. 7, 1861, the London Times summarized the developments on Antler Creek from May to September 1861, and Donald Fraser's statements as correspondent were reviewed, and accepted as trustworthy. A miner named Smith was spoken of as having obtained 3£ pounds of gold per day with the rocker. Other claims working with sluices were reported to be yielding regularly as much. Quoted in McDonald's B, C, 110-15. Small claims on Antler Creek yielded from 100 to 130 ounces a day. In 3 weeks' washing one company of 3 men obtained $83,300f another of 3 men, $37,500; still another of 5 men, $26,000; and another of 6 men, $28,000, in the same period. London Times' cor., in Maefie's V, I. and B, C, 244-5. Governor Douglas vouched for the authenticity of the statement that 4 men obtained regularly from 16 to 37 ounces a day, or from 4 to 9£ ounces each. Id, 36 Cariboo Gold-fields, 55. A Spanish muleteer, when asked in regard to the merits of the Cariboo mines, from which he had recently returned, replied that he had doubts until he had seen .the gaming-table at Antler Creek. Three miners gambled away $27,000 at a sitting. 37 Begbie wrote to the colonial secretary in September 1861: ' I never saw a mining town anything like this. There were some hundreds in Antler, all sober and quiet. It was Sunday afternoon. ^ Only a few of the claims were worked that day. It was as quiet as Victoria.. .They told me it was like COMPARATIVE YIELD. 493 As in the case of Keithley Creek, and as any one might have anticipated had the facts of the limited extent of the old channel laid bare by erosion been understood, there was difficulty and disappointment in store. Expectations had been raised which could not be realized at that time, though the conclusions in regard to the wealth of the creek had been entirely correct. After the shallow part of the old channel was exhausted, the problem of working the buried portion was encountered, and without systematic work the lead could not long be followed.38 The declension came about gradually. In 1867 the town of Antler was deserted, and only a few men remained on the creek, cleaning up, for the second time, the old ground. Grouse Creek was mined to a limited extent in 1861-2, and then abandoned until 1864,39 when the Heron claim was located upon it. After an expenditure of $150,000 the Heron claim yielded $300,000. Under the supposition that the ground was worked out, it was then sold for $4,000; but on cutting an outlet 18 inches deeper the claim continued to yield from 80 to 100 ounces a week throughout the ensuing season.40 The creek was again abandoned until 1866, California in '49. Why, you would have seen all these fellows roaring drunk, and pistols and bare kjiiives in every hand.' B. C. Papers, iv. 61. ^In 1864 a bed-rock flume company was formed at Antler. The company obtained a ten years' lease of sixteen and one half miles of the creek, including a strip of ground 100 feet in width along the creek, with the intention of introducing hydraulic mining. No heavy mechanical appliances had been used on the creek up to that time. Macfie's V. I. and B. C., 245. In connection with the mining operations on the creek, and the prospedting that was done for the recovery of the loslj lead, the fact was developed, and remarked upon, that on the one side of the creek there was nothing but fine gold, while on the other side it was all coarse. At the head of Antler Creek, formerly the continuation of Sawmill Flat, extended a plain many miles in the opposite direction, and it was supposed that the extensive area embraced by these physical features was formerly the site of a great lake. The more ancient stream or deep channel of Antler Creek was supposed to have come, much like the present creek, from the mountains at the west. Its gravels were a portion of an auriferous formation extending to Grouse Creek. Harnett's Lectures, 27. "Because three men in 1861-2 would not investigate properly their interests, having lost faith. Harnett's Lectures, 24. The creek is only five miles east of William Creek, running parallel to it, and draining with Antler and William creeks the eastern slope of the Agnes Bald Mountain. *• Victoria Colonist, Jan. 21, 1868; Harnett's Lectures, 33. 494 GOLD IN THE CARIBOO COUNTRY. wnen the lead was rediscovered; and the Heron, Discovery, and other claims yielded from $15,000 to $20,- 000 to the share,41 raising the creek to the dignity of one of the principal mining fields in Cariboo for the ensuing season.42 In 18 6 7, thirty-five mining companies were at work; a saw-mill was in operation; and two respectable villages sprang up in the valley.48 Rich strikes, alternating with failures to keep the leads, varied the history of Grouse Creek throughout subsequent years. Bear River, emptying into the Fraser above Fort George, had numerous lakes and former lake-beds along its course, but beneath their recent and ancient sediments the miners do not appear to have found any old channel.44 41 Allan's Cariboo, MS., 10-11. 42 Many of the claims were yielding from $25 to $50 a day. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Oct. 23, 1866. 43 A charter was procured for a bed-rock flume company, but this was subsequently revoked, and, as a result, many additional claims were located and recorded upon the creek. During 1867, some Frenchmen were washing out $4 to $6 a day with the rocker, while sluicing in California fashion paid from $10 to $12, and hydraulic work $20 to $25 a day. Harnett's Lectures, 24-5. The Heron Company, in March 1867, paid a dividend of $800 to the share; and the Full Rig Company a dividend of $200 for a week's work. Cariboo Sentinel, March 30, 1867. These companies worked out the lead for a thousand feet on the channel, while above and below them it could not be found. In May 1867, the Blackhawk and Canadian companies were seeking it hy a tunnel and incline. The Water Witch Company sank a shaft near the centre of the creek, and drifted into deep ground, causing an excitement, but it proved to be only an undulation like that in the Hard-up Company's tunnel. Victoria Colonist, May 7, 1867. There were two distinct leads, the more ancient being aside from the present channel. From the boundaries of the Heron aud Hard-up claims, at the lower end of the diggings, the creek continued in a series of flats where the channel was never found. u In 1869, a ' new creek' was reported * 75 to 100 miles north-east from Cariboo,' which was much lower than the Cariboo diggings, had been burned over, and was overgrown by small timber. It was said to prospect 12£ cents to the pan at the surface. Victoria Colonist, March 16, 1869. CHAPTER XXVI. MINING IN CARIBOO. 1863-1882. Risk of William Creek—Rich Discoveries—Large Yield—Decline— Deep Mining—Marysville Lead—Drainage Operations—Richfield—Mosquito and Mustang Creeks—Outsklrt Placers—Lightning Creek—Van Winkle—Decline and Revival—Lowhee— Canon Creek and its Quartz—Character of Cariboo Veins—Summary of Yield—Cariboo Life—The Low and the Intellectual. William Creek has a history in many respects similar to that of Antler Creek. Its first-discovered rich deposits were shallow, and in the bed of the present stream, above the canon. Below these diggings was a flat, supposed to have been the bed of a former lake, in which the channel sank and was lost. Here the problem of working the deep ground by means of shafts and pumping, was for the first time systematically attempted, and profitably solved. The crossing of Snowshoe Mountain by the inflowing prospectors of 1861, and their descent into the basin of Bear River (Antler Creek), thence into the basin of Willow River (William Creek), changed the centre of operations from Keithley to William Creek, and with it the approach from a circuitous to a more direct route into the Bald Mountains of Cariboo. On the completion of the road along Lightning Creek, in 1865, Barkerville on William Creek became the principal distributing point for the Cariboo region, the aggregate product of which amounted in seven years to $25,000,000. The creek received its name from William Dietz, a German who prospected upon (495) M MINING IN CARIBOO. the head-waters of Willow River, and was the first in the spring. The discoveries in the summer and autumn of 1861 of the astonishingly rich lands on William,1 Lowhee, and Lightning creeks gave an immense impetus to further prospecting.2 A rush at once set in, and claims were worked in the shallow ground with great success, for the gold lay thickly studded in a layer of blue clay consisting of decomposed slate and gravel, which in some cases gave prospects of over $600 to the pan. In the State claim this layer was six feet thick, and had a top tripping which ranged from a few feet to three fathoms in depth. Others had less difficult ground to work, and the yield was rapid, amounting in several claims to over 100 ounces a day for the season. The Steele party was reported to have obtained in two days 387 and 409 ounces, and in two months $105,000.8 *The name of Humbug Creek, at first applied to^this most famous of Cariboo streams on account of its supposed worthless character, was soon abandoned, and the proper name of William Creek gained the ascendency to which it became justly entitled when the first noteworthy discovery was made at the Canon. Three seasons elapsed before the richest deposits found in the deep ground of William Creek were fairly developed. *B. D.,' Barker- ville, Oct. 23d, cor. of Victoria Weekly Colonist, Nov. 7, 1866. 2 Thomas Brown, an American, also laid claim to the discovery, and to having located the first claim. Douglas' Despatch, Oct. 24, 1861, in HazUtt's Cariboo, 124. It was months, says a writer from the spot, before any authentic news of these discoveries reached Victoria. Reports came first that great quantities of gold were being obtained in a small stream near the summit of the mountains; no names being then attached to the localities. The daily yield was said to be first 20 oz., then 50 oz., 100 oz., 300 oz., and at last 400 oz. a day, to four or five men. Many of the companies were reported to have so much gold that they were obliged to detail men to watch it day and night. At Victoria these rumors were not confided in until the gold began to arrive. Ragged miners finally came to the sea-coast, staggering under the weight of their summer's accumulation. Mules were loaded with the precious metal. Men were paid $20 and $50 a day to carry^ the gold which the owners of it had not the strength to bring alone. Wright, in Overland Monthly, Dec. 1869, 526-7. 3 Governor Douglas took down from the lips of Mr Steele, an American, the following statement in regard to the Steele claim in 1861: Their claim did not prospect so well as some of the others, and it was furthermore a difficult one to work, having from 8 to 18 feet of stripping overlying the auriferous dirt. The latter was a blue clay layer 6 feet in thickness, containing decomposed slate and gravel. A space of 25 by 80 feet of this ground produced in two months $105,000. A sluice was constructed^ and four additional men were hired to clear away the tailing. Rowlings' Confederation, 118. In the fall of 18G1 Dawson and company took out of their claim on WILLIAM CREEK. 497 Toward the close of the season of 1861, all previous discoveries were exceeded by the developments in the rich ground lying fifty or sixty feet under the flat, below the 'Canon.' To the Barker Company belongs the credit of having sunk the first paying shaft into the new deposit, and in honor of this event the nucleus of a town which here sprang into existence was named Barkerville. Supported by the underground mining, the town grew rapidly in population, and maintained for years the position of the principal town in Cariboo.4 The Diller Company were among the next in order to bottom a shaft into the deep ground, washing out in one day, it is said, two hundred pounds of gold, the largest yield recorded for one day in Cariboo.5 A number of claims were located all over the flat, and by means of the systematic drifting and tunnelling introduced in 1862, and carried on throughout the year, the old channel of William Creek was traced for a considerable distance beneath the surface. Some claims yielded 100 ounces and more daily, during the season, three taking out $100,000 each between October 1862 and January 1863. The Cunningham turned out over 600 ounces a day on several occasions; the Caledonia yielded at one time from $5,000 to $6,000 a day; and the Cameron and Tinker were not far behind.6 William Creek $600 in a single pan. Abbott and Company took out $900 in one panful of dirt obtained three feet under the surface. HazUtt's Cariboo Gold-fields, 153-8. 4 It was destroyed by fire in the summer of 1868, but by the end of September 40 new buildings had risen. Governor's Despatch, dated Sept. 16,1868, in Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 29, 1868. 6 Allan's Cariboo, MS., 10, 11. Mr Allan, as editor of the Cariboo Sentinel, was in a position to know the fact, and ought to be good authority. That amount equals 2,400 ounces, at $16 worth $38,400. 6 Courtney's Min. B. C, MS., 6. The Cunningham Cxaim averaged $2,000 a day throughout the season. It had a frontage of 600 feet. On several occasions 52 pounds of gold were taken out of it in a day. The bishop of British Columbia witnessed the taking out of 600 ounces, or 50 pounds, from one day's work. The Adams Company in 1862 paid $40,000 each, clear of expenses, to three partners. Brown's Essay, 30-1. The claim of William Dietz, the discoverer, proved to be one of the poorest on the creek; but generally the claims which were first worked at a depth not exceeding 12 feet yielded remarkable returns. T. Evans, in Overland Monthly, March 1870: B. C. Directory. 1863 202. 9 Hist. Brit. Col. 32 498 MINING IN CARIBOO. Large as was the yield of 1862, the following season proved even more prosperous, and received the appellation of the golden year. According to Macfie, the creek was then worked over an area of seven miles, and of the numerous claims about 40 yielded handsomely, while about 20 produced steadily between 70 and 400 ounces a day. Palmer states that the chief owner of the Cameron claim went home with $150,000 saved by him in one year, and Milton and Cheadle witnessed the process of cleaning up from a day's washing in the Raby, of 310 ounces, while they found the Cameron yielding from 40 to 112 ounces daily.7 A number of claims were only reaching the bed-rock in 1864, and obtaining the usual rich prospects, the Wake up Jake Company, for instance, washing 52 ounces from a panful of dirt. Other claim again were yielding eve$ better than before, as the Ericsson, which opened in 1863 and turned out an average weekly amount of 1,400 ounces during the summer. In 18 6 5 this claim paid nearly twice as large dividends as before.8 7 The average total yield of the claims on William Creek was not less than 2,000 ounces. Three partners of the Hard Curry Company divided 102 pounds troy, the result of a single day's washing. Palmer, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., xxxviii. 191-2. 'In 1863 about 4,000 were engaged on this creek.' Macfie's V. I., 248; Northwest Passage by Land, 373. 8 In 1864 Douglas says the claim paid $8,000 to the share, or a total of $90, - 000 clear of expenses; and in 1865 the dividends were $14,000 to the share; but of the above the government received $5,000. Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 151-2. Harnett's Lectures, 12. For seven successive weeks the following yield was reported from the Ericsson claim: June 17, 1864, 900 oz., $14,400; June 24, 1864, 640 oz., $10,240; July 1, 1864,1,400 oz., $22,400; July 8,1864, 1,926 oz., $30,816; July 15, 1864, 1,256 oz., $20,096; July 22, 1864, 1,300 oz., $20,800; July 29, 1864, 2,600 oz., $41,920; in all 10,042 ounces, $160,672. Victoria Colonist, June 21, May 24, 1864; MacMe's V. I., 249. Wake up Jake claim was sold in 1867 for $100. Cariboo Sentinel, May 23, 1867. The Adams Company had yielded, so far as known, in all $50,000 to 100 feet; the Steele, $120,000 from 80 feet; the Diller, $240,000 from 50 feet; the Cunningham, $270,000 from 500 feet; the Burns, $140,000 from 80 feet; the Canadian, $180,000 from 120 feet; the NeVersweat, $100,000 from 120 feet; the Moffatt, $90,000 from 50 feet; the Tinker, $120,000 from 140 feet; the Watty, $130,000 from 100 feet. In addition to those already named were the Barker, Baldhead, Grier, Griffin, Wilson, Beauregard. Raby, Cameron, Prince of Wales, and many others, whose fame went throughout the world. Crawford's Prospectus Artesian Company, quoted in Macfie s V. I. and B. C, 248; McDonald's B. C, 110; Salem Statesman, Nov. 23, 1863. LABOR AND RETURNS. 499 Despite this showing, the facts could not be disguised that the excitement was over, and that the miners were diminishing in number. Of the fifteen hundred forming the estimated population of William Creek in November 1864, half only remained throughout the winter, and the former number was not made up again. Por this there were good reasons. The large yield came chiefly from few claims, while the larger number had returned but a shall share. The shallow diggings whicli formed the attraction for the great majority were now pretty well worked out, and the indications for locating deeper claims on the more easily worked ground were becoming less sure. The cost of working the deeper claims was a further drawback, and as the miners were now chiefly interested in this class of ground, it became a momentous question to solve the problem of cheap and effective operations. The great difficulty, the flow of water, had hitherto been overcome with the aid of the limited water-power of William Creek, and with the home-made wooden pumps of small capacity. But these means had failed in several operations, such as drifting the meadows below Barkerville, which had been undertaken on an extensive scale covering a distance of three miles.9 The Artesian Company which had obtained a twenty years' lease of one half mile of ground three eighths of a mile in width, below Barkerville, proposed under Crawford's direction to prospect by means of an artesian- well auger bringing up a panful of dirt at each raise; but the flow of water was not disposed of by this scheme. Adit levels or bed-rock flumes with powerful steam- pumps appeared to be the only effective means. In 1865, accordingly, a costly 'bed-rock flume' 1,600 feet in length was laid, at a first cost of $120,000, com- 9 And at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars. This work extended from Marysville to the junction of William Creek with Willow River, a distance of three miles, where a former lake, or series of lakes, was supposed to have existed, discharging its waters into Jack of Clubs Lake, by the western base of the Island Mountain, instead of by the eastern, as at present. Macfie's V. I. and B. C, 264. J I 500 MINING IN CARIBOO. mencing at the Canon, below the Black Jack tunnel, and several companies began washing into it with a great increase of forces, taking out some coarse gold, including a thirty-seven ounce nugget.10 Among the claims most successively worked at this time were the Conklin Gulch and Ericsson companies; the former being reported as taking out an average of 127 ounces a day, and the Ericsson from 900 to 2,000 ounces a week.11 Although the decline of the district was a conceded fact after 1865, there were in 1867 still over sixty paying claims, apart from the flume companies and hill claims. Some of them had been producing for six years, and were still producing remarkably well, the poorer paying wages of from eight to ten dollars a day to the hand. The Cunningham, California, and Tontine claims stood each credited with a yield up to 1865 of $500,000.12 M A ditch completed from Jack of Clubs Creek in 1864 at a cost of $20,000 was used in connection with the flume. The ditch enterprise suffered under legal difficulties during 1865. Cariboo Sentinel, quoted in Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 4, 1865. The flume had not been long in operation when William Creek experienced a flood which resulted in great injury to improvements of every sort, especially at Cameronton. Id., Sept. 19, 1865. Mr Gentile in October 1865 photographed most of the prominent claims and buildings at Barkerville. Id., Oct. 31, 1865. 11 This was in June and July 1865. Victoria Colonist, July 4> 25, 1865. One day 1,926 ounces were washed out. Whymper's Alaska, 34. 12 An idea of the costs and individual profits in the years 1862-7 may be obtained from the following statistics: The Cunningham claim above the Canon, located in 1861, with four interests, cost $100,000 to work, and yielded, up to 1865, $500,000. The Tyack claim, located in 1861, had four interests, 1 and paid from $16 to $20 a day. The California, located in 1861, cost $150,- 000 to work, and yielded, up to 1865, $500,000. In 1866 and 1867 this claim was still paying from $15 to $20 a day. The Black Jack, located in 186% with 6 interests, gave in 2 years $200,000, under a total expenditure of $50,000 for work at $16 a day. In 1867 it was worked as a hydraulic claim. The Tontine, located in 1864, with 4 interests, cost up to 1865 inclusive $100,- 000 for development and working, and yielded $500,000. The Dietz, located in 1864, paid good wages steadily. These were all above the Canon. Below the Canon mining was begun in 1863 at the mouth of Stoat Gulch. The claim of High Low Jack, located in 1864, with 5 interests, paid in June 1867 $12,000 to the share. The Pioneer yielded as well. The Alturas, located in 1864, with 8 interests, paid off in 5 weeks, during 1866, an indebtedness of $23,000. On the Taft Vale claim 5 shafts were * lost 'before the drainage used by the miners below was extended to its boundaries. It cost $30,000 to open, and yielded finally from 100 to 200 ounces per week. Harnett's Lectures, 12-17. The deepest shaft in the vicinity of William Creek, or Mohawk Gulch, was 134 feet, without reaching the bed-rock, or less than half the BENCH CLAIMS 501 The bed-rock drain constructed in the lower part of William Creek was damaged by the high water of 1867, and as a result the product of one third of the best claims on the creek was lost for the season, all the claims dependent upon it lying idle from June to December 1867 Great precautions were taken to prevent a recurrence of such a misfortune. High bulkheads were erected round the mouths of shafts, and a general bulkhead was proposed for the protection of the town of Barkerville. By the end of January 1868 the repairs were well advanced, and provisions being comparatively cheap, operations were renewed with good prospects for the ensuing season, aided to a great extent by the mining board which had been formed here in 1866 with twelve members. In 1867 a strike was made by the United Company on the French and Canadian creeks, which revived to some extent the hopes formed of them as early as 1863-4, owing- to their proximity to the supposed fountain-head of the William Creek deposits.13 Bench or hill claims were developed the same year between Richfield and the Canon, but suffered greatly for want of water.14 During the prosperous days of William Creek, the depth of the richest deposits in Australia, and this fact was held up as an argument against those who began to despond. Victoria Colonist, Nov. 7, 1865; Allan's Cariboo, MS., 10, 11. After 1866 the local mining history was fully recorded by the prosperous though not very long-lived Cariboo Sentinel, published by Alexander Mien at the town of Barkerville. A complete list of the companies working upon William Creek, with the number of shares, names of foremen, and what they were doing, was published in the number for May 28, 1866, and copied in the Victoria Daily Colonist of June 8, 1866. 18 Three hundred ounces were taken from one shift of timber in a hill turned by the United Company. These creeks had been prospected during the winter of 1863-4, under the belief that from their position in the Bald Mountain they must be near the fountain-head of the rich deposits of William, Orouse, and Jack of Clubs creeks. VictoriaWeekly Colonist, Feb. 12, 25,1867. In the old Grier and Point claims the Chinese in 1867 extracted $10,000 from a small crevice. Cariboo Sentinel, Oct. 14, 1867. Conklin Gulch was staked anew on both sides, and from one side to the other a number of tunnels were run under the hill-sides for the purpose of striking the rich channel worked by the United Company. Victoria Daily Colonist, Feb. 25, 1867; Yale Examiner, Jan. 1, 1868. 14 A back channel was discovered in June 1867, 300 feet in the hill behind the Downie claim. *atld the West Britain Company in the same vicinity bottomed a shaft at the depth of 47 feet, obtaining a prospect of $2.50 to the pan. Victoria Weekly Colonist, June 11, 1867. 502 MINING IN CARIBOO. gold deposit was traced in paying quantities down the stream to beyond Marysville, several miles below Barkerville. Wherever the deep ground had been prospected by means of shafts—usually about sixty feet in depth— it proved remarkably good, yielding from ten to twenty-five cents to the pan But here, unfortunately, occurred the excess of water, after the gravel was reached, which prevented the shafts from being worked; and with the failure of the district the village of Marysville was deserted. This, and the similar fate which overtook the Meadows, added to the gradual exhaustion of the available and profitable ground on William Creek, proved a heavy blow, not for the creek alone, but for the whole of Cariboo. From 1863 to 1867 the deep ground on William Creek had been the mainstay of Cariboo, as the latter was the main-stay of British Columbia, and mining was prosperous in proportion to the engineering skill brought into play, the problem being simply one of gaining access to the gold deposits in the old channels. It was evident that the late engineering methods had not answered the purpose, and that a still more effective system of drainage must be adopted to overcome the obstacle in the way to this rich ground. A deep cut was proposed for sluicing the old claims along the whole length of William Creek, from the Canon to the Meadows.15 But nothing was done for a long time; finally some San Francisco capitalists obtained a lease of ground for four miles along the creek for twenty-one years, and the Lane and Kurtz Company in 1870 erected powerful steam-pumping machinery, on a scale hitherto unknown in the colony. A shaft of one hundred and twenty-five feet was sunk, partly in rock, and drifting 15 The first public proposal of a scheme for draining the Meadows was made in 1868, suggesting that the government should grant a long lease of ground equalling 400 claims, each 50 feet wide, and extending across the valley; the proposed company paying $100 for each claim. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Oct. 31, 1868. This proposition was submitted to a meeting of the miners on William Creek, but was objected to on the ground that it would monopolize too large an area. Id., July 17,1869. PROSPECTING EXPEDITIONS. 503 began in the direction of the old channel, which was struck after a run of one hundred and forty feet, yielding a prospect of twenty-five dollars, followed by good returns. The water soon compelled a suspension of operations, but they were renewed in June 1873, with a thirteen-inch pump, and a new double shaft was sunk.16 No important result followed, however, and in 1876 the Meadows drainage question was still a subject of agitation.17 In 1869 there had been a considerable improvement in the mining interest; Barkerville assumed greater importance than it had enjoyed before the fire of 1868; prospecting expeditions came prominently before the public, and quartz-mining began to be thought of. Among the claims still worked with success in 18 7 6 were those of the Forest Rose and Black Jack companies, which had commenced hydraulic mining in the hill, at the foot of the Canon, belonging to the same series of gravel deposits that formed the east side of the creek above it, and where the former company had 16 The government granted them a lease for 21 years, with the privilege of extending it for 10 years thereafter. IT. S. Commercial Rel., 1870, 231. The lease was signed on the payment of a bonus of $125 at the commencement, and $250 as rental annually thereafter; the ground extending from the Ballarat claim to Mosquito Creek, a distance of 4 miles, one mile or less in width. The company agreed to build a saw-mill and a ten-stamp quartz-mill, etc. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Aug. 3, 1870. Edgar Dewdney made surveys for the commencement of operations. Id., July 20,1870. The capital employed by Kurtz and Lane was about $75,000. This was all the capital invested by American citizens in this province, except a certain fluctuating amount by a branch office of the firm of Wells, Fargo, and Company. David Eckstein, United States Consul at Victoria, in Commercial Rel., 1871, 641. Langevin, the Canadian minister of public works, visited the Meadows in 1871. The ground, he says, yielded largely before it was abandoned the first time. The capital of the company was nominally $500,000. Langevin's Rept. Pub. Works, 1872, 7. After eighteen months of work the Lane and Kurtz Company suspended operations on account of the increased quantity of water. Commercial Rel, 1872, 495; Cariboo Sentinel, Nov. 2, 1872. After a short cessation they began pumping again,. June 27, .1873, with thirteen-inch pumps, and drained the works gradually. A new double shaft was sunk; a ditch a mile in length was constructed under a contract *by Holroyd and Company, and a saw-mill was completed. Cariboo Sentinel, June 21, 28, 1873. 17 A bed-rock flume was considered necessary two and a half miles in length, and costing $150,000. This should start on a grade from the falls of Valley Creek and strike the bed-rock of William Creek at the depth of 70 feet from the surface, opening to miners the most valuable portion of the creek between the Ballarat claim and the Canon, embracing the town of Barkerville. Bowron, in Min, Mines Rept, 1876, 419. 504 MINING IN CARIBOO. in 1871 already obtained rich yields.18 The Black Jack Company constructed a ditch a mile in length. Hydraulic mining was also proposed for the west side of William Creek, where good prospects had been found at Mink Gulch. The shallow diggings above the Canon were still worked, and the bed-rock laid bare for miles with more or less success. A costly yet profitable bed-rock flume occupied the ground nearest to the Canon. The representative settlement of this upper section was Richfield, the only other collection of houses j along the creek, besides Barkerville, dignified by the name of a town, and consisting of the courthouse or government building, a saw-mill, and a dozen other buildings. In 1865 the government granted $2,500 for an expedition to prospect the Bear River country, and to the north-east of William Creek, but seven weeks' search failed to develop anything of value, and the conclusion was formed that further prospecting must be directed to the north-west. Among the prospecting movements, therefore, which in 1867 were made from William Qreek in search of new fields, several took the direction of William River. On this route lay Mosquito Creek, five miles below Barkerville, which had been prospected in 1863-4, and had now six companies at work. Their receipts for the season were $1,000 and upward, the Minnehaha and Rocking yielding from twenty-five to fifty ounces per week. In 1868, the Minnehaha returned three hundred and twenty-four ounces to one pick in a week.19 To the north-west lay Sugar Creek, where the coarse, well- washed gravel deposits lying on a hard blue slate were found to yield fairly. Four miles beyond this, Ur- quhart and party named Mustang Creek, and took up a discovery claim, which, in September 1867, yielded 18 The Forest Rose, in 1871, produced in a week, during Langevin's visit, 203 ounces, and in another week 245 ounces. Langevin's Rept. Pvb. Works, 1871 7 ^Harnett's Lectures, 1867, 24; Victoria Weekly Colonist, Sept. 3, 1867. and March 31, 1868; Cariboo Sentinel, Aug. 19, Oct. 14, 1865. THE BALD MOUNTAINS. 505 from eight to ten dollars a day to the man.20 The report hereof attracted more miners, and fine gold was found upon all the bars of Willow River, which ran longitudinally through the rich rocks of the Bald Mountain zone; one company sank a shaft in search of the deep gravels, but after descending some fifty feet, with alternate drifting along a pitching bed-rock, the water compelled them to abandon the work. Good prospects were found, however, and efforts were made to form a company with more funds, wherewith to prosecute the search for the deep deposits; but the miners failed to respond.21 In the region east of the Bald Mountains were several other less prominent creeks and gulches, as McArthur, Steven, Begg, Whipsaw, and Pate, mined in 1875-7,22 besides considerable rivers which remained undeveloped on account of their remote situation. In the list might be included the diggings on Clearwater, and the upper north Thompson, referred to in a preceding chapter,23 and rediscovered by the packers of Selwyn's Rocky Mountain geological exploring party.24 The position of the latter region upon the map indicates an area of still wholly un- 20 Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 5, 1867. It was also called Beaver Creek on account of the numerous beavers. The gravel-deposits, at times only eight feet deep, and lying upon a hard blue slate, resembled those of Sugar Creek, with an abundance of water. Cariboo Sentinel, quoted in Victoria Colonist, Sept. 23, 1867. 21 Cariboo Sentinel, Oct. 7, 1867. Subscriptions were made in 1868 to the extent of $6,000, where the matter rested. The intention was to sink shafts and then drift until the main deep channel was found. Victoria Daily Colonist, Jan. 7, 1868. The scheme was revived in 1872, in the form of a proposition for a grant of mining ground, and in August 1872, resolutions were passed at Barkerville recommending the project, with the condition that bonds should be given by the company for the performance of certain work. Victoria Colonist, Aug. 18, 1872. 22 See tabular statement of claims, yield, and population, note 50, this chapter. 23 Mentioned by Gov. Douglas, as reported by the Indians in 1861, and located on his mining map. British Columbia Papers, iv. 54. The Orr prospecting expedition in May 1865 ascended from Kamloop as far as the forks of the Clearwater, without finding anything of value. Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 30,1865. mm 2* Donald McFee, an old Californian and Cariboo miner attached to Selwyn's party, reported ' big diggings' yielding coarse gold fifty miles from Clearwater River, in the same range of mountains that strike through the Cariboo mines. Cooney's Report, Sept. 23d, in Victoria Daily Colonist, Oct. 8, 1871. 506 MINING IN CARIBOO. developed mining country in the Cariboo zone, twice the size of that hitherto occupied by the miners, not to mention the region within the Rocky Mountains proper. Crossing to the western slopes of the Cariboo Bald Mountains we find the principal mining district upon the Lightning and Swift River branches of Cottonwood River, and the most important camps on Van Winkle and Lowhee creeks, with a history parallel to that of Antler and William creeks. The valley of Lightning Creek was explored early in 1861 by three prospectors, Bill Cunningham, Jack Hume, and Jim Bell, who first descended to Jack of Clubs Creek, and thence struck southward over the forest-covered mountains. The hardships encountered in descending the steep banks of the creek evoked from Cunningham the expression, "Boys, this is lightning;" whereupon his companions jocosely accepted this as the name of the stream.25 After a rough journey they were obliged to fall back upon their base of supplies at Antler Creek, without discovering the riches which shortly afterward placed Lightning Creek among the famous localities of Cariboo. In July 1861 Ned Campbell and his companions opened a rich claim several hundred yards above the site of the town of Van Winkle, known as the second canon, from which they took out seventeen hundred ounces in three days' washing.26 A great rush followed 25 John Evans, in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 10. This story Evans, the mining surveyor of Lightning Creek, doubtless obtained from the explorers themselves. Taliesin Evans varies the account by attributing the remark to the occurrence of one of the terrific thunder-storms common at certain seasons in the Cariboo Mountains. T. Evans, in Overland Monthly, March 1870, 262. 26 Ball, the assistant gold commissioner, reported that Ned Campbell's claim yielded 900 ounces one day, 500 ounces on another, and 300 ounces on a third day. Douglas' Despatch, Oct. 24, 1861, in B. C. Papers, iv. 61. The opening of Campbell's claim cost $25,000, but it yielded $100,000 in three months. Brown's Essay, 31. The discovery was on the later Spruce Company's ground, covering Ned Campbell's and the Whitehall claim adjoining him, which yielded $200,000 together. Overland Monthly, March 1870, 262. It was reported that Ned Campbell and his friends took out two ounces to the panful, and washed out $1,100 in a day, almost as soon as they commenced to work. Hazlitt's Cariboo, 125. LAST CHANCE AND LIGHTNING. 507 this discovery, particularly to Van Winkle Creek, where 2,000 feet at the lower end yielded from $100 to $250 a day to the man, through the season. Up the creek the lead disappeared. The total product of this stream in October 1876 was $500,964 from 1,600 feet of ground running with the creek, and varying from 200 to 300 feet in width. The diggings on Last Chance Creek, another tributary of Lightning Creek, near Van Winkle, were likewise opened in 1861. The Discovery Company, consisting of four men, took out forty pounds of gold in one day, and the yield that season, from half a mile of the creek, was at least $250,000. The Chis- holm, Davis, and Anderson tributaries, near the same place, yielded also quite a quantity of gold from their shallow parts.27 The second season on Lightning Creek yielded comparatively little, for the gravel, being loose and porous, was difficult to work, though the pay deposit was only from eight to thirty feet below the surface.28 From Eagle Creek to the Water Lily claim every foot of ground was occupied, and shafts were sunk in many places; but they all proved unsuccessful owing to the inefficiency of the draining machinery, and after two more seasons of disastrous trial, in the autumn of 1864 they were all abandoned. In 1870, the Spruce, then called the Davis, as well as the Ross, Lightning, Van Winkle, Vancouver, and Victoria companies resumed work by sinking shafts into the deep channel, and with the aid of improved machinery and methods the water was controlled. The last three companies, situated below the town of Van Winkle, effected their object by sinking through the bed-rock at the side of the creek, and thence drifting into the channel. At the same time a costly 'bed-rock drain' was opened at the lower end, of the diggings. The developments made underground at different times proved the ex- 27Dawson on Mines, 7; John Evans, in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 10. 28 Brown's Essay, 31. 5<>8 MINING IN CARIBOO. istence of separate old "channels at different elevations, consequently of different ages.29 As a result of this successful engineering feat fresh localities were opened for a distance of five miles along the creek, and gold began to flow again to some extent, the total yield of thirteen claims amounting in November 1875 to $2,179,272, of which the Victoria produced $451,642, the Van Winkle $363,983, and the Vancouver $274,190.30 But this showing was by no means so satisfactory as it seemed, for it embraced only the successful companies, and did not point out the expenses, which were very large, amounting in many claims to from $40,000 to $70,000.31 Quite a number of fortunes were paid out, in fact, on inefficient machinery, and in battling with excessive difficulties of ground and water to reach the rich strata from which a few were drawing large returns, while others were doomed to comparative disappointment. Both the expenditure and the yield served, however, to resuscitate the district, and by 1875 the diggings and towns on Lightning Creek, Van Winkle, and Stanley had taken the first place in Cariboo for production, prosperity, and population, while William 29 The Butcher and Discovery claims were on a bench at a considerable height above the present channel, opposite the South Wales claim, working below it. Similarly the Dunbar and El Dorado deposits were on a high bench of the bed-rock opposite the Perseverance and Ross claims, working the deep channel. 30 In nine months the Van Winkle, Victoria, and Vancouver mines alone yielded about $500,000, of which $218,262, came from the Van Winkle. The whole of William Creek during the same time produced only $68,000, a third of which was extracted at Conklin Gulch. The total amounts yielded by the thirteen leading claims from the renewal of mining operations to November 1, 1875, were approximately as follows: Dutch and Siegel mines, now the Preseverance claim, $130,000; Dunbar, $30,000; Discovery and Butcher, $120,000; Campbell and Whitehall, $200,000; South Wales, $141,531; lightning, $153,962; Point, $136,625; Spruce, $99,908; Costello, $20,476; Vulcan, $56,955; Vancouver, $274,190; Victoria, $451,642; Van Winkle, $303,988; total, $2,179,272. Min. Mines Rept, 1875,11. In 1871 the South Wales Company produced during the last three weeks of Aug. 328, 215, and 256 ounces of gold respectively. Langevin's Rept. Pub. Works Dept, 1872, 7. During 1872 a number of claims on Lightning Creek continued to yield handsomely. D. Eckstein, U. S. Consul, in Commercial Rel, 1872, 495. 31 One third of the money would have been enough in most cases had the companies possessed machinery of sufficient capacity at the commencement, but they were mostly poor, coping with enormous difficulties in their struggle for existence. John Evans, in Min. Mines Rept., 1875, 11. LOWHEE CREEK. 509 Creek, with its principal town of Barkerville, had fallen into decay. The southern branch of Cottonwood Biver had also a rich district on Lowhee Creek, one of its head-waters, which at one time promised to rival William Creek. Among its first locators was Bichard Willoughby, an Englishman, who from July to September 1861 worked a claim having a blue slate bedrock within four feet of the surface, and obtained as much as 84 ounces in one day, the latter yield being $1,000 a week. The Jordan and Abbott claims were at about the same time producing 80, 90, and 100 ounces daily,32 and Patterson with his brother took out $10,- 000 in five weeks, one day yielding 73 ounces, partly in nuggets up to ten ounces in weight. Notwithstanding these and other good yields, the creek did not attract, the attention that might have been expected, partly owing to the rich discoveries elsewhere, and their greater accessibility to travel. The developments of 1863-4 excited a little more interest when the Sage-Miller claim, for instance, yielded for a considerable time at the rate of 300 and 400 ounces a day. After being worked profitably for nearly two seasons, it still continued to yield 80 ounces daily.33 The deposits were evidently not of even value, for the mining population, which was never very large, fell off gradually after this season, and little effort was made to bring in water for sluicing purposes. The Vaughan-Sweeney ditch, carrying one hundred and eighty inches from iptony Gulch, partially supplied this want in the autumn of 1865, but the following season did not prove sufficiently remunerative, and in 1867 most of the claims were allowed to fall into the hands of the Chinese, whose earnings could never be ascertained.34 Canon Creek, a small tributary on the left 32 Patterson found 195 ounces, the result of a day's work by four men. Haz- Utt's Cariboo, 124-5; Douglas' Despatch, Sept. 16, 1861, in B. C. Papers, iv, 58. 33 Macfie's V. I. andB. C, 249. 84 The Calaveras Company in August 1867 washed out 100 ounces in 4 days. Another obtained 55 ounces in a week. Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 3, 1867. There was in 1866 a population of 56 white men and 21 Chinese on the creek. New Westminster Herald, July 24, 1866. 510 MINING IN CARIBOO. bank of the Fraser, midway between the mouth of the Quesnel and Fort George, formed the extreme north-western limit of the Cariboo region. Prospectors were probably acquainted with the creek at an early date, but the first reports of diggings were made in 1865.35 The following season Hixon's party of five men ascended it for twenty-six miles to a small tributary which was named after the leader. Obtaining good prospects, they formed two companies and brought in ditches to work ground which yielded from forty to sixty-five cents to the pan.36 In 1867 the whites abandoned the main creek to the Chinese, and occupied Fery Creek tributary, where the shallow diggings yielded from six to eight dollars a day.37 Canon Creek tributaries were still occupied in 1875, and worked with the aid of ditches.38 Although the yield was unimportant, the stream excited some interest by the indication it gave of strata formations different from those of central Cariboo, as exemplified by false bed-rocks.39 Of still greater interest was the discovery by Hixon's party, in 1866, of gold quartz, which was soon found to 35 The approach to the Canon Creek appears to have been made by way of Willow River, as the diggings when first reported were described to be ' ten miles from Beaver Pass. Ten men were on the ground in 1865. Cariboo Sentinel, quoted in Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 4, 1865. 36 Finding good ground, they at first worked the banks of Hixon Creek while the water was high. The richness of the placers discovered was sufficient to enable the owners of claims to pay wages of $10 a day. The placer- mining operations began by finding prospects of $1 and $1.25 to the pan. In a place 2J feet by 10 feet $76 was taken out in one day. Repts. ofWaldron and Hixon, in Victoria Colonist, July 3, 31, 1866. 37 The main creek was occupied by 150 Chinese. Cariboo Sentinel and the Victoria Colonist, July 23, 1867. 38 Russian Creek does not appear upon the record till 1875. It is described as located nine miles north of Beaver Pass. A prospect was obtained^ there in the autumn" of 1874 which was deemed sufficiently good to justify bringing in a ditch, which was duly completed ready for the hydraulic machinery. Cariboo Sentinel, March 27, 1875. 39 On all of the lower part of Hixon Creek, including the Blue Lead Company's ground, and half a mile beyond to the Go-ahead Company's ground, the i bed-rock' was a ' soft sandstone,' supposed to have gravel under it. Victoria Colonist, July 31, 1866. On Fery Creek there was also a 'false bedrock,'described as a kind of lava. The miners never penetrated through these sedimentary strata, but contented themselves with cleaning up the ' scraggly' gold of local origin which the creeks had concentrated upon then* surfaces. Id., July 23, 1867. THE SHORT SEASONS. 511 extend on all sides, some of it in apparently well- defined ledges so as to justify a systematic development thereof.40 Among the elements which governed mining events in the Cariboo region were the comparative inaccessibility of the diggings, and the shortness of the open season, alternating with the ' close season/ the severe winter; but it has been seen that wherever a sufficient drainage could be provided by bed-rock drains, or by means of sufficiently powerful pumping machinery, the conditions of the country permitted underground work, and to this the severity of the climate proved no obstacle. So rich were the concentrations on the bed-rock of the old channels, that drifting for them was indeed profitable to a degree probably never equalled in any other gold-mining country. They lay in heaps at the angles, and in crevices and pockets, on the bed-rock of the buried streams; but in the smaller streams particularly the leads were subject to abrupt changes in level and direction that baffled the most experienced. This inequality of distribution," caused partly by glaciers and slides, was in many cases more apparent than real,41 however, the difficulty calling simply for systematic working and a sufficient expenditure of money. A layer of clay everywhere covering the deep channels protected the subfluvial drifts along the old beds, from what would otherwise have amounted to an extraordinary and ruinous influx of wIn 1866 about $500 worth of coarse Canon Creek gold, which had been little subjected to the action of water, was exhibited at the Bank of British Columbia in Victoria. It was obtained from a streak three feet below the surface and was mixed with fragments of quartz. Victoria Colonist, May 29, 1866. The quartz ledges for which the creek afterwards became noted were discovered by Hixon's party three miles below their diggings. Report of Hixon to Judge Spalding, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 3, 1866. 41 If the streams had run in exactly the same channels as they did when the gold came down, the matter would have been simple enough, but great changes had taken place since then. The changes here referred to were due partly to the slides which had changed the position of the stream-beds, but they were more commonly, perhaps, the result of glaciers occupying the canons after the old concentrations had been deposited. Milton and Cheadle's Northwest Passage by Land, 368. 512 MINING IN CARIBOO. water, and rendered underground placer-mining altogether impracticable. On William Creek, and nearly everywhere in Cariboo, the pay strata consisted of blue clay, with various admixtures.42 In connection with the difficulties mentioned came this, that the rich deposits were, as a rule, from twelve to one hundred feet beneath the surface, under the beds or banks of streams, frequentlv running through swamps and lakes, and on the beds of former lakes. Such a state of things could not fail to render the field unattractive to individual adventurers, since prospecting without abundant resources became unprofitable.48 These gravel-deposits on the hills gave rise to the reiterated hopes of developments like those of the old river hill-gravels of California, but they often proved vain,44 because the altitude of the gravel-layers was not the same. In some instances, as on Wuliam Creek, there were two distinct leads with different qualities of gold, 42 On sinking a shaft through the alluvial deposits of the stream-beds of Cariboo, the miner comes to a clay stratum which is sometimes as much as 3 feet in thickness. 'This stratum of clay was a great benefit to the miners, being a protection against water.' Under the clay was the older alluvial deposit varying from 6 inches to 18 feet in thickness, in which lay the gold. Fery's Gold Searches, MS., 2, 3. The pay dirt on William Creek was generally from 3 to 5 feet in thickness, and was worked out in low galleries. Milton and Cheadle's Northwest Passage by Land, 373. In the Steele claim on William Creek it was 6 feet thick, and consisted of a blue clay mixed with decomposed slate and gravel. Douglas, in Rowlings' Confederation, 118. The gold in Cariboo was found ' in the bluish clay which is on and in the slaty bottom sometimes as far as a foot deep; streaks of yellowish clay are also found, which are sometimes very rich.' Brown's Essay, 29. On William Creek it was 'scattered through hard blue clay in pieces weighing from 50 cents to $5.' It cost about $4,000 in 1862 to sink a shaft to the bed-rock, less than 100 feet. Courtney's Min. B. C, MS., 6. 43 Much faith was entertained among the miners in the richness of the deep ground on Willow River, Jack of Clubs, Antler, Cunningham, and other favorably situated creeks; and claims that were well opened in many instances paid steadily as much as $500 a day to the man. The Nason Company, on the other hand, expended $30,000 to test the deep ground on Antler Creek up to 1875 without success. John Bowron, in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 12. 44 The great problem of finding gold in the hills was solved this year, wrote *B. J).,' Barkerville cor., Oct. 23d, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, Nov. 7, 1865. Another writer more definitely expressed his belief that hill-diggings would be found along a supposed ancient stream running from the Bald Mountains across the head of McCallum Gulch through the hill on the east side of William Creek, thence to the middle or upper portion of Conklin Gulch, behind the line of the United and Aurora claims, and on to the Forest Rose and Prairie Flower claims at the Meadows, formerly a.lake, or one of a series of large lakes. Harnett's Lectures, 16, 17. PRODUCT. 513 below the level of the present stream,45 and it was observed in most mining operations upon the gold- bearing creeks of Cariboo that the paying ground was usually limited to an area of a mile and a half to two miles along the centre of their course, or within that area, at least the principal mining was done, unlike that of the gold-bearing streams of California, which paid throughout from source to mouth.46 The rocks of the Bald Mountains, consisting of metamorphic clay slate traversed by broad bands impregnated with auriferous quartz, were indeed only a sample of numerous other zones in the slaty gold- bearing rocks of the northern plateau, to be brought into prominence as soon as the progress of developments would permit47—developments which during the two decades commencing with the discovery of gold in British Columbia were retarded chiefly by the great cost of supplies and transportation. Among those who went to Cariboo in 1861, one third, according to Macfie's estimate, made independent fortunes, another third netted several hundred pounds sterling, and the remaining third returned from the mines wholly unsuccessful.48 All who were 45 The one contained gold alloyed with a good deal of silver, the other gold of a higher color and much purer—both battered and worn to such a degree as to imply transportation for some distance. The gold of Lowhee Creek was less worn than that of William Creek; that of Lightning Creek was more so, and found in smaller particles. Milton and Cheadle's Northwest Passage by Land, 367-8. A table of assays of gold from different portions of Cariboo, made by Agrell at Portland, Oregon, in 1861, showed the average to be $16 to the ounce. Hazlitt's Cariboo, 138. The gold from the several creeks of Cariboo differed, however, both in appearance and value. On William Creek it was smooth, water-worn, and largely alloyed with silver. On Lowhee Creek, five miles distant, the golden particles had a more crystalline structure, were exceedingly pure, and worth $2 an ounce more than on William Creek. Lieut Palmer, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., xxxiv. 191. 46This 'singular and reliable fact' was attributed to glacial action by the local observers, some of whom supposed that the old deep channels were eroded by the action of ice. There was no regular stratification of the gravel as in California. The clay of the bottom varied from light blue to very dark. Allan's Cariboo, MS., 9. 47 Murchison, Forbes, Hector, Bauerman, Selwyn, and Dawson have written more or less about the position of these rocks in connection with their gold-bearing character. i8Macfie^s V. I. and B. C, 74-5. Hist. Brit, Col. 33 514 MINING IN OAMBOO. interrogated by Governor Douglas in October 1861, in regard to the amount of their earnings, mentioned $2,000 as the lowest, while many had made $10,000 in the course of the summer. Bose and McDonald, the first discoverers, both declared that in their opinion the new diggings were at least as rich, and probably richer, than those of California or Australia; and Major Downie, of Downieville, California, went so far as to say that there was nothing in California to be compared to William Creek; while Lieutenant Palmer quoted experienced Californian and Australian miners to the effect that on William Creek more gold had been extracted from an area of three miles than from a corresponding space in any other country.48 General statistics show that in twenty years a total product of between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000 was obtained from half a dozen principal creeks within a region of rotten shale less than fifty miles square; and the average population for the same period was probably about l^OO.60 49 Lieutenant Palmer, in Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour,, xxxiv. 190; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., i. 146. Judge Begbie, writing from Quesnel forks under date of Sept. 25, 1861, said, in regard to the quantity of gold-dust in the hands of the miners: ' I have no doubt that there is little short of a ton lying at the different creeks. I hear that Abbott's and Steele's claims (William Creek) are working better than ever—30 to 40 pounds a day each. They reckon rich claims as often by pounds as ounces now; it must be a poor claim that is measured by dollars.. .The gold is a perfect nuisance, as they have to carry it to their claims every morning, and watch it while they work, and carry it back again—sometimes as much as two men can lift—to their cabins at night, and watch it while they sleep.' B. C. Papers, iv. 60. The detailed statements of rich yields from individual claims, which have been quoted in the present chapter, could be multiplied indefinitely, and in most instances verified beyond question. Jules Fery, one of the miners, informed the writer that in the month of September or October 1861 he saw taken out of one claim 104 lbs. of gold, the result of twenty hours' work. Fery's Gold Searches, MS., 2. 60 The population of Cariboo in July 1861 was estimated by Governor Dong- las at 1,500. British Columbia Papers, iv. 53. That was the figure accented by the London Times' correspondent with independent sources of information. It was at least doubled and probably quadrupled during the next few years. U. S. Consul Frances in 1862 estimated the total numbers in the country, including Cariboo, at 15,000, while Mr Fery guessed at 20,000, both exaggerated figures. In 1865,1 find the Colonist gives the total of Cariboo miners at 1,385, of which 1,000 were on William Creek, 68 on Lowhee, 60 on Burns, 15 on Cunningham, 30 on Antler and Stevens, 100 on Lightning, and 120 more on other creeks. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Oct. 31, 1865. The records of the minister of mines showed the total population of Cariboo, including children, females, and Chinese, to have been, in 1875, 1,305, in 1876, 1,292, and in 1877,1,891. COST OF SUPPLIES. 515 After 186.1 the facilities for transportation were greatly improved. In the winter of 1861-2 freight by dog-sleds between Alexandria and Antler alone was 30 cents a pound, and flour sold at Quesnel forks for $72 a barrel, beans 45 cents, and bacon 68 cents, a pound. On the completion of the branch wagon- road in 1865, freight from Yale to William Creek was reduced to 7 and 12 cents a pound, according to the The winter population in 1864-5 was between 400 and 500 on William, and from 30 to 40 on Lowhee Creek. Id., Jan. 10, 1865. About 1,000 persons wintered in and about Cariboo in 1866-7. Mining and Scientific Press, Jan. 12, 1867. The gold product of Cariboo in 1861 was estimated by the Victoria Daily Press at $2,000,000, and by the London Times correspondent at $2,291,- 409. The latter figure was obtained by estimating that there were 400 claim owners who cleared $600,000; 79 miners who cleared $926,680; and 1,021 laborers at $7 a day, whose share was $764,729; total, $2,291,409. In 1871, Langevin, the Canadian minister of public works, placed the total yield of Cariboo at $1,047,245. Rept. Pub. Works, 1872-7. After 1875 the statistical reports published by the minister of mines furnished authentic figures which showed a considerable reduction; for 1875, $766,248, of which $500,000 came from Lightning Creek; for 1876, $443,843, showing a falling off, chiefly in Lightning Creek; and for 1877, $404,772. The following summary is compiled from the tabular sheets"accompanying the reports of 1875-7, giving the product of each creek: MINES IN THE CARIBOO DISTRICT. Lightning. Burns Nelson Cottonwood SwiftB William C o nklin Gulch Stouts Gulch Grouse Creek Various Creeks—as Lowhee, Jack of Clubs, Mosquito, McArthur, Antler N. and S. Forks Quesnel... Keithley Creek Harvey, Snowshoe, etc Totals $513,527 10,990 9,750 5000 3,300 68,760 41,200 4,200 4,414 26,400 40,040 25,515 13,162 $766,258 $137,306 82,460 $443,837 $222,017 $404,772 (a) Including also Cunningham, Stevens, Beggs, and Whip Saw creeks. (b) Including Coulters, Dragon, Rocham, Davis, Peters Cafion, and Deadwood creeks. (c) Including Pate Creek. (d) Including Perkins Gulch, Last Chance, Anderson, Chisholm, Davis, Coulter. and Canon creeks. 516 MINING IN CARIBOO season, and prices in Cariboo became henceforth not only more moderate, but were better regulated, while capital and labor stood comparatively secure.51 Of the men who explored, mined, traded, and lived in the Cariboo region during the period described, two thirds were British subjects, according to Douglas* estimates for 1863-6, but the rest were as cosmopolitan in mixture as the early influx to California.52 Fortunes and misfortunes commingled made these people generous and hospitable in a high degree, always ready to share with an impecunious friend or stranger, while as a mass they were probably the reckless and ungodly creatures that the Reverend Mr Brown depicts them.53 The old and well-known classic and time-honored traits of the animal man came to the surface once more, developing characters that fitted into the remote and isolated forest and lake country of the far northern Cordilleras. "I know of no place in the world," says a witness, "where more wit is required, or where a larger amount of small cunning is the sine qua non for getting on in life, than in Cariboo. | Without $500 to buy into a good claim, and without the necessary judgment to buy shrewdly, a man had a hard battle to avoid ruin.54 Winter life had its noteworthy features. During the first few 51 In November 1864 wages at Barkerville were $10 a day; flour was 32 cents a pound, bacon 50 cents, potatoes 20 cents. Macfie's V, I. and B, C, 252. These prices were rarely approached after the completion of the wagon- road. In the spring of 1865 the introduction of the new freight tariff looking to the completion of the wagon-road was made the occasion tor a ' corner' in flour, cigars, sugar, champagne, etc., every purchasable article of which was bought in from the small dealers. The Hudson's Bay Company in the person of Mr Finlayson made arrangements in 1867 for opening stores at Quesnelmouth and Barkerville. New Westminster Examiner, June 5, 1867; Hazlitt's Cariboo, 115. ^Private Papers, MS., i. 152. The following list of shareholders of the Ericsson Company, on William Creek, though not altogether an index of the prevailing nationality, will so/ve to show the varied origin of the community: John Nelson, foreman, Norway; John Taggart, Ireland; Alex.^ Ericsson, Sweden; Peter Ericsson, Sweden; Alex. McKenzie, Scotland; Ephraim Harper, Canada; E. B. Hilt, Canada; David Grier, Wales; Evan Davis, Wales; John Perrin, United States; Samuel Thompson, Norway; Peter Peterson, Denmark; W. J. Miller, United States; Charles Taft, United States; M. Smith, United States. . _ <£ ~__ 63Fifth Rept. Col. Miss., 1863, 6; Courtney's Min., B, C, MS., 11. 54 Poole's Queen Charlotte Island, London, 1872, 98. The ups and downs MINING LAWS. 517 years of mining, in 1861 and 1862, underground working had not yet begun, and as it was too cold to work in the mountain creeks, many of the miners who retained their cabins on the Fraser retired thither to work the bars during the low water of winter, while others who had money made it a rule to spend the season in Victoria or San Francisco, often in reckless debauchery.55 Falling into the custom of the country, originally from necessity, the mining laws provided for the 'laying over' of all claims during the inclement season, under which arrangement miners were permitted to absent themselves without losing their title. Although work underground soon became a common winter occupation,66 yet one third or one half of the population continued to leave for the winter; freighting of life, the glories of success, and the power and ^dispensability of gold are aptly depicted in the following verse: I kent a body make a strike- He looked a little lord! An' had a clan o' followers Amang a needy horde. Whane'er he'd enter a saloon You'd see the barkeep smile— His lordship's humble servant he Without a thocht o' guile! A twal' months past an' a' is gane, Baith freends an' brandy-bottle; An' noo the puir soul's left alane Wi' nocht to weet his throttle! Jeames' Letter to Sawnie in Fife. James Anderson, William Creek, 1868. 55 A Cariboo man, having made $30,000 or $40,000 in the season of 1862, went to Victoria to enjoy himself. At a saloon he treated all he could find to all the champagne he could make them drink. The champagne held out longest, all of the company gathered from within and from without being unable to consume the barkeeper's stock. Our man then ordered every glass remaining in the establishment to be filled, and with one grand sweep of his cane sent them spinning off the counter. Still the champagne held out. To win his victory over the last hamper he jumped upon it, cutting his shins. Having still a handful of gold pieces with him, he walked up to a large mirror worth several hundred dollars adorning one end of the room, and to prove that gold was sovereign of all things, he dashed a shower of his heavy pieces into the face of his own image, shivering it to fragments. The next year he' was working as a laborer. Milton and Cheadle, Northwest Passage by Land, 370. Three others with * an enormous luggage of gold' received on their arrival at San Francisco, in 1863, special notice from the newspapers. They were Eraser River miners of 1858. From Hill Bar they had gone to William Creek to work unsuccessfully for seventeen months; but finally they took out $250,000 in two months, and their claim was still good for $100 a day to the share. S. F. Bulletin, Sept. 9, 1863; Fery's Gold Searches, MS., 3. ^The following companies on William Creek worked throughout the winter of 1866-7, with good success; the Caledonia, Last Chance, Cameron, 518 MINING IN CARIBOO. ceased; the mails were periodically interrupted by snows, and even the newspaper hibernated till spring.57 The remainder set about to make themselves comfortable for the season, and their snugly thatched and mud-plastered log-cabins, with large cheerful fireplaces, aided to impart to winter life in Cariboo a social and hospitable cast, not equally developed in more southern latitudes.58 With sociability came a peaceful intercourse which became more and more manifest by the gradual disuse of carrying weapons, which had been the custom, on the road at least, in early days.59 Gambling followed as usual in the wake of the diggers, and piles of gold might be seen changing hands over green tables to the strain of merry music, particularly at such places as Antler and William creeks. A check was early placed on this vice, but it continued, nevertheless, to flourish in private.80 Prince of Wales, Rangoon, Wide West, Henrietta, and Forward, Well Mary Ann, Brouse, Dutch Bill, Beale, Steadman, and Six-toed Pete. The Forest Rose was worked during the greater part of the winter with a rocker, and declared a dividend, after paying the wages of 11 men, of $140 to the share. Cariboo Sentinel, May 6, 1867. 57 The Sentinel announced Oct. 28, 1867, that the mining season was about to close, although a few companies were still at work under the drawbacks of frosty weather, and that the publication of the paper would accordingly be suspended until spring. 68 Many were the * yarns' evoked by the wild surroundings and the dancing flames. On a lonely mountain trail near Barkerville, in 1865, an inexplicable tramping down of the snow was observed by the passers-by from time to time. No one had ever seen or been able to trace in these phenomena any connection or agency of flesh and blood; but near the spot lay a short log, and the snow had no sooner obliterated the signs than numan footsteps reappeared, and the log was found in a different position. An investigation was finally held, and disclosed the simple fact that the tramping was produced by an eccentric clergyman, in quest of exercise. This discovery spoiled a congenial mystery. Victoria Weekly Colonist, March 21,1865. The Minnehaha claim on Mosquito Gulch, William Creek, gained the notoriety in 1867 of being haunted by a ghost. Long, weary, and costly delvings by the plucky individuals of the company had failed to develop anything. At last they struck the lead, taking out eight ounces of gold from the bottom of their shaft, and the ghostly incidents were forgotten. Cariboo Sentinel, Sept. 3, 1867. 59 In the mines proper, nobody went armed, even in the early days. The custom of carrying weapons fell into disuse with the disappearance of 'the chink of money and the sound of gamblers' voices' in public places. Fery's Gold Searches, MS.; 1, 2. 60 As late as 1868, our Barkerville poet made mention of the fact that— Amang the hunders livin' here, There's barely ten per cent That shun the vice o* cards an' dice, Such is the natural bent. Jeames' Letier to Saumie. MINING SOCIETY. 519 Missionaries did not fail to observe that miners were as much in need of their services as the natives, and as early as 1861 clergymen began to visit Cariboo every summer, under the auspices of the Columbia mission of the Episcopal church. But the field proved unprofitable, since the miners contributed but lightly, and it was abandoned after a few years.61 One cause of the failures lay doubtless in the lack of good female influence. Not a single married woman lived in Cariboo even as late as 1867, and the sex was represented merely by a few single females, and some of them disreputable.62 In the absence of so essential a complement to respectable society, the less refined pleasures naturally predominated, and the time not devoted to gambling was often spent over the bottle at private carousal or at public dinners, and with the votaries of Terpsichore, gathered in the temples of the hurdy- gurdies, on whose lives hung many a whisper and many a romantic tale.63 A relieving feature of Barkerville was the public reading-room, which in 1865 was already comfortably fitted up, and well patronized. Here also the talented portion of the community enlivened the long winter nights with public debates, recitations, plays, and musical performances for the amusement of themselves and the rest.6* 61 The Rev. R. C. Lundin Brown lived for some time during 1862-3 in a miner's cabin at Cameronton, William Creek, suffering great hardships. Finding the miners somewhat indifferent to religion, he attacked the gamblers in their dens, but was ultimately obliged to withdraw from the field unsuccessful Brown's Essay, passim, and Fifth Rept. Col. Mission, 1863, 6-7. 62 Tenth Rept. Col. Mission, 1868, 25-6. 63 Bonnie are the hurdies 0! The German hurdy-gurdies 0! The daftest hour that e'er I spent Was dancing wi' the_hurdies 0! 's' Letter to f 64 A manuscript weekly newspaper conducted by McLaren and Anderson in 1866, and read on these occasions, gave great satisfaction, and afforded much amusement. Victoria Weekly Colonist, April 3, 1866. r CHAPTER XXVII. UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. 1864-1882. Columbia River Deposits—Fine-gold Theory—Ancient River-beds- Early Diggings — Kootenai Excitement — Wild Horse Creek— Saskatchewan Expedition—Perry Creek—Hydraulics—Subordinate Districts, Forty-nine Creek, Mooyie River — Big Bend — Routes and Influx—French, McCulloch, and Carnes Creeks- Later Exploration—Extent of the Auriferous Region—Terrace Gravels—Rock Creek—Okanagan and Similkameen Districts. The little flurry of the fur-hunters round Colville over the sprinkling of gold along the aboriginal highways, so long familiar to them, in a measure passed away, or was absorbed by intenser interest elsewhere until 1864, when it finally became respectably epidemic. Concerning this northern region, into which as by a divining-rod they had been led by their fine-gold theory, California's wise ones were somewhat puzzled. However true their speculations, which appeared, indeed, to be founded on fact, they seemed here at the north to fail in their application. A partial knowledge of the facts had raised in the breast of thirty thousand hopes of sluicing fortunes out of the river- banks of these northern latitudes, destined to be realized only by a few of the more patient. For here was to them an unknown and complex, scattering of gold-bearing rocks, where the newer and older gravels had been redistributed by the ice agency of the drift period. Here were ancient river-beds under a false bed-rock1 of bowlder, clay, and ancient (520) COLVILLE MINES. 521 river erosions deeper than the modern. Such ancient river gravels as were found were not capped in all cases or preserved by volcanic matter. If they were so preserved and tapped by modern streams, there was the drawback that the whole country was covered by a mantle of drift, hiding the lead from the prospector. If found, it was not provided with an outlet grade into the modern canons; so that mining had to be done underground with the aid of pumps and hoisting machinery. The richer gold-bearing rocks were remote from the coast, beyond rugged mountains more difficult to overcome than the Sierra Nevada of California. It was not possible for the prospectors, under such conditions of transportation as existed in British Columbia from 1858 to 1868, to remain long in the mountains under heavy costs for their supplies. The search was checked from the necessities of the case; yet the expectations which filled the country in 1858 proved necessarily to those who insisted on finding things otherwise than they were, an infatuation so stupendous that between Kern River and Gold Bluffs there never had been its equal. Mention has been made of the finding of grains of gold on the bank of the Columbia at Colville in 1855, and of the prospecting expedition in the same season by Angus McDonald's men, finding moderately remunerative diggings at the mouth of the Pend d'Oreille, near the boundary line; also of the communication of Douglas to the colonial office in 1856 announcing the working of diggings in the upper Columbia district yielding from ten to forty dollars a day to the man.1 During the Fraser River excitement in 1858-9, attention was diverted from the upper Columbia, and for several years little was done there; but the first flush over, developments above Colville on the Columbia and 1See chap, xx., this volume. 'This vicinity,' says Ross Browne, 'has attracted much attention as a gold-mining region since 1854.' Mineral Resources 1869,558. ' 522 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. its tributaries have a history parallel to that of the Fraser, and after 1861 to that of Cariboo, which overshadows all but the Kootenai and Big Bend excitements.2 Some rich specimens of quartz were brought to Victoria in 1859 by members of the British boundary commission from the head-quarters of Kootenai River. The placer gold in the basin of the upper Columbia was found on the bars and banks of the streams between latitude 49° and 51°, comprising, generally, shallow diggings not very rich, but extending over a large area. Miners having gradually worked up the valley of Kootenai River, rich diggings were at last discovered not far from the boundary line, which gave rise in 1863-4 to the Kootenai gold-mining excitement. Remote from Victoria as was this portion of the country, its mining operations were better known in, and were in fact tributary to, Oregon; yet many Victorians went thither, and some trade was carried in that direction in later times, notwithstanding the inconveniences of the route. But the Kootenai excitement was much less felt at Victoria than was subsequently that of the Big Bend country.8 Wild Horse Creek, or, in the early vulgar, Stud Horse Creek, the centre of the Kootenai mining dis- 2 On the discovery of the Fraser mines in 1858, all but a few of those who had been previously mining on the Columbia River bars transferred themselves into the valley of the Fraser, and the consequence was that developments in the Columbia basin were arrested for several years. Of what was done in this district between the Colville and Kootenai excitements the outside world heard little or nothing. Caribeo, as an extension of the Fraser excitement, made, upon all the loose population of the north-west, a second draft which was not to be resisted. Washoe and Esmeralda alone at this time furnished field enough for all the spare population and capital that California could afford. 3 The Kootenai mines were almost inaccessible, remote, and hidden in a romantic valley within the parallels of the Rocky Mountains, 70 or 76 miles above the Tobacco plains. The other districts of the upper Columbia, Okanagan, and Rock Creek, were also beset by unusual difficulties of communication from the direction of the Fraser. All the streams and mountain ranges of the nothern plateau, the latter often forest-covered, had to be crossed in succession. From the lower Columbia they were more remote, and separated by a wall of no small magnitude the boundary line, for it was the settled policy of the government at Victoria to block the way alone this line as far as possible east of the Cascade Mountains, in order to keep the territory and its trade within the control of the political and commercial capital of the province. KOOTENAI DIGGINGS. 523 trict, discovered in 1863, and which in 1864 became the site of an important camp, was a small tributary of the Kootenai River coming from the main Rocky Mountain range, fifty miles north of the boundary line. This name arose from the abundance of horses in the district. By May 1864, 400 miners had distributed themselves along the bars and canons of the creek, and more were on the way. Prospects were obtained there of $1 to the pan and of 25 cents to the shovel; nuggets were found in the gravel weighing from $2.50 to $78, and ordinary claims were paying $20 to $30 a day to the man.4 The excitement grew, and in August, Hudson's Bay Factor McKay reported 5,000 miners in the district, for whom provisions were being rushed in from the Dalles. This report was doubtless exaggerated, for in November it was asserted that only 800 to 900 remained, 500 of whom preferred to winter in the diggings,5 and trace the distribution of the gold-bearing rocks in the northern Rocky Mountain region.6 Mining experience in the Kootenai country the first year developed the fact that sluicing could be carried on for nine months in the year. Hill tunnels were in progress during the winter where pay had been struck, and Birch, the colonial secretary, who visited the region, reported very hopefully in regard to these hill deposits, one of which yielded dollar nuggets and prospects of seventy-five cents to two dollars a pan. Several companies late in the season of 1864 struck pay also on Toby Creek, and now Fisherville, the name given to the principal camp on the creek, began to figure in the chronicles, though the place was 4 Dawson on Mines, 38; B. C. Directory, 1863,200; Browne's Min. Resources, 652; Allan's Cariboo, MS., 11, 12; Walla Walla Statesman, Aug. 15, 22, 1863. 5 Kootenai had almost depopulated the Boise country. A. E. Riddle's Letter to Hilt Beachy, Victoria Colonist, June 28, Aug. 16, 1864. 6 Two roads to the mines leading respectively from the Columbia and Fraser passes were constructed the same year, in consequence of the rush. The first was a wagon-road leading from Colville to Pend d'Oreille, from which point the Oregon approach was by a mule-trail to Wild Horse Creek. The Hudson's Bay Company also opened a rough trail from Hope by way of Similkameen, Rock Creek, and Pend d'Oreille. 624 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. more often referred to under the general name of Kootenai. Diggings were also reported on the main upper Columbia, eighty to one hundred and twenty miles from Kootenai, paying from four to eight dollars a day; and at the crossing of the trail to Hope there were others said to equal Wild Horse Creek.7 In the early part of the season of 1865 Fisherville had a famine, but this was remedied by the arrival of the first supplies as soon as the roads were cleared of snow.8 Reinforcements also arrived, and by July a thousand men were said to be camped on and round Wild Horse Creek. The gold commissioner reported forty or fifty claims being worked on the creek, producing from one to three ounces to the hand with nuggets weighing several ounces. The Wild Horse Creek Ditch, just completed at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars, was carrying two thousand inches of water, and affording facilities for working a hundred claims.9 During the summer there was quite a stampede to Helena, in the Blackfoot country, and to the Saskatchewan and Big Bend, but many returned in October to work the well yielding though shallow surface diggings of Kootenai.10 7 Fred. White, in Victoria Colonist, Sept. 6, Nov. 22, Dec. 27,1864. During 1864 J. C. Haynes officiated as gold commissioner. In 1865 he was succeeded by Mr O'Reilly. The favorable conditions for agriculture and stock-raising together with the pleasing scenic aspect of the terraced valley of the Kootenai gave to the region attractions and advantages over many other mining districts in British Columbia. Farms were established on the terraces, and irrigation was resorted to in places, though this was not necessary on St Joseph Prairie. 8 A letter from Wild Horse Creek, dated May 4th, mentioned that provisions were very scarce, the miners living on hare, marten, and fish. All the powder and shot and fish-hooks in the camp were sold; those who had remained in the diggings were shut up all winter with inadequate supplies. When the first provisions arrived potatoes sold rapidly at $1 a pound, and flour at $1.25. 9 Mr Dewdney estimated that there were a thousand men on Wild Horse Creek at the end of July. VoweU's B. C, MS., 1,3; Vic. Col., Dec. 27, 1864, June 6/July 18, Aug. 8,1865; Cariboo Sentinel in Id., June 20,1865. Mr Lyon, a trader, reported in Oregon that Kootenai rivalled Cariboo; two men had taken out sixty pounds of gold in two days. 10 Victoria Colonist, Sept. 19,1865; West Columbian in Victoria Colonist, Nov. 7,1865. On the dry terraced plains of the mountain valleys bunch grass grew in abundance; and the Indians having large herds of horses they readily sold them to the miners, so that almost everyone owned a horse, and could move freely about. This led to a state of affairs very unsatisfactory to the gold TOWABD THE EAST. 525 The Blackfoot and Saskatchewan countries had for some time been reputed rich in gold, and a large number of miners was attracted to them, not only from Kootenai, but from Cariboo and other districts.11 A. G. Smith and several others, who in 1866 went to Helena in Montana, worked successfully until August, when an excitement was created about the Saskatchewan diggings, which fanned into action the general desire to prospect the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, opposite the upper Columbia. Smith set out at once with seven others, for Edmonton, by way of Kootenai Pass, and arrived there safely in thirty- eight days, despite the hostile Indians. The gold deposits were found scattered for a hundred miles above and below Edmonton upon the Saskatchewan bars, but these could be worked only for a short time in the spring and autumn, when the river was low and the yield was merely two dollars a day or less, with rockers.12 In 1866 Fisherville was pulled down for the purpose of working the ground on which it stood, and the operation is said to have been highly remunerative. commissioner, who was also the magistrate and peace officer of the district. If the lawless adventurer fell into trouble with the authorities he had only to saddle his horse and escape across the boundary into Idaho, or across the mountains into the country of the Blackfeet. A degree of freedom bordering on outlawry was the consequence. The route travelled from Victoria to Kootenai in 1865 was partly by steamer via Portland to White Bluffs, thence by land to Colville and on by the wagon road opened in 1864 from there to Pend d'Oreille. VoweU's B. C. Mines, MS., 1-3. 11 Sweeney of Cariboo went there and wrote back that he had made more money in the Blackfoot region during the season ' than anybody ever did in Cariboo.' Victoria Colonist, Oct. 31, 1865. 12 The Blackfeet were very troublesome away from the fort, and it was declared that they had killed as many as 300 of the over-venturesome miners and prospectors in the neighborhood of the Elk River and Fort Benton passes. Smith returned by the northern pass and reached New Westminster in April 1867. One of the members of Moberly's party of explorers for the railway, who went to the Rocky Mountains in June 1871, made a more thorough exploration of the gold-bearing country around Fort Edmonton, and reported that the gold extended fifty miles west and for four hundred miles to the east of the fort, all the bars of the Saskatchewan within that area containing auriferous deposits. This was nearly all fine gold, but the tributaries were also auriferous, and promised to contain heavier metal, while it was expected that quartz veins wouldbe discovered near the fort. New Westminster Examiner and Columbian quoted in Victoria Colonist, May 1, 7,1867; Campbell's Rept,, in Collingwood Bulletin, quoted in Victoria Colonist, May 19, 1872. 526 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. Hydraulic mining was carried on extensively after the completion of the large Victoria ditch, and yielded well; yet the prospects in general were not sufficiently bright to retain the large mass of miners. The diggings, though extensive, were shallow and soon exhausted, and white miners were content to leave them to the less exacting Chinese.13 In 1868 mining gained a fresh impetus, and several claims sold by Johnson, the expressman, in 1866, for $75 were now resold for $1,200, while the whole hill near Fisherville was covered by fresh locations of mining ground.14 Chief among the discoveries in Kootenai district next to Wild Horse Creek, and twenty miles from it, was Perry Creek, a branch of St Mary's River, sometimes called New Kootenai mines. It was opened in 1867 by Dan Kennedy, Little Sullivan, and a half- breed named Prank Perry, who had been fitted out by the miners on Wild Horse Creek to make locations in their behalf. The three men took out $225 in five days, obtaining occasionally thirteen and eighteen dollars to the pan in coarse gold resembling that of Kootenai. Still coarser gold with larger yield was found above on the creek. So far as prospected at the end of the season of 1868, the ground generally yielded an 13 Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 1-3. C. Oppenheimer brought $20,000 of dust to Victoria in September 1866. He reported that claims had changed hands at high prices, and that there were 700 miners at work in the diggings in August, when he left. Victoria Colonist, Sept. 4, 1866. Later in the season parties from Kootenai reported that the Chinese were bidding for claims, and that many of the miners had sold out for $1,000. The Chinese were bidding high for everything else about the town, and almost entirely taking possession. Id., Nov. 20, 1866. In 1867 a number of miners at Kootenai organized a prospecting expedition on a large scale which started on the 1st of May, and followed up Kootenai River for the purpose of prospecting the head-waters of that stream in the Rocky Mountains. Umatilla Columbia Press, Oct. 17, 1867. The company were well provided for an extended campaign, but I find no record of the result. 14 Dove and Company carried on hydraulic mining extensively, clearing up on one occasion, about midsummer, $1,400 from three days' working. Captain Wilson in the Canon was making from ten to twenty-five dollars a day in 1869. The Price, Griffith, Saunders, Schroeder, and Dove claims were all profitably employed. Indicative of general developments was the completion of a saw-mill by Wood, who was also preparing to erect a Hour-mill. NEW KOOTENAI. 527 ounce a day, though two out of the eight claims opened this season gave one hundred dollars daily to the man.15 As soon as the news spread, a large rush took place and a town was formed composed largely of the population from Fisherville and Wild Horse Creek. About one hundred and fifty of the arrivals of 1868 wintered in the mines while the rest prepared to return in the spring with the still larger influx which then took place.16 At first the blue clay was regarded as the bed-rock for the auriferous gravel below the falls; but this was penetrated during the winter of 1868-9 by a number of shafts, and gravel was struck which paid in the poorest claims eleven dollars a day to the man, and frequently three times that amount. In 1869 fifteen to twenty miles of the creek had been staked off chiefly with the expectation of securing a share of the deeper rich deposits; but this met with almost general disappointment. Only a few favorably located shafts reached a rich yet dry stratum, while the rest were driven out by water.17 Good prospects were also found in 1868 by the packer McGraugh on the divide between the Kootenai and Pend d'Oreille rivers, and in 1869 a new camp was located on Mooyie River, a stream running parallel with Perry Creek, and debouching into Pea- vine Prairie Lake. At its mouth lay bars four or 15 The gold first found below the falls, was like cucumber seeds and only four to six feet from the surface, in a layer of gravel resting on a clay bed about four feet in thickness. Above the falls the gold was found on the bedrock, and several parties in November took out from $116 to $156 in a day. Victoria Colonist, Oct. 24 and 31,1868; Dawson on Mines, 38. 16 Victoria Colonist, Dec. 26, 1868, containing quotations from the Walla Walla Statesman; H. B. Ward, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, March 27,1869. 17 Victoria Colonist, April 24, 1869. The Hough Company in May took out $1,500 in 2 days from a space 8 feet square beneath the clay. W. J. Church, in Walla Walla Union, May 22, 1869. McGuilTs claim, the first one below the falls, took out $18 to $20 a day to the hand in July and August, and the Discovery Company $20 to $30. All the claims in fact from the falls to Jack Tay's shaft were working profitably. Tay's shaft was down 40 feet, and like the other deeper claims had great trouble with the water. According to some of the miners the ground (was spotted. Perry Creek, Aug. 2; Victoria Colonist, Aug. 22, 1869. R. Finlayson, however, reported in 1870 that none of them had been able to bottom a shaft yet. Victoria Colonist, June 19,1870. 528 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. five miles in extent which yielded from two and a half to eight dollars a day to the hand, and thence to St Joseph Prairie, over a large area, the prospects showed three to five cents to the pan. Ditches were projected the same year for working the ground. Aided by the discoveries made from time to time, Kootenai had managed to maintain a prominent position as a mining district, chiefly in the hydraulic branch, for which it enjoyed better advantages than Cariboo; but in 1872 Mr Vowell, the new*gold commissioner and magistrate for Kootenai, reported the principal mines worked out, with the exception of those on Wild Horse and Perry creeks, which still contained some of the rich deposits; but, reasoning by the Cariboo and other developments, miners still believed that the district would maintain itself, particularly as the deposits resembled the latter developed cement strata which had yielded so^well in California.1? 18 Walla Walla Statesman, Oct. 9, 1868. It was stoutly maintained by the newspapers at Victoria that the Kootenai and other mining localities 01 the Selkirk, Gold, and Purcell ranges, here forming the inner parallels of the Rocky Mountain flange of the plateau, comprised rich and extensive placer fields, and that 5,000 or even 10,000 miners could readily find profitable employment in their stream-beds and gulches. Generally speaking, the claims had hitherto paid six dollars and upward a day to the hand. Daily Colonist, Jan. 19, 1869; Sproat's B. C, 76. If unlucky explorers failed to make their fortunes on the new creeks, this was not a sufficient reason for declaring the field exhausted, for it was shown by similar experience in Cariboo that the main deposits were seldom reached. The gravel and pay-dirt of the Kootenai region appeared to the miners different in many respects from the superficial auriferous gravel of California. The latter was friable and easily worked, while that of the Kootenai mines, as exposed by the hydraulic hose, was like the cement worked in California at a later date, only with larger outlays of capital. The value of the deep ground on Perry Creek remained a mystery. Though the Purcell, Selkirk, and Gold ranges, ix>gether with the main Rocky Mountain parallels, were all proved to be gold-bearing, the favored formations were but imperfectly traced. Between the widely distributed gravel formations of the terraces, or benches, that might be worked profitably by hydraulics, and those which obviously could not De so worked, trial had failed to develop any satisfactory distinction. The terraces of the Kootenai and upper Columbia rivers, like those of the Fraser, constitutes noteworthy scenic as well as mining and agricultural feature of these mountain parallels. They are wide ancient river valleys filled to a great depth with more or less auriferous detritus. Benches rise 600 feet above the streams and 4,000 feet above the sea in successive steps to what is the ancient filled- up river valley level. Though the streams have sluiced down to great depths into the gravel and lighter detritus, they have not yet, it appears, penetrated to the bed-rock as in California. Mr Hector of PaUiser s exploration visited this country and described its terraces in 1859. He afterward visited SALMON CREEK. 529 Impressed with this belief, prospecting was largely pursued, particularly in 1874, under the stimulating impulse of government appropriation, designed to encourage new developments. Good prospects were obtained on several streams, such as Sloken River, emptying into the Kootenai a short distance above its mouth, but they were not of sufficient importance to check the decline. In 1875 Kootenai yielded only $41,000 from the bench and creek diggings, and two thirds of this came from Wild Horse Creek, the remainder being from Perry, Weaver, and Mootsai creeks, containing in all twenty-eight claims, many of them supplied by costly ditches, and worked by a total mining population of forty white men and fifty Chinese. In 1876 most of the white men left the district, and the total yield dwindled to $25,000.19 In 1877 the total yield increased to $37,000, obtained from twenty-five claims on Wild Horse, Perry, and Palmer creeks, chiefly by Chinamen. During this year a trail was cut by a government road party to connect Kootenai with Fort McLeod on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, and to open a path through regions where gold had previously been found. Returning to the earlier years of mining in the upper Columbia basin, let us glance at the other mining localities which have a history subordinate or parallel to that of the Kootenai region. Salmon Creek, emptying into the Pend d'Oreille near its the hydraulic mining region in Yuba and Nevada counties, California, and remarked upon * the great similarity between the superficial deposits of the famous^ gold country and those within the British territory to the north, which/ he continues, * encourages me to assert that the whole country up to the Kootenai River and the base of the Rocky Mountains, wherever the ancient terraces prevail, resting on silurian or metamorphic rocks, will be found to be auriferous.' Hector had an experienced Californian in his party, who frequently washed color from the stream-beds. Hector's Rept, in Lond. Geol. Soc, Quart. Jour., 1861, 400-5. 19 Two ditches were completed, however, to wash the benches of Wild Horse Creek, namely, the Victoria and the Hang, the latter by a Chinese company, delivering 600 and 300 inches of water, respectively. Min. Mines Rept. 1875, 1-16; 1876, 424. F Hist. Brit. Col. 34 530 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. junction with the Columbia at Port Shepherd, was wing-dammed in September 1865 by John Thornton, alias Jolly Jack, and coarse bright gold obtained. Bars on the creek as well as on the main Columbia were at the same time worked by a great number of Chinese; and Forty-nine Creek, ninety miles from Colville, was a cause of excitement in March 1867. About twenty miners wintered at this place in 1866-7, and reported that the diggings were not only easily reached, but extensive and readily worked, with coarse gold like that of Kootenai yielding six to eighteen dollars a day to the man.20 The bars of the main Columbia above Colville had been mined to some extent for several years before the Kootenai and Big Bend excitements attracted multitudes from a distance. At the time of the Kootenai excitement in 1865 there were several hundred Chinese at work upon them above Fort Shepherd, and doing well according to all accounts.21 As early as February 1865 a person brought news to Victoria that extensive diggings had been found "about one hundred and seventy miles north of the old Kootenai district, equal in richness to the best known in Cariboo."22 The report was not lost, for arri- 20 Those who wintered on the creek worked bench diggings containing coarse gold from the surface down. In one instance two ounces were taken from a single pfospect hole in the bank. Forty-eight Creek, near by, was also reported rich, and quite a number of boats left Fort Colville for the two creeks in March- 1867, followed soon after by nearly one hundred persons from Portland. During the summer another excitement and rush was created by the report that twelve men had early in the season found rich diggings in the basin between the high mountains forming the southerly continuation of Kootenai Valley, on both sides of the boundary line and southward as far as Pend d'Oreille. Four of the discoverers, Allen, Moore, Ahern, and Anthony Cavanaugh, returned to the Spokane bridge for additional supplies, whence the information spread. On their way back to the mountains they were murdered by the Indians. They had eighteen horses and a large quantity of supplies. In the excitement which followed the announcement of the discovery, a considerable force of miners was directed into that country. Victoria Colonist, Sept. 17, 1867. 21 So absorbed were they that Dewdney found it impossible to engage more than seventy-five to work upon the Kootenai trail at seventy-five dollars a month. Victoria Colonist, Aug. 22, 1865 Findlay Greek diggings, fifty miles north-west of the town of Kootenai, were discovered in 1865, a short time before the rush of that season was started by some, half-breed miners from Colville. 22 Victoria Colonist, Feb. 14, 1865. Some prospectors who returned to ROUND BIO BEND. 531 vals at Victoria from Colville in June stated that two hundred men had ascended the Columbia to Big Bend, and that the river had almost the appearance of the Fraser in 1858, laden with canoes, boats, barges, and scows. At Dalles des Morts good diggings were said to exist, and on the creeks emptying into the Columbia the yield was twenty-five cents to one dollar and a quarter to the pan. The excitement had begun, and it was expected that thousands would enter the country during the summer.23 The centre of attraction became known as Big Bend, named after the great bend of the Columbia in latitude 52°, where the river turns from a north-westerly to a southerly course after breaking though the Selkirk range. The mining district was, however, a short distance from the bend where several small streams came down from the western slope of these mountains. The first discovered to contain rich placers were French and McCulloch creeks, branches of Gold Creek. W. S. Stone was despatched thither as expressman, and on arriving at French Creek in August he found the ground staked off for two miles, one hundred and twenty men, including many 'fifty-eighters/ being employed on the various creeks. The pioneers were four Frenchmen who had settled on French Creek early in the spring of 1865, and obtained sixteen dollars from eleven pans of dirt. All the bars along the Columbia to Big Bend were found to yield well in coarse gold not unlike that of Kootenai, but here all Walla Walla about the same time reported the upper Columbia diggings as * humbug.' Walla Walla Statesman, March 10, in Victoria Colonist, March 28, 1865. Both of these parties travelled in winter, the former reporting the climate as ' splendid.' It will be seen from these authorities that Big Bend was probably discovered by persons who descended the Columbia from Kootenai. 28Perry, 'the well-known explorer,' reported that several miners had taken out $700 apiece in a very short time, and he himself was said to be making $100 a day, obtaining as much as $4 to the pan. This was at the point where the Shushwap trail struck the Columbia, and 60 men were working there. W. Robertson wrote in June that 18 boats had ascended the Columbia that spring, and that the diggings mostly aimed for were 250 miles above Colville. Victoria Columbian, quoted in Victoria Colonist, July 11, 1865; Cariboo Sentinel, quoted in Victoria Colonist, Aurj. 1, July 4, 1865. S32 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. trace of the metal was lost.24 B. T. Smith, who acted as gold commissioner for the Big Bend district in 1865, left there in November and reported to the government at Victoria that the known yield of French Creek for the season was $32,000; of McCulloch Creek, $2,700; and of Carnes Creek, $3,000; but on account of the gold export tax then in force, it was understood that not half of the gold taken out had been reported.2' Flooded streams and the lack of provisions and mining implements had besides retarded the work of the season materially, but during the coming year it was evident that efforts would be made to forward supplies to meet all demands, for the colonial government was opening a trail from Kamloop by way of Shushwap Lake, and a steamer was building above Colville to navigate the upper Columbia. In the spring of 1866 miners began in fact to flock in, and Portland was doing a large business with these districts.26 Finding that the trail would be inadequate to compete with Oregon roads, the government improved the Shushwap route early in the year, and the Hudson's Bay Company built a steamer, the Martin, 24 From Fort Shepherd it was reported September 2,1865, that on French Creek they had bottomed some shafts without success, and that there* was nothing in the country to eat but 'flour straight.' Victoria Weekly Colonist, Aug. 15, and Sept. 19, 1865. On the 19th of September there were 95 men on the creek, mostly engaged in wing-damming the stream. The La Fleur Company drifted into the hill-side and took out $500 in two days. The gravel for some distance above the bed-rock prospected between two and twelve dollars to the pan. Id., Oct. 10, 1865. One third of the miners at Big Bend during the season had come from Colville and returned there in October to winter. Id., Dec. 4 and 12, 1865. 25 Kootenai was said to be comparatively abandoned in November 1865 on account of the more attractive features of the Big Bend diggings. If the season kept open it was certain that boats filled with miners would continue to go up all winter, and in any event there would be a great rush in March. British Columbian, quoted in Victoria Daily Colonist^ Jan. 15, 1866. In December the Victoria Colonist, Dec. 4, 1865, urged that they should take a lesson from the Americans by advertising the mineral wealth of the country, and begun by pronouncing Big Bend the greatest gold-mining region yet discovered on the Pacific coast. 26 Victoria Colonist, Dec. 5, 1865, April 10 and 24, 1866; Oregon Statesman, March 23, 1866. The attention of the mining population wintering at Portland was divided between Big Bend and Blackfoot, preponderating in favor of the former. A Dalles correspondent mentioned that numbers were daily crossing the river at that point, travelling on horseback for Big Bend by way of Okanagan and Kamloop. STEAM NAVIGATION. 533 which on May 27th began to make semi-weekly trips on Shushwap Lake to Seymour, charging ten dollars for fares and twenty dollars a ton for freight.27 Seymour on Shushwap Lake rose rapidly in consequence, and contained in April ^about twenty buildings. Quite a number of miners had arrived before the opening of navigation, drawing hand-sleds over the ice, and early in June there were five hundred men waiting here for the creeks to fall and for definite news from the mines.28 The disaster to the steamer Labouchere caused a rise in the fares and freights from San Francisco to Victoria, and aided to throw the Victoria route into the shade for the year, while White's steamer, Forty- nine, and other boats plying regularly between Colville and Death Rapids, rendered the approach by way of Portland so easy as to attract even Victoria trade.29 At Dalles des Morts, the head of steamer navigation, quite a number of American business houses opened trade with the miners; near the mouth of Gold River the town of Kirbyville was started, and Romano's lumber-mill began turning out lumber in May 1866 at $125 a thousand feet, offering facilities both for mining and building operations.30 27 The lake contained many boats which were brought into use in opposition to the steamer, carrying passengers for two and a half and freight for fifteen dollars. There were two large canoes at the terminus of the road to convey passengers over Shushwap Lake to Seymour. Here and at Kamloop an abundance of provisions was announced to be in readiness for the mines. Victoria Colonist, April 17, 1866. Victorians advertised and placarded the new mines on every wall, and especially the route thereto by way of Victoria and Kamloop, while the Portland journals did their best to counteract them by casting discredit on the British Columbians and their route. Victoria Colonist, April 26, May 1, 1866. 28 A character named Thousand Dog Joe, alias Tellias, had a seven-dog team and a toboggan with which he carried supplies to the Big Bend Mines. 29 The Forty-nine made her first trip from Colville to Death Rapids with 85 passengers but little freight, and arrived at the latter place April 26, 1866, being ten days in making the trip up through the ice, taking passengers for $25 and freight at $200 a ton. She paid for herself the first season. Victoria Colonist, April 7, 1866; New Westminster Examiner, Sept. 25, 1867. From Dalles des Morts freight was carried in boats. There was but one mail to the Kootenai mines from Victoria for six months, owing to the fact that the legislature of 1868 failed to make, the usual arrangements with Johnson, the expressman and mail-carrier. In the season of 1869 the service was restored. Victoria Colonist, Sept. 22, 1869. Farming was by this time carried on here to a considerable extent. 39 Supplies were dragged in boats through the rapids to Wilson's landing, 25 534 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. The particular advantages claimed for the Big Bend mines were that they were easily reached and at first easily worked, while the gold was widely scattered and provisions cheap, so that miners could live on eight dollars a week. Dupuy's hill claim on French Creek was reported to have yielded $2,500 in a week, the Discovery 60 ounces in one day, and the Shep Bailey $1,500 within a few days. But although many claims yielded richly, and the field was extensive, yet the population of Big Bend district at this time, estimated by some into the thousands, was too large for all to obtain a share of the treasure and the disappointed ones were apt to declaim against the country.31 By the middle of June the lead had been tapped on the creek for a distance of one and a quarter miles from the town, and it became apparent that the better diggings were not shallow, as had been at first assumed, but required expensive work, partly on account of the large bowlders in the bed of the deep channel. This gave a further impetus to the large exodus which had already begun, and in October 1866 the failure of the Big Bend diggings was bruited far and wide by those who had returned unsuccessful. Provisions now became scarce, and entire camps lived for weeks on a little flour and beans. But for the services of the steamer Forty-nine they would have perished. A number of parties were doing well, miles further up the river; thence they were packed on the shoulders of carriers to Gold River, a distance of three miles, and boated up the river to the mouths of the several mining creeks. At French Creek there was another portage of two miles to the stores. On the 19th of May one of these boats containing 23 persons came down over the rapids. Being overloaded and carelessly managed it capsized and all but five were drowned. 31 Westminster Columbian, in Victoria Colonist, May 22, 1866. Seven men who had remained on French Creek through the preceding winter sank a shaft, but at a depth of twenty-eight feet they were flooded out. By the end of May fourteen companies were preparing to wash. In Orr's claim an eight- ounce nugget was found in deep ground. R. Cameron in Victoria Colonist, June 7 and 14, 1866. Monroe and Company on French Creek washed up in one day in June nineteen ounces. Victoria Colonist, June 26,1866. On the 2d of July a flood on French Creek destroyed all the wing-dams, wheels, and sluices. Id., July 24, 1866. CHARACTER OF DEPOSITS. 535 however, and in August the Thompson Company took out between $2,000 and $3,000 in a week, the Ridge Company seventy-nine ounces, and the Guild Company fifty-nine and a half ounces one week and seventy-one ounces another week. The Black Hawk tunnel on French Creek excited particular attention, and as the two men working it took out in one week twelve ounces of gold, the experiment was considered successful.32 In regard to the results for the season, Mr Oppenheimer estimated the total returns of the district at $250,000, and yet the season had, in his opinion, been particularly unfavorable to mining operations. Of this amount French and McCulloch creeks yielded each about $100,000. A. G. Smith on his return from the Saskatchewan early in the spring of 1867 passed through the Big Bend district and found that a hundred miners had partially or wholly wintered on French Creek alone. But the prestige of the district had departed; the deep ground, still sought by a few, was doomed to wait for more favorable conditions in a new era, and surface mining was continued as the only resource throughout the season of 1867. Some of the claims paid from six to eleven dollars to the man, but as a rule the miners who reached New Westminster in the autumn expressed themselves dissatisfied with the returns.33 French Creek declined rapidly, and in 1869 only thirty-seven men were reported at work there, partly in deep dig- 82 The same men obtained $112 from the benches in four and a half days, and a nugget of $38 was also found. W. L. Wade of Walla Walla reported in November 1866 that 1,000 men were in the mines on French, McCulloch, and Carnes creeks, and the bars of the Columbia between Gold and Carnes creeks—a far too high estimate according to other accounts—and that very- few made expenses, the only two creeks that paid being French and McCulloch. * On all the streams upon which gold has been discovered,' said Wade, ' the bed-rock—which was generally expected to prove rich—is so deep that it cannot be reached without better appliances for protection against water.' More than three fourths of those who came down with Wade were unable to pay their fare on the Forty-nine. Fifty men remained on French Creek in December 1866; the Discovery and the Half-breed claims continued to pay, and also the Wingdam and Black flawk. Victoria Colonist, July 10, Sept: 18, Nov. 27, and Dec. 11, 1866. 33 New Westminster Examiner, Nov. 13, 1867. 536 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. gings, though it was still maintained that six dollars a day and upwards could be made in the district.84 McCulloch Creek was but a reproduction of French Creek. It yielded as much as one hundred dollars a day to some claims, while the Clemens Company took out in 1865 from twelve to thirty-five ounces daily; and in connection with the coarse gold nuggets ranging from twenty-five dollars downwards, fragments of rich quartz were found in the icreek-bed below.85 A few men wintered on the creek in 1865, while their partners went to Colville for supplies, and a little town arose which in June 1866 counted half a dozen log huts. In the spring shafts were sunk, hill-side tunnels were worked, wing-dams constructed, and tail-races cut. As on French Creek, the presence of large bowlders proved a serious hinderance and rendered many claims worthless. The lower mile and a half of the creek was considered of no value, but above, particularly in the gravel beds, it was yielding steadily from four to six and even twelve ounces a day. As the creek was ascended the coarse gold increased into regular nuggets, one of which resembled a plate, and weighed two hundred and fifty-three dollars. A number of miners persevered in the main object, which was to penetrate to tt bed-rock, and this was found by some at six feet, but others sank even sixty feet without reaching it, and were eventually forced out by water.36 34 The Welsh hydraulic was at work while the water lasted, but ceased operations in June on account of the dryness of the season. The winter of 1869-70 was mild and open, so that the Bailey Company lost but three working days during the season ending March 9th. A steady yield averging much over laborer's wages continued to attract the small mining population. Victoria Colonist, May 7, 1867; Jan., July, 1869; April 1870. French Creek had been the richest, and in many other respects the representative, creek of the district, the Half-breed claim, its most famous spot, yielding as it did $100 a day to the man, though not regularly. 34 VowelVs Brit Col. Mines, MS., 11, 12. This creek went also under the name of Clemens Creek after the Clemens Company. On one occasion $105 was obtained in a single pan. In common with French Creek, this was reported and believed*at the time to be ' the biggest discovery on the coast.' Victoria Colonist, Dec. 19, 1865. 36 There were a dozen companies at work in August 1866, extending a mile and a half above the town, but most miners were awaiting the result of the A HUNDRED CREEKS. 537 In midsummer McCulloch Creek was said to have a popluation of 120, while French Creek had 150, and the entire district about 350. The Dart Company's claim had a shaft 40 feet deep, in the bottom of which $260 in coarse gold was obtained, while the Discovery Company found a prospect of $22 to the pan.37 Half-way from here to the Upper Arrow Lake, on a little stream running parellel to Gold Biver, Hank Carnes in the spring of 1865 prospected a small creek named after him, and obtained from four pans of dirt three dollars and thirty-seven cents of coarse gold. ,A rush followed -this discovery, and Carnes Creek was occupied nearly simultaneously with French Creek, 60 miners being reported on the ground in the autumn, suffering somewhat from a lack of provisions. The deposits were declared identical with those of French and McCulloch creeks, but Robert Nobles, one of the members of the Cariboo Company, who prospected the bed of the creek in the autumn of 1865, satisfied himself that the diggings were even deeper and the bed-rock still more unattainable.38 The shallower ground, however, offered a fair though limited field, which was worked for some time by a small number. operations of the Yale Company, who had set out with the determination of exploring the gutter of the deep ground. All the hopes of the creek rested upon their success. They were down 50 feet in August 1866, pumping with the aid of a wheel, and finally they struck a pitching bed-rock. Victoria Colonist, Aug. 28, Oct. 16, 1866. Hence they drifted toward the deep ground and sunk three blind shafts. From the last of these they drifted again, and were in three sets of timber when the flow of water obliged them to retire. New Westminster Examiner, Sept. 25, 1867; Walla Walla Statesman, Aug. 10, 1866. 37 A batch of |60,000 of gold-dust was taken from here to Walla Walla by J. Kauffmann. Victoria Colonist, July 3,11, Aug. 14,1866; May 7, 1867. Above the cafion the country is open, having gentle slopes not unlike those of Mink Qulch on William Creek, which these mines were thought to resemble. On part of First Flat in this open country the creek was found to traverse a piece of high bed-rock with patches of gravel, having probably been forced aside from the deep channels by a slide. The gold was of a blackish brown hue, colored by the oxide of iron with which the gravel was impregnated. *B. D.,' in Victoria Colonist, Sept. 18, 1866. 38 Dawson on Mines, 39; Victoria Colonist, April 24, June 7, 1866. McDonald and Company attempted it in May 1866, and reached a depth of 45 feet without striking bed-rock. A miner who arrived at Yale in the spring of 1866, with some gold directly from Carnes Creek, reported the existence of rich benoh or bank diggings with many small nuggets weighing up to $14. 538 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. On the bars of the Columbia twelve miles above this creek, Hank Carnes in the same spring found four men at work with rockers taking out fine gold resembling that of the Fraser, at the rate of one hundred dollars a day, and in 1866 the bars above the Arrow Lakes were occupied by miners who managed to obtain a living, and even to make ten dollars a day. But these deposits could be worked only a short season, as the river was liable to rise over them at any time. The district held out through the usual vicissitudes of partially abandoned camps until 1871, and even in 1878 there were a few miners and prospectors who appeared to have settled, taught by the logic of the facts brought out in the Big Bend rush that there was wealth in the district if it could only be reached.89 Carnes asserted that he had prospected the Columbia from the head-waters of the Kootenai to Carnes Creek, and had always found color. Prospecting and mining had indeed, with more or less success, been followed on the east side of Selkirk Mountain and also at Moberly, Cherry, and other creeks, on the west or Gold Range side of the river. The gold-bearing tract of the Selkirk range which formed the Big Bend district extended evidently for at least seventy-five miles along the western slope, and whatever its value, the failure of the district must be attributed chiefly to the flow of water, preventing miners from reaching the deep ground under the clay which was everywhere reported to exist in the Big Bend as well as in the Kootenai district. Much of the shallower ground had been condemned as spotted before it was fairly tested, and the early prospects on the surface at French and McCulloch creeks were regarded as the only decidedly rich yields. The mining developments in the Columbia basin, as well a,s those made in the Fraser River basin after the excitement in 1861, were not unnoticed by scientific men. A correspondent of the London Tiroes 89 VowelCs B. C. Mines, MS., 10-12; Victoria Colonist, July 3, 1866. GOLD EVERYWHERE. 539 presented evidence on which he ventured the opinion that the whole mountain system of British Columbia was auriferous as far as the Stikeen River, "the longest stretch of continuous inland gold-producing country yet discovered in the world," from which incalculable advantage must result to the colony as well as to the mother country. Sir Roderick Murchison also expressed the opinion, based upon orographic data, that the auriferous matrix would be found to extend along the slopes of the mountains of the whole cordillera system, including the plateau between the Cascade and Rocky ranges. The placer diggings he showed were undeniably but the alluvial deposits brought down from these mountains by the streams.40 This was confirmed by numerous developments, among them the diggings at Rock Creek in the centre of the plateau on the boundary line. The upper Columbia and its tributaries in cutting through the gold-bearing belts of the plateau had revealed the fact that the whole country not covered by comparatively recent formations was auriferous, but outside of the deep and ancient channels zones were disclosed only in a few localities rich enough to pay. Rock Creek acquired a reputation in the summer of 1860, and a considerable population flocked in, forming a town and mining both in bench and creek diggings. One or more ounces a day were often obtained, and during the season of 1861 a party of white men secured twelve thousand dollars, besides expenses, the average earnings a day being seven dollars to the man.41 The Cariboo excitement caused Rock Creek to be almost abandoned in 1862, and for several years little was done in or heard from it. Contemporaneously with the Big Bend excitement, however, ** Rowlings' Confederation,, 118; Mayne's British Columbia, 441-2. il About a mile from its mouth the creek diggings paid from one to two ounces, and sometimes one hundred dollars a day to the hand, the benches in one instance yielding an ounce a day for the season. It was observed that the best diggings occurred where the creek had cut through a belt of soft rock. Dawson on Mines, 41. To the history of the creek belongs the shooting during^ dispute, in July 1861, of David Barr by Frank Porter, who escaped across the frontier. McDonald's British Columbia, 89. 540 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. the report spread that rich diggings had again been found, and the place received greater attention.42 In 1868 the bed-rock flume was completed, which enabled the holders of claims along the creek to take out from eight to twelve dollars a day by ground- sluicing. During the season of 1870, the company operating the flume in the bed of the creek took out six thousand dollars at their first clean-up; and having as yet barely touched the edge of the pay-dirt, which consisted of a layer of gravel and sand twelve feet in thickness, they expected in August to take out three times as much.43 Descending still farther toward the inner flank of the Cascade Mountains, I find a recurrence of the Rock Creek developments. Along the Okanagan branch of the Columbia, not only on the east side as far as Mission Creek, but also on the west side at Similkameen, placers existed wl^ich were the scenes of excitements during the earliest days of mining in British Columbia; and on the Washington side of the boundary around Lake Chelan, a large area of country was found to contain quartz veins and local placers. Along Okanagan River, the deposits were scattered, and in most cases worked for but a short time, chiefly perhaps, from want of water. Out of nineteen streams falling into Okanagan Lake, seven were, in 1861, found to be gold-bearing, and Mission Creek, flowing into it from the east, had placers which yielded in 1859-60 both fine and coarse gold, at the rate of from two to forty dollars a day to the man.44 Near Fort Okanagan, sixty *2 In March 1866, 14 whites and 40 Chinese were at work on the creek. Randall and Company washed $11 out of 100 buckets of dirt, and in 1868-9 the Bedrock Flume Company of 7 men was mining successfully. The Hydraulic Company of 3 men was making in 1869 from $8 to $10 a day. Besides these, 20 Chinese were engaged in sluicing. Victoria Colonist, April 7, 1866; June 5, 1869. 43 They were much troubled with quicksand, but mastered, it. Requiring 80,000 feet of lumber for their operations in 1871, it was the intention of the company to erect a saw-mill in the mean time. Three companies of Chinese were at work on the creek making $3 a day to the hand. Victoria Colonist, July 27, 1870. 41 In 1877 McDougall and Company were making, on Mission Creek, from ten to fifteen dollars a day to the hand. Dawson on Mines, 41; London THE OKANAGAN MINES. 541 miles south of the boundary line, a population of twenty-six miners were in 1861 dividing their time between mining and'husbandry, averaging four dollars a day in the diggings. The small population then in the valley consisted mainly of French Canadians and Catholic missionaries. On Similkameen River, entering the Okanagan at the boundary line, gold was found45 in sharp, unwashed particles, which in 1861 yielded some miners one ounce a day, but on an average the rocker produced four, five, and eight dollars a day each to the two hundred miners then said to be at work in the diggings; one hundred and fifty of these were Chinese, who soon obtained almost sole possession; but they also abandoned the place gradually. In the spring of 1866, however, a little excitement again attracted a number of them from Hope, and in September, between forty and fifty were at work, making good wages.46 The year 1860 witnessed the crossing of the western rim of the plateau by bodies of miners, moving eastward in British Columbia as well as in California. An observer from the remote standpoint of history could have then seen at the same instant excited miners sluicing in the canons at Gold Hill, Similkameen, Cariboo, and Pike's Peak—the Rocky Mountains having been first reached from the west by the eastward-flowing current through the inviting valley Times, cor. Jan. 20, 1862, in Rowlings' Confederation, 114; IT. S. Min. Statistics, 1868, 568. 40 A character known as Jackass John prospected Similkameen River in 1860 and wing-dammed a portion of it. After working two days, and taking out $40, the water rose and drove him out. John then went to Salmon River, Boise, Blackfoot, and Kootenai in turn. In October 1866, he returned to the site of his previous misfortunes by flood, and in fourteen days, unaided and alone, he washed out $900. A party of three men engaged in sluicing took out $240 in three days. Victoria Colonist, Feb. 5, 1867. 46There was reported to be a 'false bed-rock ' also in this ground, underlaid by a bed of gravel. Victoria Colonist, May 22, Oct. 2, 1866, in letters from Hope, dated May 18th and Sept. 25th respectively. Similkameen and Okanagan countries were admitted by both Palmer and Mayne to possess superior advantages in agriculture as well as mining. The mines being opposite Hope, they could be reached from there by a 25-mile wagon-road to the head of Skagit River, and thence by trail. The articles requiring transportation by wagon were largely supplied to the country at that time from the American side of the line. Rowlings' Confederation, 114; Mayne's B. C, 389. 542 UPPER COLUMBIA MINES. of the Fraser. But no such population could be induced to cross the Cascades in the north as reenforced the camp upon the croppings at Virginia and Gold Hill, otherwise it might have puzzled the historical prophet witnessing the operations of 1861 to determine whether mining in the northern interior should not have had an equal prominence in the following decades. In subsequent years a like metalliferous country was developed with the same series of geological formations. But quartz bonanzas, unless exceedingly rich, were not wanted by the men, who with pans, shovels, and rockers climbed over the Cascades in the north. What they wanted was simply placer gold. Had they found anything more, there existed no lines of travel nor hives of population within reach of these outlying districts that could pour in the necessary additional forces, machinery, appliances, and capital for exploration underground. To follow the deposits in that direction, however strongly they might have been indicated, was clearly out of the question. The day of roads, of machinery, and of cheap supplies had not yet come. Between 1860 and 1866 "Washoe and Reese River were taking their first lessons in silver mining. When the most superficial bars and placers had been worked, the lid of clay in the ancient channels was reached; when machinery, capital, and skill were requisite to proceed further, the wandering fortune-hunters betook themselves to other fields. All the evidences of decay, failure, recklessness, and ruin which presented themselves to the vision of the after- comers, only assisted to render the stereotyped but superficial and not final verdict—exhausted. CHAPTER XXVIII. GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. 1861-1882. Omineca Country—Peace River Prospected—Government Expedition— Prospecting. Chase—Vitale Creek—Omineca Overrated—German- sen Creek—Sluicing—Manson and Lost Creeks—Finlay River— The Skeena and Coast Placers—Prospects of Settlements—Cause op Decline—The Stikeen Explored—Thibert's Discovery—Cas- siar Placers—Dease Lake Tributaries. Beyond Fraser River basin the plateau of the Cordillera continues northward in two principal flanges bordered by slaty gold and silver-bearing mountains similar in character to the Bald Mountains of Cariboo.1 It descends gradually toward the sea at Bering Straits, forming for sixteen hundred miles the trough of Yukon River. Between the Fraser and Yukon river basins the Omineca and Cassia mining districts, representing the northward movement of the mining population of the coast, came into existence soon after the settlement of Cariboo, each rising along a great river, which interlacing its head-waters on the plateau with those of another great river of the opposite eastern slope, afforded a broad avenue for the prospectors and traders who began to occupy this region. Omineca,2 the'name given to the mining district of the Skeena and Peace River section of the plateau, 1 The identity in axis or strike was not traced to a nicety. Some thought the mountains drained by the Finlay and Omineca branches of Peace River were the continuation of the mountainous country explored by Black and Fentoh east of Cariboo, if not of the Cariboo Bald Mountain Range. Cariboo Sentinel, Oct. 23, 1869. 2 After a species of whortleberry growing there and forming a staple article of food of the Indians. Mackenzie of the Hudson Bay Company, in. Victoria Colonist, Jan. 8, 1870. (543) 544 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. may be described as 1.500 to 2,000 feet lower than the Cariboo section, and more gentle in its undulations than usual with mining districts on the coast, yet a cold, cheerless, and barren region.3 It nevertheless presented noteworthy and attractive features, and was the earliest portion of the Pacific slope visited by English settlers, from the north Atlantic coast. Peace River4 cleaving the Rocky Mountains to then- base led Sir Alexander Mackenzie and his Canadian voyageurs into New Caledonia, or Omineca, in the last century, and after 1806 the country was permanently occupied by the fur-traders. By the Peace and Skeena 3 At Omineca diggings proper, situated near the head-waters of the Peace and Skeena rivers, the country resembled Quesnel mouth in Fraser River basin, a thickly wooded plateau region, free from high mountains and of easy transit. In regard to the climate and agricultural value of the country, accounts differed. The Colonist described it as ' free from the extremes of cold and heat,' winter setting in at the end of October, and ending about the 18th of April, the snow in exceptional winters attaining a depth of only three feet. By April 15th the whole country was open and the Hudson's Bay Company usually despatched their winter collection of furs down the Fraser River. Potatoes and turnips flourished; but cereals had not been brought to perfection on account of the early frosts. Lieut. H. S. Palmer, on the other hand, writing in 1864, said: 'All that portion [of British Columbia] lying to the north of the 54th parallel remains, and is likely to remain, an uninhabited wilderness.' From the Hudson's Bay Company's servants we learn that although not entirely devoid of attractive features and occasional patches of good soil, this portion of the colony is on the whole cheerless and uninviting, and especially ill adapted for the occupation of man. Moreover, its high latitude and extreme elevation and the rigorous climatic influences to which it is subjected are elements little likely to encourage its speedy development. Lond. Geog. Soc, Jour., vol. 34, 172-3. The country along Peace River, above the junction of Finlay River, resembled that of the Fraser at Alexandria, and though farther north it was all much lower and not so cold a country as Cariboo. B. Col. Directory, 1863, 204-5. Harman, a partner of the Northwest Company, stationed at Stewart Lake in 1811, made mention repeatedly in his journal of the soil being good in places. Turnips and potatoes planted in 1811 produced well. ' The soil in many places in New Caledonia is tolerably good.' 'There is not a month in the whole year,' he adds, 'in which water does not congeal, though the air in the daytime, in summer, is warm, and we even have a few days of sultry weather. Harmon's Jour. (Andover, 1820), 117, 248, 257, 262; VowelVs B. C. Mines, MS., 13-14;* Victoria Daily Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870. 4The name of Peace River was derived from 'Peace Point,' a landmark on lower Peace River a short distance above its outlet in Athabasca Lake, where a peace had been concluded between the Knisteneaux and Beaver Indians some time before Sir Alexander Mackenzie's exploration. Its proper Indian name was also the name of the country through which it ran—Unjigah country and river—the ownership of which was in dispute and was settled at the time and place mentioned. These facts were stated by Mackenzie's interpreter, from which it is to be inferred that the name, of Peace River was already in use among the fur-traders at the time of Mackenzie's famous journey to its source in 1792. Mackenzie's Voy., 123. PEACE RIVER. 545 river route, the continent is traversed at the lowest altitude existing north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec in a line the most direct from the north Atlantic to China, and the discovery of gold placers upon Peace River and in Omineca foreshadowed the establishment of anew city on the north Pacific coast, which might some day lay claim to the terminus of the Canadian Pacific railway.5 On this line the metalliferous axis of the cordilleras was intersected, and found to be continuous in all its force to a high northern latitude. The evidence of prospectors established the existence of from eight to twenty dollar diggings.6 Even if the diggings were remote, the climate severe, and the summers short, here lay a vast extant of still superficially prospected country which possessed, and would be likely hereafter to maintain, the character of attractive "poor man's diggings."7 The development of mining in the Omineca region must also become a means of populating the boundless agricultural regions of the north-west territory of Canada adjoining. The first discoveries north of Fraser River basin were made during the summer of 1861 on Peace River, between the source and the passage through the Rocky Mountains. Two miners named Edward Carey and W. Crest left Quesnelmouth in the spring, simultaneously with the movement upon Cariboo, and proceeded by way of Fort George to Fort St James, thence following the Hudson's Bay Company's trail over the portage to McLeod Fort. During the high water of June 5 T. Evans, in Overland Monthly, March 1870, 264. Mr Evans recognized the Yellowhead or Leather Pass as a ruling point from the railway to the Fuca Sea, but saw in the river system of Omineca the foreshadowing of a rival terminus at the mouth of the Skeena River. 6 After the discovery of gold in California and on Fraser River the Indians frequently brought nuggets and gold-dust (to the value of which their attention was then for the first time directed) from their hunting-grounds to the Hudson's Bay Company's posts in the Peace River, Omineca, and Cassiar region. 'Viewed in the light of recent discoveries,' said the Colonist, during the excitement these Indian finds became of interest. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Jan. 19, 1870. 7 F. Page, in Victoria Daily Colonist Aug. 8, 1871; Id., Weekly, April 6, 1870j Sproat's B. C, 76. Hist. Brit. Col. 35 546 GOLD DISCOVERS IN THE FAR NORTH. they descended Peace River for two hundred miles, passing through the canon. Returning at low water, they prospected all the bars and brought with them to McLeod one thousand dollars in dust, the result of a few days' washing at one point. The largest day's work performed yielded $75 to each.8 After wintering at Quesnelmouth they repeated their journey in 1862, accompanied by Peter Toy, Joseph Oates, and Ezra Evans, and obtained from fifty days' washing each $1,200. Nearly all the bars yielded from ten to fifteen dollars a day to the man, those on Finlay River for twenty miles from its mouth being the best. Five others followed them to Peace River the same season, four of whom working together took out in twelve days nearly $1,000. The gold was described as scaly surface gold, somewhat heavier than that of the Fraser River bars.9 In January 1863, Bell, Goldsmith, and three others left Victoria for Peace River and obtained half an ounce a day to the man on almost every bar down to the junction of Finlay River. No excitement appears to have resulted from these discoveries, owing chiefly, no doubt, to the developments in the Cariboo country, which overshadowed everything else for the time. Influenced by discoveries on the main or southern branch of Peace River, a party of Cariboo miners reached Fort St James in 1864, and taking a different route, followed the canoes of the Hudson's Bay Company north, through Stewart and Tatla lakes, to a point opposite the head-waters of the Omineca tributary; thence striking over the Peak or Blue Mountains, they entered the Peace River basin and mined till the following year, returning home with four or five thousand dollars. One of the men, Michael Foy, remained behind and mined successfully 8 On a sand-bank of Finlay River about three miles above its mouth, they found a layer of black sand overlying gravel which yielded three to four ounces a day to the hand, the whole, being covered by five or six feet of loose sand; want of provisions obliged them to leave their ground and continue up the river to Fort St John. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870. *B. Col. Directory, 1863, 204-5. OMENICA RIVER. 647 for five years, remitting several thousand dollars to his daughter.10 In 1868 Humphreys, Gaylord, Evans, and Twelve- foot Davis struck Arctic Creek. Humphreys returned to Quesnelmouth the same year and endeavored to form a prospecting party to remain in the fields through 1869 and 1870. In this effort he was aided by Michael Byrnes and Vitalle La Force, two explorers in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company, who had wintered on the head-waters of Omineca River in 1868-9. Traders and others, in view of the depressed condition of affairs at Cariboo and Kootenai, also favored the search for a new gold field, and between government and private aid twenty- two hundred dollars was made up to defray the expenses of the expedition. The choice for leadership fell upon Byrnes, with Humphreys and La Force as lieutenants, and Hawkins, Grant, Kelley, and several others as members of the company; the expedition being known as the ' government party,' to distinguish it from the ' Chapman party,' which followed in the same direction. Both left Quesnelmouth in the beginning of May 1869, and Were not heard from until October, when news arrived from the government expedition reporting an important discovery. Soon after, however, all of this party except La Force and Kelley returned with unfavorable reports. Byrnes stating that after leaving Bulkley house at the north end of Tatla Lake, June 9th, they turned toward the. head of Finlay River, distant fifty miles, in a northeasterly direction, over a difficult route, on the 21st they found gold on a small creek, and took out thirty- five ounces from 800 feet of ground. "There is a, narrow range," said the report, "of blue and yellow talcose slate, with innumerable small veins of quartz 19 Meanwhile fur-traders continued to report rich diggings in this region, and Davis and Johns, who in 1866 and 1867 traded through the country for furs on their own account, brought with them to Victoria a considerable quantity of gold-dust which they had obtained. Victoria Weekly Colonist. Feb. 23, 1870. 548 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. intersecting it—general course from north-west and south-east.. .This range is cut off at the south fork of the Finlay branch (Omineca River) by a mountainous range of granite," and ought to be prospected the next season, for a rush of miners at this time, it was urged would be unadvisable. The party found also a few pieces of native silver and some indications of copper. To their particular friends the leaders made a more favorable report, and Humphreys, after depositing on his own account in the assay office at Barkerville seventy ounces of gold-dust, immediately returned to Peace River with several companions and a stock of supplies. These circumstances cast a suspicion on the integrity of the leaders of the government party, whose discoveries were claimed to be public property; while this was under discussion at Quesnel and Barkerville, a letter arrived, wherein Ogden, the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Stewart Lake, stated that the members of the government party on their way back for supplies had deposited $2,500 with him, and that if tools had been obtainable at Stewart Lake, they would not have returned to Quesnel until the end of the year; one of the party having admitted, while under the influence of liquor, that they had taken out $8,000 in thirty- five days. Some of the Barkerville miners promptly de- patched two men, Kane and Sylvester, to follow the returning leaders to the new diggings and ascertain the truth. Leaving Quesnel October 30, 1869, they took the telegraph trail to Fort Fraser, reaching Fort St James in advance of the ex-government party, which had gone by boat up the Fraser and Stewart rivers. Another party of pursuers from Quesnel led by Black had overtaken Byrnes' boats near Fort George, from which point onward there was a race between them, in which Black with his light boat had every advantage. They arrived at Fort St James November 27th, and the Byrnes party now became ARCTIC CREEK. 549 still more enraged at finding themselves not only intercepted, but unmasked. Still another party from Quesnel, known as Buckley's, was following by water. Before ^reaching the mines Byrnes' party overtook Sylvester and Kane lying in wait for them, and their 'intrigues and dodges' to elude the pursuers were unavailing. At length the matter was compromised by an agreement under which the discoverers were permitted to stake off their own claims first. The pursuers were now led to the south of the Omineca Mountains. —referred to in the government party's report as consisting of granite—instead of to the north; to the Omineca tributary or south branch, instead of the north or main fork of Finlay River; and to Vitalle Creek, where the mining had been done.11 Kane learned further in regard to the doings of the governmental party during the preceding summer, that they had joined forces with Chapman's party, and while some of them went over to Arctic Creek, discovered by Humphreys in 1868, the majority remained on Vitalle Creek, which was much richer—the total sum taken out being $8,000—and a third division was kept constantly engaged in carrying provisions from Tatla Lake. It was finally explained that the motive for the secrecy was the supposed existence on Vitalle Creek of a wonderful silver ledge which they desired to discover and secure before a rush set in. The confirmation of the rumors thus presented,, together with the remittance of some gold, set in full action the excitement which had been roused by the mystery surrounding Byrnes' movements,12 and it was 11 Reports of Kane and Sylvester in Cariboo Sentinel, Dec. 11 and 16, 1869. Sylvester remained in charge of the Adair claim on Vitalle Creek, while Kane returned to Cariboo and reported these results of their expedition. From Fort St James they had travelled by boat by way of Stewart,' Tremble, and Tatla Lakes to the landing on the north-east side, 160 miles from Fort St James, and thence in five days' journey over the mountains to Vitalle Creek. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870; Daily Id., Dec. 31, 1869: Cariboo Sentinel, Oct. 27, 1869. 12 In addition to the gold produced in 1869 giving rise to the excitement, Mr Linhart brought down to Victoria 60 ounces in January 1870. Victoria WeeUy Colonist, Feb. 2, 1870. GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. prophesied at one time that three fourths of the population at William Creek would leave for Omineca in the following spring; as it was, a considerable flow of miners from Cariboo and other portions of British Columbia, and even from California, set in for the diggings, with Vitalle Creek as the centre of attraction. This creek, named after Vitalle La Force, who had been directed by trappers to seek for gold upon it, was already fully occupied by Vitalle and his Quesnelmouth associates, besides a number of others, and the yield was already falling off.13 The first work had been done one and a quarter miles from its mouth in from two to four feet of ground, a depth which increased further up. One tenth of the metal found was native washed silver, partly in nuggets weighing as much as three ounces, John Adah? obtaining thirty- five ounces thereof in as many days.1* A number of diggers had remained on the creek during the winter of 1869-70, but the mining operations were not generally successful. Black and Mc- Martin and others bottomed a shaft to find only ' color,' while Sylvester and Company struck slum and water on a sliding bed-rock at a depth of twenty- five feet, which obliged them to abandon their shaft.16 • • • This was certainly not encouraging to the new arrivals, and many turned back at once, while others passed on to the lower tributaries.16 Black with thirty or forty others prospected the adjoining valley 13 Allan's Cariboo, MS., 12, 13. 14 When they ceased to find silver they ceased also to find gold. History of the Peace River Mines, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870. Mr Ogden at Stewart Lake purchased 158 ounces of Vitalle Creek gold from the government prospecting party which was worth $17.50 the ounce. It was mixed with lumps of silver worth a ' bit.* Id., April 6, 1870. 15 Cariboo Sentinel, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 20, 1870; Id., Aug. 17, 1870. 16 No sooner had the crowd overrun the diggings than numbers started back, abandoning their claims, and in July and August between 100 and 150 miners remained in the country with the determination to give the ground a fair trial. Peter Davis and a party left Omineca June 28th, and returned by way of Skeena River and Nanaimo by canoe. They reported that only four claims were paying small wages. A small piece of ground below the Discovery claim paid nine ounces in one day, after which the yield was light. Victoria Weekly Colonist, July 27 and Aug. 17, 1870. GERMANSEN. 551 of Silver Creek in 1870, finding only two-and-a-half- dollar diggings; but other prospectors were more successful on different streams, and later in the season a considerable quantity of gold was taken out in the aggregate, a party of fifteen Chinese making $7,000 in three weeks, and about one hundred miners prepared to carry on their operations during the winter.17 This added zest to the impulse, and in 1871 the Omineca excitement attained its height. By the middle of June, it was reported that eight hundred animals had crossed Fraser River at Quesnel, mostly with provisions, and that nine hundred men had arrived at the diggings, by the Fraser and Skeena routes.18 Operations were actively prosecuted, and creek after creek along the Omineca achieved more or less notoriety for a time, as Arctic, Quartz, Man- son, ,Slate, Skeleton, Lost, and various others, particularly Germansen, which now became the leading creek in the district. It was named after James Germansen,19 who discovered the first gold on the creek in July 18, 1870. Good shallow diggings were found for three miles, usually within four feet of the bedrock, yielding twenty-five cents prospect to the pan, in clean coarse gold lying on a layer of sand two feet beneath the gravel in the bed of the creek. Cust reported that everybody on the creek was making from $10 to three ounces a day, and by October $70,- 000 had been taken out. Lumps of silver were also found, the largest weighing $300, and the country around was seamed with quartz. Germansen Creek, 17 In the winter of 1870-1 several companies were running tunnels on Manson Creek, and 80 to 100 miners wintered in the several creeks. A dozen sought the forks of the Skeena for winter quarters the same season; and about three dozen descended that river still further to Woodcock's Landing. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Dec. 20, 1871. 18 Sylvester, expressman, in Cariboo Sentinel; Victoria Daily Colonist, June 25,1871. In May 1871 there were 800 miners on Germansen Creek and more arriving daily. Id., July 6, 1871. O'Reilly was the first gold commissioner; then followed Vowell. ^Germansen was a native of St Paul, Minnesota, who came in 1866 to British Columbia by way of Saskatchewan River with cattle. He mined with a party on Peace River in 1868 and made $500. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Dec. 14, 1870. 552 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. in fact, surprised many by its superiority over the other streams.20 At the junction of the creek with Omineca River rose a settlement spoken of as Germansen Creek town, or as Omineca, which during the winter contained eighteen inhabitants, but by the summer of 1871 counted twenty substantial wooden houses comparing favorably with those at Barkerville. It was like this town the centre of trade for the district, supplied partly by the Skeena River route, by way of Babine and Tatla lakes, but chiefly from Quesnelmouth through Port St James, whence a trail led direct to Germansen Creek, skirting Nation Lake. • Competition being great, freight from Yale was only eighteen cents in 1875, and flour had been sold as low as twenty cents a pound.21 Life alone differed from Cariboo in being more isolated and remote Those who remained over winter were entirely cut off from the rest of the world, since the season in temperature if not in duration approached the arctic in character. The rampant life of the flush period in Cariboo and California found less congenial soil for germination in Omineca, and although saloons and cards flourished, the hurdy-gurdies never penetrated thither.22 In 1871 most of the miners in the district concentrated on the creek, and some good yields were reported. Three men near the mouth took 20 W. H. Fitzgerald, Government Agent at Port St James, Oct. 24,1870, Letter, in Victoria Weekly Colonist, Dec. 7, 14, 1870. Some of the claims paid $50 a day to the hand. In the French Company's claim above the Canon a 29-ounce nugget was found. Pat Kelly's Company made from $10 to $30 a day to the man. Correspondence, in Id., Nov. 30, Dec. 7, 1870. ^ Another large water-worn nugget, weighing 24| ounces, was brought to Victoria by Mr Guichon. Id., Dec. 21, 1870; Cariboo Sentinel, in Id., Nov. 16, 1870; Port Townsend Argus, Aug. 1, 1871. 21 Freight from Quesnel to Manson Creek was from 10 to 15 cents, and flour was sold here for from 20 to 40 cents a pound. Page, in Min, Mines Rept., 1875, 16. . 22 Saloons, cards, fur-hunters, miners, and Hydah squaws for genre: ditches, drains, log-cabins, and stick forests for scenery, these made up what was regarded as the somewhat miserable picture of the town of Manson Creek, as seen by Captain Butler in 1871. The important personages of the town were Grahame, postmaster, and Rufus Sylvester, expressman. Butler's Wild North Land, 303-8; Langevin's Rept, 1872, 9-10. CLAIMS AND YIELD. 553 out ten ounces a day to the man, and Kelly's party, working six miles above the Discovery claim in the bed of the creek, obtained one hundred dollars a day. But the majority made little or nothing, either because the rich deposits were in patches which had fallen to the few, and were now nearly worked out, or because the lead could not be followed. When in the course of the summer rich discoveries were reported on Man- son River, fifteen miles farther down Omineca River, a general stampede ensued.23 Germansen Creek resumed, nevertheless, its position as the centre of the district upon the collapse of the rival excitements. Hydraulic mining was applied to the thirteen claims in operation in 1875, half of the whole constituted number worked in Omineca. Several of these paid fairly with the aid of wing-dams and bench-sluices, the best yielding $6,200 for the season, but others suffered not only from exhaustion, but from floods, and then from a want of sluice water, and were abandoned.24 Manson Creek diggings, fifteen miles east, and running parallel to Germansen, were discovered in July 1871 by R. Howell, formerly of the royal engineers, and yielded about twenty dollars a day, including nuggets, some of them eighty and one hundred dollars. Two hundred miners were engaged on the creek during the season, working the surface of the creek-bed, or sluicing on the hill and bench ground; but there was also a deep charftiel like that on William Creek, 23 During the last week in August the creek yielded $10,000. Page and Bent, in Victoria Daily Colonist, Aug. 8, Oct. 8, 1871; Langevins Rept, 1872, 8; Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 13, 14. 24 The creek claims paid well enough until June, when a flood burst upon the camp and washed out all the wing-dams. After these were repaired only a month remained for working before the long winter set in. The Keynton Company then lost the bed-rock and with it their pay. The Good-as-Any Company obtained good pay, although the lead was spotted. The hill claims owned by the same company prospected exceedingly well, but the water soon ran short and a slide filled their sluices. The Morrison Company paid less than $3 a day during the season. The Rim Rock Company, a hydraulic claim having a bank from 20 to 50 feet in height, paid better than any other claim, yielding $6,200 for the season. The scarcity of water succeeding a flood bred discouragement, and the Reliance, Marshal, and Discovery claims were abandoned, while several others were sold to the Chinese. F. Pag% in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 15; Dawson on Mines, 38. 554 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. wherein two companies sank shafts to the bed-rock with profitable results. On the north bank of the creek, near the mouth of Slate Creek, thirty lots were laid out by Commissioner O'Reilly as the nucleus of a town, and several substantial houses were erected by traders and others.25 The creek proved patchy, yet managed j for some time to retain the second rank in the district as a gold-producer. In 1875 nine companies were working it, four of which were located on the slate tributary, but the following season only two remained.26 Lost Creek was for some time thought to be one of the most flourishing of mining localities, the Irwin company of five men having washed out, in one week in 1871, 192 ounces, and another company $500 to the man. The creek was discovered by a company of Cariboo miners who sank 50 to 70 feet and obtained large pay They remained here until 1875, when their dividend for the season amounted to only $210.27 Among other locations made known by the prospectors who overran Omineca was Skeleton Creek, which received its name from the discovery in 1871 of the skeletons of three white men supposed to have died from cold or starvation.28 A 'new creek' staked off five miles south of Vitalle Creek was never deemed worthy of a name. At Black Jack Gulch, five miners in 1871 made about $200 a day continuously. At Elmore Gulch the Manhattan Company mined profitably in 1874, but the following season proved a failure for want of sluice water.29 25 Slate Creek, a tributary of Manson Creek, had in 1871 a mining ^population of 50 men, who were making from $5 to $20 a day. Langevin's Rept, 1872, 8-10, 88. 26 Min. Mines Rept., 1875, 15; Dawson on Mines, 38; F. Page, in Victoria Daily Colonist, Aug. 8, 1871; VoweWs B. C, Mines, MS., 13, 14; Allan's Cariboo, MS., 12, 13; Herre, in Cariboo Sentinel, Aug. 17, 1872. 27 Three hundred feet above them, where the old channel ran deeper, several vain attempts were made in 1871 to find bottom. Page, in Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 15; Herre, in Cariboo Sentinel, Aug. 17, 1872. 28 Victoria Daily Colonist, Oct. 8, 1871. 29 The New Zealand Company's claim paid expenses in 1876, and was prepared for winter work. Page, in Min. Mines Rept, 1876, 15; Langevin's Rept., 1872, 8-9. SKEENA RIVER. 555 Fair prospects were found on the bars of Omineca and Finlay30 rivers near their confluence, and the latter stream was in 1870 prospected by a party a hundred miles from its mouth, revealing promising bar diggings as far as they went, some yielding seventy-five cents to the pan.31 At the head-waters of Nation River from thirty to fifty miles south-east of the central Omineca diggings lay a cluster of auriferous creeks, which had been visited at one time by Peace River miners, and were supposed to be rich;32 but no developments worthy of note appear to have been made.33 Parsnip River, further down, and Peace River itself west and east of the Rocky Mountains were found to contain gold placers, though unreinunerative so far as their accessible deposits were explored.34 The mining on the bars resembled that of Fraser River, the gold being fine and found in thin sheets, deposited and buried again, by massive sediments of the river, out of sight of the bed-rock. The valley further resembled the Fraser in having a lake or freshwater tertiary formation basined within it containing lignite coal.*5 The first arrivals quickly exhausted the shallow river bar deposits, and operations soon dwindled to nothing. On the Pacific slope of the auriferous range, represented by Skeena River and its tributaries, mining was never carried on to any noteworthy extent, 80 This stream was named after James Finlay, one of the Northwest Company's fur-traders, who in 1768 started from Michillimackinac and penetrated to Nipawee on the Saskatchewan in latitude 43£° north, longitude 103° west. Mackenzie's Voy., xi. He was stationed and engaged in building a fort on Lower Peace River in 1792. Id. 125. 81 Peter Toy, Evans, and others prospected up Finlay River to the cafion, a distance of eighty miles, and found gold on all the bars, in some places as much as seventy-five cents to the pan. Just below the canon a branch joins it from the south, whereon Toy obtained fine gold for a number of miles. Page, inMin.'Mines Rept, 1875, 15; Victoria Weekly Colonist, Dec. 7, 1870. 82 Quesnel, March 20, 1870, cor. Victoria Weekly Colonist, April 6, 1870. 88 Alexander Fraser and a party prospected the head of Nation River in 1870. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Aug. 17, 1870. 34 Parsnip River and Peace River east of the Rocky Mountains carried free gold. Dawson on Mines, p. 39. 85 Trutch's Map of British Columbia indicates coal at the mouth of Trout or Panais Rivers near latitude 55°. r 556 GOLD DISCOVERIES LN THE FAR NORTH. although prospects were found of so encouraging a nature as to induce parties to overrun the Babine and the country between the Nass and Skeena rivers; yet the Omineca excitement itself was sometimes referred to on account of its geographical position as the Skeena River excitement. Near the coast, Mof- fatt of the Hudson's Bay Company found at Moffatfc River, fifteen miles north of the Skeena and twelve miles south of the Nass, an extensive deposit of black sand containing gold of the size of number four shot, and the steamer Wright early in 1871 reported the discovery of new diggings at or near the same locality.36 Omineca district certainly failed to justify the expectations formed of it in more than one respect; the peaceful conquest of the country by the gold- seekers' predecessors, the pioneers in quest of furs, had been unattended by immigration; for seventy years the country had remained without roads or other notable improvements beyond the erection of a few trading stations with gardens, and the perfecting of natural routes of communication by cutting trails over portages between the canoe termini. Mackenzie neither saw nor heard from the Indians of the existence of the precious metal in the bars of Peace River during his laborious ascent of that stream. With the new influx of miners a new era was to be expected. Towns would be built, pack-trails and roads would be opened into the mountains and outlying districts, fields would be planted for the sustenance of the communities henceforth dependent directly upon the resources and identified with the history of the country, and Omineca would become the nucleus for settlements extending even east of the Rocky Mountains. For the first time in the history of the country, the imaginary line of Fifty-four Forty, the shibboleth of the party in power at Washington in 1845, assumed 36 Victoria Weekly Colonist, Aug. 17, 1870, Feb. 22, 1871; B. C, Sfwtches, MS., p. 5 OMINECA GOLD. 557 the definitenoss of realty, though its actual significance was simply that of the natural water-shed boundary between the Fraser and Peace river basins, rendered noteworthy in being crossed by the advancing wave of population of the Pacific coast. Beyond that water-shed no other power than England ever claimed dominion. But these visions melted away as soon almost as they were formed, and with them the fame of the pioneer prospectors of whom nothing of note is recorded thereafter.37 The season of the great influx proved unfavorable; the water remained so long at a high level that only a few weeks' work could be done,, and the yield as a consequence was not very attractive. Langevin estimated the product for Omineca in 1871 at $400,000 distributed among 1,200 people, and Ireland, the express- man,at $80,000 or $90,000 only, up to September, most of which had passed over to the traders, he said, to pay for supplies which owing to the length and difficulty of the route were very dear.38 Besides climatic and geographical drawbacks including freshets and the subsequent dwindling of sluice water, there were obstacles in connection with the tracing of the lead and the separation of the metal. A peculiarity of the diggings on Omineca River was that native gold and 37 Samuel Goldsmith, one of the Peace River miners of 1863, resided at Barkerville in 1870. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Feb. 23, 1870. Peter Toy, one of the pioneers of 1862, was still mining in the fall of 1866 on the bars of Finlay River. New Westminster Examiner, May 11, 1867. 'Peace River Smith' was a resident of the town of Germansen Creek in 1871. Butler's Wild North Land, 307. ■ Bill Parker, Jim May's companion to Peace River,' was at Colville, W. T., in 1865 and ' very well off.' Victoria Weekly Colonist, Aug. 1, 1865. 88 Langevin gives $300,000 as the known yield and adds the remainder. Pub. Works Dept. Rept, 1872, 8-10. In October 120 miners returned on the Otter to Victoria with only $10,000. Some ascribed the general want of success to the lateness of the season, td high water, and the great cost of provisions. Six or seven hundred men still remained in the. diggings in October, while 200 or 300 were making preparations to remain over winter. D. Eckstein, in U. S. Commercial Rel., 1871, 640; Victoria Daily Colonist, Oct. 4, 1871. George Bent arrived at Victoria in October with $8,000 of Omineca gold. Id., Oct. 8, 1871. On the steamer Otter in December, 33 of the passengers were 'flat broke' and had free passage. Some of them pronounced Omineca a failure, while others spoke favorably of the diggings. Victoria Weekly Colonist, Dec. 25, 1871. 558 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. silver ran together in the placers, worn by fluviatile agencies into particles and nuggets of the same size. The gold resembled that of Keithley Creek in size, shape, and weight, but was not quite so bright.89 The silver was not alloyed with the gold but nearly pure, worth $20,000 to the ton, and usually water-worn and rounded though occasionally rough. The admixture was found on analysis to be a small percentage of mercury, consequently a native amalgam.40 Ten per cent of the metal washed out of the placers on Vitalle Creek was silver, and when the miners ceased to find this metal they also ceased to find gold. Although the field was large, the deposits were too patchy and thin to-afford satisfactory returns to all; nor was there sufficient inducement to pursue deep mining to any extent, although deeper channels of older streams had been found here as elsewhere. All this could not fail to accelerate the exodus which set in on the approach of winter, and in 1872 the remaining population of Omineca received a comparatively small accession. The yield for the season was estimated by the gold commissioner at $8 a day to- the man. The miners decreased in number year by year, and in 1875 there were only 68 persons left, who produced from 26 claims $32,000.41 In 1876 the yield was so insignificant that the minister of mines left the district entirely out of consideration, and after this only a few miners remained striving to eke out an existence during the short season allotted.42 Omineca was not, however, the only hope of this northern region, for beyond it had risen another mining field,43" 89 Victoria Daily Colonist, Nov. 4, 1869. It was rich orange in color like that of Leech River. Id., March 2, 1870. 49 Victoria Weeky Colonist, March 2, 1870; Dawson on Mines, 14-15. 41 On Germansen Creek in 1875 there were 13 claims; on Slate Creek, 4; on Manson River, Lost Creek, etc., 9; total, 26 claims, employing 49 white- and 16 Chinese miners. All were bar and creek diggings. Min, Mines Rept., 1875, 14, 15; Sproat's B. C, 76; Guide B. C, 1877-8, 94-6. *2 Vowell'sB. C. Mines, MS., 13, 14. 43 Ever since the Queen Charlotte Island gold excitement in 1861-2, slight gold-finds had been reported from there at intervals, which tended to keep this region before the public, without causing an actual movement of gold- CASSIAR AND STIKEEN. 559 which promised to more than compensate for her decline, and this was the Cassiar district, also known as Stikeen Eiver district, since the first gold excitement had centred on this stream. In the autumn of 1861 a French Canadian by the name of Choquette ascended the river with some Indians for one hundred and fifty miles, and found good prospects which continued to improve during the additional forty miles of his ascent. Every bar showed more or less of the gold which resembled that of Fraser River in being fine and difficult to wash on the lower bars, while it increased in coarseness toward the head-waters. The valley soil was also everywhere impregnated with specks to an altitude of 2,000 feet. The reports hereof created no little excitement, and despite the attractions of Cariboo, over 800 men set out for the district in the spring. Only a little over half the number had the courage, however, to face the hardships of the ascent to the gold-field, and their expectations hardly met with the results that they deserved. Of the bars below the canon only Carpenter Bar proved good, the average yield being from ten to twenty dollars a day, though a few miners made as much as three ounces; but in the canon nearly 100 miles in extent and on the north branch, the patchy coarser gold again prospected ten to fifteen dollars a day in a number of places, while the headwaters looked most promising; still the average pay was not large, and the mining population remained small, partly for want of ready communication and supplies. The river despite its sloughs and currents proved navigable during several months of the year for light-draught steamers as far as Shakesville, 170 miles from its mouth, and to this point the Flying seekers; but in 1859 a nugget, partially composed of quartz and weighing 14£ ounces, valued at $250, was obtained from the islanders and exhibited at Victoria. An effort was then made to form a prospecting expedition to the island; to which the Hudson's Bay Company lent their aid; but a sufficient number of men failed to subscribe towards it, and it was abandoned. Victoria, Gazette, March 22, May 3 and 7, 1859; B. C. Papers, ii. 70. 560 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. Dutchman, Captain Moore, made several trips; but the canon which began twenty miles beyond this place could not be entered by canoes even during low water, except at great risk. This part of the country was besides arid, owing to the summer droughts, and filled with washed gravel hills and masses of lava and basaltic rocks, producing nothing but straggling bushes. Lower down, however, timber existed suitable for boat-building.44 The efforts to establish a gold-field did not, therefore, achieve success, and mining was for years followed only by odd prospecting parties. In 1872, however, the intrepid Thibert who had left Minnesota in 1869 with one companion on a hunting expedition in this direction, found gold in the Rocky Mountains on one of the Mackenzie tributaries, near Dease Lake. After wintering on Stikeen River they returned in company with one McCulloch45 to Dease Lake to prospect its creek waters, and found a deposit yielding as much as two ounces of rough gold a day. The gold lay on a slate or bed-rock or black rock witnm one or three feet of the surface. On one creek, named after Thibert, the party took up three claims, and in the course of the season they were joined by some thirty men who all wintered on the ground. Good prospects were also obtained on Dease Creek, which enters the lake near Thibert's outlet, and up Laird River on McDame and Sayyea46 tributaries. Reports of these finds were eagerly listened to by the desponding miners in southern districts, and during the following seasons a large influx took place, so that in 1875 about one thousand men were occupied in the district chiefly on creeks named.47 On Dease 44 Portland Bulletin, Feb. 13, Jan. 15, May 7, July 21, 1874; Walla Walla Intel, Feb. 20, 1874; B. C. Directory, 1863, 206-8; Victoria Colonist, Jan. 5, 1862. 45 The Cassiar gold mines were discovered by another man named McCulloch, who subsequently lost his life in the pursuit, and others who crossed over from the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 14. 46Named after its discoverer. Min. Mines Rept., 1876, 7-9; B. C. Guiae, 1877-8, 90-1; Olympia Echo, Sept. 3, 1874; Tarbell's Vic., MS., 8, 9. 47 j The population estimated here I conclude to be about 800 whites, 80 Chinamen, and 200 Indians exclusive of the Cassiar natives, t. e., in the SAYYEA CREEK. 561 and Thibert creeks nearly all the miners were doing well, taking out from one to three ounces to the man, while some claims were yielding even better. McDame Creek was occupied by about three hundred miners, but the ground was more patchy, and the dams had been more exposed to slides and freshets; those, however, who had maintained their dams were turning out as much as two hundred ounces a week, and proving the richness of the creek. On Sayyea Creek the return averaged ten dollars a day in coarse gold, with, nuggets weighing nearly thirty dollars, and the most glowing anticipations were formed. The value of the ground was perhaps best demonstrated by the returns, which for 1875 amounted to nearly $1,000,000, and for 1874 to but little less.48 This result did not fail to have its eflect, for the next season witnessed an influx still larger than before, amounting to fully 1,700 men, a great part of whom came with no definite purpose and remained idlers, while the rest assisted in extending the district by means of new developments. By this time it had been learned from the damage effected by the early summer floods that the early spring with its low water preceding the freshets was the best time for working the diggings, despite the trouble in cutting mining portion of the district. Probably 200 whites may be added to the above estimate and form the total population of Cassiar.' Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 5. 48' It is now well established that Dease, Thibert's, and McDame's creeks have yielded in two seasons nearly $2,000,000, and the two latter streams will, undoubtedly, produce far more in the future than they have yet done. Three other streams have been prospected, tributaries of Dease River and De Liard, and gold in paying quantities has been found upon each.' Andrews' claim on Dease Creek yielded 500 ounces in one week, and on McDame Creek the Discovery Company washed out 170 ounces in one week and 200 ounces the next. On Quartz Creek, a tributary of McDame,'Mr McLoughlan and party of two others, for one day's washing took out $50. Some have great faith in these creeks, while others doubt their richness. There are sixteen men at present prospecting these creeks. The gold obtained is of a rough, not water-worn appearance, and quartz Veins may be traced in various places in that vicinity.' On Sayyea Creek, Sayyea's party of four took out j for 115£ days' work, 77 3-16 ounces, making an average to each man per day of $10.80, nearly. The gold abstracted therefrom is coarse and seems to be of excellent quality; some pieces weigh, respectively, $28, $18, $17, and a number of pieces average about $10.' Min. Mines Rept, 1875, 4, 7. Hist. Beit. Col. 86 562 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. ice and removing snow.49 During the winter tunnelling was the rule and the dirt was collected for summer washing. Owing to the extreme cold it was often necessary to thaw the drift.50 By this season unfortunately much of the old ground on Thibert, McDame, and other creeks had been skimmed of its riches, and the new discoveries failed to prove of any extent, so that the yield for 1876 fell to a little over $500,000.61 Among the new discoveries were Snow Creek, a tributary of the McDame, which yielded as much as $50 a day to the man, but for a time only; the Tako country, 100 miles north-west of Dease Creek, and the head-waters of the Stikeen, which promised to afford an opening for the many disappointed men. The diggings on Sayyea Creek on the other hand, which held out so many hopes, dwindled into very poor ground, and the Liard itself had raised great expectations in 1875, by turning out a nugget of seventeen dollars, but the prospectors who were led by this find came back disheartened in the following season.68 49 ' The damage on Dease Creek so far has been immense; the melted snow coming down that course in torrents, tore away all the wing-dams, the timbers of which lie floating on Dease Lake; a much to be regretted loss of hardy miners' enterprise and industry. The damage, I am of opinion, $50,000 would not repair.' Min. Mines Rept., 1875, 4. 50' So extreme is the cold that it is found necessary at times to roll large heated bowlders into the tunnel's mouth in order to thaw out the frozen ground. In one tunnel of 120 feet at 40 feet down, the ground was found to be frozen.' Vowell's Brit. Col. Mines, MS., 17. 61 Dease Creek, $160,300; Thibert Creek, $139,720; McDame Creek, $163,- 700; total, $463,720; to which may be added 20 per cent for other ground, making a total of $556,474 for Cassiar district. This amount must be distributed among perhaps 1,800 men. 'Some 350 on Dease Creek Chinamen included, about 400 on Thibert Creek and its tributaries, between 700 and 800 in the vicinity of McDame Creek, and several parties prospecting in other portions of the district.' ' The unexpected, and from the results of the past two seasons, the unjustifiable rush to Cassair this spring in a measure accounts for the general depression which affects alike the miner, the merchant, and the packer. Such an influx instead of helping the district has had the contrary effect.' Min. Mines Rept, 1876, 411-12, 416-17. 52 'On Quartz Creek a great deal of prospecting is being done, but as yet no definite idea can be formed as to its richness or otherwise. A discovery has been made in a place called Pleasant Valley, about two and one half miles from Snow Creek, and very nice gold taken out. It prospected $22.50 to 140 buckets. On McDame Creek very few creek claims have been prospected, owing to the amount of water constantly in that stream.' Min. Mimes Rejpt., 1876,412. A number of miners returning with considerable gold from Cassiar, including Gold Commissioner Sullivan, sank with the steamer Pacific in 1876* Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 15. A HUNDRED GOLDEN STREAMS. 563 The natural result was that the population for 1877 did not exceed 1,200, about one third of whom were Chinese; but the prospecting was carried on even more vigorously than before, with good results, and the excellent showing of the benches on Thibert as well as McDame creek gave promise of a bright future, and this was the more a matter of congratulation, since the creek claims had not only been pretty well explored, but were accessible for only a very short season. The north forks of the McDame also assisted to restore to this creek its prestige, as did the discovery on the Walker tributary, entering near its mouth, of twenty-dollar prospects in granulated gold. Gold quartz had been found on this main creek, largely mixed with copper and lead; and on the Liard a lode of argentiferous galena had been explored to some extent; but the failure of the quartz operations at Glenora on Stickeen head-waters showed that the miners were not as yet prepared for this branch of mining. The yield for the season was placed at $500,000, and this, in view of the smaller number of miners and the severe freshets, which rendered the creeks unworkable till the middle of August, may be regarded as more favorable than the result for 1876.63 The supplies for the district were in part brought by way of Port Fraser, but chiefly up the Stickeen and by pack trains. The centre of trade was at Laketown, on Dease Creek, where several substantial business houses had risen, and whence quite a fleet of boats 53 'Dease Creek, $81,300; Thibert Creek, $173,700; McDame Creek, $144,- 800; amount taken out of which no definite returns could be procured, say $45,000, which, with the sum of $55,000 allowed for the probable yield from the dtite upon which the statistics were completed until the 31st of December next, will bring the gross amount to $499,830. Dease Creek suffered most from the incessant rains, and the returns from that creek are in consequence far below what they otherwise would have been. The majority of claims in that creek have been transferred to the Chinese.' Min. Mines Rept, 1877, 400-1. Cassiar as a consequence assumed greater strength, and the following season the population again approached the figure of 1876. Vowell's B. C. Mines, 16; B. C. Guide, 1877-8, 88-90. 564 GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE FAR NORTH. departed every week over Dease Lake in the direction of the various creeks and rivers connecting with its waters.54 In 1877 the gold commissioner was able to report the opening of land for the cultivation of cereals and vegetables, with results that promised to render the district independent in some degree of outside markets.55 54 j Prices in 1875 at Laketown were: flour per lb., 25 cents; bacon per lb., 50 cents; sugar per lb., 45 cents. In 1877, flour per lb., 20 cents; bacon per lb., 45 cents; sugar per lb., 45 cents.' Min, Mines Rept., 1875, 5; 1877, 402. 55 The lakes and streams were besides rich in fish, and game abounded. Vowell's B. C. Mines, MS., 21; Min. Mines Rept., 1877, 402. CHAPTER XXIX. COAL. COAL-BEARING FORMATIONS EAST AND WEST—CALIFORNIA, OREGON, AND Washington Fields Compared—British Columbia Coal-bearing Formations—Bituminous, Lignite, and Anthracite—Brown's Localities—Richardson's Trough—Beaver Harbor—Quatsino Harbor—Nanatmo—The Nanaimo Coal Company—The Vancouver Company—The Wellington Company—Progress of Development at Nanaimo—Dunsmuir's Adventures—The Nanaimo Stone Quarry— The Harewood Mine—Workings of the Vancouver Colliery— Queen Charlotte Islands Anthracite—Attempted Development of the Mines—Brown and Richardson's Visits—Claudet and Isher- wood's Analyses—Comox and Bayne Sound—Developments—Discoveries on the Mainland—Ministers' Reports—Stajtutory Regulations—Summary. In connection with the establishing of forts Rupert and Nanaimo1 I have given a full account of the earliest coal discoveries in British Columbia. I will now briefly glance at later developments, begging the reader meanwhile to remember that it is the history of coal and the development of the coal interests of the country rather than technical descriptions or analyses that I am attempting to write. The coals and lignites of western North America are found, as a rule, in formations different from those in which they occur at the east; the secondary and tertiary rocks, at various horizons, in the west, taking the place, as coal-producing formation, of the carboniferous strata of the east. Between California and Alaska are three distinct coal sections belonging to three distinct geologic formations respectively; the tertiary, extending through 1 See chapter xi., this volume (565) 566 COAL. Oregon and Washington; the cretaceous, covering, for the most part, Vancouver Island; and the cretaceo- jurassic.existing^ chiefly in Queen Charlotte Islands. Cahfornia has little to boast of in the way of coal deposits of economic importance. True, in the Coast Range, and in many places along the Sierra Foothills, from one end of the state to the other, coal is found scattered; but usually in such small quantities and of such poor quality or so unfavorably situated as to be of little value.2 Actual developments in Oregon are not so far in advance of those in Cahfornia, as are the possibilities of Oregon superior to those of California.3 Expectation, however, seems thus far primarily to have been directed to Washington and British Columbia, and that with fair success.* The rule seems to be that as we follow the coast northward the quality improves.5 In British Columbia only we find thus far bearing coal the three formations; on Vancouver Island and the coast adjacent, two tertiary rocks with bituminous coal and lignite, and cretaceous rocks with 2 Even of the Monte Diablo field, the only one which has thus far assumed any considerable degree of financial importance in the state, W. A. Goodyear, after devoting some sixty pages of his Coal Mines of the Western Coast to its description, finally concludes * that the days of the old Mt Diablo mines are numbered.' Likewise as to Oregon, which in respect of mineral fuels he regards as next least in importance to California, he devotes considerable space, although the only mines worked with profit, he says, are at Coos Bay, and these are not of extraordinary value. This was a safe assertion, the Coos Bay mines being the only ones in Oregon upon which work to any considerable extent had been done at the time of his writing. 3 No doubt the opening of mines on the lower Columbia has been retarded by Portland capitalists, jealous of the building of a new metropolis in that quarter. Many have expressed the opinion that the coal resources of Oregon are equal to those of Washington. 4 ' It is unquestionably to the mines of Washington Territory, and of British Columbia, that this Pacific Coast must look hereafter, both for its chief domestic and its nearest and most reliable foreign supplies of that indispensable necessity of all civilized communities—a good article of coaL' Goody ear's Coal Mines of the Western Coast, p. 153. 5 In the endeavor to establish the comparative value of fuels for steam- raising purposes, the United States war department give the following estimate: One cord of good oak wood was found equal to 1,800 lbs. Nanaimo, 2,200 lbs. Bellingham Bay, 2,400 lbs. Seattle, 2,500 lbs. Rocky Mountain, 2;C00 lbs. Coos Bay, or 2,600 lbs. Monte Diablo coal. The average composition of Vancouver Island coals as deduced from his analysis is given by Harrington as follows: Water, 1.47; volatile combustible matter, slow coking, 28.19, fast coking, 32.69; fixed carbon, slow coking, 64.05, fast coking, 59.55; ash 6.29. KIND AND QUALITY. 567 bituminous coal, and on Queen Charlotte Islands lower cretaceous, or cretaceo-jurassic rocks holding anthracite.6 Robert Brown locates the secondary coals of Vancouver Island in the following order, proceeding northward: In the Chemanis district near the river of that name;7 at the De Courcy Islands, on one of which a seam two feet in thickness was found; at Nanaimo, where cretaceous coals attain the fullest development; at Baynes Sound and vicinity; at Sukwash, near Fort Rupert, and across the Island, following a coal basin, to Quatsino Sound.8 James Richardson, on behalf of the geological sur- 6 The most scrutinizing, and able exposition of British Columbia coals, in my opinion, is given by George M. Dawson in the Canadian Pacific Railway Report, reprinted in pamphlet form. Of western anthracitic coals he says: ' Valuable coal deposits may, however, yet be found in the carboniferous formation proper of the far west; and where, as on some parts of the west coast, the calcareous rocks of this age are largely replaced by argillaceous and arenaceous beds, the probability of the discovery of coal is greatest. I believe, indeed, that in a few localities in Nevada, coal shales, used to some extent as fuel in the absence of better, are found in rocks supposed to be of this age. The discovery of certain fossils in 1876 in the limestones of the lower Cache Creek group now allow these, and probably also the associated quartzites and other rocks to be correlated with this period; arid it is worthy of mention that black shales, with a considerable percentage of anthracitic carbon, occur in connection with these in several places, and may yet be found in some parts of their extension, to become of economic value. Mr Richardson has also found small fragments of true'anthracite in rocks which are very probably of this age, on the shores of Cowitchin Bay; and inland, seams of anthracite, with regard to which nothing certain is yet known, are reported to exist.' And again: ' Rocks of the same age with the coal-bearing series of the Queen Charlotte Islands are probably present also on the Mainland, where fossils indicating a horizon both somewhat higher and a little lower in the geological scale have already been found, and apparently occur in different parts of a great conformable rock series, though this cannot yet be confidently stated. These rocks are extensively developed on the eastern flank of the Coast Range, near the head-waters of both branches of the Homathco, and probably occur in considerable force, with a similar relation to this axis of disturbance throughout its length, as the explorations of last summer have led to the discovery of rocks near the same horizon, on the Iltasyouco and Salmon rivers, in latitude 52° 50V Dawson on Mines, 17-19; Rep. Can. Pac. R. R., 1877, 227-34. 7 * Coal has been bored for here; but I am not aware that, so far as the sinkings have progressed, the seams have been passed through.' Brown's Coal Fields, 10. This was prior to 1869. The same paper is given in the Transactions of tlie Edinburgh Geol. Soc, 1868-9. 8 See Brown's map in Petermann's Geog. Mittheilungen, 1869, and Admiralty Chart, No. 1719. ' It is no exaggeration, indeed, to say that coal exists all along the shores of both colonies; and when any of the inlets become of sufficient importance to make the work remunerative, there is no doubt it will be iound in working position and sufficient quantities.' Mayne's B. C, 380. 568 COAL. vey of Canada, examined the southern part of the- eastern shore of Vancouver Island in 1871. Between Cape Mudge and within fifteen miles of Victoria there appeared to extend a narrow trough in which coal seams were apparent in twelve or fifteen different places, in five of which were held divers claims by their respective companies. At Qomox Harbor several claims, prominent among which was that belonging to the Union Coal Mining Company, were taken up about 1870.9 North-west from the Union and not far distant, several seams were discovered and reported by P. J. Leech in 1864. Sixteen miles from Comox Harbor,.in the same direction and near the coast, was a seam four feet in width. Near Comox was the Beaufort mine, where was good hard coal, the seam being three feet and more in width. It was situated on the left bank of Bradley Creek, down which, half a mile, a seam appeared, and half a mile further another seam. These were discovered by Henry Bradley, one of Richardson's men, and upon examination proved to be from one to two feet wide. Westward from the point last named, one and a half miles on Trent River, was a seam nine feet in thickness. Not far distant were the Perseverance and the Baynes Sound claims.10 To the Comox Basin he gave a length of sixty-four miles, or if limited to Kookooshun Point and the Qualicum River, forty miles. I have elsewhere in this volume noticed the first intelligence conveyed by the natives to the officers of 9Here is 'an almost perpendicular cliff, which rises on the north side of a small brook, tributary to the Puntluch River,' where occur coal seams in descending sections. ' None of the seams in this locality have yet been opened for productive working.' Richardson, in Rept. Geol. Sur. Canada, 1871-2,76-7. 10 ' On the coast no rocks are seen from the path leading to the Baynes Sound claim all the way to Qualicum River, a distance, in a general southeastward course, of sixteen miles. But on Denman Island, lying on the northeast side of Baynes Sound, there is a continuous exposure for ten miles, which is nearly the whole length of the island, in an escarpment rising up from ten to seventy feet, and running pretty much with the strike. Richardson, in Rept. Geol. Sur. Canada, 1871-2, 79. BEAVER AND NANAIMO HARBORS. 569 the Hudson's Bay Company of the existence of coal in the vicinity of Beaver and Nanaimo harbors, and the knowledge of outcroppings elsewhere. Work at Rupert was begun but soon ceased, the deposits being too scattering, but at Nanaimo coal-mining developed into large proportions. The coal at Fort Rupert still continued to attract the curiosity of strangers. The Plumper in 1860 gathered specimens which were pronounced by Mayne "quite equal to the Nanaimo coal; and the Indians brought some from the Mainland opposite, which was also very good." Some work was done at Quatsino Harbor by the Hudson's Bay Company, but the seam opened being but eighteen inches in thickness, the venture was soon abandoned as unprofitable.11 The Hudson's Bay Company continued to work the coal seams of Nanaimo, under the designation of the Nanaimo Coal Company, until 1861, when they sold the mines to a number of English gentlemen,, who associated under the name of The Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company, Limited,12 the mine& thereafter becoming popularly known as the Vancouver Colliery. The company's land embraced 6,000 acres. A marked improvement in working the mines was soon discovered under the new company. New machinery was brought from England; new shafts were sunk; the facilities for loading vessels were increased by wharves, jetties, and barges. The Douglas, Newcastle, and Dunsmuir veins were now all successfully worked, the first mentioned particularly so, with constant improvement in the quality, until competent judges pronounced the Douglas vein but little inferior to the best Welsh coal.13 Prom the Dunsmuir mine 11 Pemberton s V. I., 47. 'Coal has been found in this inlet of the same character apparently as that at Fort Rupert and Nanaimo, and will some day be worked to advantage.' Forbes' Essay, 20. "Capital £100,000 in 10,000 shares of £10 each. Directors, Hon. Mr Justice Haliburton, George Campbell, C. W. W. Fitzwilliam, Josephy Fry, James V. H. Irwin, and Prideaux Selby. Resident manager at Nanaimo in 1863, C. J. Nicol; and in 1877, Mark Bate. 18 Howard and Barnett's Direct, 1863, 144; Hibben'sB. C. Guide, 337; Dawson on Mines, 19. 570 COAL. that is to say Dunsmuir, Diggle, and Company, or the Wellington, situated three miles south-west from Departure Bay, several hundred tons were taken about 1866-7. Under the management of practical men and an abundance of capital, the works at Naniamo progressed favorably. Indeed, it is noticeable than whenever the Hudson's Bay Company stepped aside from fur-trading, failure almost always followed—instance the early efforts at the Red River settlement, and the agricultural speculations of the Puget Sound Company at the Cowlitz and Nisqually.14 When on the coast, the steam-sloop Plumper coaled at Nanaimo in December 1857.15 Mayne reports along the shore "the colliery buildings, and about a dozen remarkably sooty houses inhabited by the miners and the few Hudson's Bay Company's officers, here. There is a resident doctor in the place, who inhabits one of these houses, and to the left of them stands the company's old bastion, on which are mounted the four or five honey-combed twelve-pounders with which the great fur company have been wont to awe the neighboring Indians into becoming respect and submis- u "They mismanaged affairs at Nanaimo, certainly.' Mayne's B. C, 882. Reporting about 1860, Nicol, the manager, remarks: * We have got the coal in a bore nearly five feet thick. I have now fully proved 1,000,000 tons. A shaft 50 or 52 fathoms deep will reach the coal; dip 1 in 7; a very good working seam. I have no doubt there is another seam underlying this one, of an inexhaustible extent. I have got the outcrop inland, and from dip to strike, I am sure it is about 30 fathoms below; so that by continuing the same shaft, if necessary, another large seam containing millions will be arrived at; but the first seam will last my life, even with very large works. With about £5,000 or £8,000 I could get along well, and start a business doing from 60,000 to 100,000 tons a year. The price is 25s. to 28s. alongside the ship.' Says Bauermann, geologist of the boundary expedition: ' Two seams of coal, averaging six or eight feet each in thickness, occur in these beds, and are extensively worked for the supply of the steamers running between Victoria and Fraser River. The coal is a soft black lignite, of a dull earthy fracture, interspersed with small lenticular bands of bright crystalline coal, and resembles some of the duller varieties of coal produced in the south Derbyshire and other central coal-fields in England.' 15' The only spot in the Island where the coal is worked, although it appears in several other places.' Mayne's B. C, 35. 16 He complains that the coal was ' excessively dirty.' A fine cut of Nanaimo is given by Mayne, Brit. Col, 35, showing the fort and the coal-works with the row of cottages on the bank, and a vessel loading coal at a wharf. PROGRESS AT NANAIMO. 571 Captain Richards of the Plumper, reports to the governor of Vancouver Island in October 1858: "A good pier has lately been built, alongside of which vessels may lie and coal with great facility. As much as one hundred and fifty tons have been taken by one vessel in a day, and several vessels together might take in the same quantity. Several thousand tons are ready for shipping, and the miners easily keep that quantity on hand." James Hector, geologist under Palliser, 1859, writes: "Already it is extensively used by the British navy on that station, and it was found to require only a slight modification in the method of feeding the fires to make it highly effective as a steam-generator."17 Pemberton says there were fifty buildings and two steam-engines at Nanaimo in 1860. According to Forbes three mines were being worked in 1862, Newcastle Island, Number Three Pit, and Parkhead Level and Slope.18 For the further advancement of the coal interest thus everywhere appearing, an ordinance was issued in 1869, under which by special license any person or association might seek for coal for the time designated, and if successful obtain a crown grant for the land under certain conditions. The prospecting license, for which a small fee was paid, entitled the holder to exclusive rights of search within prescribed limits. The desired grant of land was obtained on these terms, following Anderson: "For any quantity up to and including one thousand acres, at the price of five dollars per acre, provided always that on proof to the satisfaction of the government that the sum of $10,000 has been beneficially expended on any land held under prospecting license for coal, a grant of one thousand "See London Quar. Jour., Geog. Soc, Nov. 1860; McDonald's B. C, 369-73. 18 From which three mines for the year ending April 1860, 14,455 tons were taken by 173 vessels; the year following 13,900 tons were raised. Price $6 or $7; number of men at this time employed 118. See Forbes' Essay, 18, 20, 57-8, 62; Rattray's V. I., 89, 162; McDonald's Lecture, 50. 572 COAL. acres of the land held under such prospecting license shall be issued to the company holding it without payment of the upset price of such land. In other words, they receive virtually a bonus of $5,000 in consideration of the preliminary expenditure of the larger sum." "When I was in the bush," writes Robert Dunsmuir to H. L. Langevin, minister of public works, "in the month of October 1869, not exactly for the purpose of prospecting for coal, but being thoroughly acquainted from past experience with all the coal formation in this country, I came across a ridge of rock, which I knew to be the strata overlying the lowest seam that had as yet been discovered here. A short time afterwards I sent two men to prospect, and in three days discovered a seam of coal three and a half feet in thickness, thirty feet below the tops of the ridge, dipping south-east one foot in six. After procuring from government a right to further prospect, I sunk a slope ninety-seven and two-thirds yards in the seam, and mined therefrom about 500 tons, twenty-five tons of which were taken on board of H. M. S. Boxer for trial. The same quantities were taken from the Vancouver Coal Company's Douglas Pit and New Castle Mine." Andrew Watt, the engineer of the Boxer, made a lengthy report which pronounced in favor of the Dunsmuir.19 In several other places Mr Dunsmuir found coal, once aniong the roots of a fallen tree, under which was a valuable seam. His estimate of the yield of his field was 7,000 tons to the acre. When at Nanaimo in 1871, Richardson found E. E. Emery raising gray sandstone for the new mint building at San Francisco from the quarry opened on their claim by the Varicouver Company,20 who were 19! With Dunsmuir coal the throttle was nearly wide open, with New Castle and Douglas from one third to one half Open.' The first made less soot and less dirt than the others. Langevin's B. C, 12. 20 [ Six blocks for pillars had been procured from the ten-feet bed, one of which was being dressed into shape for use. Whejuftnished, the length of the jpillars would be 27£ feet, with a diameter of 3 "feet 10 inches. Mr Emery was VANCOUVER, HAREWOOD, AND WELLINGTON. 573 working with small steam-engines the two seams on Newcastle Island, where little had been done for some time past. Piled on the wharf were several hundred tons of coal, whence an occasional schooner or steamer was supplied. The main works of this company, however, were at Nanaimo, distant from the Newcastle Island works two miles. Here work has been more continuous for the past twenty years than on Newcastle Island, 40,000 tons being taken out in 1870 against 14,000 tons in 1860. Richardson places the area of the Nanaimo coal-field, which includes several minor and unworked seams, at about ninety square miles, having a length from Gabriola Island to the Dunsmuir claim of sixteen miles by a breadth of six miles Sproat returns 241 miners in 1872, the entire population then numbering 1,000. Wages at that time were from one dollar for Chinese and Indians to four dollars for white men per diem.21 Early in 1874, T. A. Bukley began operations three or four miles back of Nanaimo, on what was afterward known as the Hare wood Coal Mine, which holds land to the extent of nine thousand acres. Cameron Island in Nanaimo Harbor is the point of shipment for this mine. In 1877 there were three companies at work in the Nanaimo district, the Vancouver, the Wellington, and the Harewood, the first working two seams, six and three feet in thickness respectively. The Wellington Company worked one seam nine and a half feet thick, and held another six feet in thickness. They had three wharves, with all the facilities for loading vessels. The Harewood seam was five or six also quarrying flag-stones from the 12-feet bed, from which are obtained very even-surfaced slabs, from one to six inches thick. One of the latter thickness, which I measured, was ten feet square.' Richardson, in Rept. Geol. Sur. Canada, 1871-2, 84. 2 ' The coal shipped by this company during the ten years ending 31st December 1872, reached 330,395 tons, nearly one half of which was for the San Francisco market.' Sproat's B. C, 78. See also Anderson's Dom. of the West, 84, and app., ii.-iii. 574 COAL. feet thick.22 From the Vancouver and Wellington mines coal was carried to the wharf by short steam railways; the Harewood mine used an elevated wire tramway. Under a judiciously combined system of capital and labor Nanaimo has developed into a busy incorporated town. Beautifully situated with bright skies, pure air, and seaboard attractions and utilities, with schools, churches, municipal council, and member of parliament, it presents little of that sooty, opaque appearance, either physical or moral, so common to the colliery villages of England. From the first the Vancouver company, of which the manager is sometimes mayor, as was the case with Mark Bate in 1877, adopted a wise and humane policy, selling lots at low prices so that the poor might have a home, and encouraging settlement and improvement by various means. A trough of coal-bearing rocks had been conjectured in regard to Queen Charlotte Islands not wholly unlike that before mentioned on Vancouver Island. It is said to extend from the northern part of Morseby Island northward eighty-four miles. Besides the Queen Charlotte Gompany's mine at Cowgitz, in Skidegate Channel, for some time past anthracite has been known to exist at Cumshewas Harbor, and Ma*sset at the northern end of the islands. Robert Brown, botanist of the British Columbia exploring expedition, visited the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1866 in company with a party of miners who went thither to examine the coal deposits of that 22 * The coal is worked, I believe, on the pillar and stall system, though parts of the seam have been so steeply inclined as to require stoping. The miners employed are whites, Chinese, and Indians. Mr Good states the number of each for the year 1875 to be as follows: whites, 396; Chinese, 176; Indians, 51; giving a total of 623. The wages earned by the whites vary from two dollars to five dollars a day; by the Chinese and Indians, from one dollar to one dollar and a half.' The total output of the Nanaimo mines for 1875 was 110,145 tons; for 1876, 140,187 tons; price ftt the mine, five or six dollars; of San Francisco, ten dollars. Hfiben's GuideB. C, 98; Dawson on Mines, 20. QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS 575 section. At Skidegate Bay where was then the chief development he spent several weeks. " Two rival parties of miners were there prospecting," he says, "and one of them had driven an adit into the hill-side some two or three hundred feet above the sea-level."23 These early prospectors were at first unsuccessful. Now and then the pick would strike a block of good anthracite,24 but for the most part it upturned only "a material not unlike wet or damp gunpowder." Later they were more successful, so much so that a company was formed at Victoria, called the Queen Charlotte Coal Mining Company, which began operations there, but were obliged to abandon them on account of the irregularity of the deposit. Richardson was there in 1872, and reported that the best seam, which for 60 or 70 feet had a thickness of six feet, was lost in shale and limestone. There was another bed of good anthracite, two and a half feet thick, and many smaller seams discovered in various directions. This was on the north side of Skidegate Channel. On the south side, fourteen miles southeast from Cowgitz, where the Queen Charlotte Company had opened their mines, the existence of anthracite was reported by the natives.25 " Nothing can be better 23 ' Here they had gone through a great bed of coarse conglomerate, a fine hard slate when the coal was reached. This conglomerate was in every respect similar to that associated with the Nanaimo coal-fields; but the slate was peculiar.' Brown's Coal Fields, 20. 24 At the government assay office, New Westminster, an analysis made by Claudet showed carbon, 71.20; moisture, 5.10; volatile combustible matter, 17.27; ash, 6.43, which brings it close to Pennsylvania anthracite. The chief engineer of the United States navy, B. F. Isherwood, gives as the result of his experiments at the Mare Island navy-yard, on some of the coals of the west and east for the purpose of ascertaining their relative strength and economic vaporization under various conditions of combustion, among other valuable information, the relative weights of steam obtainable from equal bulks: From a cubic foot of Pennsylvania anthracite, at a slow rate of combustion, 471.51 lbs.; Queen Charlotte Islands anthracite, 369.37; Welsh, 565.92; Rocky Mountain, Monte Diablo, Coos Bay, and Seattle, 319.98; Bellingham Bay, 371.86; Nanaimo, 372.64; Nanaimo coke, 192.47. See Isherwood's Report, in Ex. Doc. No. 206, 1871-2, 2d Sess., 42d Cong., passim. 25 'This would give an extent of at least twenty miles to the coal-bearing strata which have thus been partially examined, and the facts mentioned indicate a general presence of coal in it, however much what may be considered the same seams may vary in their distances from one another on the strike, in their thickness and their qualities.' Richardson, in Geol. Sur. Canada, 1872-3, 58-60. 576 COAL. or more substantially constructed," reports Richardson, "than the wharf, the houses, tramways, inclines, dumping-sheds, and tunnels of the Queen Charlotte Coal Mining Company, and it is much to be regretted that their efforts have not been more successful." Extensive deposits were reported discovered on Skeena River by.Downie in 1859.26 "I saw seams of coal to-day," writes an explorer on Simpson River to Governor Douglas, "fifteen feet thick, better than a,ny mined at Vancouver." The coals of Baynes Sound and vicinity are pronounced by some better than that of Nanaimo, but the harbor facilities are much inferior.27 Before 18G9 this region had been thoroughly prospected. The Baynes Sound Colliery Company, Limited, having 5,000 acres of coal lands, began operations ten miles south-east from Comox in 1876. By the expiration of the following year, a narrow-guage tramway from the mine to tide-water, three and a half miles, had been constructed, with a locomotive, cars, and a wharf with two shutes.28 A saw-mill was built, a town site surveyed to which was given the name Quadra, and a store, drinking-shop, hotel, and post-office erected for the accommodation of the dozen settlers who were there in 1877. At Burrard Inlet, coal was found by Henry N. 26 I The Skeena River is said to pass through an extensive coal formation, with coal beds 3 to 35 feet thick. This may, however, be lignite.' Dawson orfi-Mines, 4A. 27 ' The coal here is of better quality than at Nanaimo, and produces excellent coke.' Brown's Coal Fields, 13. ' The Comox area has probably a greater extent of productive measures, and may eventually become more important than Nanaimo.' Dawson on Mines, 20. 28 * The mine is opened from the bank of a small river, adit, or level free, from whence the coal is delivered into bunkers near the mouth of the adit. From the bunkers it is let into the cars and delivered on shipboard without being again handled. The bunkers already constructed have a, capacity of 2,000 tons. There are two coal-seams being worked, one overlyingthe other. The lower seam is seven feet thick, and the upper one six feet. The coal in the upper seam is very similar to the Douglas seam of Nanaimo, while that in the lower seam appears to differ from all the other coals as yet discovered on the Island. It is a dense hard coal, free from sulphur, gives a dense hard coke, and requires a strong draft to ignite it.' B, C, Guide, 1877-6, 107. OUTPUT AND PRICES. 577 Peers; and in 1859 six bags, taken by the Plumper from the outcrop from a place which was called Coal Harbor, were pronounced by the engineer of fair quality. Coal was likewise seen in the delta of Fraser River, but even if the bed was of any importance the water could scarcely be excluded so that it could be worked. 29 The minister of mines reporting in 1875 is pleased to notice the increase of the output of that year over the year previous. He places the yield for 1874 at 81,000 tons, and that of 1875 at 110,000 tons. All the coal-mines then being worked in British Columbia were at or in the vicinity of Nanaimo. The diamond drill was brought into requisition in searching for fresh seams by an engineer brought from England for that purpose. In 1876 fire broke out in the Wellington mine, causing some damage. The Baynes Sound and Harewood mines that year began putting their coals in market, and the price throughout the province generally was reduced from ten and eleven dollars to eight dollars and seventy-five cents. The depression of the market at San Francisco, with other causes, resulted in the cessation of operations at the Harewood in 1877; notwithstanding which the output for this year was 15,000 tons more than that of 1876. By act of the legislative assembly, April 18, 1877, the coal-mines of British Columbia were placed under stringent and healthful regulations. By this act women and girls are not allowed to work under ground, nor any boy under twelve years of age; and when a boy under fourteen is employed by reason of the thinness of the seam, or from any other cause, to work below ground, he shall not so work more than five days of 29McDonald is quite mistaken when he says, Brit. Col, 36, 'The first discovery made of this mineral in British Columbia,' meaning thereby the Mainland, ' was at Burrard's Inlet, six miles from New Westminster, about three years ago.' Hist. Brit. Col. 37 578 COAL. six hours each in any one week. Wages must not be paid in a liquor saloon; persons paid according to quantity raised might nominate their own check- weigher; single shafts were prohibited, except in opening or proving a mine or other specified cases. Then the act tells how a mine shall be divided into parts; how examiners for granting certificates of competency to managers, and how managers shall be appointed, and in which appointment the greatest care is to be taken by the board and by the minister that only competent, experienced, and temperate persons shall be selected. Annual returns must be made to the minister of mines; notice must be given of all accidents; and when a mine is abandoned the grounds must be fenced. Inspectors were to be appointed who should make their annual report; and provisions were made for the regulation of arbitration, and the holding of coroners' inquests on accidental deaths. Pages of rules and penalties follow, rules concerning ventilation, fencing, stations, withdrawal of men in time of danger, safety-lamps, blasting, water, man-holes, roofs, slides, signalling, working shaft, machinery, engines, breaks, gauges, barometer, wilful damage, inspection by both employers and employed, and so on at length. Summarizing the results of coal and lignite discoveries in British Columbia to 1877, we have, beginning on the coast at the north, the reported discoveries of Downie on Skeena River; the specimens of anthracite brought from Masset, the anthracitic seams developed at Cowgitz, and the anthracite reported by the natives on the south side of Skidegate Channel, all on Queen Charlotte Islands; the bituminous coal at Beaver Harbor, near Fort Rupert, and at Quatsino Sound; specimens brought by the natives to the Plumper while at Fort Rupert, from the Mainland opposite; the discoveries and developments in the Comox, Baynes Sound, Valdes Inlet^ and Nanaimo districts; on the north side of Cowitchin Bay and the SUMMARY. 579 interior; specimens mentioned by Brown from the Chemanis district, and from the De Courcy Islands; the head of Alberni Canal; at Saanich, a very inferior quality; at Soke, a shallow boring passing through one inch of coal, near the coast west of Soke Inlet and back of Barclay Sound; specimens shown by the natives at Nitinat; at Burrard Inlet, in the delta of the Fraser, and between Burrard Inlet and Howe Sound; in which vicinity in the flat lands thin seams of lignite, probably of upper tertiary formation, appear; farther back, on the lower Fraser, particularly near Langley, thin seams of bituminous coal are found probably in lower tertiary beds; on the Chilliwack River, five miles from the Fraser, Dawson reports bituminous coal of good quality; also at the junction of Nicola and Coldwater rivers, and at several other places on the latter stream; on the north Thompson River, forty-five miles above Kamloop; in the vicinity of Lilloet; lignite at Gruichon Creek, near Nicola River; on the south branch of the Similkameen above the Passyton, and again four miles above Vermilion Fork, and on the north branch of the Similkameen, three miles above Vermilion Fork; more lignite at the Cold Spring House on Lightning Creek; on the Fraser between Soda Creek and Fort George, and at Quesnel; coal on Bear River near latitude 54°, on Peace and Pine rivers, described in Selwyn's Report, 1875-6; on Simpson River f lignite on Parsnip River; on the lower Nechaco River, east of Fraser Lake; on the upper Nechaco, south-west from Fraser Lake, and on the streams Blackwater, Chilaco, Nasco, and Punchaisco.30 30 Those desirous of investigating further the coal interest of the Northwest Coast may consult McKay's Rec, MS., 10, 11; Douglas' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser., 50-6; Deans' Settlement V. I., MS., 20; B. C. Sketches, MS., passim; Macfarlane's Coal Regions of Am., passim; Cornwallis' New El Dorado, 43, which says: 'Coal abounds over the whole of the north-eastern territory, that is to say, from Cheslaker's, latitude 50° 36', to Cape Scott at its southern extremity;' Horetzky's Canada on the Pacific, 170; Pacific Railroad Reports, i. 473, and vi. 62-4; House Commons Returns to Three Addresses, 7; Blanshard, in House Com. Rept, 286 ; Dunn's Or.Ter., 240; Grant, in London Geographical Society, Journal, xxvii. 275-315; Victor's All over Oregon and Washington, 337; Rept Com., 580 COAL. 27th Cong., 3d Sess., H. Rept. 31, 35, where Mr Baylies says in 1842: 'Coal in prodigious quantities has already been discovered;' WUkes' Nar. U. S. Ex- plor. Ex., iv. passim; 34th Cong., 3d Sess., U.S. II. Rept. 171, i 2; Ex. Doc No. 206, J#d Cong., 2d Sess., H. Rept., 206, x.; U. S. Commerce Stat., 1863, 193; Mayne'sB. C, 35, 379-82; Gray's Hist. Or., 139; Goodyear's Coat Mines, passim; B. C. Directory, 1863,50,142-3; Pemberton's V. Z.,43-8; Forbes' Essay, 18, 20; Macdonald's Lecture, 50; Rattray's V. I., 89,162; Macdonald'sB. C, 37, 367; Dawson on Mines, 17-27; Guide B. C, 1877-8, 4, 49-50, 97-109,336, Imray's Sailing Directions W. Coast N. Am., 278; Consol, Laws, B, C, 1877, 461-96; Statutes B. C, 1878, 59; Rept. Min. Mines, 1875-6, and 1877, passim; Sproat's B. C, 6, 22, 77-9; Anderson's Dom. West, 84-6, app. ii, iii; Fleming's Repts. Sur. Can. Pac. Railway, passim; Brown's Goal Fields, passim; and Langevin's B. C, 11-13, 86-7,129-31; Compton'sB. C, MS., passim; Victoria Colonist, Aug. 16, 1864, July 17, 1866, March 22, May 17,1871, Jan. 29,1873, April 22, 1874, etc.; Victoria Standard, April 23, 25, May 8, June 1, Aug. 19, Nov. 19, May 14, 23, 1877; British Columbian, June 5,1867; Seattle Tribune, Feb. 23, 1877; Mining Mag., i. 309-10; Com. Rel, 1868, 293-7; an&Bayley's V. I., MS., 11-14. Among other works consulted in the preceding chapters may be mentioned B. C. and V. I., by W. C. Hazlitt, and The Great Gold Fields of Cariboo, with an Authentic Description of B. C. and V. I., by the same author. The former, which is compiled from various authorities, and consists largely of quotations, gives brief sketches of early voyages, of native life and habits, of the resources of the country, and of the gold discovery. In the latter we have a well-written account, containing all the reliable information then accessible to the author, who was not a resident of either colony. Both volumes appear to have been written mainly for the information of intending emigrants. V. I. and B. C, Where They are, What They are, and What They may Become, by A. Rattray, M. D., Edin., R. N., is a cleverly written little book, which shows that its author has been at some pains to inquire into the condition and prospects of the two colonies. Prominence is given, however, to V. I., and the object of the work is apparently to display, in the most favorable light, its advantages for settlement. As indicated in the title- page, the subject-matter treats, not so much of what had been, as of what was to be; and comparing, as I turn over its pages, the colored lithographs of Hope and Yale, I cannot but admit that the predictions of the author have already been measurably fulfilled. When and after the gold excitement brought the mainland into prominence, the journals of the Pacific coast were teeming with paragraphs and articles touching the El Dorado of British America, though before 1858 I find but scant reference to either colony. For items and comments, see, among others, S. F. Bulletin, July 12, Dec. 5,1855; March 22, 1856; Apr. 24, May 7, 18, June 3, 5, 8, 9,11,12,18,19, 21, 22,25, 28, 30, July 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 26, 30, Aug. 2,7,18,19,23, 24, 27, Sept. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 17, 25, 29, Oct. 1, 4, 12, 13, 18, 23, 26, 30, Nov. 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, Dec. 6, 8, 9, 20, 21,22,24,27,28,30, 31, 1858; Jan. 3, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 26, 29, Feb. 15,17, 28,March3,8,16,17, 21, 25, 29, 30, Apr. 1, 15, 18, 23, 28, 30, May 12, 13,14, 17, 18, 30, 31, June 10, 11, 13, 14, 24, July 13, 15, 29, 30, Aug. 1, 11, 25, 26, Sept. 30, Oct. 10, Nov. 30, Dec. 14, 23, 1859; Apr. 18, July 6, Aug. 20, Sept 27, Oct. 18, 20, 1860; May 31, June 11, 14, July 2, 15, Sept. 2, Oct. 17,1861; Jan. 30, March 5, 22, 31, Apr. 4, 21, May 9, 10, 13, 20, 27, June 9,14,24, July 11,16,22,26, Aua. l, Oct. 13, 23, 27, 31, Dec. 15, 1862; Feb. 10, 23, March 12,23,30, Apr. 26, 27, May 19, June 29, July 11, 21, Aug. 3, Sept. 9, 19, Oct. 7,21, 29, Dec. 16, 1863; Apr. 25, June 16, 30, July 19, Aug. 9, 10, 27, Sept. 5, 12, 20, 27, Oct. 6, 10, 13,14,24, Nov. 1, 15, 22, 1864; Jan. 12, Feb. 3, March 4, May 30, June 19, July 8, 1865; Feb. 14, Apr. 10, May 8, June 11, July 3, Aug. 11, Sept. 1, 1866; Feb. 1,1869; March 24, Apr. 26, June 17, 1870; June 22, July 13, 1871; Jan. 8, 29, Feb. 14, Sept. 4, 25, 1872; Oct. 1,1873; Apr. 5, 1878; Apr. 7, 1879; Alta, May 17, 1854; Jan. 27, June 30, 1857; May 18, June 7, 8, Aug. 2,12, 25, 26, Sept. 18, 26, Oct. 3, 21, 22, Nov. 4, 30, 1858; Jan. 6. 11, AUTHORITIES. 581 14, 20, 21, 27, 31, Feb. 15,16,17, 21, 24, March 1, 4, 5, 9, 17, 19, 25, 30, Apr. I, 3, 11, 15,17, 21, 25, 28, 29, 30, May 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, June 11, 17, 25, July 13, 14, 30, Aug. 4, 11, 27, Sept. 2, 20, Oct. 11, 14, 15, 31, Nov. 3, 14, 30, Dec. 11, 24, 1859; Jan. 25, Feb. 4, 19, March 5, Apr. 4, 13, 18, May 21, June 13, 20, July 4> 18, 27, 30, Aug. 1, 5, 7, 9, 14, 20, Oct. 1, 19, 22, Nov. 8, 11, 23, Dec. 11, 22, 29, 1860; Feb. 7, 8, May 23, June 17,18, July 11, 21, Aug. 8, Sept. 9, 23, Oct. 8, 11, 22, Nov. 3, 25, 1861; June 25, Aug. 2, 25, Oct. 14, 21, 1862; Jan. 22, Apr. 24, June 9, 19, 30, July II, Aug. 16, 20, Sept. 7, Nov. 16, 1863; July 19, Nov. 2, 1864; Jan. 20, Apr. 9, May 22, July 3, Aug. 10, 20, Dec. 6, 16, 1865; Feb. 20, Dec. 28, 1866; Apr. 12, July 29, 1867; March 25, 1869; March 24, July 15, Dec. 3, 1871; April 15,1877; Call, Jan. 12, Apr. 19, June 24, July 19, Aug. 10, 11, 26, Sept. 13, 27, Oct. 6, Nov. 13, 1864; June 13, 1865; Feb. 8, March 26, May 26, June 13, July 19, Aug. 28, 1867; Feb. 27, March 1, Apr. 30, July 15. Aug. 9, 20, 30, Sept. 18, 19, Nov. 24, 1868; March 5, 1870; Jan. 4, 1871; Nov. 7, 1872; Feb. 13, June 25, 1874; Jan. 25, 1878; Times, June 4, 1867; May 16, June 25, July 20, Sept. 2, 5, 1868; Feb. 17, March 10, 22, 30, Apr. 28, Oct. 14, 23, 1869; Herald, Apr. 23, June 10, Sept. 6, 1858; March 31, Nov. 10, 1859; March 5, Apr. 26, May.9, Dec. 13, 1860; March 16, 12, 1869; Post, Sept. 15, 1873; Jan. 7, July 25, 1878; Chronicle, Jan. 5, 20, 1869; July 16, 1871; Golden Era, March 15, 1857; Aug. 27, 1865; Mercantile Gazette, June 19, 1858; Sac. Record-Union, Aug. 16, 1855; Feb. 27, Apr. 9, 16, May 22, Sept. 17, 1856; Jan. 22, Feb. 5, Apr. 5, 12, 21, 23, May 24, 28, June 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19,22, 23, Sept. 27, Oct. 18, Nov. 24, Dec. 29, 1858; Jan. 3, Apr. 19, June 21, 25, 1859; March 21, Apr. 30, Aug. 22, Sept. 27, 29, Oct. 9, 1860; March 9, Apr. 29, June 1, Sept. 24, Nov. 9, 12, 16, 21, Dec. 12, 1861; March 3, 5, 1862; Portland West Shore, July, 1879; Standard, Sept. 7, 1877; West- em Oregonian, Jan. 10, 1878; Pioche Record, March 14, 1873; Tuscarora Times-Review, Feb. 10, 1878. CHAPTER XXX. UNION AND CONFEDERATION". 1863-1871. A Legislative Council Organized foe, British Columbia—Inaugural Address of Governor Douglas—A Meek Response—Separate Rulers Appointed for the Two Colonies—A Cordial Leave-taking —Review of Douglas' Administration—Regime of Frederick Seymour—Excessive Taxation—Union of the Colonies—The British North America Act—Anthony Musgrave Governor — British Columbia a Province of the Dominion—A Legislative Assembly Substituted for the Council—Condition of the Province—Indian Policy of the United States and of Great Britain. Those among my readers who may chance to have lived in a British colony have probably observed how little there is to relate concerning the government of that colony, and how void of interest is that little. There are of course the usual changes of administration, the usual squabbles in the legislature, some of them as disgraceful as any which occur at Sacramento or Salem, or wheresoever else amateur law-makers lay burdens on the people, and contend in unseemly phrase for the people's spoils. As a rule, however, though with many exceptions, the colonies are lightly taxed. They pay no tribute to her Majesty's government; they do not even pay for the support or expenses of the troops or vessels of war sent forth for their protection;1 and they object very strongly and decisively to too much amateur legislation, especially when it touches their pockets. In brief, 1 Except the so-called colonial allowance of sixpence a day made to the troops. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 583 most of the British dependencies are virtually republics, with the privilege of becoming at any time actual republics, and have, free of expense, the protection of Great Britain, while the governor wields little more authority than does in the mother country the queen of England, who cannot obtain, except from her private revenues, a sixpence wherewith to purchase her breakfast, unless it be voted by parliament. But in 1863 Vancouver Island and British Columbia were merely colonies in name. During the regime of Douglas, and for several years thereafter, it cannot be said that responsible government existed either on the Island or on the Mainland. In the former there was, as we have seen, an elective house of assembly, but its vote could not remove the executive officials, as was the case in other colonies. The legislative and executive functions were vested in the governor and his council, whose acts were termed ordinances, and had almost the force of statutes in parliament.2 On the Mainland a legislative council was organized by authority of a royal order, dated the 11th of June, 1863,3 and consisted at first of thirteen members,4 of whom five were government officials,5 five were magistrates appointed by the governor, and the remainder were elected by the people, certificates being issued to them on the reporting of their names by the returning officer. The council met for the first time at New Westminster on the 21st of January, 1864, nine members 2 De Cosmos, V. I. and Brit. Col. Govt, MS., 19. 3 For copy of this order, see Jour. Legist. Council, B. C, 1864, 4-5. *The members for the first session were Arthur N. Birch, colonial secretary and presiding member; Henry P. P. Crease, attorney-general; Wymond O. Hamley, collector of customs; Chartres Brew, Peter O'Reilly, Edward H. Sanders, Henry M. Ball, and Philip H. Nind, magistrates for New Westminster, Cariboo, Yale and Hope, Lytton, and Douglas; and Joshua A. R. Homer, Robert T. Smith, Henry Holbrook, James Orr, and Walter S. Black for their respective districts of New Westminster, Yale and Lytton, Douglas and Lillooct, Cariboo East, and Cariboo West. During this session a resolution presented by Mr Homer praying that a legislative assembly be organized was negatived by the casting vote of the presiding member. The colonial secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, chief commissioner of lands and works, and collector of customs. 584 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. being present. In his opening address Douglas congratulated them on this first step toward representative government and popular institutions, which, he declared, her Majesty had withheld during the infancy of the colony, only from a sincere regard for its happiness and prosperity. He urged on them a vigorous prosecution of the public works as a measure of vital importance to the colony, and one that would give to the waste lands of British Columbia a value which they did not then possess. With a view to increase population and encourage settlement, he had thrown open the public lands to actual settlers on the most liberal terms, and had done his utmost to encourage mining and every species of enterprise that tended to develop the resources of the country, though the result of these measures had not, as yet, answered his expectations. The Indian tribes, he said, were quiet and well disposed. Reserves, embracing village sites and cultivated fields had been set apart for them, their area in no case exceeding ten acres for each family, and this being inalienable and held as joint property.6 Appropriations were recommended for religious purposes, and for the establishment and support of schools, though it was far from his wish to establish a dominant or endowed church in a colony to which people of all religious denominations were invited. He promised soon to lay before them a communication from the secretary of state for the colonies, with proposals for opening telegraphic and postal communication between British Columbia and the head of Lake Superior. Finally he laid before them an estimate of the expenditure for the past year, amounting to £192,860,7 while the revenue for the same period was but <£110,000.8 Meanwhile bonds had been 6 Though as individuals they had the same right of acquiring and holding land by purchase or occupation as other classes of her Majesty's subjects. 7 Of which £83,937 was for public roads, £12,650 for redemption of road bonds created in 1862, £15,288 for public works, buildings, and transport, £13,725 for interest on loans and sinking fund,, and £31,615 for the civil establishment. _ 8 Of which over £55,000 was obtained from customs dues. Macfies, v.l. and B. C. GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS. 685 created and loans contracted to the amount of £65,- 805, leaving still a deficiency of £17,055, in addition to a sum of £10,700 due to the imperial government for the expenses of the royal engineers. Por 1864 the outlay, including the debit balance, was set down at £107,910, and the income from all sources at £120,- 000, thus leaving a balance of £12,090; but this, it was explained, made no provision for the maintenance of a gold escort, or for the expense of public works. Asking the advice of the members whether it was expedient to undertake such works during the current year, and if so, how their cost should be defrayed, the governor took his seat.9 Thus did the lordly Douglas give to the colonists of British Columbia a foretaste of the blessings of representative government. At this date the white population of the colony was probably less than eight thousand, and of this number a large proportion was of the migratory class. To lay on them, at this early period in their history, a tax exceeding $120 per capita was a measure unheard of in the history of British colonization, and one that elsewhere would at least have provoked much angry discussion. But not so among this staid and dutiful assemblage. The speech was received with profound respect; the oath was administered by Mr Justice Begbie, who declared the session duly opened. His excellency then took his leave; and after some unimportant business, the members adjourned, presenting, three days later, an humble address, wherein they expressed their earnest resolve to act in concert with the governor to the best of their ability. There is a refreshing simplicity about the early sessions of the legislative council, and one that contrasts strangely with the stormy incidents of a later period. On the 5th of February this body went into committee of supply, and on its rising, a few minutes 9A copy of his address will be found in Id., 1864, 1-4. 586 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. later, the presiding member10 reported the adoption of a bill of supply, amounting to £135,639, for the service of the ensuing year, together with a recommendation that it be now read a first time. The question of the first reading being then put to the council, it was so ordered, and the bill was read accordingly. A few minutes later it was read a second time, and committed; reported back without amendments; passed to a third reading, the standing orders •being suspended; and thus, probably within the space of an hour, the supplies were voted, an additional sum of £80,700 being granted during the session by various resolutions.11 The term of the governor's commission for Vancouver Island expired in September 1863, and for British Columbia one year later. Partly on account of his free-handed disposition of the public funds, however, and also with a view to sever the last link that connected them, directly or indirectly, with the Hudson's Bay Company, many of the colonists, both of the Mainland and Island, had already petitioned for the appointment of separate governors,12 and before the close of 1863 it was officially announced that their request would be granted. That, nevertheless, Douglas was still supported by the wealth and intelligence of both colonies, is sufficiently apparent from 10 In the absence of the colonial secretary, the chair was occupied by the attorney-general. 11 Jour. Legisl. Council, B. C, 1864, 13; speech of Gov. Seymour, in Id., 1865, 3. 12As early as October 1858 a petition, signed by 117 residents of Victoria, was forwarded to Sir Bulwer Lytton, praying for the removal of Douglas. The petitioners asked that 'an English gentleman, free and independent of any interest save the public welfare, may be appointed by her Majesty's government.' De Cosmos, V. I., and Brit. Col. Govt, MS., 25. Amor DeCosinos, a native of Nova Scotia, came to Cal. in 1853, removing to Victoria in 1858, where he began the publication of a newspaper in the autumn of that year. He commenced his public career by drawing up the petition above referred to; and though on principle opposed to the government as it then existed, was elected a member of the second legislature of V. I. From his Governments of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, MS., I have gathered items of interest extending over the period between the founding of Victoria and the confederation. In the opening pages of his MS. is an account of various newspapers published at Victoria, between 1858 and 1863, of which mention will be made later. SIR JAMES DOUGLAS. 587 the addresses presented to him by the people of Vancouver Island, at his official leave-taking in September, and by the people of British Columbia a few months later. The former was signed by all the bankers and professional men, and nearly all the leading merchants of Victoria, while to the latter were appended more than nine hundred signatures.13 But, as he declared, it was his earnest desire to withdraw from further public connection with the colonies, and this desire he had long ago intimated to the secretary of state. In fact, it may be doubted whether Douglas was ever really willing to accept office as governor. In doing so he added nothing to his income; on the contrary, it is probable that the increased expense of his establishment made him a loser thereby; while in freedom from harassing cares the position of governor under the Hudson's Bay Company was infinitely preferable to that of her Majesty's representative in the colonies. By the October mail arrived a number of the Gazette, in which appeared the announcement that Douglas had been knighted. A few months later, after being feasted and flattered to more than his heart's content, he bid farewell to the settlement which he had founded in 1843, as a mere trading post, with little certainty that it would ever become the nletropolis of a thriving and ambitious colony. As he proceeded on foot, accompanied by his staff, from the government house to the Hudson's Bay wharf, every flag-staff in the town was decorated with bunting, the citizens raising their hats as he passed, and many of them joining in the procession. The steamer Enterprise, gayly decked with colors, awaited his. arrival, and as he reached the foot of the gangway, the cheers which had 13 Copies of them will be found in Addr. and Memor. Sir James Douglas, 3, 32-3. The former enclosed a memorial, and the latter was in the form of an address, both to be forwarded to the duke of Newcastle. Addresses were presented by the legislative council and assembly at Victoria, and by the legislature at New Westminster, for which see Id., 18-20; Jour. Legist. Council, B. C, 1864, 29. The government officials, the inhabitants of Yale and Hope, and others, also forwarded addresses. 588 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. greeted him along his route burst forth with redoubled volume, the multitude thronging round to grasp him by the hand. As the vessel moved off, the band stationed on board the Otter struck up the tune of Auld Lang Syne, and a salute of thirteen guns was fired by the Hudson's Bay employes. Then followed the strains of the national anthem; and thus was Sir James Douglas, K. C. B., sent on his way to the Mainland, there to be again banqueted, toasted, and plied with addresses, and then to retire for a while into private life at his home in New Westminster.14 Twenty-two years had now elapsed since the natives of Camosun had first seen the calm waters of their harbor ruffled by the little steamer on board of which Douglas came and determined the site of the present city of Victoria. During many of these years he had controlled the affairs of the great monopoly in the north-west. How skilful had been his management, how mild his rule, and how judicious his policy, the reader is well aware who has followed his career throughout the narrative which I have laid before him. If his administration as governor is open to censure, the faults which he committed are such as detract but little from his fame. That he was lavish in the expenditure of the public funds, laying upon the infant colony burdens greater than it could bear, cannot be disputed; but this outlay, incurred mainly for opening roads to the mining districts, then the main source of wealth, and without which Victoria would have remained a village, must be regarded rather as an investment than as a tax on the industries of the people. Insignificant as were then the British possessions in the north-west, remote from the mother country, with which there was no prompt communication, except through foreign sources, with a sparse but heterogeneous population, composed largely of UA description of the f§tes and banquets held at Victoria and New West minster, with the addresses and memorials presented by the citizens and the comments of the press on the occasion of Douglas' retirement, will be found in Addr. and Memor. Sir James Douglas. GOVERNOR SEYMOUR. 589 Americans, impatient of British rule and imbittered by the disputes incidental to the San Juan difficulty, without the means of competing with older and more favored communities—amid all these difficulties the colonies had developed with a steady and stalwart growth. And to none was this result so largely due as to him from whom we will now take our leave, quoting in conclusion a few words from his reply to an address presented by the citizens of New Westminster—words uttered in no spirit of vainglory or boastfulness: "This is surely the voice and heart of British Columbia. Here are no specious phrases, no hollow or venal compliments. This speaks out broadly, and honestly, and manfully. It assures me that my administration has been useful; that I have done my duty faithfully; that I have used the power of my sovereign for good, and not for evil; that I have wronged no man, oppressed no man; but that I have, with upright rule, meted out equal-handed justice to Toward the end of April 1864, a few days before the close of the first session of the council, Frederick Seymour, successor to Douglas on the Mainland, arrived at New Westminster. Seymour had formerly held office as governor of British Honduras, where his health had been seriously impaired. He was a man of mediocre ability, of no great force of character, somewhat timid and over-conservative in policy, and apt to place too much dependence on those by whom he was surrounded; one who might have reigned with credit in a settled and prosperous community, as among the sugar-planters of Belize, but was ill fitted for the control of a young and ambitious colony. The task which he had now before him required the services of a more capable ruler, and this he soon made apparent to the members of the council. Proroguing that body, on the 4th of May, he remarked that he found himself obliged to consider a measure involving 590 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. the whole financial arrangements of the colony; another proposing to regulate its paper currency; a third affecting its internal navigation; together with some twenty resolutions, many of them of grave import, and involving a considerable expenditure. As to most of the important measures, especially those concerning the supplementary estimates, he deferred his decision until the winter session, or reserved them f&r her Maj esty's consideration. He gave his assent, however, to the inland-navigation ordinance, and to resolutions for the survey of a road from the mouth of the Quesnel to Cariboo, together with an extra expenditure of £40,000 in that district. He also assented to several others wherein no outlay was involved, among them being regulations for the postal service, for amending the customs duties, for declaring the legal rate of interest, and for registering documents relating to real estate.15 On the 21st of October a proclamation was issued dissolving the legislative council, "for divers good causes and considerations," and a week later a notice was published, containing a list of the new appointments, eight out of the thirteen members of the former council being reelected.16 At the opening session, held on the 12th of December, the governor stated that only £135,639 out of the £216,400 voted for the public service of 1864 had been expended, the disbursements for the current month being estimated at £8,000, thus showing an expenditure less by £72,000 than had been sanctioned. Meanwhile, however, the revenue had fallen short of the estimates by some £13,000. Under an act of the previous session, a loan of £100,000 had been authorized, against which they had drawn but £26,300, the remainder being available for the service of 1865. Among the items 15 Also to ordinances relating to patents, facilitating the formation of joint* stock mining companies, and for the relief of certain naval and military settlers. Speech of Frederick Seymour, in Jour. Legist. Council, B. C, 1864, 43. 16 The names of the members will be found in Id., 1865, after the table of contents. COLONIAL AFFAIRS. 591 of expense for the past year was one of £16,000 for the suppression of the Chilkotin massacre,17 of which Seymour gives a detailed account in his address. He regrets that several needed improvements have been delayed through lack of funds, among them being the establishment of a light-ship at the mouth of the Fraser. Finally he calls the attention of the council to certain resolutions passed by the assembly at Victoria in favor of a conditional union with British Columbia under one governor. Expressing his own views on this subject, he remarks that, while it would be better for imperial interests that Great Britain should be represented west of the Rocky Mountains by a single ruler,18 he does not think that at present British Columbia would gain by the suggested change, and advises them to consult only their local interests. At the next meeting the council responded, as usual, in meek and respectful phrase, and the business of the session commenced. Thus did the colonial ship of state sail forth on these untroubled waters, her course seldom disturbed by the faintest breath of popular discontent. Most of the measures brought before the council were initiated by the attorney-general, those which passed to a third reading and received the governor's sanction relating mainly to municipal affairs, public improvements, and matters of local interest.19 Let us turn now to Vancouver Island, where, as will be remembered, the first term of the legislative assembly expired in 1859. To the mention already made of this assembly20 there is nothing worthy of 17 The crown refused to refund any part of this sum. 18 As in case of war, in which event the officer in command of the naval forces might be seriously embarrassed by the conflicting policy of two governors. "Tables, showing the progress of the various bills introduced, will be found for each year in Jour. Legist. Council, B. C, facing p. 1. See also Consol. Stat. Brit. Col. (ed. 1877), passim; Acts and Ordin. Western Col., 1858-70, passim. 20 See pages 22-7, this vol. 692 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. note to be added, except that the members stoutly refused to grant supplies, or become responsible for debts incurred by the Hudson's Bay Company. When the second legislature met, in 1860, the connection between the colony and the company having then been dissolved, the question was again brought forward, Who was to pay the debts of the latter? It was resolved that, as the former assembly had incurred no responsibility, the present one would adopt the same policy, and leave the company to settle its claims with the home government. For the year 1861 the legitimate revenue of the colony was £25,291; for 1862, £24,017 j21 for 1863, £30,000; and for 1864 it was estimated at £37,704. The receipts for the last of these years were increased by sums due from British Columbia, advances to crown agents in London, balance of loan, and other sources, to about £77,000, while the expenses were set down at £59,062, of which £15,616 was for public works and buildings, and £10,360 for roads, streets, and bridges. It is worthy of note that only £1,000 was devoted to educational purposes during this year, while the appropriation for police and jails was about double that sum.22 In 1864 the white population of Vancouver Island was estimated at about 7,500, or somewhat less than that of British Columbia, the rate of taxation being nearly £8 per capita, as against £24 in the latter colony. The principal sources of revenue at this date were from land sales and liquor licenses, from a tax of one per cent on real estate, and from the sums collected under the trade licenses amendment act of 1862.23 By the provisions of this act, merchants and 21 The reason for the slight decrease of this year was that the instalments due by farmers on land purchased from government were postponed on account of losses sustained during an unusually severe winter. Macfe's V. I, and B.C., 320. 22 For the administration of justice, £721 was voted; for the mail service, £2,360; for light-houses, £1,400; and for charitable allowances, £550. Id,, 319 23 The real estate tax produced £13,060; trade licenses, £5,516; liquor licenses, £4,800; and land sales, £6,382. Id., 318. ECONOMY. 593 traders were required to pay an annual assessment, varying, according tc a graduated scale, from £2 a year for those whose sales were less than £200, to £60 a year for those whose receipts exceeded £100,- 000. For bankers and auctioneers the license was £50 a year; for lawyers and real estate agents, £10; for civil engineers, architects, surveyors, and proprietors of billiard-saloons, £5. In one of the most distant portions of the British empire we have now two colonies mustering together some twelve or thirteen thousand white inhabitants, paying on an average under this crude system of taxation nearly £19 a year per capita, or at least eight times the rate levied in the mother country, with her army and navy, her peers, her princes, her paupers, and her frightful incubus of debt. Under such conditions, the extinction of the two colonies was but a matter of time. It did not follow that because Great Britain had placed herself in the condition of a country squire, whose estates though heavily encumbered were not hopelessly encumbered, her youngest offspring should thus follow her example. Loans for British Columbia were barely negotiable in the London market,24 and could be placed only at excessive rates of interest. Moreover, her sister colony, separated by less than twenty leagues from the Mainland, was undergoing a severe financial depression, occasioned in part by over-trading and speculation. Something must be done in the matter, and at least the expenditure for the civil list might be curtailed. When, therefore, Captain Kennedy, successor to Douglas at Vancouver Island, landed at Victoria in 1864, he was received with every manifestation of loyalty, enthusiasm, and respect; but his gratification was somewhat modified by the announcement that his salary, and that of other officials, had been struck 24 The total debt of British Columbia in 1867, deducting sinking fund investments, was $1,002,983; of Vancouver Island, |293,698. Jour. Legisl. OouncU, B. C, 1867, app. xvii. Hist. Beit. Col. 38 594 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. from the estimates for the year by a unanimous vote of the legislature.25 The estimates for the civil list of this year were proposed by the duke of Newcastle, his grace intimating that the crown lands, then about to be conveyed by the Hudson's Bay Company to the home government in liquidation of claims, should be assigned to the legislature, and that from the proceeds of sales the salaries of the governor and other officials should be paid. But the sales from crown lands for the previous year had amounted only to £4,500, while the necessary expenses of government were £35,000. The proposition of his grace was of course rejected, whereupon her Majesty's government decided to unite the two colonies, though probably somewhat against the will of the people of British Columbia. In view of the facts that have been stated, however, it does not appear that the ministry were to blame in the matter. A yearly expenditure of £69,000 for the mere civil list of the two colonies, with their handful of inhabitants, was a somewhat novel phase in the progress of British colonization. According to the provisions of the union act, entitled the British Columbia act of 1866, the authority of the executive government and legislature of British Columbia was extended over Vancouver Island, the number of members of the legislative council being increased to twenty-three. The existing ordinances were to remain in force until otherwise determined by law, except that those relating to the customs revenues of British Columbia were to be extended to Vancouver Island, and that in the governor were vested all powers as to the appointment of warehousing ports, and of warehouses in such ports, together with all matters relating thereto. Nothing contained in the act was to take away or restrict the authority 25 Kennedy was extremely courteous in manner, somewhat of a flatterer, and an excellent speaker; but the people soon observed that these were about the best characteristics he possessed. In truth, there was at this date little for a governor to do except to be courteous. Elliott's B, C. Politics, MS. END OF THE VANCOUVER COLONY. 595 of the governor to make regulations for the peace, order, and good government of the two colonies, either before or after the union.26 This act, which bears date the 6th of August, 1866, was proclaimed by the governor on the 17th of November in the same year,27 and thenceforth the colony of Vancouver Island ceased to exist, the attorney-general, a few weeks later, introducing a bill for assimilating its laws with those of British Columbia. The confederation, or rather the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada, was a measure first mooted in 1822, and one that took effect in 1841. Nevertheless, the party contests between the inhabitants of the two regions, divided as they were by race, religion, and interests, became so bitter that, as the reader is aware, matters came to a dead-lock. Hence the idea of a legislative union of all the British American colonies, though reserving to each its individuality and its local government. Moreover, the dangers to which they were afterward exposed by the possible issues of the civil war formed an additional incentive to their union. Thus it was that the leaders of the several parties put aside their issues and agreed to make common cause, to which the home government responded by passing the British North America act of 1867, whereby the colonies could unite at will in a confederation to be known as the Dominion of Canada. After the passage of this act none were more eager to be admitted into the confederation than the people of British Columbia; but this was not yet to be. On the 17th of December, 1868, the legislature met for the first time at Victoria, according to the expressed desire of the colonists, including the residents of the 2f>Act 29 and 30 Vict., in Jour. Legisl. Council, B. C, 1867, 1-2. By this act, 21 and 22 Vict., to provide for the government of B. C, and 26 and 27 Vict., to define the boundaries of the colony, and for other purposes, were repealed. "For copy of proclamation, see Id., 2. 596 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. mainland, though very much against the governor's wish.28 His excellency remarked that it was his pleasing duty to state that the colony did not appear to be in a condition to create despondency; that by unmitigated economy he had reduced the expenses of government by $88,092, and that he had never taken upon himself "to appoint a higher officer than a constable." They must wait, however, for admission as a province until the intervening territory under control of the Hudson's Bay Company29 should have been incorporated. The people of British Columbia did not want such government. They would very much have preferred such a ruler as Douglas, with his courtly mien, and even with his reckless disregard for the credit of the colony, to this negative and timid magistrate. Though his lavish hospitality may have saved him from being unpopular, at his decease, which occurred in June of the following year, there were few who sincerely mourned his loss.80 In his successor, Anthony Mus- grave, C. M. G., who held office until the 1st of July, 1871, or, as it is known, the first dominion day, the people gladly recognized a governor whose tact, decision, and experience fitted him for the control of men. 28 Seymour's address to the council on the proposed change of the seat of government is simply pitiful. It concludes: 'He trusts that no immediate action may be urged upon him,' but, should any be required, 'he will humbly recommend to the queen that he and his successors in office be commanded to reside permanently in the present capital of the colony.' Jour. Legisl. Council, B. C, 1867', 62. To this the business men, farmers, miners, etc., of the island and mainland responded that Victoria was the most suitable spot. A petition to this purport was signed by 50 residents of New Westminster. Among the 1,467 inhabitants of Vancouver Island who petitioned his excellency were W. J. Macdonald, mayor of Victoria, and Roderick Finlayson, chief factor H. B. Co. From the mainland the total signatures numbered 842. Id., ap. xvi. In the legislative council a resolution was passed, by an affirmative vote of 14 to 5, that Victoria was the most suitable place for the seat of legislature. Id., 1868, 11-12. 29 Manitoba. 30 Seymour died on board H. M. S. Sparrowhawh, while on a trip to the northern portion of the colony. Cooper's Maritime Matters, MS., 21. If we can believe Mr Elliott, he spent all his salary and impaired his private fortune by his foolish hospitality. In British Columbia Politics, by A, C, Elliott, MS., I have been furnished with a brief sketch of the characteristics and career of the rulers of B. C and V. I., from the regime of Gov. Seymour to that of Gov. Trutch, with some incidents in the political annals of both colonies. GOVERNOR MUSGRAVE. 597 In his inaugural address, Musgrave expressed his conviction that, under certain conditions, which he thought it would not be difficult to arrange, the colony might derive substantial benefit from the union, and that with the advice of his council he had prepared a scheme which he would cause to be laid before them; that, while the views of her Majesty's government had been clearly and forcibly expressed on the matter,31 there was no desire to urge the union, unless it were in accordance with the wishes of her Majesty's subjects. The resolutions presented by Musgrave were adopted with but slight alterations.32 A delegation was sent to Ottawa to lay before the dominion government the resolutions adopted by the council, to explain the views and wants of the colony, and to ascertain how far they could be fulfilled. In his addresjs at the opening of the session of 1871, the governor laid before the legislature the report of the privy council of Canada on the subject, remarking that the terms accepted were as liberal as the colony could fairly expect, and in some respects more advantageous than those submitted by the colony. He therefore recommended them at once to pass an address to her Majesty, in accordance with the provisions of the British North America act of 1867, praying for admission.33 31 See Jour. Legist. Council, B. C, 1878, 28 et seq. On the 24th Of April, 1868, an address to the queen was moved, in which the conditions of the union were laid down in a somewhat high-handed manner. An amendment was carried, in which it was declared that, while the council was in favor of the union, they were without sufficient information and experience/ of the practical working of confederation in the North American provinces to feel justified in defining the terms on which such a union would be to their 33 In a despatch to Gov. Musgrave, dated Aug. 14, 1869, Earl Granville states that the queen would probably be advised before long to issue an order in council, incorporating in the dominion all the British possessions in N. Am. with the exception of B. C The question therefore presented itself, whether this single colony should be excluded. On that question the colonists did not appear to be unanimous; but, judging from his despatches, the prevailing opinion appeared to be in favor of union. He had no hesitation in stating that such was also the opinion of her Majesty's government. Sess. Papers, Brit. Col, 1881, 139. - 33 Jour. Legist Council, B. C, 1871, 2. For proposed and accepted terms, see Sess. Papers, Brit. Col., 1881, 140-3. 598 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. According to the terms of the union of British Columbia with Canada, the latter was made liable for the debts and obligations of the colony existing at the time. British Columbia, not having incurred liabilities equal to those of the provinces then constituting the dominion, was to be entitled to interest at the rate of five per cent on the difference between her indebtedness and that of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, pro rata of their population.34 For the support of her government and legislature a subsidy of $35,000 a year was to be paid, together with a grant of eighty cents per capita of the inhabitants, then estimated at 60,000,35 such grant to be augmented according to the , increase in population until it should amount to 400,- 000, after which the grant should not be further increased. The dominion was to provide an efficient mail service fortnightly by steamer between Victoria and San Francisco, and twice a week between Victoria and Olympia, the vessels to be adapted for the conveyance of freight and passengers. Canada was to assume and defray all charges incidental to the services which, by the British North America act of 1867, pertain to the general government, as the salary of the lieutenant-governor, the expenses of the supreme and district courts, of the customs,86 the postal and telegraph services. Pensions were also to be pro vided for those whose position and emoluments would be affected by these changes. British Columbia was to be represented in the senate of the dominion by three members, and in the commons by six, this representation to be increased 34 In 1871 the indebtedness of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was $27.77 per head.. This provision was altered in the terms of the union act, assented to March 2, 1874, whereby B. C. was to receive from the dominion government from* time to time sums of money not to exceed the difference between the actual debt and the allowed debt of the province. Message rel. to Terms oj Union Act, 53. 35 This is probably an exaggeration. In a work issued by the agent-general of the province in London, containing much reliable ana weU-condensed information, and entitled Brit. Col. Inform, for Emigrants, the population, including Indians, is estimated in 1872 at 45,000. 36 The customs and excise duties were to continue in force until the Pacific coast was connected by rail with Canada UNION WITH CANADA. 599 from time to time under the act of 1867, the provisions of which were to apply to British Columbia as fully as if that colony had been one of the provinces originally united under the act. And now follow the most important clauses in the agreement, portions of which I present to the reader verbatim: "The government of the dominion undertake to secure the commencement simultaneously, within two years from the date of the union, of the construction of a railway from the Pacific towards the Rocky. Mountains, and from such point as may be selected east of the Rocky Mountains towards the Pacific, to connect the seaboard of British Columbia with the railway system of Canada; and further, to secure the completion of such railway within ten years from the date of the union. And the government of British Columbia agree to convey to the dominion government, in trust, to be appropriated in such manner as the dominion government may deem advisable, in furtherance of the construction of the said railway, a similar extent of public lands along the line of railway throughout its entire length in British Columbia, not to exceed, however, twenty miles on each side of said line, as may be appropriated for the same purpose by the dominion government from the public lands in the north-west territories and the province of Manitoba... In consideration of the land to be so conveyed in aid of the construction of the said railway the dominion government agree to pay to British Columbia from the date of the union the sum of $100,000 per annum, in half-yearly payments in advance. The dominion government shall guarantee the interest for ten years from the date of the completion of the works at the rate of five per centum per annum on such sum, not exceeding £100,000 sterling, as may be required for the construction of a first-class graving-dock at Esquimalt."37 ** By the terms of union amendment act, assented to Mar. 2,1874, British Columbia was to receive from the dominion government £50,000 toward the construction of the dock in lieu of interest. Message rel. to Terms of Union, 53. 600 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. The care of Indians and the management of lands reserved for them were to be assumed by the dominion government. Tracts of such extent as it had been the custom of British Columbia to appropriate were to be conveyed for that purpose by the local government to the dominion government as they might be needed, and were to be held in trust for the use and benefit of the natives. Finally, the constitution of the executive and legislature was to remain as it existed at the time of the union, until altered under the authority of the British North America act, it being understood that the dominion would consent to the introduction of responsible government when desired by the inhabitants of British Columbia, and that it was the intention of the governor, under the authority of the secretary of state for the colonies, to amend the constitution of the legislature, by providing that a majority of its members should be elective, the province having also the right of specifying the districts for which the first election of members, for the commons should take place.88 It was provided that on the presentation of addresses from the legislature of British Columbia and the Canadian houses of parliament, the union should take effect on such day as her Majesty might appoint. On the 20th of January, 1871, an address was adopted by the former, without a dissenting vote, and the above terms and conditions having been previously agreed to by a committee of the privy council of the dominion after considerable discussion with delegates sent from British Columbia,8* the measure received the queen's consent and the union was consummated. No time was lost in taking advantage of the clause in the terms of confederation relating to the establishment of responsible government, which was in fact provided for before the agreement had received the 38 The full text of the agreement will also be found in Jour. Legisl, Council, B, C„ 1871, 14-16. MTrutch, Helmcken, and Carrall. Id., 4. CONSTITUTION ACT. 601 imperial consent. At a meeting of the council, held on the 12th of January, 1871, it was resolved that the governor be requested to transmit to the house, in accordance with his inaugural address, a bill increasing the number of elective members and excluding nominated members, so that responsible government should come into operation at the first session of the legislature subsequent to the union with Canada.40 On the 14th of February a bill received the governor's signature, entitled the constitution act of 1871, whereby it was provided that the legislative council should be abolished and a legislative assembly substituted in its stead, the latter to be elected once in four years, and consist of twenty-five members, chosen by twelve electoral districts.41 No public contractor, and no person holding office whereto a salary or emolument of any kind was attached, payable from the revenues of the colony, was eligible as a member; though members of the executive council were eligible, provided they were elected while holding such office. The latter were to be composed of such persons as the governor might select, not exceeding five in number, and in the first instance were to include the colonial secretary, the attorney-general, and the chief commissioner of lands and works. The powers of the executive were to remain in force as they before existed, so far as they were unaltered by the constitution act, or by the British North America act,42 or by order of her Majesty in council, or by act of the British parliament.43 A month later an act was passed, entitled the Quali- 40 Id., 1871, 9-10. The resolution was moved by Mr Helmcken. 41 Afterward increased to 13. 42 By this act it was provided that the chief magistrate of the colony should rank as lieut-gov., and be appointed by the gov.-gen. of Canada, his responsible advisers being the atty-gen., who also held office as colonial secretary, the minister of finance, and the chief commissioner of lands and works. Thus it will be seen that the composition of the executive council was altered by the constitution act, though the alterations made in its powers were of slight importance, the principal one being that no part of the revenue of the colony should be paid out from the treasury except by warrant over the governor's signature. 43 For text of the constitution act, see Acts Legisl. Council, B. C„ 187U No. 3 of 34th Vict. 602 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. fication and Registration of Voters act of 1871,44 in accordance with the provisions of which no person could be elected a member of the legislature who had not been a resident within the colony for at least one year previous to the date of his election, or who was a minister of any religious denomination, whatever might be his rank or title. Concerning the franchise, the regulations were unusually restrictive, when compared with those of other British colonies, in some of which, as in New South Wales, suffrage exists in its simplest form, six months' previous residence being the sole qualification. In British Columbia the elector, if a British subject, must be able to read the English language, or, if a foreign-born subject, the language of his native country, and must have resided in the colony for six months before sending in his claim to vote. He must possess a freehold estate, situated within his electoral district, of the clear value of $250, or a leasehold estate of the annual value of $40, or be a householder or lodger occupying premises or apartments rented at the same valuation, or pay for board and lodging at least $200 a year, or must hold a duly recorded preemption claim or mining license, the former of not less than one hundred acres.46 Thus was British Columbia fairly launched on her u This being the short title, the act, in common with many others passed by the legislature, having a longer title for its heading, which reada in this case, 'An act to amend the law as to the qualification ot electors and of elective members of the legislature, and to provide for the registration of persons entitled to vote at elections of such members.' 45 Id., 1S71, No. 12 of 34th Vict, p. 2. No foreign-born subject who had renounced his allegiance or become a citizen of a foreign state could be registered under the provisions of this act until he had again taken the oath of allegiance to her Majesty. With regard to aliens, the regulations were the same as those existing in the dominion, as provided in cap. 66, 31st Vict, 1868.. After an uninterrupted residence for three years, an alien who had taken or caused to be filed the oaths of allegiance and residence became entitled to a certificate of naturalization, and enjoyed all the rights of a natural- born subject. The only charges were 25 cents for the certificate and 60 cents for recording. An alien-born woman when married to a British subject became thereby naturalized. On the 22d of March the election regulations act* 1871, received the governor's signature, its provisions relating mainly to the appointment and duties of returning officers, election clerks, and poll clerks. For text, see Acts Legisl. Council, B. C, No. 13 of 34th Vict. Five days later the Corrupt Practices Prevention act was passed, * to prevent bribery, treating, and undue influence at elections of members of the legislature.' J COLONIAL PROGRESS. 603 career as a province of the dominion under the forms of responsible government, and with a prospect of becoming at no very distant day one of the most valuable of England's colonial possessions. Since the close of the Douglas regime the financial status of the colony had materially improved; her debt had been extinguished by the terms of the confederation, while her expenditure had been greatly reduced, the appropriation for the service of 1871 being $347,- 535, or some $25 per capita of the white population, then estimated at about fourteen thousand, as against $90 for 1863. Meanwhile, as we have seen, roads had been opened to the principal mining districts, and public works had been pushed forward vigorously. Though slow of growth compared with other gold-bearing regions, in prosperity and industrial enterprise the province compared not unfavorably with many portions of the Pacific coast. Her cereal crops rivalled in quality those of California, and her root crops were not inferior to those of Oregon. On her pastures were raised sheep and cattle whose flesh was not excelled in flavor by the stall-fed beef of Aberdeen and the South-Down mutton of England. Manufactures were not inconsiderable, and were expanding year by year.46 The value of exports, including, besides gold, twenty-one articles of home production, was estimated for 1870 at $1,848,803, and of imports at $1,605,809, leaving a balance of trade in favor of the colony amounting to $242,994^ Labor was in fair demand, at rates fully equal to those prevailing in California;48 and a thrifty mechanic could save from each day's wages the price of an acre of land. 46 In 1871 there were in various parts of the province 14 saw-mills, 11 flouring mills, 3 breweries, 3 distilleries, 2 tanneries, 2 sash factories, a shipyard, an iron-foundery, a soap factory, and a beet-sugar factory. B. C. Inform. for Emigr., 33-4. 47 During 1871, 292 vessels entered the pofts of TJ. C, with an aggregate tonnage of 131,696. Clearances numbered 285, then tonnage being 129,864. 48Carpenters were paid $3 to $4 a day; masons, painters, plasterers, and blacksmiths, $3.50 to $4; coopers, cabinet-makers, tinsmiths, and wheelwrights, $4; common laborers, $2.50 a day; and farm laborers, $20 to $40 per month, with board. 604 UNION AND CONFEDERATION. Not least among the- noticeable features in the records of the colonial authorities is their kindly treatment of the natives; and in later years the number and extent of Indian reserves,49 which were selected not because they were uninhabitable by white men, but with a view to the preservation of the different races, on sites well adapted to agriculture and grazing, and well supplied with timber and water. In 1860 the native population was estimated, as we have seen, at SOjOOO,50 and in 1871 it was about the same number.51 At the latter date Indians were largely employed in the interior as laborers, herders, and farmhands, those who understood how to treat them being glad, in return for their services, to feed and house them, paying them besides $20 to $30 per month. Some of them displayed ability as artisans; some were engaged in placer mining on the Thompson and Fraser rivers, and not a few had farms and cattle of their own. 49 For location of reserves in 1862-3, see B. C. Ind. Land Question, 26,29- 36; for description of Kamloop, Shushwap, nos 1 and 2, Adams Lake, and Lower Fraser River reserves in 1866, see Id., 38-9,41-3, 47, 54-7; for sketch of Songish reserve and list of other reserves in 1869, Id., 64-8, 165-66; for lists, location, and area in 1871, Id., 95-6, 104-6; for correspondence relating to reserves in 1873-5, Jour. Legist. Ass., 1875, app. 665-86; for Rept Com. Ex. Council concerning reserves in 1875, Sess. Papers, Brit. Col., 1876, pp. 57-72, 165-328; for papers relating to reserves in 1877, Id. 1877,483-4. For mission on Naas River in 1869, see B. C. Ind. Land Question, 63. In 1873-4 $54,000 was appropriated by govt for the expenses of reservations. Id., 154. 50 See p. 75, this vol. 51 Chittenden estimates the Indian population of B. C in 1882 at 35,000, the Haidahs and Chimsyans being among the most populous tribes. Travels in B. C. and Alaska, 12-13. For report on the condition of the Kootenai Sound Indians in 1883, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, p. 325. The outbreaks that occurred among Indians before the gold discoveries were not, as we have seen, of a formidable nature. The more important ones that occurred later have already been mentioned. See p. 426-9, this vol. For Indian troubles at Vancouver Island in 1856, see Sacr. Union, Oct. 4, 1856; for massacre of miners by Indians at Nicola River, S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 5, 1858; for murders by Indians in 1859, Id., March 8, 1859, Sacr. Union^ov. 23,1859; for depredations and disturbances in 1870, S. F. Bulletin, June 13, July 13, Nov. 22, 23, 1860; S. F. Alto, June 13, July 3, 1860; Sacr. Union, June 21, July 13,1860; for, outrages in 1868, S. F. Alta, June 28, 1868. In 1872 there was an Indian outbreak at the Forks, during which a number of white men were massacred. Id., July 23, 1872. In 1879 an uprising was feared in the Kamloopn district among the Nicola Indians. For an account of this affair, see British Colonist, Dec. 13, 14, 16, 18, 28, 31, 1879. For Ind. murders in 1884, see 8. F. Call, Jan. 12, 1884. Small-pox among Ind., S. F. Bulletin, Jan. 22, 1883; Victoria Chronicle, in Sacr. Union, Jan. 24, 1863; S. F, Times, Sept. 30, 1868; S. F. Call, June 28, 1868, Nov. 16, 1870. In the last of these years two thirds of an entire tribe were swept away. CHAPTEK XXXI. THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. 1854-1872. The Archipelago de Haro—San Juan Island Occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company—Customs Dues Demanded for the United States — Commissioners Appointed—Their Arguments — Indian Troubles—The Affair of the Hog—A Military Post Established by General Harney—Arrival of British Men-of-war—And of the U. S. Steamer 'Massachusetts'—Protest of Douglas—Harney's Reply—Landing of U. S. Troops—Casey's Trip to Esquimalt—Its Result—A Compromise Offered by Lord Lyons—Attitude of President Buchanan—General Scott Ordered to the Pacific Coast—Negotiations—Harney Recalled—Arbitration and Decision. Since the treaty of 1846 the people of British Columbia and those of the United States had each regarded the group of islands forming the Archipelago de Haro, lying between the continent and the southern end of Vancouver Island, as belonging to them, according to the first articles of that compact, which reads as follows: "From the point on the 4*9th parallel of north latitude, where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and conventions between Great Britain and the United States terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of her Britannic Majesty and those of the United States shall be continued westward along the 49th parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly through the middle of said channel, and of Fuca Straits, to the Pacific Ocean; provided, however, that the navigation of the said channel and (605) 606 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. straits, south of the 49th parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties." A reference to the map of this region shows a passage about seven miles in width between the archipelago and Vancouver Island, known as the Canal de Haro. Between the islands appear numerous small passages, and between the group and the mainland, another channel less than half the width of Canal de Haro, known as Rosario Strait, lying some distance fe Pigs f,:d'a^° hj^ r 1 IIDBEY Archipelago de Haro. to the east of the point in the middle of the channel at the 49th parallel. The archipelago consists of San Juan, as the Spaniards had named it—Bellevue, as the English called it—Orcas, Lopez, Waldron, Blake- ley, Decatur, Shaw, and several .smaller islands. The largest, San Juan, contains about 50,000 acres.1 iRept of R. H. Crosbie, in II. Ex. Doc. 77, xii. l,'S6Ui Cong., 1st Sess.; BEGINNING OF THE QUARREL. 607 About the time that Fort Victoria was founded, and while the governments of Great Britain and the United States knew but little of the actual hydrography of the region, and were discussing the line of actual boundary, the Hudson's Bay Company took possession of San Juan, by placing upon it a few of their servants in charge of their herds. On the other hand, the Oregon legislature, in 1852, organized Whidbey Island and the Haro Archipelago into a district called Island county, which became, by the division of Oregon in 1853, a part of Washington. In 1854 the collector of customs for Puget Sound, I. N. Ebey, first came in conflict with the Hudson's Bay Company, the latter having recently imported a large number of sheep, cattle, horses, and hogs, and placed them on the island of San Juan, for which customs dues were demanded by the collector. Ebey found on the island Charles John Griffin, a clerk of the company and a colonial justice of the peace, who claimed it as British territory, and who, at once notified Governor Douglas of Ebey's pretensions. The latter repaired to San Juan harbor in the company's steamer Otter, bringing with him the collector of customs for the port of Victoria, Mr Sankster, who, going on shore, demanded Ebey's business on the island, of which he was bluntly informed. Sankster then gave notice that he should seize all vessels and arrest all persons found navigating the waters west of Rosario Strait and north of the middle of the strait of Fuca. To this Ebey replied that he should leave upon the island a deputy collector of customs, who would discharge his duty, and that he trusted no persons would be so rash as to interfere with its performance. Sankster then suggested that Ebey should go on board the Otter and confer with Governor Douglas, which invitation was declined. Sankster then carried the British flag ashore, hoisting it Olympia Transcript, July 18, 1868; Milton's San Juan, 14-28; Sen. Doc, 29, i., 40th Cong., 2d Sess., geographical memoir, with maps. 608 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. over the quarters of the company's servants, Ebey at tBe same time flinging to the breeze the United States revenue flag which he carried in his boat. Sankster then landed a boat's crew from the Otter, and prepared to take up his quarters on the island, while Governor Douglas returned to Victoria. Ebey the next morning swore in his deputy, Henry Webber, in presence of Griffin and Sankster, and left the island, fully expecting that Webber would be arrested and taken to Victoria.2 A writ was indeed served on him,3 but as he refused to obey, the colonial authorities refrained from pushing the matter further. The same year the property on San Juan Island was assessed by the officer whose duty it was to appraise the property of Island county; but the collection was not enforced until March 18,1855, when the sheriff of Whatcom county, Ellis Barnes—San Juan and the adjacent islands having been attached by the legislature of 1854-5 to Whatcom—seized and sold* thirty or more of the sheep belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company at auction.5 These proceedings caused Governor Stevens in 1855 to address a communication on the subject6 to the secretary of state, who instructed him that the territorial officers should abstain from all acts on the disputed ground calculated to provoke 2 Olympia Pioneer and Dem., May 13, 1854. 3 The British colonial authorities, call the archipelago San Juan county. 41 am indebted to Elwood Evans for a valuable collection of papers on the 'Northwest Boundary between Great Britain and the United States,'in "which I find, p. 33-5, a statement of these occurrences, taken from the Richmond Whig of July 19, 1860, and copied into the National Intelligencer, Washington, D. C. 6 For this seizure the company subsequently presented a claim of about $15,000. The bill made out by Griffin was for 34 imported rams, which were seized and sold, estimated to be worth $3,750. The remainder was for losses sustained in consequence of Sheriff Barnes' violent acts in driving the sheep into the woods, and the cost of collecting such as were not altogether lost. The American authorities state that Griffin himself caused the sheep to be dispersed in order to evade a seizure, and that those taken were a band which they found in a corral in a remote part of the island. The men who accompanied the sheriff were Mr Cullen, county commissioner and agent of the Puget Sound Coal Mining Company, E. C. Fitzhugh, afterward lieut-eol of volunteers and associate justice, and two others, who became purchasers, at low prices, of the company's blooded stock. S. F. Alia, July 31, 1863; H, Ex. Doc. 77, 9, 36th Cong.', Ut Sess. 6 See Wash. Jour. Council, 1854, 191. JOINT OCCUPATION. 609 conflicts, "so far as it can be done without implying the concession of an exclusive right over the premises," and that the title ought to be settled before either party should forcibly exclude the other. He promised, moreover, to notify the British government, and to have the boundary established at an early date.7 Deputy Collector Webber remained on San Juan Island only about one year, when fear of the northern Indians forced him to leave it. He was succeeded by Oscar Olney, whose stay lasted but a few months for the same reason, and who was replaced by Paul K. Hubbs. Each of these Americans was compelled at different times to seek the protection of Mr Griffin, clerk of the Hudson's Bay Company, and British magistrate on the island. This was always cheerfully rendered, but the company never did anything to prevent the recurrence of these incursions from the north coast, which tended to frighten away American settlers. The sheriff of Whatcom county continued regularly to impose taxes on the island, but without again enforcing their collection, until in 1859 they amounted to $935. The customs inspector pursued the same course, merely taking account of the goods landed and vessels arriving. In 1859 the Hudson's Bay. Company had on San Juan Island, besides Griffin, eighteen 7 Miltone San Juan Island, 56-7. This compilation, made by Viscount Milton, and published at a time when the boundary question was about to be submitted to arbitration, is valuable as a collection of documents, but as an argument is without force. The advantage it claimed on the side of Great Britain was in pointing out the blunders of American explorers, who, by their errors, gave weight to the British claim. For example, Fremont's maps are adduced as proof, when Fremont's acquaintance with Puget Sound was no greater than Milton's,.both being borrowed from other authorities, and those by no means correct. According to Anderson's Hist. N. W. Coast, MS., 34- 6, Wilkes, in a private letter to him in 1841, gave an opinion which would have gone^far in settling the arbitration in favor of Great Britain had it been put in evidence. The people who settled the country and explored every nook and corner in canoes knew more about it than the so-called explorers at that time could know; hence Lord Milton had but little to rest his judgment upon. See Milton's San Juan Water Boundary Question, London, 1869. An earlier work than Milton's, and less valuable, is Relations between the United States and Northwest British America, by James W. Taylor, Washington, 1862, a mere compilation, without judgment or force. Hist. Beit. Col. 39 610 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. servants, three of whom only were white, and these were naturalized citizens of the United States. The American settlers numbered twenty-nine, chiefly men who had drifted thither from the Fraser River mines, or, not being able to reach that district, had decided to take land claims instead, the northern counties of Washington receiving about this time considerable accessions to their population from the same source. The correspondence between the United States and Great Britain, on the subject of the north-west boundary, had led, in 1856-7, to the appointment of commissioners by each government, to examine into or furnish the data upon which the line should be drawn through the straits east of Vancouver Island. The commissioners on the part of Great Britain were Captain Prevost and Captain Richards of the Royal Navy; on the part of the United States, Archibald Campbell, assisted by Lieutenant John G. Parke and George Clinton Gardner of the topographical engineers, and John F. Taylor and George P. Bond astronomers. Prevost left England in December 1856, in H. M. S. Satellite, arriving at Esquimalt harbor in June 1857, Richards following in H. M. S. Plumper, which did not arrive for several months later. The United States commissioner had placed at his command the surveying steamer Active, and the brig Fauntleroy, and arrived at Victoria about the same time with Prevost, the first meeting taking place on board the Satellite] June 27th, when the commissioners agreed as to their initial point of survey. At a meeting which took place in Semiahmoo Bay8 in October, Prevost stated that he had verified the general accuracy of the United States coast survey map of 1854, and would take this chart as the one 8 There is a monument of iron on the north shore of Semiahmoo Bay 4 feet high, 4£ inches square at the top, and 6 inches square at the ba«e, placed there to mark the boundary line. On the north side are the words 'Treaty of Washington,' and on the south side, 'June 15, 1846.' Morse's Wash. Ter., MS., xxii. 10. See-also B. Col. Sketches, MS., 24; Cong. Olobe, 1855-6, ii., ap. 15-23; Or. Argus, Nov. 29,1850; //. Ex. Doc, viii. 100, 40th Cong., 3d Sess. A BOUNDARY QUESTION. 611 upon which the general line of boundary should be determined, leaving the correct tracing of the line to be carried out by the surveying officers. But when it came to the discussion of the treaty of 1846, Prevost argued that the Rosario channel would answer the language of that instrument, while Campbell contended for the Canal de Haro. At a meeting which took place the 27th, Prevost formulated his views as follows: "By a careful consideration of the wording of the treaty, it would seem distinctly to provide that the channel mentioned should possess three characteristics: 1st. It should separate the continent from Vancouver's Island; 2d. It should admit of the boundary line being carried through the middle of the channel in a southerly direction; 3d. It should be a navigable channel. To these three peculiar conditions the channel known as Rosario Strait most entirely answers." The arguments brought forward are too lengthy for even a review in these pages, and are moreover immaterial. Campbell's answer was, in substance, that the line of boundary described in the treaty began at the 49th parallel, in the middle of the channel which separated the continent from Vancouver Island, which point was clearly west of the Rosario Strait. As to the boundary line running continuously in a southerly direction from this point, or any other, that was impossible. If it followed the Rosario Strait it deflected well to the east, and when it came to the strait of Fuca its course was north of west. The term j southerly' could, therefore, be used only in a general sense. Rosario channel was not the main channel that separated Vancouver Island from the continent, but one which separated certain islands from certain other islands, as did another navigable channel through the archipelago. And as to the navigability of the two channels, they were both pronounced good; but the Canal de Haro was, according to the latest surveys, "the widest, deepest, and best channel," besides being 612 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. a much shorter communication between the gulf of Georgia and the Pacific Ocean than that by the way of Rosario Strait. This narrowed the discussions down to what was in the minds of the framers of the treaty when it was drawn up; it being reasonably clear, from Campbell's point of view, that the deflection of the boundary line from the 49th parallel was a concession intended to avoid cutting off the southern end of Vancouver Island, and thereby greatly injuring it as a British possession, but one that did not give to that government any right over the archipelago to the east of it, which belonged to the continent; and the language of the plenipotentiaries was quoted in support of this position. Here was in fact the whole of the argument; and although it was long drawn out in voluminous correspondence, it never amounted to anything more. The British colonial authorities brought forward the claim of priority of occupation, the Hudson's Bay Company having kept their herds upon it ever since the establishment of Fort Victoria in 1843; but as the treaty of 1846 abandoned to the United States all south of the 49th parallel, except the southern portion of Vancouver Island, it was claimed that prior occupancy could not affect the title, although prior occupation of an island in the midst of an archipelago constitutes title in international law. Two years were spent in a discussion which terminated in nothing, its most noticeable result being that it strengthened the feeling of American ownership among the people of Puget Sound, and led to a*settlement of Americans to the number of twenty-nine, as I have said.9 In the mean time the survey was completed from the gulf of Georgia to the Columbia River, and the line marked by stone monuments at a distance of twenty miles apart, a trail being cut through the 9 Rossi's Souvenirs, 186-91. For a particular account of the boundary survey, see //. Ex. Doc. 86, xiii. S3, 40th Cong., 3d Sess, INDIAN TROUBLES. 613 heavy timber for the placing of iron monuments at intervals of one mile. During the progress of the survey the town of Semiahmoo on the frontier sprang up, as also a settlement at Point Roberts, and in the mining region of the upper Columbia American Town, on the head waters of Kettle River. Before proceeding further with the story of the San Juan difficulty, it will be necessary to refer to a few incidents in which the affairs of Washington territory and of the Hudson's Bay Company are somewhat intermingled. The invasions of northern Indians were the great drawback to the occupancy of San Juan, and of all that part of Washington bordering on the straits. At Bellingham Bay in 1855-6 there were but thirty white inhabitants. To protect themselves, they had erected a block-house with bastions inside of a stockade, being furnished from the United States vessels in the Sound with a howitzer and detachment of twelve men to garrison their little fort.10 Congress and the military authorities were more than once memorialized as to the defenceless condition of the lower coasts of Puget Sound, until, in 1856, General Wool announced his intention of establishing a post at Bellingham Bay as soon as he could spare the troops from the field. Accordingly, in the summer of 1856, when the war had been brought to a close west of the Cascades, Captain George Pickett was sent with a company of the 9th infantry to garrison a post about two and a half miles from the settler's block-house, and Major O. G. Haller to establish a post about the same distance from Port Townsend, with another infantry company. These were, however, mere specks on the long .line of exposed coast, and seldom were the barbarities of the savage pirates of the north either prevented or punished. The murder of I. N. Ebey in 1857, to which I have referred in my History of Washington, illus- 10Roder's Bellingham Bay, MS., 21-2. 614 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. trated the powerlessness of a handful of infantry to deal with these dangerous foes. The first official act of McMullin, who was appointed governor of the territory about this time, was to visit Douglas at Victoria, and ascertain whether the latter would join in an attempt to take the gui&y individuals; but Douglas could do nothing which might bring on a war with their tribe without first obtaining the sanction of the home government,11 and would not have wished in any case to involve the company in a war with these sea-kings, who, like the barbarous northmen of Europe, revelled in visions of blood. McMullin had neither an army nor navy at his command, and Ebey's death, with that of many others, went unavenged. San Juan Island 'lay directly in the route of the northern Indians, who paid many unwelcome visits to its shores, while on account of the then peculiar political situation of the island, no troops could be stationed there, nor any adequate defence of the settlers be made. On the 29th of May 1859, the schooner Caroline, Captain Jones, fell in with three large canoes filled with northern Indians, evidently bent upon mischief. On being hailed and questioned as to their destination, they replied they were going to Blunt or Smith Island, where a light-house had been erected, and where the only residents were the light-keeper, Vail, and his family. The captain of the schooner immediately turned back and informed Vail of his danger, urging him to leave the place without delay. This he did, going on board the schooner which sailed for Port Townsend. But Vail's deputy, J. K. Apple- gate, chose to remain. He barricaded the doors and windows of Vail's house, and prepared for defence, knowing that help would be sent from Port Townsend at the earliest moment possible. Hardly had his preparations been completed when the Indians landed, lx Olympia Pioneer and Dem., Oct. 16, 1857. APPLEGATE AND THE INDIANS. 615 and approached the house, endeavoring to induce Applegate to leave it, which he declined to do. In the mean time the schooner had run over to Port Townsend, and a volunteer company was quickly raised,12 which, placing itself under the command of Deputy Sheriff Van Valzah, proceeded to Blunt Island, where they arrived the next morning, having been delayed by variable winds. The Indians, on seeing the schooner about to land, ran to their canoes with the intention of boarding her, but she put off before the wind, and their design was frustrated. Then, through their interpreter, they challenged the volunteers to fight, which the latter declined doing, being only twenty in number, to eighty or ninety of the natives. Their errand was simply to rescue Applegate if possible, whom they had little hope of finding alive, but who had kept the Indians from forcing an entrance to his lonJ.y fortress throughout the night. A landing was effe ted, and the Indians departed, ostensibly for Victoria, vowing vengeance against Captain Jones and a half-breed sailor who had first warned Jones of their designs. On the following day, however, as Applegate passed the tower window in the light-house, he was shot at by a party of these Indians in ambush. He returned their fire, and wounded one of them, when they finally left the island.13 Vail brought his family back to their home, but the feeling of insecurity was great, inasmuch as the Indians had declared they were seeking revenge for the hanging of three of their tribe at Port Towns- end for previous murders. Two weeks before the affair of Blunt Island, a meeting had been called at Port Townsend to consider the best means of preventing the northern Indians, then on a visit to Victoria, from landing at the former place; and it was resolved to give notice to "This company included three of the famous Chapman troupe of playactors, who crossed the plains, and were the first regular theatrical company as far north and west as the Columbia and Puget Sound. Letter of J. K. Applegate, in Olympia Pioneer and Dem., June 17, 1859. 616 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. them that they would not be permitted to visit Port Townsend, committees being appointed to keep strict watch, and to use the best means in their judgment for preventing their approach, while Major Haller was requested to cooperate.14 A crisis was, however, approaching which involved the international as well as the Indian question. One Lyman A. Cutler, who had located himself on San Juan Island in April 1859, and planted a garden, was much annoyed by the predatory habits of a hog belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, and on the 15th of June he shot and killed the offending animal. He then called Griffin and offered payment for it, but the latter claiming $100, Cutler refused the demand. On the following day A. G. Dallas, son-in-law of Governor Douglas, with Tolmie and Fraser of the colonial council, arrived at the island in the company's armed steamer Beaver, when Dallas peremptorily claimed the island to be British soil, and ordered Cutler to pay the $100 or be taken to Victoria for trial. Cutler refused to do either, threatening to kill any who should try to force him.15 After this encounter Dallas returned with his party to Victoria, when it was determined to place a magistrate on the island, and to arrest Cutler. Meanwhile, as will be remembered, the Pacific coast portion of the Hudson's Bay Company's territory had been u One resolution of the meeting reveals the cause of their invasions as well as the social condition of the country: ' That all men having northern women be notified that if they do not, on or before the 1st day of June, send the same out of the country, that legal action will be commenced against them, as by act passed January 23, 1857.' From this it appears that the legislature had found it necessary to interfere with the practice of cohabiting with women of the British Columbia tribes, whereby occasion was given to their male relatives to visit the settlements. 15 This affair is differently represented by Milton, who says that Dallas and GHffin only remonstrated with Cutler, who threatened to shoot any other of the company's stock which should interfere with him. Ban Juan, 251-5. Other British writers say that he threatened to shoot Dallas; but the American authorities, and the deposition of Cutler agree with the above. II. Ex. Doc. 65, ix. 55, 36th Cong., 1st Sess.; Roder's Bellingham Bay, MS., 33-4; Grover's Pub. Life in Or., MS., 68; Morse's Wash, Ter,, MS., xv. 15-16; Dean's Settlement of Vane. Isle, MS., 11-12; .American State Papers, 260. Cutler died at Spanish settlement in 1877. A MILITARY POST. 617 declared British colonies. In May of this year the American settlers at San Juan petitioned General Harney, the commander of the military department of Oregon, to send them a small guard of twenty soldiers as a protection against the northern Indians, which the general, with the usual reluctance of military officers to credit the alarms of citizens, withheld. In the following July, however, being on a tour of inspection of his department, and having paid a complimentary visit to Douglas, he ran over to San Juan to see for himself the condition of the Americans, and to take some notes concerning the value of the disputed territory in a military point of view, the British at this time terming San Juan the Cronstadt of the Pacific and the key to the gulf of Georgia, The settlers, taking advantage of their opportunity, addressed another petition to Harney, asking for protection from the natives, who a short time before had committed several murders, and of whom they stood in constant dread,16 the petitioners taking occasion to add that the island was United States territory, and that they had a right to claim a sufficient military force to prevent Indian outrages and encourage settlement. At the same time the general was informed as to the affair of the hog, and that Dallas had come in an armed vessel to take Cutler to Victoria. After a week's reflection he decided that if the British authorities could proceed to usurp sole jurisdiction of disputed territory, so could he. Accordingly, on the 18th of July he issued an order to Captain Pickett to transfer his company from Port Bellingham17 to San Juan Island, and the steamer Massachusetts was 16 The petition was signed by J. M. Haggaret, Samuel McCauly, J. E. Higgins, Charles H. Hubbs, L. A. Cutler, William Butler, J. D. Warren, H. Wharton, Jr, John Witty, B. S. Andrews, John Hunter McKay, Noel Ent, Michael Farris, George Perkins, Alexander McDonald, Peter Johnson, Angus McDonald, William Smith, Charles McKay, D. W. Oakes, Paul K. Hubbs, Jr, and Paul K. Hubbs, Sr. Milton's San Juan Island, 257. 17 Fort Bellingham was established by Colonel Casey in 1856, and was the second established on the Sound, Fort Townsend being located immediately after it. Wash. Ter. Sketches, MS., 100-2; Eldridge's Sketch, MS., 29; Ebey's Journal, MS., iii. 49. 618 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. sent to remove the troops and government property. Major Haller's company was afterward ordered on board the vessel, which was to be employed wherever the services of the men were required. On the 27th Pickett landed his command on San Juan, going through the following formula: "1st. In compliance with orders and instructions from the commanding general, a military post will be established on this island, on whatever site the commanding officer may select; 2d. All the inhabitants of the island are requested to report at once to the commanding officer in case of any incursion by the northern Indians, so that he may take such steps as he may deem necessary to prevent any further occurrence of the same; 3d. This being United States territory, no laws other than those of the United States, nor courts except such as are held by virtue of said laws, will be recognized or allowed on this island. By order of Captain Pickett." This document wTas signed by James W. Forsyth, second lieutenant in the 9th infantry, and post adjutant. It happened that the Satellite brought from Victoria on the same day Major De Courcy, whom Prevost was to install as stipendiary'magistrate on the island by direction of Douglas. No magistrate accompanied Pickett, although it has been so stated by a colonial writer.18 Great, surprise was felt by De Courcy, whose commission was found to antedate the arrival of Pickett by one day. It could not therefore be denied that the colonial government had intended to do what Pickett had done—establish jurisdiction, notwithstanding the agreement between the respective powers to refrain from such acts. These occurrences caused a profound sensation at 18 Donald Fraser, member of the executive council. On the 29th, two days after the military occupation, H. E. Crosbie, magistrate of Whatcom county, visited the island out of curiosity, as did many others, and finding an English magistrate there, remained to be useful to the American residents in case of an attempt to arrest Cutler, which was expected. Rept of Crosbie, in H. Ex. Doc. 77, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. READY FOR WAR. 619 Victoria. Two war vessels, the Tribune, a thirty-gun frigate, and the Plumper, were ordered to join the Satellite at San Juan, to prevent the landing of more United States troops, while the Pleiades was sent to San Francisco with despatches for England. On the 30th Griffin notified Pickett that the island was the property of and in occupation by the Hudson's Bay Company, and requested him to leave it with his men. " Should you be unwilling to comply with my request," he added, " I feel bound to apply to the civil authorities." Pickett replied that he did not acknowledge the right of the Hudson's Bay Company; that he was on the island by virtue of an order from his government, and should remain until recalled by the same authority.19 This reply of Pickett's was not strictly true, though he may have so construed the situation. He was on the island by order of General Harney, his superior officer. Upon receiving Griffin's notice to leave, Pickett wrote to Colonel Casey at Fort Steilacoom, that thq, attitude assumed by the Hudson's Bay Company was threatening, and requested him to send the Massachusetts at once to San Juan. " I do not know," he said, " that any actual collision will take place, but it is not comfortable to be lying within range of a couple of war steamers. The Tribune, a thirty-gun frigate, is lying broadside to our camp, and from present indications everything leads me to suppose that they will attempt to prevent my carrying out my instructions." On- the 31st Pickett was reenforced by another company from Fort Steilacoom, the Massachusetts conveying them to San Juan, together with camrj equipage and all necessary tools for constructing quarters, besides a few howitzers. Prevost now hastened to San Juan to hold an interview with Campbell, who was absent. From Pickett he learned, however, that he intended to obey orders, would prevent the landing of any inferior force, fight any equal 19 Milton'8 San Juan Island, 262. 620 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. force, and protest against any superior force of British troops being placed on the island, the proposition having been made of a joint military occupation by an equal number of troops of both nations, and rejected. The captain could well afford to assume this position, for he was aware that the American population of Victoria, outnumbering five to one the available British force, and more skilled perhaps in the use of arms, would rally to his aid, and were indeed already in communication with the island. Douglas now issued a proclamation protesting against the invasion, and declaring that the sovereignty of the island was and always had been vested in Great Britain.20 Armed with this demand, on the 3d of August Captain Hornby of the Tribune and commissioners Prevost and Richards sought a second interview with Pickett, in- which they again urged the joint occupation of San Juan by an equal force of both nations, and the establishment of military rule thereon until the boundary question should be settled by their respective governments. To this Pickett replied that he had no authority to make such an arrangement, and suggested that they might refer the matter to Governor Douglas and General Harney. He assured them that any attempt to land a British force on the island before an arrangement was made would bring on a collision, which it was desirable to avoid, and advised them to remain in their present position until instructions were received from those in authority. Immediately after this interview Pickett wrote to Adjutant-general Pleasanton at Vancouver, of all that had taken place, and asked that instructions be sent him. The adjutant replied that General Harney approved of his course, and told him to allow no joint occupation. In answer to Douglas' protest, Harney addressed a communication to him, of which the following is part: "As the military commander 20 See Olympia Club, MS., 9-10. HARNEY AND DOUGLAS. 621 of the department of Oregon, assigned to that command by the orders of the president of the United States, I have the honor to state for your information that, by such authority invested in me, I have placed a military command upon the island of San Juan to protect the American citizens residing on that island from the insults and indignities which the British authorities of Vancouver Island and the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company recently offered them, by sending a British ship of war from Vancouver Island to convey the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company to San Juan for the purpose of seizing and forcibly transporting him to Vancouver Island, to be tried by British laws. I have reported this attempted outrage to my government, and they will doubtless seek the proper redress from the British government. In the mean time I have the honor to inform your Excellency I shall not permit a repetition of that insult, and shall retain a command on San Juan Island to protect its citizens, in the name of the United States, until I receive further orders from my government."21 To this Douglas replied that he was glad to find that the general was acting under orders from the president, and not by positive authority from the cabinet; denying that any British ship of war had been sent to San Juan to seize an American citizen; asserting that the Hudson's Bay Company's officers exercised no official power or authority, but declaring them as entirely distinct from the officers of the executive government as any other inhabitant of Vancouver Island; alleging that no outrage had been committed on an American citizen, and no attempt had been made to arrest one and take him to Victoria for trial.22 ^Harney committed an oversight in giving this as the sole reason for placing troops on the island, but this he afterward attributed to his indignation in view of the circumstances of the attempted arrest of Cutler. It made his statement differ from Pickett's. 22Crosbie in his report in H. Ex. Doc. 77, 5-6, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., says that Douglas' letter is incorrect on two points; that although it was the Beaver and not a man-of-war which brought Dallas to the island on the occasion re- 622 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. Having made this denial of Harney's accusations, he called upon him, if not as a matter of right, at least as a matter of justice and humanity, to withdraw the troops stationed on San Juan, their presence still further complicating the question of sovereignty, and being calculated to provoke a collision between two friendly nations. But Harney replied as Pickett had done, that the step having been taken, he would now await the expression of the president's pleasure in the matter.23 During the progress of this correspondence, Harney on the. 7th of August ordered Casey to reenforce Pickett, and also wrote to the naval officer in command of the Pacific squadron a request to send vessels to Puget Sound for the protection of American interests thereabout. On the morning of the 9th Casey left Fort Steilacoom with his whole command, consisting of three companies, and with howitzers and fifty tons of ammunition, on board the passenger steamer Julia. He was met by the surveying steamer Active, commanded by Captain Alden, who advised him not to attempt to land his troops on the island, as it would be likely to bring on a conflict, the Tribune lying broadside to the landing with her fires banked. Nevertheless Casey, somewhat imprudently if not ferred «o, Mr Dallas was at that time, and had been for some time previous. a member of the executive council, as was also Mr Donald Fraser, who accompanied him; and that immediately on their return without their intended prisoner a magistrate for the island was determined on, and Mr Griinn directed to lodge a complaint against Cutler, not only on the ground of killing the hog, but as a trespasser upon lands belonging to the company, of which Dallas was a director. The arrival of De Courcy as magistrate soon after confirms Crosoie's statement, as do the affidavits of Paul K. Hubbs and L. k. Cutler, in H. Ex. Doc. 65, ix. 53, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. See also statement of Captain Alden concerning an American, R. W. Cussans, who was forced to abandon his improvements on Lopez Island, and who was ordered, after paying for a license to cut timber, to clear his vessel at the Victoria custom-house. Sen. Doc. 29, i. 87, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 23 Milton's San Juan Island, 273-8. Harney was in error concerning some minor matters. For instance, he says that when Douglas heard of the arrival of Pickett'? command on the island he appointed a Justice of the peace and other civil authorities, and sent them over on the Plumper to execute British laws on the island; when the truth was, as I have previously stated, the magistrate was commissioned one day before Pickett's arrival, and came over in the commissioner's steamer, the Satellite, instead oi the Plumper, as Harney states. Puget Sound Ilo-ald, Aug. o, 12, and 26,1859. ALMOST A BATTLE. 623 impudently, landed his men under the frigate's guns, •thus throwing on the British officers the responsibility of beginning hostilities, though, as he relates, "he fully appreciated the terrible consequences of a hostile collision with his quasi enemy, which would probably be no less than involving two great nations in war."24 There were on service in Puget Sound, according to Harney's statement, five British vessels of war, with 167 guns and 2,140 men, of whom 600 were marines, or of the engineer corps; and, reports the general, "this force has been employed from the 27th day of July until the 10th day of August—the day on which Colonel Casey with reinforcements reached the island—in using every means in its power, except opening fire, to intimidate one company of infantry but sixty strong. The senior/ officer of these British ships of war threatening to land an overpowering force upon Captain Pickett, he nobly replied that whether they landed fifty or five thousand men his conduct would not be affected by it, that he would open his fire, and if compelled, take to the woods fighting."25 This statement of General Harney's must be taken with due allowance. There is little doubt, however, that Pickett intended to fight, and would, when joined by Colonel Casey's command, have opened fire on the British had they landed. He would then have retired to a strong position in the mountains, where he could hold them in check until the arrival of further reinforcements. Finding the aspect of affairs somewhat serious, however, the colonel sent an officer on board the Tribune, requesting that Captain Hornby would call on him with a view to a conference. The captain thought it would have been in better taste had the colonel called on him; nevertheless, he returned a courteous answer, and after despatching his business, 21 Casey's Rept, in H. Ex. Doc, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., ix., no. 65, p. 30. 25 Milton's San Juan Island, 292; V. I. British Colonist. 624 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. repaired to the camp, in company with Prevost and Campbell. Casey asked for the officer highest in- command, and where he was to be found, and was referred to Admiral Baynes, then on board the flag-ship Ganges at Esquimalt. The next day, accompanied by Captain Pickett and the American commissioner, the colonel steamed over to Esquimalt on board the Shubrick; and, per favor of Pickett, who, as he says, was courteously received, Douglas being also present, sent a note to the admiral desiring his presence, with a view to a conference. The request was declined, the admiral remarking that he should be most happy to see the colonel on board the flag-ship. "I was of the opinion," writes Casey, "that I had carried etiquette far enough in going twenty-five miles to see a gentleman who was disinclined to come a hundred yards to see me." Thereupon he returned in dudgeon to San Juan, and in his report a few weeks later accused Hornby of lying.26 Harney, when informed of Casey's visit, disapproved it, and the colonel was naturally mortified at the result of his attempted mediation. It is admitted by British authorities that Douglas had ordered a landing of troops,27 but the admiral refused to do anything that might provoke a collision, and especially to take advantage of an inferior force, even withdrawing his squadron, and keeping, merely for show of occupation, a single vessel at a time in the harbor of San Juan,23 although, after the arrival of the Massachusetts, the Americans built a redoubt near the Hudson's Bay Company's station*.29 For this 26 Casey's Rept, in H. Ex. Doc, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., ix„ no. 65, 31, 63. Macdonald, Brit. Col. and Vane, hi., 258, says that Hornby, though under positive instructions from Douglas to declare war at once, took on himself the responsibility of delaying the execution of his orders until the arrival of the admiral, who was daily expected. 27 See Milton's San Juan Question, 284; Macdonald** B. C, and Vane Isl., 258. 28 The Tribune was relieved by the Satellite, and the latter by the Pleiades. Overland Monthly, ii. 211. 29 The earthworks extended on the west water-front 350 feet, on the southeast 100, on the east 100, and on the north-east 150 feet, the north side being NEGOTIATIONS. 625 line of conduct, though acting in disobedience to orders, Baynes was complimented by the British government.30 On the day when Douglas issued his protest he addressed a message to the colonial legislative council and assembly in extra session, in which he reiterated his belief in the right of Great Britain to the archipelago lying west of Rosario Strait. But owing to the condition of Victoria at this period of her history, the town being about as much American as English, many Californians and Oregonians having purchased property and entered into business there during the height of the Fraser River mining rush, comparatively little impression was made by the governor's proclamations, the interest on the British side being confined chiefly to official circles. Meanwhile the commissioners could not agree, and the governments of Great Britain and the United States were in correspondence, endeavoring to come to a satisfactory understanding as to their rights—an impossibility, since both claimed exactly the same thing.31 On the 24th of August, however, Lord Lyons, minister at Washington, received a despatch from the foreign office, instructing him to offer a compromise, adopting as the line of water boundary between Vancouver Island and the continent a passage between Rosario Strait and the Canal de Haro, run- left open, with the garrison ground in its rear. The embankment had a base of twenty-five feet, and a width at top of eight feet. Inside of the redoubt were five gun-platforms of earth, reaching to within two feet of the level of the parapet, each twelve by eighteen feet, two of them being at corners of the redoubt. The parapet was seven feet above the interior, and the slope of the interior twelve to fifteen feet, the exterior slope being twenty-five to forty feet, with a ditch at the bottom from three to five feet deep. Morse's Wash. Ter., MS., xv. 44-5; V. I. British Colonist. On the 21st of August Governor Gholson addressed a communication to General Harney, in which he informed him that there were less than 2,000 stands of arms in Washington, and that there was not a shot, shell, or cartridge for any of them. Supplies were sent to Fort Steilacoom, subject to the order of the governor. 30 Milton's San Juan Question, 284. This author intimates that Douglas had not at thi3 time the full powers of a British colonial governor. Macdon- ald takes a different view. 31 Annals Brit. Legis., x. 144-5; V. I. British Colonist. Hist. Beit. Col. 40 626 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. ning through the middle of the archipelago, which boundary would give Orcas and Lopez islands, the two largest after San Juan, to the United States. This concession Lord Lyons thought would fulfil the terms of the treaty, though the channel was inferior in some respects to the others;82 her Majesty's government being willing for the sake of peace to resign its claim to three islands, though maintaining its right to all. At the moment this offer was made the intelligence was received at Washington of the occupation of San Juan by an armed American force. Harney first wrote to army headquarters on the subject on the 19th of July, but for some reason his letter was delayed, and does not appear to have reached the commander-in-chief until the 1st of September, the latter sending it to the president; but the newspapers got hold of the information, and in this way Lord Lyons and other statesmen obtained a knowledge of it, when there was profound agitation in diplomatic circles. President Buchanan directed Acting Secretary of War Drinkard, on the 3d, to say to General Harney that although he believed the Canal de Haro to be the true boundary between Great Britain and the United States, yet that he had not anticipated so decisive a step being taken without instructions; that it was not customary to disturb the status of territory in dispute between friendly nations while the question was pending before a joint commission; but if the general had good reason to believe that the colonial authorities of Great Britain were about to do so by assuming jurisdiction over the disputed territory, he was right to anticipate their action, and the president would wait for further details before expressing any opinion. Upon the 5th Lord Lyons held an interview with 33 This third middle passage was used by steamers during the Fraser River gold excitement, and surveyed by the Active, after which it was named, but Capt. Richards renamed it Plumper Pass, and as such it was offered to the United States as a boundary—a narrow channel between islands. SCOTT IN PUGET SOUND. 627 Mr Cass, when he was informed of the contents of Harney's despatch. On this occasion Secretary Cass notified Lyons that while the actual status should be maintained, no orders had been sent to withdraw the United States troops, but that they were to confine themselves to the protection of American citizens. Lyons understood this to mean that Harney was " by no means to take possession of San Juan, or set up any jurisdiction there"—a construction which Cass took pains to disavow before the London mail left the country. In the mean time further despatches had been sent to Washington, with full explanations of the origin of the difficulty, the depositions of citizens, the orders of Harney, and the proclamations and correspondence of Douglas. So warlike did all these indications appear, that the president felt constrained to order General Scott to proceed to the.Pacific coast, and inquire more particularly into the causes of Harney's action. The adjustment of affairs was left to him, the instructions of the secretary of war being merely to preserve peace and prevent collisions until the title to the Island could be determined between the two governments; it being suggested that during the intervening period a joint occupancy might be permitted, in which American citizens should be placed on an equal footing with British subjects. After an interview with HarneyS3 and Pickett at Vancouver, Scott proceeded to Puget Sound in the mail steamer Northerner, and took up headquarters on board the Massachusetts, addressing a letter on the 25th to Governor Douglas, and proposing as a temporary arrangement that separate portions of the island should be occupied by an equal number of troops of each nation, not to exceed one hundred, for the protection of their respective countrymen in person and property. But Douglas, who, notwithstanding his • ^** Was sa^ tha* wlien Harney expressed a hope to Scott that matters might be allowed to remain as they were, Scott testily replied, * We both have our superiors.* He then proceeded to show Harney that he was his superior. EvantTJST. W. Boundary, 36. 828 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. disavowal of any collusion between the Hudson's Bay Company and the colonial authorities, intended that the former should own San Juan, and who did not really desire the home government to become too much concerned in the military value of the Island, disapproved of a joint occupation, and expressed his desire to have the order of civil magistracy restored, remarking, as to the protection of the inhabitants, that "the principal protection that may be required is from dissensions among themselves, and not against hostile Indians, from whom I do not apprehend there is the slightest danger of molestation;" and further reminded the general that the sole reason furnished in Harney's correspondence with himself for placing troops on the island had been that he wished to protect citizens of the United States from the indignities offered them by the British authorities, of which they stood in no danger.34 [ His final argument for not accepting Scott's proposition was that the general was an accredited agent of the government of the United States, whereas he did not occupy that position toward the government of Great Britain. To this Scott replied that his government had not authorized him to evacuate San Juan; and to him it was apparent that if a magistracy could be legally established on neutral territory, it could not be made subject to the orders of any military officer, nor even to the direct control of the president, and therefore it would not be discreet at this juncture to intrust such an officer with matters affecting the peace of nations. "Besides," he continued, "I have adopted the impression of my countrymen generally on this frontier, that the few citizens settled on San Juan Island, though like all other American pioneers, brave, and possessed of effective weapons for defence and attack, do in reality stand in need of troops for protection, not only against predatory bands of Indians coming from foreign parts, but also from such bands residing within 34 Milton's San Juan, 327-9; H. Ex. Doc. 65, ix. 65-7, S6th Cong., 1st Sess. SCOTT AND DOUGLAS. 629 our own limits;" and further that he had just come from Bellingham Bay, where an attack had been made during the summer, and again threatened, a detachment having been recently sent from San Juan to the town of Whatcom. Thus showing Douglas that he entertained American and not English sentiments, with his reasons therefor, Scott submitted a project for temporary settlement, which he requested his Excellency to consider, declaring that he could see no other principle whereupon a present adjustment could be made. The reply of Douglas was that he could not consent to a joint military occupation without the sanction of his government;35 that he was authorized to maintain but not to make treaties, and that he did not think it advisable to anticipate the action of Great Britain; that protection against all ordinary danger to residents on the island could be fully attained without military occupation. Moreover, the expediency of affording protection to persons settling on disputed territory might be questioned; on that subject his instructions left him in no doubt with reference to his colony; "protection could not be afforded to persons who, by wandering beyond the precincts of the settlements and the jurisdiction of the tribunals, voluntarily expose themselves to the violence or treachery of the native tribes." Whether this was an order of the home government, the governor did not say; but it reminds one forcibly of the accusations brought by the early Oregon settlers against the Hudson's Bay Company, and the remark made by some of them, that it was fortunate for the first immigrations that McLoughlin and not Douglas was in command. Douglas denied that the colonial authorities had committed any act in violation of existing treaty stipulations, or had been guilty of discourtesy toward the 85 There were some Hudson's Bay Company men who agreed with Scott, See Recollections, MS., 30. 630 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. United States government, but said that they had exhibited a degree of forbearance which entitled them to every confidence; and again he urged the withdrawal of the troops from the island, when he promised that the naval force in the harbor should be removed, at the same time assuring Scott that there was no intention on his part to dislodge by force the troops in possession, without orders from the home government. This assurance Scott accepted. Being persuaded, he said, that the cordial relations existing between the two governments precluded the probability of war, he would at once order the number of troops on the island to be reduced to one company of infantry, and enclosed such an order to Douglas on the 5th of November. It was his first intention to leave Pickett in command; but fearing lest there might be a prejudice against this reckless officer, in whose honor the fort on San Juan was named, another company under Captain Hunt was substituted, and Pickett was sent to Fort Bellingham; not that Hunt was less fearless, but that he was possessed of more prudence and courtesy, and had not given cause of offence. On the departure of Scott, however, Pickett was at once reinstated by General Harney. The withdrawal of the United States forces, except one company, could not be complained of, especially as the governor was invited to place a company on the island, Douglas replying that he should take pleasure in reporting this action to the home government, which, he doubted not, would accept it as proof of a desire of the United States to restore the former status of the islands; and expressing a hope that the commander-in-chief would direct' his officers to abstain from all acts provocative of conflicts, or from attempts to exclude British subjects by force, or in any manner interfere with them;36 and on his part he 3,5 This caution arose from the arrest of William Moore, a British subject, for selling liquor on the island, which was forbidden. Moore, after being GENERAL HARNEY. 631 would enjoin upon the British authorities the same abstinence from exclusive jurisdiction. Scott replied that he should direct the American officer in command not to permit the territorial functionaries to interfere with any British subject on the island while it was in dispute; but should add the further instruction, that if a British subject disturbed the peace, or sold strong liquor to American soldiers without leave from their commander, that officer must represent the case to the nearest British authority, asking for the removal of the offender; and if he should return to the island without permission, the officer must expel him without further ceremony.37 This ended the correspondence between Scott and Douglas. By withdrawing the main force and the batteries from Fort Pickett, the former had left Great Britain to take the initiative in any future hostilities, but without yielding any rights or making any binding concessions. Scott was made aware, before leaving Washington, that the Britis*h government would demand the removal of Harney from the Oregon department; and the president, reluctant to relieve from his command a popular officer, though one whose excessive zeal in the interests of the people and the government had almost involved the country in a war, had suggested reuniting the departments of California and Oregon, whereby Harney would, without prejudice to his standing, be forced to take a command in some other part of the United States territory. But Harney, not at first perceiving the motive of the commander-in-chief, placed before him strong arguments against throwing the two departments into put to work in the trenches for half a day, was tried before Justice Crosbie and fined, according to his deposition, $75. H. Ex. Doc, ix., no. 65, pp. 73-4, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. The case fully illustrated the trouble that would arise from a divided jurisdiction. zlSen. Doc. 10, 75, v., 36th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. Ex. Doc, 11-13—Mess. and Doc. pt i.—36th Cong., 1st Sess.; Id., pt ii., 39-90, 577; House Jour., 1445, 36th Cong., 1st Sess.; Sen. Jour., 1026, 36th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. Ex: Doc 29, 8-10, 22-9, 37-63, 36th Cong., 2d Sess. 632 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. one, and cited the condition of the country when the headquarters were at San Francisco. At length, just as he was taking his departure from the Columbia, Scott gave Harney his true reason for making the suggestion, and left with him an order to repair to St Louis and assume command of the department of the west, placing Wright in command of the department of Oregon, but giving him leave to decline or accept the order as he should elect. Harney, however, did not wish to go to St Louis just at that time. He had begun the erection of a residence about one mile east from Vancouver, then nearly completed,38 and did not find it convenient, had it been otherwise agreeable, to leave the territory. Neither did he believe that his action wivi regard to San Juan would embarrass the president. That, at all events, was the opinion expressed in reply to the commander-in-chief's suggestion, written on the spur of the moment. Two days later I find him entertaining the idea. In a long corflmunication to the adjutant-general, in which he recommends the continuance of the Oregon department, he concludes by saying that, although he would not make a formal application to be relieved from his command lest it should derange any course already decided upon, he would esteem it a favor if the president would at his earliest convenience allow him to return to the east and to his family, from which he had been for five years separated. He was not recalled until the following summer, although Scott, vexed on account of some private official misunderstandings, used his influence against him. On the other hand, the legislatures of Oregon and Washington, on being informed of the contemplated change in their military department, memorialized congress 38 This structure went by the name of Dundas Castle. It was beautifully situated in a plateau overlooking the Columbia, and surrounded by a grove of stately fir-trees. Harney wished to sell it for an arsenal, but the title to the land was unsettled. It came later into the possession of J. E. Wyche, and was afterward again sold. POPULAR FEELING; 633 against it, and prayed to have Harney retained in command; and Scott, whose visit had been received with deference, began to be severely criticised, which was nothing new for him.39 Not until March did Admiral Baynes disembark on the disputed island a company of marines equal in number to the force of Captain Hunt, under the command of Captain George Bazalgette, his instructions being the same as those given to the American captain. The respective commanders observed the utmost courtesy toward each other, as they had been instructed to do. In the mean time the American population of San Juan was doubled, farms were opened, and manufactures started. Nor did the Fourth-of-July spirit die out; but in November a public meeting was held to express the sentiments of the settlers with regard to the sovereignty of this bit of insular territory. At Olympia the democratic portion of the legislature, at a meeting held for the purpose, nominated Harney as their choice for president in 1860. It was quite clear that, whatever the government might do, the people intended to sustain Harney. The American aspect of the case descends now to a disgraceful quarrel between two of its officers, a position in which they are too often found in the history of the nation. Nor will it be of any import to this history to follow a private quarrel between Scott and 39 According to the Oregon Statesman of January 24, 1860, the intervention of the commander-in-chief had done more harm than good. When he arrived, said that journal, the San Juan question was practically settled. There was no occasion for him to interfere. The British fleet had retired to Esquimalt harbor, except the Satellite, which still lay in the harbor of San Juan. The Americans had peaceable possession, and exercised civil and military jurisdiction. But instead of letting matters remain as they were, he ordered off Pickett, offered joint occupancy, and recommended the recall of Harney and the abolition of the Oregon department. Nor were the Oregon and Puget Sound papers the only journals to question the wisdom of the commander-in- chief in sacrificing Pickett and Harney, whom the government and himself indorsed., by leaving a military force on the island, and by abolishing British civil jurisdiction, but the western press in general lamented the necessity, real or imaginary, of the implied censure. See National Intelligencer, July 28, 1860; Evans' N. W. Boundary, 33; V. I. British Colonist. 634 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. Harney, except so far as it affects the question under consideration. On the 10th of April, 1860, Harney sent a despatch to Pickett from Fort Vancouver, wherein he informs him: 1st. That Scott left no instructions with him to grant a military occupation of San Juan Island by British troops; nor had any authority been delegated by the government to Scott to offer or accept such occupation; nor was the offer made by him accepted by Governor Douglas, or any such arrangement subsequently made, so far as he, Harney, was informed; 2d. The British authorities had simply submitted an assurance that no attempt would be made by them to dislodge the American troops, in view of which they were permitted to land troops for a purpose similar to that of the commander of the department, to protect the British residents; 3d. Under the organic act of congress for the establishment of Washington territory, the legislature of 1854 had passed an act including the island of San Juan in Whatcom county, which act on being submitted to congress was not disapproved, and was therefore the law of the land, and being such, Pickett would be expected to regard the civil jurisdiction of Washington, any attempt to ignore which would be followed by deplorable results. In the event of British interests being involved, Pickett was required to notify Captain Bazalgette, who would propose some arrangement satisfactory to his instructions, as well as those of the civil officer, no action in any case to be taken until it had been referred to the British admiral and the governor of Washington. No sooner had the reappointment of Pickett been made known in Washington city than the British minister called the attention of Secretary Cass to the event, expressing his confidence that the United States government would not lose anytime in providing against the deplorable consequences likely to follow. Lord Lyons, as well as General Scott, endeavored to ARBITRATION. 635 arouse the government against Harney,40 and the secretary of war was directed to recall him at once. Accordingly Harney went to Washington, Hunt was ordered back to San Juan,41 and Colonel Wright was placed in command of the department of Oregon, j The reprimand which General Harney received from the secretary of war was a mild one. The secretary disapproved of violating the order of General Scott; bi^ while expressing his disapprobation, he entertained no doubt of the proper intentions of General Harney, "and from his known high character and distinguished services, he was not disposed to be severe in his condemnation." There remains little that need be told of the history of San Juan. Unable to settle the boundary, the British government authorized Lord Lyons, on the 10th of December, 1860, to propose arbitration by one of three European powers; namely, Belgium, Denmark, or the Swiss republic; but for the time this proposal led to no result. Then came the civil war in the United States, when the cabinet had enough to do to manage its domestic affairs, and the San Juan question was suffered to be forgotten. It was not until 1868 that Adams, minister to England, was notified by Secretary Seward that among other important questions to be negotiated the San Juan boundary should be included. In 1869 Adams' successor, Reverdy Johnson, was instructed to give his attention to the adjustment of this question, accepting the proposal made ten years before that it should be settled by arbitration; and on the 17th of October a protocol was signed by Stanley and Johnson, agreeing that the question should be referred to some 40Scott wrote: 'If this does not lead to a collision of a^ms, it will again be due to the forbearance of the British authorities.' Milton's San Juan, 354. 41 Pickett was a southerner, and when the civil war broke out joined the confederacy and was made a general. He commanded a division under Long- street at Gettysburg. He, like most of the southern officers who resigned from the United States army, died in a few years after the close of the war. 636 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. friendly sovereign or state, and that within three months after the ratification of any treaty oiving effect to the agreement the referee should be selected, the naturalization treaty being mentioned as the one that must be first disposed of. On the 10th of November, the claims questions having been referred to four commissioners, two chosen by each government, it was also agreed that the boundary question should be determined by the president of the federal council of the Swiss republic on the conclusion of the treaty above named. When the first proposition was made in 1868 to accept arbitration as a means of disposing of the question, the officials of Washington territory sent a remonstrance to congress, entreating the senate to consent to no protocol nor convention admitting a doubt of the right of the United States to the line of the Canal de Haro, or a possible surrender of the Haro archipelago.42 Mr Seward, however, not being satisfied with the claims convention, wrote Johnson to allow the natural- 42 The remonstrance was signed by Marshall F. Moore governor, Hazard Stevens collector, S. D. Howe assessor internal revenue, Joseph Cushman receiver of the same, E. Marsh register of the land-office, J. E. Wyche U. S. district judge, Leander Holmes U. S. attorney, S. Garfield surveyor-general, Philip D. Moore collector of internal revenue, E. L. Smith territorial secretary, T. M. Reed chief clerk in land-office, Charles A. White surveyor, C H. Hale ex-superintendent Indian affairs, W. W. Miller the same, E. Giele- ling late acting surveyor-general, Benjamin Harned territorial treasurer, C. S. King Indian agent, Levi Shelton territorial librarian, William Huntington U. S. marshal, B. F. Dennison U. S. district judge, 0. B. McFadden ex-U. S. chief justice, Frank Clark, H. G. Steiner, Elwood Evans. U. S. Sen. Misc. Doc, 27, 40th Cong., 3d Sess. In reply to a letter from the president of the Northern Pacific railroad, George Gibbs wrote a letter, afterward published in pamphlet form, on the protocol of 1869, in which he reviewed the agreement in no friendly spirit. He declared the president of the Swiss confederation a myth, which, regarded in the light of a sovereign, he really was; said that England meant that San Juan Island and Point Roberts were to be given up for the naturalization treaty; hoped that to avoid a war the U. S. would adopt the middle or President's passage, as the Active-Plumper channel was now called; and declared that if England was to lose her possessions on the Pacific, as she must eventually, she wished to make the U. S. pay the highest price for the acquisition, a price that would be enhanced by the possession of San Juan and Point Roberts, for which she was striving. He concluded by saying that it would never do to leave Puget Sound entirely under British guns, as the command of the Sound involved that of the Columbia River. Gibbs' San Juan Treatg. Point Roberts is a neck of land extending below the 49th parallel, directly south of the mouth of Fraser River. TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 637 ization and San Juan questions to remain in protocol unless Great Britain agreed to amend the former, and the reference to arbitration was rescinded by this action. An amended convention was then accepted by Great Britain and forwarded to the United States, but rejected by the senate, which rejection rendered nugatory a second agreement to submit the boundary question to the arbitration of the president of the Swiss confederation. Thus this question was suffered to drift along until, in 1871, England sent five commissioners to Washington city to negotiate a treaty, which was concluded May 8th of that year, and is known as the treaty of Washington, the thirty-fourth article of which is in the following language: "Whereas, it was stipulated by article 1 of the treaty concluded at Washington on the 15th of June, 1846, between the United States and her Britannic Majesty, that the line of boundary between the territories of the United States and those of her Britannic Majesty, from the point on the 49th parallel of north latitude up to which it had been already ascertained, should be continued westward along the said parallel of north latitude Ho the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fuca Straits to the Pacific Ocean;' and whereas, the commissioners appointed by the two high contracting parties to determine the portion of the boundary which runs southerly through the middle of the channel aforesaid were unable to agree upon the same; and whereas, the government of her Britannic Majesty claims that such boundary line should, under the terms of the treaty above recited, be run through Rosario Straits, and the government of the United States claims that it should be run through the Canal de Haro—it is agreed that the respective claims of the government of the United States and the government of her Britannic Majesty shall be submitted to the arbitration and 638 THE SAN JUAN ISLAND DIFFICULTY. award of his Majesty the emperor of Germany, who, having regard to the above-mentioned article of the said treaty, shall decide thereupon, finally and without appeal, which of those claims is in the most accordance with the true interpretation of the treaty of June 15, 1846."43 Emperor William of Germany accepted the office of arbitrator, both governments presenting a carefully prepared case, with documents and maps, George Bancroft, the American minister to Germany, and Mr Petre, the British charge d'affairs, having the responsibility of laying before him all the arguments on either side. Present in Berlin, and laboring for the acceptance of his views, was Captain, now Admiral Prevost, the British commissioner of 1859. The award was not made until October 21, 1872, when it was given to the United States. There are some on both sides of the line who hold to the opinion that the decision was wrong:; others believe it right; still others say that it is a matter of small moment to which of the great powers this little patch of earth belongs. Great as was the disappointment of the people of British Columbia, the award was most courteously accepted, and within a few weeks orders were given by the imperial government for its troops to evacuate San Juan. The greatest good feeling had all along existed between the officers and soldiery, and three hearty cheers were given by the Americans on the departure of the royal marines; none the less hearty, because on this occasion the Yankees could well afford to cheer.44 43 Treaty of Washington Papers, v. 256; Cushing's Treaty of Washington, app., 257-74; Ex. Doc. 1, pt 1, Jfi& Cong., 3d Sess.; Foreign Relations, »'., xxv.-vi., 43d Cong., 1st Sess. "Puget Sound Despatch, Dec. 5, 1872; Butler's Wild North Land, 311. The cost to England of occupying San Juan was between twelve and thirteen thousand dollars a year, besides the pay of officers and men. Hansard's Pari, Deb., cxcix. 1238. The cost to the United States was that of keeping up a post where it was needed to watch the northern Indians. See memorial of the Washington legislature in Wash. Stat., 1867-8, 183-5, asking relief for Isaac E. Higgins, a 'persecuted' settler, and that.Captain Grey be punished for abuses of power. Also correspondence of Acting Gov. McGill with the sec. of END OF THE CONTROVERSY. 639 state, in Evans' N. W. Boundary, 39, and the decision of Judge Fitzhugh on p. 40, also the opinion of Judge B. F. Dennison in the Port Townsend Message, Oct. 1 and 8,1868. The award, which removed all the disabilities complained of, left the United States for the first time in the history of the nation without a boundary dispute with Great Britain, and consequently in a condition to outgrow, on both sides, many prejudices and imaginary causes of difference. Some years before the emperor's decision was rendered the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural companies brought forward claims against the U. S. for loss of territory. They were finally disallowed, on the ground that it had been decided by the emperor of Germany that the islands rightfully belonged to the U. S., although the commissioners appointed under the treaty of 1863 had awarded $450,000 to the H. B. Co. and $200,000 to the Puget Sound Co. Claims were also brought forward by British residents of San Juan, and Hazard Stevens was appointed commissioner for the purpose of inquiring into and settling them. After visiting the island and making an investigation, he reported to the president that no claims existed which the government was bound to recognize. Stevens, San Juan Claims, MS. Mr Stevens remarks that the manner in which the demands of the two companies were presented by the British minister at Washington, and investigated by order of congress, forms a curious episode in this protracted dispute. In 1884 Mr Stevens was practising law in Boston. The evidence for the companies and for the U. S., with the memorials and arguments of claimants, the arguments of counsel for the U. S., the opinions and award of the commissioners, and the opinions of the press, were published in five volumes and parts, under the general title of Claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Conwanies, Montreal, 1868, Washington, 1867, 1868. In thus presenting an account of the San Juan difficulty, I have stated the facts as I have found them, making little comment thereon. Hundreds of opinions and versions have been published in newspapers, books, and magazines, as, for example, that of William John Macdonald, though by no means a reliable writer, but an employe* of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, with a. party of French Canadians, was stationed at San Juan two or three years before the dispute occurred, and afterward became a citizen of Victoria. He states that the Americans never considered the island as any portion of their territory until about the year 1853. Captain Alden, of the surveying steamer Active, found deeper water in the Canal de Haro than in the Rosario channel, and claimed the former as, under the terms of the treaty, | the channel which separates Vancouver's Island from the mainland.' After negotiations and surveys extending over two years, Capt. Prevost being sent from England in the Satellite, to protect British interests, and, if possible, to arrange matters, the commissioners appointed by both nations failed to agree. In 1859 Gen. Harney came from Oregon in the sloop of war Decatur, with about 150 men. Anchoring in Griffin Bay, he threw up rough earthworks on the high land above the harbor and planted some cannon. Sir James Douglas went over in a ship of war to remonstrate, and requested Harney to remove his troops, which the latter declined to do. The people of Victoria were sorely annoyed at the aggressiveness of the Americans, and as there were at this time, in the harbor of Victoria, nine vessels of war, recently arrived from China, all were in favor of resorting to arms. At the instance of Admiral Baynes, however, a council was held and milder measures prevailed. Harney, who, it was believed, acted under the advice of Commissioner Campbell, was severely censured for liis conduct. Brit. Col. Sketches, MS., 24-6. CHAPTER XXXII. THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 1871-1874. The Tide of Westward-bound Migration—Reasons for and against the Railway Project—The Bill Carried in the Commons—Resolution Passed by the Canadian Parliament—Policy of the British and Canadian Governments—Preliminary Surveys—The Hugh Allan Contract—A Modest Demand—The Contract Annulled— Change of Administration—James D. Edgar's Negotiations—Their Failure and its Cause—Mackenzie's Railway Scheme—Objections to his Project. The project for interoceanic communication between the British possessions on the Atlantic and Pacific was one mooted long before the confederation gave it definite form. It was the dream of Mackenzie and his fellow-explorers, who set forth for the great northwest in their bark canoes, and whose journeys antedate by nearly half a century the existence of railways in this quarter. Not until 1837—the year of the Canadian rebellion—were the first sixteen miles of railroad constructed in Canada, the line being in operation only some ten years later than the first one completed in the United States, and about seven years later than the first one completed in England. At that date the greater portion of British North America was as yet a wilderness, a few trails through the forest between lakes Huron and Ontario being then the grand trunk roads of Canada. Until the gold discovery in California, the idea was perhaps never conceived that England's domain in the north-west would form one with her Canadian (640) EAST AND WEST. 641 possessions; but after that event another condition of affairs prevailed. The stream of immigration that flowed steadily westward through the British possessions, finding itself barred by Lake Huron and the mountainous region to the north, passed onward into Michigan and the western states, there being absorbed in the tide of American travel. It now became evident that the surplus population of Canada West was destined to overflow into the United States; while, on the other hand, Vancouver Island and the mainland were in danger of falling into the hands of foreigners. Then it was that Great Britian first realized the importance of her possessions on the Pacific. If England now proposed to maintain her influence on the western continent, she must not delay much longer, as it seemed, the task of establishing overland communication between Canada and the Pacific,1 this being the only means by which her power could be consolidated, and the principal reason for establishing colonies on the western shores of the Hudson's Bay Company's territory. Such, at least, were the views derived from an intimate knowledge of the great northern interior, as well as of the Pacific coast, and entertained by the advanced intelligence and statesmanship of the mother country. By Canada, however, these views were not shared, until* the facts disclosed during the confederation movement brought home to her the need of a western outlet; until it was shown that several hundred thousands of her citizens had within a few years been absorbed by the union. "Canada," write her Majesty's emigration commissioners in their report for 1871, "cannot at present absorb more than 30,000 or 40,000 emigrants a year, and the excess beyond that number can obtain employment only in the labor market of the United States."2 xIn Fitzgerald's V..I., 126-8, it is recommended that a chain of posts be established by the Hudson's. Bay Co. a thousand miles in length, along the banks of the Saskatchewan River, and thence westward, and that a highway •be opened for traffic between the two oceans. 2 Wilson, Canada and the Can. Pac. Railway, 12, states that between Hist. Beit. Col. 41 642 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. It was not until the discovery of the Fraser River gold-fields in 1858 that the project for a railroad between the Atlantic and Pacific, and the idea of a united British American empire, first took definite shape. The Grand Trunk railway, completed about that date to Sarnia, was extended in imagination to New Westminster. Sarnia was to compete with Buffalo, Montreal with New York,3 and Boston looked on and said : "While congress is postponing the consideration of the Pacific railway bill from May to December, and from December till May, Great Britain has her railway to the Pacific already commenced. .. . Let any one who doubts the joint ability of the Canadian and English governments to accomplish so great an enterprise take down the map and look at the line of the Grand Trunk, already connecting the Atlantic with the lakes, and then look at the comparatively short distance from Lake Superior to Vancouver Island."4 For so important a stake as the control of inter- oceanic commerce, it was of course supposed that Great Britain would play boldly; nor did her government remain an idle spectator of the events that were transpiring in the north-west. "I hope," said her Majesty, in her speech from the throne in 1858, "that this new colony in the Pacific may be but one step in the career of steady progress by which my dominions in North America may be ultimately peopled in an unbroken chain from the Atlantic to the Pacific by a loyal and industrious population."5 Will the line of the Pacific railroad traverse British Columbia? was now among the absorbing questions of I860 and 1870 Canada did not absorb any population, basing his statement on the figures given in the Canadian Year-Book for 1873, where the increase of population in the province of Quebec between 1861 and 1871 is given at 7.2 per cent, and in Ontario at 16.09 per cent, against 28.06 and 67.6 percent respectively for the previous decade. In the former province the increase for 1861-71 was below the natural rate. 3 Le Journal de VEmpire, Paris, 1858. 4 Boston Ev. Transcript, June 5, 1858. 5 Brown's Essay, Brit. Col., 64. SLOW PROGRESS. 643 the day, and one of grave import to the newly created colonies and to the commercial world. But, save that an engineers' camp was established at New Westminster in charge of Colonel Moody, to whom important interests were afterward confided, little was accomplished; for at this date the project seemed almost impracticable. No suitable pass had as yet been discovered;6 no column of emigrants, bringing wagons and herds from the Canadian settlements, had penetrated the forest and snow-clad mountains, which, a few degrees to the south, presented to the early settlers of Oregon no insuperable difficulty. Moreover, the country was far too remote from Canada for the dominion government to construct a road in advance of emigration. Says Palliser, in his report to the secretary of state for the colonies, in 1859, after the failure of his effort to find a practicable route to the Fraser: "The manner in which natural obstacles have isolated the country from all other British possessions in the east is a matter of considerable weight; indeed, it is the obstacle of the country, and one, I fear, almost beyond the remedies of art."7 Then, for a time, the project was forgotten. In 1868-9, however, British Columbia was yield- 6 The Kootenai pass, discovered by Capt. Blakiston, some forty miles north of the boundary, was 5,960 feet above the sea-level, and for seven and a half miles after entering it, the rise would be one in 180. Thence a cutting of some three and a half miles would lead to a tunnel 5 miles in length, at a gradient of one in 130. The line would then skirt the base of the mountains until it reached a second ridge, with an elevation of 5,100 feet, a few miles from which there was a gradient of about one in 95. For extracts from the captain's report, see Macdonald's B. C. and V. I., 237-43. 7 Id., 242. The Papers Relative to the Exploration by the Expedition wider Captain Palliser of that portion of British North America which lies betvjeen the Northern Branch of the River Saskatchewan and the Frontier of the United States, and between the Red River and the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1858), form merely a preliminary report, consisting mainly of copies of letters to the secretary of state, though containing several geological reports and maps of the country near Winnipeg, compiled and arranged by I)r Hector in systematic form. In the Further Papers (London, 1860), the title being otherwise the same, are recorded the results of his expedition. In addition to copies of official despatches are reports on special subjects, relating to physical features, natural productions, climate, the aborigines, Indian missions and settlements, the fur trade, means of transport, mail and telegraph routes, and other matters. Following the title-page is a map, showing the routes taken by Palliser and Hector. THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. ing a large amount of gold; and it was at the former date, and partly due to the efforts of Viscount Milton in the two houses of parliament, after his exploration of the Yellowhead, Thompson, and Fraser route, that the subject of transcontinental communication was revived. At this juncture Alfred Waddington presented in the commons a petition in favor of a Canadian Pacific railway, urging in an elaborate argument8 that British Columbia was the key to the commerce of the Pacific, the possession of which was coveted by the United States;9 but as yet little interest was awakened in the mother country. In the Canada Official Gazette of September 28, 1869, appeared the first notice of the existence of such an incorporation as the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, setting forth that application would be made at the next session of the Canadian parliament for a charter to build a railway from Canada to the British Columbia boundary. In the Montreal Gazette was published the prospectus of the promoters, containing twenty-nine paragraphs, and without signature.10 If we can believe Waddington, this plan originated with Mr Burpee, a Canadian engineer of his acquaintance, and was compiled from his own notes, without further object than to bring the matter before the attention of the public. Burpee's scheme proposed to raise a capital of £20,000,000, to be expended mainly on the building of a road from Minnesota, over the plains of the Saskatchewan, to the eastern end of the Yellowhead pass. Through Wad- dington's influence at Ottawa, whither he repaired, in 1870, by the advice of his parliamentary friends in London, great prominence was given to the proposition for a railway in connection with the negotiation 8 The text of which is given in the Brit. Colonist, Aug. 15,1868. 9 His views were not shared by Charles WentworthDilke, who remarks, * In all history, there is nothing stranger than the narrowness of mind that has led us to see in Canada a piece of England, and in America a hostile country. Greater Britain, i. 67. 10 Copied in the Colonist of Nov. 28, 1869. IN PARLIAMENT. 645 of the terms of union between British Columbia and Canada; and the Canadian Pacific railway henceforth had a history apart, and one involving the action of the two governments. When the subject of the confederation was discussed in the dominion parliament, the terms relating to the construction of the railway seemed to most disinterested persons almost impossible of fulfilment, and many of the strongest friends of the government were opposed to them. In the commons, where the Macdonald ministry, then in power, had usually a majority of three to one, the measure was passed with difficulty, one motion against it being lost only by ten votes.11 It is almost certain that the government would have been defeated had not the premier 1 promised to introduce a resolution modifying the objectionable features, though one altogether inconsistent with, the intent of the address adopted by the house ten days before. It was couched in the following phrase: " That the railway referred to in the address to her Majesty concerning the union of British Columbia with Canada, adopted by this house on Saturday, the 1st April instant, should be constructed and worked by private enterprise, and not by the dominion government; and that the public aid to be given to secure that undertaking should consist of such liberal grants of land, and such subsidy in money, or other aid, not increasing the present rate of taxation, as the parliament of Canada shall hereafter determine."13 If the construction of the railway was to await private enterprise, it seems only just that it should have been so stated, not only in the address, but in the resolutions that were afterward made binding on the province and the dominion as terms of union. 11 The numbers were 75 to 85. Eighteen of the regular ministerial supporters voted against it, and many declined to vote. Mackenzie's Can. Pac R. R., MS., 3; Jour. Commons, 1871, 161. 12 Sir George Cartier, then acting premier. 13 Id., 3-4; Jour. Commons, 1871, 264. 646 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. Considering the great difficulties of the task, the certainty of its enormous expense, the fact that by many skilful engineers it was considered almost impossible at any cost, that most of the route lay through a wilderness, that the San Francisco of British Columbia was then but a village, while the entire white population of the colony was less than that of a third- rate town, and that transcontinental traffic was already in the hands of the Central and Union Pacific, it was extremely improbable that private individuals, possessing sufficient enterprise and capital, would come forward at this juncture. It is certain, moreover, that when British Columbia merged her individuality in the dominion, her people believed that the terms were made in good faith, and that the road would be begun and completed within the specified time. When, therefore, as will be mentioned later, the province insisted on the contract, she repudiated the resolution which the dominion legislature had passed in order to protect Canada from unreasonable demands, and if necessary, to avoid the literal fulfilment of its obligations.14 Other events besides the confederation brought the matter prominently before the minds of the people. It was generally understood, when the railway agreement was concluded at Ottawa, that Mr Campbell went to England for the purpose of ascertaining what assistance would be given to the enterprise by the home government.15 On the American side of the line the Northern Pacific railway project took shape simultaneously with the Canadian Pacific, the people of Minnesota and the western states being fully awakened, in 1870, to the advantage of an enterprise that promised to free them, whether at the hands of 14 For a year or two later it appears to have been an open question whether the line could be constructed. In his report, dated Ottawa, Jan. 26, 1874, however, the chief engineer says: 'The practicability of establishing railway communication across the continent, wholly within the limits of the dominion, is no longer a matter of doubt.' Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 23. 15 Ottawa Times, quoted in Colonist, Aug. 10, 1870. ENGLISH POLICY. 647 St Louis or Duluth, from the monopoly held by Chicago.16 The English government, to which appeal was finally taken, decided, as will presently appear, in favor of the province, and it was probably due to the skill of her statesmen that, during the controversy which ensued, British Columbia did not sever her connection with the dominion. The policy of the secretary for the colonies was somewhat in contrast with that of Canadian statesmen, though doubtless there were selfish motives which caused England to favor the construction of -the road. The British empire, of which the Canadian Pacific railway would be one of the main lines of intercommunication, contained at this time 8,500,000 square miles, and 239,000,000 people in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia. Though British America contained but 5,000,000 inhabitants, Great Britain on the one side had 32,000,000, while India and Australasia on the other had nearly 200,000,000. It was one of the problems which the future alone could solve, whether this great commercial empire could be maintained in its integrity, and especially whether the boundary line of the 49th parallel, and of the lakes, could be held against the United States with their 39,000,000, and their bond of union already established by a railway. Moreover, the population of British Columbia, with an area of 233,000 square miles, was comparatively far .more insignificant in relation to Canada than was Canada herself to the mother country. When, some few years later, Mr Roscoe was taken to task in the dominion parliament for demanding on behalf of the province, after it had refused a fair money equivalent,17 the fulfilment of the original contract, he denounced in no measured phrase the sordid policy which would lose to Canada her 16 Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 14, 1870. '"The sum of $750,000, as will be mentioned later. 648 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. frontage on the Pacific, the only thing that could ever make of the dominion a nation.18 When British Columbia was admitted into the confederation she did not ask a dole of money, nor was she in need of it. In the Eraser-Thompson district there were estimated as fit for agriculture 60,000 square miles, in the upper Columbia district 50,000, and on Vancouver Island 16,000 square miles, their value depending, of course, on means of communication, being not less than $2.50 to $5 per acre. Lands along the Grand Rapids and Indiana railway averaged, in 1872, seven dollars an acre; in Ohio, where wheat was worth ninety cents a bushel, $40 an acre; unimproved lands in Indiana, where wheat was worth forty cents, $7.50 per acre;19 the difference in the cost of forwarding being the main difference in their value. The interest of the Canadians in the proposed transcontinental railroad was mainly directed to the construction of the eastern end, known as the intercolonial road, whereby the ocean voyage was reduced to a hundred hours, while avoiding the dangers of the thousand miles of fog and storm-girt coast between Newfoundland and New York. By those holding liberal and patriotic views of the destinies of the empire, however, there was manifested a lively interest in the success of the scheme; and it was argued that there must have been serious apprehension of a diversion of the trade of the east from the hands of the English through the opening of the Union and Central Pacific railways, or there would not have been so much haste to insure the completion of the Canadian road.20 England meanwhile supported, though in a somewhat equivocal manner, an enterprise which promised to complete the chain of her American possessions. In the British house of commons, on the 24th of 18 For copy of Roscoe's speech, see Brit. Colonist, May 28, 1876. 19 Canda Tear-Book, 1873. 20 Montreal correspondence of the New York World, on the intercolonial and Canadian Pacific roads, quoted in Brit. Colonist, Aug. 19, 1873. PRELIMINARY SURVEYS. 649 June, 1873, Mr Hugesen explained, on the second reading of the Canadian loan guarantee bill, that the sum of £2,500,000, which it was then proposed to raise, was to be appropriated for the construction of the Canadian Pacific. Sir Charles Dilke denounced this guarantee as in the nature of a bribe to Canada, for the concessions she had made in regard to the fisheries, in order that the provisions of the treaty of Washington might be executed; and declared that the railroad was nothing more than a gigantic parliamentary job. To this Gladstone replied that the guarantee had no connection with the treaty of Washington, the action on this bill having been purposely delayed until after that treaty was disposed of, and its object being, not to give Canada a certain amount of hush-money, but to recognize her just demands against England on account of the Fenian raids on her territory. Canada had suffered on England's account, and desired thus to cancel the debt.21 The time for commencing the construction of the railway expired on the 1st of July, 1873; but at that date none of the surveys were approaching completion on any portion of the line, and in British Columbia only such exploratory surveys had been made as were required to determine the direction in which instrumental surveys should be carried on. Between 1871 and 1878 the dominion government expended some $3j250,000 for explorations and surveys before the chief engineer finally decided that the route through British Columbia should be along the val- 21 London telegram, in Colonist, July 6, 1873. When this matter was arranged, more than a year before, the Times had commented upon the matter in connection with the decision on the San Juan question, and the Canadian Pacific railway scheme. 'This,' said the Times, 'is the Canadian dream, to which it will be remembered we are so far committed that, as an inducement to the Canadian ministers to press the acceptance of the treaty of Washington upon the Canadian parliament, we undertook to guarantee a loan of two millions and a half, to be expended on the railway which is to make the dream come true. Vv e heartily wish we were free from all complicity in what we cannot but regard as a very wild undertaking; and we especially regret the way in which we were brought into connection with it.' 650 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. leys of the Thompson and Fraser rivers,93 and its terminus on Burrard Inlet.23 It was now the prevailing sentiment among the people of British Columbia that if Canada was unwilling or unable to bind together by means of a transcont? nental railroad her vast possessions west of the great lakes, she had better at once abandon all idea of empire, since no weaker bond would suffice to hold it to- 22 Fleming's Rept Can. Pac Railway, 1879, 17. It would seem that Mr Fleming was somewhat tardy in arriving at this conclusion. In his report for 1874, p. 11, he states that in order to acquire a correct knowledge of the physical characteristics of the entire territory in line of route, and to obtain such information concerning its engineering features as only a personal examination could furnish, he started, early in July 1872, in charge of an exploring expedition, across the continent. On Sept. 15th he reached Yellowhead Pass, and thence following the Fraser from its Yellowhead source to Tdte Jaune Cache, crossed to the Canoe River, and the Albreda: and from that point followed the north Thompson to Kamloop. Touching, on his way, at Lytton, Yale, and New Westminster, and examining Burrard and Bute inlets, Barclay Sound, Seymour Narrows, Dent, and Arran Rapids, and other intermediate points, he arrived at Victoria on the 11th of October, 'thus completing a reconnoissance which altogether extended over 5,300 miles.* Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 23. The journey and reconnoissance, thus accomplished in about 90 days, over a most difficult country, were at least swifter than the conclusions at which he arrived; but why some five or six years were needed to arrive at these conclusions, the chief engineer does not state. He was certainly not stinted for means wherewith to employ a corps of competent assistants. 23 The chief engineer states that, being required to give his views as to a terminus on the Pacific, he submitted that it would be desirable first to obtain complete information concerning a northern route, by way of Peace or Pine River. The government, however, desired that construction should commence immediately in British Columbia, and as no further postponement could be allowed, he recommended the above line of route. In the same report he admits that the choice of Burrard Inlet as a terminus had not given satisfaction to the people of British Columbia. In a report of the privy council of Canada, dated June 6, 1873, it was ordered, as we shall see later, that Esquimalt should be the terminus, though the alignment on the mainland had not then been determined. Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 7. In the same report it was recommended that a line of railway be located between Esquimalt and Seymour Narrows, V. I. Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881. In 1875 an exploration was made of the Peace River pass and valley, in charge of Mr Selwyn, with Professor Macoun as botanist, and A. Webster as geological assistant, in connection with the choice of a route for the Canadian Pacific. The party left Quesnel, on the Fraser River, on the 5th of June, returning on the 20th of October, after a journey of 1,700 miles, extending over three and a half degrees of latitude, and 7 of longitude. The results will be found in the progress report for 1875-6. During the same summer, George M. Dawson examined the district between the Homathco River and Fort George, on the west side of the Fraser. In 1876 Mr. Dawson was again in charge of surveys in British Columbia, the results of his investigations occupying about 140 pages of the progress report for 1876-7. The region examined lay chiefly in the basins of the Blackwater and Nechaco rivers, and included large tracts of densely wooded plateau. SURVEYS AND LANDS. 651 gether. They had no desire to insist too strictly, as they declared, on the limit as to time; nor did they expect the dominion to impoverish itself in order to build the road; but as the construction of the intercolonial road from Halifax to Quebec was one of the terms under which the Atlantic provinces joined the confederation, so the building of an interoceanic railway was a condition, and the main condition, under which the Pacific province became one with the dominion.24 Although, apart from surveys, little had as yet been done toward the fulfilment of the contract, on the 26th of April, 1872, a bill was introduced in parliament by Sir G. E. Cartier, in which it was proposed to grant a subsidy of $30,000,000, together with 50,000,000 acres of land, for the construction of a railway from Lake Nipissing to the Pacific coast. The government was authorized to make contracts with a single company for the construction of the entire line, provided that such company possessed a capital of $10,000,000, of which ten per cent must be deposited with the receiver-general. As it might not be possible to come to terms with a single company, an agreement could be made with amalgamated companies, and, failing either arrangement, a charter might be granted to other capitalists by order in council, under the general railroad act. It was desirable, however, that the road should be constructed and worked by a single corporation. The land grant was to be made in alternate blocks, twenty miles in depth, the remaining 2i On the other hand, the organ of the opposition party in the dominion parliament spoke in 1872 of the Canadian Pacific railway project as 'an insane contract with a handful of people in British Columbia.' Brit. Colonist, Apr. 12, 1872. Cartwright, the minister of finance under Mackenzie's administration, on the overthrow of Macdonald's administration, declared in his speech at Dunville that ' confederation was the mere childish vanity of having to say that they had extended the dominion from ocean to ocean.' Speaking of the Pacific railway project, he said: 'If ever a body of men were responsible for inflicting a great evil on the country, it was the government which forced on us, in 1871, the task of constructing the Pacific railway, and which thereby provided the way for their own downfulL and also caused great mischief and loss to the people of the whole dominion.' Standard, Oct. 25, 1876. 652 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. blocks being reserved by government.25 As to the money grant, it was anticipated that most of it would be reimbursed by sales of land. The imperial guarantee on a loan of £2,500,000, of which notification had already been received, would reduce somewhat the rate of interest on the sums to be borrowed; and it was believed that, without increasing her taxation, Canada could pay that interest, and establish a sinking fund which would cancel the entire debt within thirty or forty years. Alexander Mackenzie replied to Sir G. E. Carrier's speech, characterizing the bill as one which gave to the government power to do whatever it pleased as to the construction of the railway. It was notorious, he said, that there were already two rings, between which there was the utmost hostility, each striving to obtain the charter, and each largely composed -of members of the dominion parliament. The bill was then read a first time without further discussion, and after being passed to a second and third reading, was approved by the cabinet. News of this measure was immediately telegraphed to Victoria, and an application for the charter was at once made by a political clique,26 which, as was understood, was about to combine with the party represented by Sir Hugh Allan, then reputed one of the richest men in the dominion, and who, with his associates, Abbott, Foster, and Brydges, arrived at Ottawa in December 1873. About the same time John Carling and Major Walker made their appearance at the capital as the leading representatives of the rival company.27 Thus there was no difficulty in 25 Every alternate block of that size along the line of route, then estimated at about 2,700 miles, would give only 34,560,000 acres. It was proposed to furnish the remainder from government lands in other parte of the dominion. As the reader will remember, according to the terms of tl.i union the land grant in B. C. territory was to be 20 miles in depth. The main provisions of the bill, as explained by Sir G. E. Cartier, will be found in the Brit. Colonist, May 16, 1872. 26 De Cosmos, Powell, Robertson, Walkem, Drake, Raymur, Wallace, and Thompson. 27 Id., Jan. 1, May 28, 29, 1873. The first was known as the Montreal or Quebec company, and the second as the Toronto or Ontario company, from the fact of their leaders being from Montreal and Toronto respectively. A COMPANY FORMED. 653 forming an association in command of the requisite amount of capital. It was the policy of the cabinet, however, to select the most responsible and best qualified men from either party, and before the close of the year the charter was granted to an association composed of members of both companies, together with some of the wealthiest residents of British Columbia. On the 1st of March, Allan and his colleagues met at Ottawa and elected as directors the charter members.28 A synopsis of the articles of agreement of the Pacific Railway Construction Company was published in the Colonist of May 14, 1873, giving a list of the names of its members, among whom were Sir Hugh Allan, Sandford Fleming, J. H. Helmcken, and Sir John Macdonald. Allan's prospectus appeared immediately afterward in the newspapers of the dominion, stating the work proposed to be accomplished, and the moneys needed for the purpose. Proceeding to London, Sir Hugh attempted to raise the sum of $108,000,000 in behalf of his venture—a railway to be built through an almost uninhabited and unexplored country, with a subsidy of $30,000,000.29 But capital is conservative, and especially English capital. Attempting, therefore, to forge in England his financial chain, Sir Hugh met with little encouragement. That money invested in a wilderness, though for the most part a fertile wilderness, would, merel}r through the construction of a railroad, yield within the span of a generation, or even of two generations, 2SBrit. Colonist, March 19, 1873. Four of the directors were to retire at the end of the first and second years, five at the end of the third, and so on during succeeding years. 29About this date the Northern Pac. railway failure occurred, while for the northern colonization road $4,000,000 was asked, and for other roads $7,000,- 000; La Minerve, in Brit. Colonist, May 14, 1873. On the 27th of October, 1885, the Northern Pacific made application to the N. Y. stock exchange to list $20,000,000 second-mortgage bonds, its statement for the previous month showing as gross earnings $1,225,000, against operating expenses and taxes amounting to $oG0,000, or $665,000 of net earnings. At that date the common stock was quoted at about $25, preferred at 53, and first-mortgage bonds at 109. S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 27, 1885. 654 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. a fair return on the outlay, was a proposition that found little favor in Great Britain. Said the earl of Dufferin, addressing an audience at Victoria some three years later, and alluding of course to the terms of the union: "When the bargain was made, everything in Canada was prosperous, and it was supposed that a Canadian Pacific railway could be easily constructed. But ignorance of the route was not taken into consideration; and obliging herself to commence the work in two years and finish it in ten years, Canada assumed a physical impossibility, as the surveying alone would require several years."30 Thus the contract made with Sir Hugh Allan and his company in 1875 fell through, and was formally annulled, the $1,000,000 of cash deposited as security being of course returned. Meanwhile an election had been held, and one at which the main point at issue was the railway scheme. The American road, it was said, had cost $200,000,000, and the Canadian Pacific would cost $300,000,000, no heed being paid to the fact that the cost of the former was computed in greenbacks, and at a time when greenbacks were worth only fifty to seventy per cent of their face value in gold. Moreover, early in 1863 it became known that Sir Hugh had obtained the contract by advancing a large sum of money in order to carry the elections, and a formal charge was brought against the ministry in the dominion parliament.81 30 Victoria telegram, in S. F. Alta, Sept. 23, 1876. ^Mackenzie's Mem. Can. Pac Railway, MS., 5; Brit. Colonist, Aug. 7, 1873. L. S. Huntington of Montreal, on the 2d of April, 1873, made the following specific charges in the dominion parliament: That he was credibly informed, and believed he could prove, that in anticipation of the legislation of last session in regard to the Pacific railway, an agreement was made between Sir Hugh Allan and other Canadian promoters, and G. W. McMullen, acting on the part of United States capitalists, whereby the latter agreed to furnish all the funds necessary for the construction of the contemplated railway, and to give the former a certain percentage of interest in consideration of their position giving the company the character of a Canadian company with Hugh Allan at its head; that the Macdonald government were aware such negotiations were pending; and that subsequently thereto an understanding was come to between the government, Hugh Allan, and Abbott, one of the members of the house of commons, that Allan and his friends should advance a large sum of money for the purpose of aiding in the election of ministers and their sup- MORE WRANGLING. 655 An extra session was called for October, in order to deal with this charge, and during the debate on a motion of want of confidence, moved by Alexander Mackenzie, Sir John Macdonald resigned, the former being called upon to form an administration. In July 1873 the executive council of British Columbia, Joseph W. Trutch being then governor of the province,32 formally called the attention of the dominion government to the non-fulfilment of the terms of union so far as they-related to the commencement of a railroad.33 Thus the new ministry soon found itself porters at the ensuing election, and that Allan and his friends should receive the contract for constructing the railway; that Allan did advance such money; and that part of the moneys so expended by him in connection with the obtaining of the act of incorporation and charter were paid by U. S. capitalists under the agreement with him. Royal Commission Rept Pac. Railway, 3-6. Sir John Macdonald moved the appointment of a committee of five to investigate the charges, which was agreed to; but before further progress had been made, the gov.-gen., Lord Dufferin, by the advice of the inculpated ministry, suddenly prorogued the parliament, without obtaining its consent to the discharge of the committee. In lieu thereof, he appointed a royal commission to make the investigation. Macdonald acknowledged receiving $45,000 from Hugh Allan to control the elections; but claimed that it was an independent transaction. It was shown that Allan had advanced as much as $100,000, and it was presumed that those who took the money and used it for political purposes well knew that it was given in the expectation and with the understanding that the railway scheme would receive the support of the ministry; the consequence being that everything in connection with the project was tainted with suspicion, even though it did not appear that the interests of the country had been really sacrificed. London Times, Sept. 19, 1873. Huntington's charges were founded upon the contents of a package of letters left by Hugh Allan with Mr Starnes for safe-keeping after his disagreement with McMullen and the American capitalists, being the correspondence between them on the subject of the railway. A rumor of their existence got abroad, and the party in opposition to Macdonald's administration became aware of their contents through the instrumentality of the disappointed ex-partners of Allan's company. 82Trutch, a native of England, and a civil engineer by profession, emigrated to Cal. at an early day, and obtaining a contract for surveying lands in Or., soon afterward removed thither, where he married a sister of the sur.-gen. About the year 1858 he arrived in Victoria, where, on the departure of Col Moody, he was appointed acting chief commissioner of lands and works, being elected, before the confederation, a member of the legislative council. He was accounted a shrewd politician, not over-truthful of speech, an able ruler, and one having always at heart the interests of the province, though never forgetting those of Joseph W. Trutch. De Cosmos Govt, MS., 21-2; Wkly Brit. Col., Feb. 15, 1871; Brit. Col., May 23, 1876. In his British Columbia and the Canadian Pacific Railway, Speech by and Complimentary Dinner to the Hon. Mr Trutch at the Russell House, Ottawa, April 10, 1871, Montreal 1871, is clearly brought out the then condition of the railroad question, its completion within the specified time being insisted upon as a fundamental condition of the confederation. 83'The committee regret that the construction of the railway has not 656 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. hampered with this long-vexed question, and in the hope of arriving at some agreement with the province, sent to Victoria, as a special agent, James D. Edgar, a Toronto barrister.3* Reaching the capital in the spring of 1874, Edgar addressed a letter to G. A. Walkem, attorney-general, wherein he states that the scheme originally adopted had, for a variety of reasons, proved almost impracticable, and that it was now the aim of the cabinet to devise a more feasible plan. The main difficulty was the stipulation as to time, and in requesting an extension of time, the government asked only for a reasonable concession. The engineering difficulties were so much greater than had been expected, that it would be impossible to build the road within the dates specified without wasteful expenditure and financial embarrassment. In order to make amends for this disappointment, the dominion cabinet proposed to begin at once the line between Esquimalt and Nanaimo, completing that portion in the shortest possible time. As to the mainland, it was useless to begin construction before even the entire route had been finally selected; but the government would immedi- been commenced, and therefore strongly protest against the breach by the dominion govt of a condition of the terms so highly important to the province.' Order in council, in Sess. Papers, Brit. Col., 1881, 146. To this minute, forwarded by the lieut-gov. to the secretary of state, E. J. Langevin, under-secretary, merely replied that the despatch and its enclosures would be at once laid before the gov.-gen. In Nov. a second minute was forwarded, couched in somewhat peremptory phrase. Taking into consideration that no reply was made to the former protest; that the dominion parliament had been prorogued without making any provision for the construction of the railway; that the legislature of B. 0. was convened for the 18th of Dec.; and that the non-fulfilment of the terms of union had caused much anxiety and discouragement throughout the province—the committee of council advised the lieut-gov. to ask for a decided expression of the policy of the dominion govt. The answer was, that the cabinet was giving its most earnest consideration to the project for the construction of the Pacific railway, an outline of which was given in the speech delivered by Mr Mackenzie at Sarnia on the 25th of Nov., a scheme which they believe will be acceptable to the whole dominion, including B. C., and that they hope to be able, within a short time, to communicate more definitely with that province on the subject. Id., 1881, 152. Here we have probably the inception of the Pacific railway bill, of which more presently. 34 In one of his letters of introduction, Mackenzie states that he would have sent a member of the cabinet but for the near approach of the meeting of parliament. WALKEM AND EDGAR. 657 sitely open a wagon-road along the portion that lay within the province, and construct a telegraph line, placing British Columbia in direct communication with Canada. Although the terms of the union contained no provision for the amount of expenditure during any special period, or on any particular portion of the line, and although the length falling within the province was not estimated at more than one fifth of the entire length, the dominion government proposed, as soon as the surveys were completed, a minimum expenditure of $1,500,000 a year on the work of construction within the province, thus securing its progress without intermission. Walkem replied that he would submit Edgar's proposals to the local administration, but could not advise the lieutenant-governor in council to treat them as official until he was assured that the former was specially accredited as agent of the general government. At this letter the barrister took offence, freely expressing his disgust, and requesting that the proposals of the dominion government should receive the consideration to which they were entitled. The answer of the attorney-general was again somewhat insulting, though covered with a thin lacquer of professional courtesy. He had received but one letter from Mr Mackenzie, he said—and that not an official one— wherein Mr Edgar's mission was expressly stated to be for the purpose of holding personal interviews with the members of the executive council, in order that the policy of the provincial government might be ascertained without a tedious correspondence. He must be pardoned, therefore, when he considered it his^ duty to ask for Mr Edgar's official authority. This information he had not yet received. In his further efforts to negotiate with the executive, Edgar fared even worse. His letter of introduction to the lieutenant-governor, couched in somewhat ambiguous phrase for the credentials of a plenipotentiary,35 wIt reads as follows: Feb. 21, 1874. Sir: The bearer is James D. Edgar, Hist. Beit. Col. 42 r 658 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. was not even delivered, as the executive council objected to any communication being made except through themselves.36 Nevertheless he sent a brief note to the chief magistrate, enclosing a copy of his communication to the attorney-general, though it does not appear that any notice was taken either of his missive or of its enclosure. On the contrary, the executive council, by advice of the attorney-generalr on the day when the latter received a curt reply from the barrister, recommended his Excellency to ascertain by telegraph whether Edgar was empowered to negotiate with the provincial government, and whether his propositions would, if accepted, be considered binding by the dominion government. Mackenzie's answer was brief and somewhat emphatic: "I refer ministry to my letter by Mr Edgar, which sufficiently indicated his mission, and which they recognized. He is now recalled, and I await his return and reports." Three days later, on the 21st of May, 1874, the attorney-general sent word to the premier of the dominion: "Will you kindly answer governor's telegram fully? Do Mr Edgar's propositions to change railway terms bind your government?" On the 8th of June Trutch was informed that the proposals were withdrawn; whereupon the latter at once appealed to the horn government,37 complaining of a breach in the term of the union, a petition being also forwarded to her Majesty. Thus through a want of precision in the negotia- Esq., barrister, Toronto, who visits Columbia as the agent of the dominion government to consult with your government with reference to the late agitation concerning an extension of time for the construction of the Pacific railway beyond that promised in the terms of union. Mr Edgar will explain to your Excellency our anxiety to do everything in our power to meet the views of your people. He will be glad to receive your suggestions concerning matters which may require attention. I am, etc., A. Mackenzie. 3(J In a despatch to Trutch, dated Ottawa, Mar. 24, 1875, Mackenzie states that if he had known this to be the case he would have directed Edgar to deliver the letter notwithstanding the objection. 37 Copies of the petition and of all the correspondence, including Edgar's private instructions from the premier, his communication to the atty-gen., and his report to the sec. of state for Canada, will be found in the Railway Papers, in Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881, 155-79. e PACIFIC RAILWAY BILL. 659 tions with the provincial executive, through want of statesmanship on one side, and through want of forbearance on both sides, a serious rupture was threatened between the province and the dominion. The people of British Columbia—now sorely discontent- were not to blame if their hopes and their ambition had been unduly excited by promises which it was almost impossible to fulfil. Nor was their discontent diminished by the passage, late in the session of 1874, of the Pacific Railway bill. According to this project, introduced by Mackenzie, the line was to be divided into four sections: first, from Lake Nipissing to the western end of Lake Superior; second, from Lake Superior to Red River, in Manitoba; third, from Red River to some point between Fort Edmonton and the foot of the Rocky Mountains; fourth, from the western terminus of the third section to some point in British Columbia. The government was to be at liberty to divide any of these sections into subsections, and might at its discretion construct the line, or any part of it, as a public work. Contractors were to receive a subsidy of $10,000 per mile, together with 20,000 acres of land, of fair average quality and in alternate sections, for each mile contracted for, and also a guarantee of four per cent interest for twenty-five years, on such sum as might be stipulated in the contract. The contractors were to own and run their sections, subject to such regulations as to rates of fare and freight, accommodation, and number and description of trains, as might be made from time to time by the governor in council. The government reserved the right to sell two thirds of all the land grants at such prices as might be agreed upon by the contractors, the proceeds to be paid over to the latter, and also the right to purchase the railway, or any portion of it, for a sum not exceeding the actual cost, with ten per cent added, the subsidies in land and money being first deducted from the amount.38 38 Wilson's Canada and The Can. Pac Railway, 13-14. 660 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY,. J To this measure there were several weighty objections. First of ah, it was framed in such a manner that detached sections of the road might be built and operated by several companies, and those interspersed with other sections owned by the dominion. It was a moral certainty that if responsible parties could be found to accept contracts they would take only those which would give them the best sections, leaving the remainder to the government. No transcontinental railway in America, whether built or in contemplation, would lay open to settlement so vast an extent of agricultural land as the Canadian Pacific, and the more valuable sections should have been so distributed as to aid in the construction of inferior portions. Second, the condition whereby government retained the right to sell two thirds of the land grants, at such prices as might be agreed upon, was one that few business men, would entertain, for the dominion would possess as much land along the line of route as the contractors, and could force the latter to accept its own terms. Then the clause depriving contractors of the privilege of determining rates of fare and freight was most objectionable, for on this matter, even if traffic wTere abundant, the profits would mainly depend. Finally, the power reserved by government to buy up any or all of the sections, at ten per cent above their cost, was a stipulation not likely to find favor with capitalists. Under such an agreement, a portion of the line might be worked, for instance, for a term of twenty years, by a company of stockholders; and if, at the end of that period, their section had developed into a paying property, they* might be called upon at* any time to surrender it, receiving back barely their purchase money, with one half of one per cent a year added by way of interest, and losing perhaps, meanwhile, several millions in working expenses.39 89 Wilson's Canada and Can. i^c. Railway, passim. Mackenzie's project was vigorously attacked in British Columbia in connection with political issues. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 1874-1885. The Carnarvon Terms—Their Acceptance—Defeat op the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Bill—The Provincial Legislature's Petition to her Majesty—Rejoinder op the Dominion Government—Visit op the Earl op Dufferin—His Speech at Victoria—Threats of Secession—A Second Petition to the Queen—Proposed Annexation to the United States—One More Petition—Contract with the Syndicate—Engineering Difficulties—Port Moody—Reasons for its Selection as the Terminus—Completion1 op the Line—A Costly Undertaking—The Road Built as a National Highway. On the 11th of June, 1874, the secretary of state for the colonies was informed by telegram that a delegate was about to proceed to London for the purpose of laying before the home government the complaints of the provincial legislature as to the breach in the terms of union. Exactly one week later a confidential message from the banking firm of Faulkner, Bell, & Co. was received by Governor Trutch, stating that the earl of Carnarvon had consented to arbitrate, and that both parties had concurred. In a despatch to the governor-general, bearing the same date, the earl remarked that it was neither his wish nor any part of his duty to interfere in the controversy. It seemed to be one which the dominion government and legislature should bring to a satisfactory conclusion, and her Majesty's government was reluctant to take any action which might imply a doubt whether the former would deal with the province in a fair and liberal spirit. He tendered his services only because he was resolved r 662 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. that no means should be spared to bring about a speedy and amicable settlement of a question which could not, without disadvantage to both parties, remain the subject of a prolonged and acrimonious discussion.1 After some correspondence on both sides, Earl Dufferin forwarding for consideration a report of the privy council, in which it was made to appear that the government of British Columbia had no just or reasonable ground of complaint, while on the other hand, the attorney-general for the province argued his case with considerable acumen, on the 17th of November, 1874, the decision was rendered. Only in two material points did it differ from the terms proposed by Mr Edgar: first, the minimum expenditure within the province after the completion of the surveys was to be $2,000,000 instead of $1,500,000 a year; second, the limit of time for the completion of the road "from the Pacific seaboard to a point at the western end of Lake Superior, at which it will fall into connection with the existing lines of railway through a portion of the United States, and also with the navigation on Canadian waters," was altered to the 31st of December, 1890. To construct thus early the remainder of the line north of Lake Superior, extending to the Canadian lines then in operation, ought not, as the earl considered, to be required. He hoped, however, that at no very distant day a continuous line of road would be built throughout the length of the dominion.2 The earl's decision, or as it was afterward known, the Carnarvon terms, was accepted by both parties, though with a reservation on the side of Canada, providing that, in accordance with the resolution passed by the dominion parliament in April 1871, the line should be built without increase in the rate of taxation.8 1 For copy of despatch, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881,182-3. 2 Id., 210-11; Mackenzie's Mem. Can. Pac Railway, MS., 6-6. 3 In a minute of council dated March 13,1876, we read: 'It most be borne in mind that every step in the negotiation was necessarily predicated upon and subject to the conditions of the resolution of the house of commons passed in 1871, contemporaneously with the adoption of the terms of union with B. C subsequently enacted in the C. P. railway act of 1872, and subsequently THE QUESTION REOPENED. 663 The portion of Mr Edgar's proposal relating to the construction of a railway from Esquimalt to Nanaimo was also embodied in the Carnarvon terms. When, however, the premier introduced a bill for this purpose in the dominion parliament, the measure, though carried in the commons, was defeated in the senate by a majority of two,4 among those who voted against it being several members of the premier's party. The building of this road, it was argued, was merely intended as compensation for delay, and was altogether apart from the terms of union, in which there was no obligation to extend the line to Vancouver Island. Thus the entire question, which had been considered as practically settled, was reopened for discussion, and the negotiations which ensued served but to widen the breach between the two governments. Early in 1876 a despatch was forwarded by Governor Trutch to the secretary of state for Canada, enclosing a copy of a petition to her Majesty, in which it was complained that the dominion government had almost entirely disregarded the terms of the Carnarvon settlement. They had neither commenced the building of the railroad on the island nor on the mainland, nor of the wagon-road or engineering trail intended to facilitate railroad work; nor had the agreement relating to the construction of the provincial section of the transcontinental telegraph line been carried out. It was claimed that British Columbia had fulfilled all the conditions of her agreement with Canada, while, through the repeated violations by the dominion of the railway terms, all classes of the population of the province had suffered loss. Distrust reenacted, after a large addition had been made to the rate of taxation, in the C. P. railway act of 1874—that the public aid to be given to secure the accomplishment of the undertaking should consist of such liberal grants of land and such subsidy in money or other aid, not increasing the then existing rate of taxation^ as the parliament of Canada should thereafter determine. This determination not to involve the country in a hopeless burden of debt is sustained by public opinion everywhere throughout the dominion, and must of necessity control the action of the government.' *The vote was 23 to 21. Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 74. 664 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. had been created; trade and commerce had been unsettled ; the progress of the country had been checked,, and the confident anticipations of commercial and political advantage to be derived from the construction of the line had given place to a feeling of depression. The petitioners therefore submitted that the conditions of the settlement effected through the intervention of the secretary of state for the colonies should be carried out in letter and in spirit.6 In a report of a committee of the privy council of Canada, dated the 13th of March, mainly in answer to these allegations, is a review of the whole controversy as it then stood. The western terminus of the road, urged the dominion, was a question that did not enter into the agreement between Canada and British Columbia, but one to be determined by the governor-general in council. The first action taken in this matter was in June 1873, when, most injudiciously in the opinion of the committee, an order in council was passed selecting Esquimalt as the terminus. If. this decision had not been reversed, the government would have been compelled to construct thence more than a hundred and sixty miles of railway to some point opposite Bute Inlet, at a cost of about $7,500,000, while the bridging of the Narrows —the latter a most gigantic undertaking—would require a further outlay of more than $20,000,000. The Mackenzie administration had from the first declined to adopt this portion of the policy of its predecessors. They had offered, however, as compensation for delay, a cash bonus of $750,000, or about $75 per capita of the white population of the province; but this offer had been refused.6 So far from the province having 6Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881, 329-31. 6As to this matter there was some misunderstanding on the part of the government of B. C. In a report of the privy council dated Sept. 20,1876, and referring mainly to the construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, it is recommended that the people of B. C. should construct this line themselves, or undertake such other local public works as they think best, and that the compensation granted by Canada 'for any delays which may take place in the construction of the Pacific railway should be in the form of a cash SEPARATION THREATENED. 665 suffered loss and deprivation from the union, as was alleged, it had already derived therefrom no inconsiderable advantage. Apart from railway expenditure, Canada had, between the date of the union and the close of 1875, spent $1,204,388 over the amount derived from revenue.7 The object of the provincial legislature appeared to be, not to secure the completion of the road as a national undertaking under such conditions as would tend to the welfare of the entire community, but to enforce an enormous expenditure, at whatever cost to Canada, within their own province, and for which that province could render no equivalent. The urgency with which the government of British Columbia demanded this expenditure, with a view to secure vast profits for a small population, would not encourage the people of the dominion to support their rulers in the effort to fulfil, as far as possible, the appalling obligations to which they were committed. In conclusion, it remained only, under the circumstances, to endeavor to construct the railway as rapidly as the resources of the country would permit. Here for the moment negotiations practically ceased, and separation from the dominion was for the time openly threatened, the executive council expressing in their reply the fullest confidence that her Majesty would not require her subjects in British Columbia, bonus,' to be expended as the legislature might determine. In the petition to the queen this was interpreted as an indemnity to be paid on condition that the agreement for a yearly expenditure of $2,000,000 within the province, and for the completion of the road to Lake Superior before the end of 1890, should be surrendered. In a letter to DufFerin, dated May 23,1876, Carnarvon says: 'I cannot but suppose that the complaints that have reached me from the govt of B. C. have been founded on a misapprehension, with reference to the expression used in the Canadian minute of council,.. .as well as to the intentions of the dominion minister.' Correspondence Can. Pac Railway, 11. 7 The total expenditure for the four and a half years was $3,083,565.21, and the total revenue $1,879,226.30. Meanwhile the railway expenditure was $876,144.39, making a total excess of expenditure of $2,080,483.30, or about $208 per capita of the population. Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881, 239. To this the executive council of the province replied that a large part of the expenditure was incidental to the extension of the system of confederation over a new province, and that the disbursements would be greatly reduced after the completion of the public buildings and works provided for in the terms of union. r 666 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. however few in number, to submit to injustice from the majority to which they had united themselves on distinct and carefully considered terms. Unless means were promptly taken to remove this sense of injustice, and to satisfy the people that their rights would be maintained, the " growing alienation of sentiment must result prejudicially to the interests of the empire."8 In a despatch to the earl of Carnarvon, enclosing a copy of the report to the privy council, the governor- general states that he is about to visit the western portion of the dominion, mainly with a view to bring about a settlement of the differences with British Columbia. From this visit much was expected. With the authority of his rank and office, Duffer in combined, in no limited degree, sound, practical judgment, tact, and temper, together with much official experience. He was an adroit and versatile diplomate, one who never gave offence, and who well knew how to make allowance for local prejudices, and to smooth artificial impediments. If he failed in his efforts to adjust the dispute, then the difficulty might almost be regarded as insurmountable. So hopeful, however, was the secretary for the colonies of his success, that he postponed his reply to the minutes of council from British Columbia and Canada, and deferred laying before her Majesty the petition of the provincial legislature until he was informed as to the result of Dufferin's visit.9 After making a tour of the provinces, northward as far as the borders of Alaska, and eastward to Kamloop, on the 20th of September, 1876, the governor-general addressed a deputation of the reception committee at Victoria. Dufferin was a trained and polished speaker for an English nobleman, some- 8 Id., 1881, 245. The report of the executive council is dated June 3, 1876. 9 Correspondence Can. Pac. Railway, 11. DUFFERIN'S ADDRESS. 667 what ornate, but still an orator of marked ability. All his eloquence was thrown away, however, on this self-willed audience. In vain did he exert to the utmost his well-known powers of pleasing; in vain did he compliment his hearers on their unswerving loyalty, and the province on its amazing resources; in vain did he dwell on the idyllic beauty of its scenery, its noble harbors, and its labyrinth of navigable channels, winding for thousands of miles around islands, promontories, and peninsulas, unruffled by the faintest swell from the neighboring ocean, and adapted as well to the largest merchantman as to the frailest canoe; in vain did he point to the agricultural and pastoral resources of the country, its wealth in gold and silver, coal and iron, fisheries and forests, winding up his glowing picture by declaring British Columbia to be "a glorious province—a province which Canada should be proud to possess, and whose association with the dominion she ought to regard as the crowing triumph of federation." Of all this the people of British Columbia were well aw.nre, though probably they did not object to being reminded of it. They had never doubted that their country was one which Canada should be proud to possess, and had always regarded their union as the brightest jewel in the dominion crown. What they complained of was that Canada did not keep faith with them, and thereby show a becoming pride in her new acquisition, instead of appearing entirely indifferent as to the stability of the federal edifice. Passing to the main point of his address, the earl assured his audience that he came on no diplomatic mission, nor as one intrusted with any announcement either from the imperial or the dominion government. His visit was in order to become acquainted with them as the representative of her Majesty, to ascertain their wants and wishes, and to learn as much as possible concerning the physical features and resources of the province. He had no desire' to persuade them into any 668 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. line of action that did not accord with their own interests, and he would neither make any new promises on behalf of his government nor renew any old ones; least of all did he wish to force upon them any further modification of the Carnarvon terms. Nevertheless, the greater part of his speech was devoted to an elaborate exculpation of the Canadian government, though he did not deny that British Columbia had suffered in many respects through the non-fulfilment of the terms of union. Touching on the question of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, he stated that he well knew the importance which they attached to this portion of the work, and admitted that its immediate execution was definitely included in the Carnarvon settlement. He was not surprised, therefore, that the miscarriage of this part of the bargain should have caused so much irritation. "Two years have passed," he said, "since the Canadian government undertook to commence the construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, and the Nanaimo and Esquimalt railway is not even commenced, and what is more, there does not at present seem a prospect of its being commenced. What, then, is the history of the case? and who is answerable for your disappointment? I know you consider Mr Mackenzie. I ain not here to defend Mr Mackenzie, his policy, his proceedings, or his utterances. I hope this will be clearly understood." Notwithstanding this disavowal, however, the earl proceeded to defend the premiers administration, as an advocate would plead before a court.10 As to the proposed money 10 'It is asserted, and I imagine with truth,' he said, 'that Mr Mackenzie and his political friends had always been opposed to many portions of panada's bargain with B. C It therefore came to be considered in this province that the new government was an enemy to the Pacific railway. But I believe this to have been, and to be, a complete misapprehension. I believe the Pacific railway has no better friend than Mr Mackenzie; and that he was only on- posed to the time terms in the bargain, because he believed them impossible of accomplishment, and that a conscientious endeavor to fulfil them would unnecessarily and ruinously increase the financial expenditure of the country; and in both these opinions Mackenzie was undoubtedly in the right' So persistently had the liberal premier been accused of breach of faith, insincer- SPECIAL PLEADING. 669 compensation, he could not hold out any hope that its amount would be increased, and he was of opinion that, in making this offer, after the defeat of the railway bill in the senate, Mackenzie had adopted the only alternative left open to him. Otherwise, every item in the Carnarvon terms was in course of fulfilment. The thirty millions of money and the fifty million acres of land were ready; the surveys were being pushed forward to completion; the profiles of the main line had been taken out; the wagon-road would follow pari passu with construction; several thousand miles of the telegraph line had been built; and now that the terminus on the mainland appeared to have been selected, at Bute Inlet,11 tenders would probably be invited at an early date. If the railway was once completed to Bute Inlet, it could not stop there, and as soon as the tide of traffic fairly set in with Australia, China, and Japan, the line must, of necessity, be continued to Esquimalt. In that case the Nanaimo road would almost spring into existence of its own accord, and the people of British Columbia would be in possession not only of the $750,000 of compensation money, but of that for which it wTas paid. As to the threat of secession, of which more later, he remarked that, if hasty counsels should so far prevail as to render necessary a readjustment of their political relations, he feared that Victoria would be the greatest sufferer. There were men with whom he had held much pleasant intercourse, and from whom ity, and double-dealing, that at this time three fourths of the people of B. C. were opposed to him. In the Standard of Jan. 1, 1875, was published a valediction to the closing scene of 1875, dedicated, without permission, to the cabinet of the dominion of Canada, and especially to Alexander Mackenzie, by the author, James MacBraire Smith. ' Then place on view, in the Centennial Park, Our hero's picture, labelled, Broken Terms; And if, in flesh, the portrait in these lines Should swell the crowd on Independence Day, Give him a section where no progress shines, Marked, Plant from Scotland raised in Canada. Farewell 1 The pen shall never rust That wrote Kepudiation o'er thy dust.' 11 At this date it was commonly believed that such was the case, though, in fact, no terminus had as yet been finally selected. 670 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. he had received the utmost kindness and courtesy, but who declared that if the legislature of Canada was not compelled forthwith to build the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, they would, notwithstanding the premier's offer of a money equivalent, .bring about the separation of the province from the dominion. This, he declared, they could not do, or, at least, such a proposition would find no favor on the mainland. In rejecting the railway bill—and this was now their main grievance—the senate had merely exercised its legitimate functions, and on this matter there was nothing more to be said. Should, however, the influence of these persons prevail, what good purpose could it serve? British Columbia would still remain a portion of the dominion. The line of the railway would probably be deflected toward the south, in which case New Westminster would become the capital of the province, the seat of government and of justice, the social centre of the British domain in the northwest, and would doubtless develop into a prosperous city. Burrard Inlet would contain a thriving commercial port, where the miners of Cariboo would expend each winter their stores of gold-dust. Esquimalt would, of course, be retained as a naval station on the Pacific; but Vancouver Island and its inhabitants, whose influence was due rather to their intelligence than their numbers, would sink into insignificance. Nanaimo would become the principal town, while Victoria would lapse into the condition of a village, until the growth of a healthier sentiment should pave the way for her readmission into the dominion.12 Though Dufferin's visit allayed somewhat the popular discontent, it failed altogether in its main purpose, which was to obtain from the people of British Columbia their consent to the premier's latest proposal to evade the obligations of the dominion. It must be admitted, however, that his task was one of peculiar 12 A copy of the earl's address will be found in Sess. Papers, B, C, 1881, 249-61. THE EARL'S FAILURE. 671 difficulty. He was compelled to appear before them in the dual character of a representative of the crown and of an independent constitutional system—functions always difficult to reconcile, and especially so at the time of his visit. In fulfilling his mission, he was compelled to assume in a measure the character of a diplomate. While attemping to show that Canada had acted in good faith, he urged the province to accept what was in fact merely, the compromise of a compromise, the offer of a government, which had virtually repudiated its obligations, to pay so much in the pound to a creditor. It must be admitted that, on this occasion, the viceroy failed to do justice either to himself or to his office, pleading, as he did, before her Majesty's subjects the cause of the Mackenzie administration. Granted that he found it necessary to keep his ministers in good humor, to remedy their blunders, and if possible to prevent the secession of British Columbia, it was no part of his duty thus to attempt the negotiation of a bargain between his own cabinet and the executive council of one of his provinces, still less to enact the r61e of apologist for his own government.13 In an address presented by the people of British Columbia to the governor-general a few days before his speech at the capital, it was stated that the widespread feeling of dissatisfaction caused by the action of the dominion government had been intensified by the remarks of men prominent in affairs of state, who appeared to regard the province merely as a source of trouble and expense, and as one whose withdrawal 13 The comments of the English press on Earl Dufferin's visit and the railway question were for the most part adverse to the dominion, and some of them were a little severe. See the London Standard, Oct. 17, 1876; Pall Mall Gazette, Sept. 22,1876. On the other hand, the London Times remarks: 'It is, judging by past experience, a moderate estimate to suppose that probably a generation will elapse before the Canadian Pacific railway can pay its working expenses. Is it worth Canada's while ? We doubt it. At all events, it must be apparent to any mind that its construction means probably an addition of at least from forty to fifty millions sterling debt to the already heavy Canadian debt before the line has been worked five years.' Victoria Standard, Nov. 16, 1877. 672 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. would not be regretted. The allusion was in part to the premier, whose speeches implied that the connection was embarrassing and unprofitable. The minister of justice14 had also declared that, should British Columbia not be content with what Canada chose to give her, she had better withdraw from the union.16 " If," continues the address, "the Canadian government fail to take practical steps to carry into effect the terms solemnly accepted by them, we most respectfully inform your Excellency that, in the opinion of a large number of people of this province, the withdrawal of the province from the confederation will be the inevitable result." Nearly two years elapsed, and notwithstanding the assurances of Dufferin and Carnarvon,16 no decisive action was taken. The Wasatch Mountains were full of surveyors and theodolites; but nothing had been done toward the actual construction of the line within the province, nor had even tenders been invited. In September 1878, therefore, an address from the provincial legislature was forwarded to her Majestyyin which, after once more setting forth their grievances, the petitioners ask that in the event of the dominion government failing to carry out before the 1st of May the agreement of 1874, "British Columbia shall have the right to exclusively collect and retain her customs and excise duties, and to withdraw from the union; and shall also in any event be entitled to be compensated by the dominion for losses sustained by reason of past delays, and the failure of the dominion government to carry out their railway and other obligations to the province."17 14 Mr Blake, one of the leaders of the liberal, or as it was termed, the 'grit' party. 15 His remarks were indorsed by Sir Alexander Gait, a prominent conservative leader. Pall Mall Gazette, Sept. 22, 1876. 16 In a despatch to Dufferin, dated Dec. 18,1876, Carnarvon says: 'I fully hope and believe that, after the very limited delay of a single summer, the province of B. C will find that there is no longer any obstacle to the active prosecution of the undertaking.' Correspondence Can. Pac. Railway, 15. 17 For copy of the address, see Jour. Legist, B. C., 1878,103-7; Sess. Papers, B. a, 1881, 278-80. ANNEXATION, 673 This was sufficiently decisive, and if, at this juncture, British Columbia had determined to secede, neither England nor Canada could have prevented it; for it is the long-established policy of the home government that colonies shall not be retained against their will. In accordance with constitutional law, a court would probably have held that the union could not be severed, and that the dominion must fulfil its part of the contract or make compensation for failure and delay. But the dominion could no more have insisted on the integrity of the union than could the province have compelled Canada to do her justice, for British colonies are no more liable to coercive jurisdiction than are sovereign states. It is almost certain that the separation of British Columbia would have been followed at no long interval by annexation to the United States; nor would the imperial government have had any just grounds for exception to'such, a measure. Long before this date, annexation, if not openly discussed, had at least suggested itself to men's thoughts as one way, and perhaps the best way, out of the difficulty.18 Nor can it be believed that the United States would have refused to accept this portion of England's domain, which, lying between Alaska and Washington, is the only break in the stretch of their Pacific seaboard. The province is indeed a magnificent one. With a vast area, a scant population, and boundless resources, as yet almost untouched; with ports on the most direct line of travel between Europe and Asia, Victoria being but twenty days' distance by steamer from Hong-Kong—the trade of this country is destined to become a not inconsiderable factor in the commerce of the world. Taking Yokohama as a central point, its distance from Liver- 18 For comments of the Pacific coast press on the threatened secession and probable annexation of the province, see, among others, S. F. Alta, Dec. 29, 1874, April 16, Aug. 14,1876; Brit. Colonist, April 23, 1879; Portland Tele- .gram, March 22, 1879. Hist. Beit. Col. 43 674 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. pool via Montreal and Port Moody is computed at 10,963 miles, and by way of New York and San Francisco at 12,038 miles, a difference of 1,075 miles in favor of the former route. At this date the Panama* canal was believed to be impossible of accomplishment at any reasonable expense of life, labor, and capital. If Great Britain sought for means of commercial intercourse with the far east and her Australian colonies, other than these which Cook and Vancouver had discovered in the eighteenth century, and De Lesseps had endeavored to improve in the nineteenth, where was she to look for them save to the dominion or to the United States? And what would be the prospect for England's commerce with the east should British Columbia become one with the United States?—a danger all the more imminent because British Columbia still contained a very large percentage of Americans. Though, the dominion might afford to slight these considerations, the home government could not. The question was no longer as between Canada, with her four millions of inhabitants, and British Columbia, with her few thousands; but between the mother country and one of her most distant and sparsely settled, though most valuable, colonies. Fortunately there occurred at this juncture a change of administration in the Canadian government. In answer to a telegram from Victoria, dated the 16th of January, 1879, wherein it was stated that no answer had yet been received to the last petition of the legislature, the following reply was returned by Sir John A. Macdonald: "Railway matters are now under consideration, and your representations and claims will receive our best attention." Then followed one, dated a few weeks later: "The attention of the present,ministry, on taking office, was not called to this petition, and it remained unnoticed. On its being discovered, it was transmitted to England. The government here greatly regret the oversight." After READY TO BEGIN. 67i> some further negotiation,19 surveys being now almost completed, Port Moody, or Burrard Inlet, finally selected as the terminus,20 and all being in readiness for 19 In which, as usual, B. C. insists on having her own way, without much regard to the interests of the dominion. On the 24th of April, 1879, a telegram was forwarded to the premier of Canada: \ House regrets delay of your railroad policy, and unanimously request to be informed of policy immediately, and whether construction and vigorous prosecution will take place in province this year;' and to the secretary of state for the colonies: 'No action yet taken on railway by dominion government. This legislature in session awaiting answer to petition, unanimously and respectfully request immediate reply to its prayer.' The secretary of state for the dominion replied: ' Canadian government is determined to commence work of construction in B. C. this season, and to press it vigorously.' Oct. 2, 1879, Walkem telegraphs to Macdonald: 'Delay in commencing railway causes great dissatisfaction. We strongly urge you not to overlook your assurances to our legislature.' The premier answered: ' 127 miles to be constructed forthwith, from Yale to Kamloops.' Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881, 284-8. 20 In the winter of 1874 the building in which were kept the field-note books, unfinished plans, etc., was destroyed by fire, nearly every scrap oi paper being consumed. Thus were loot the results of three years' labor, obtained at a cost of some £300,000, and it was necessary to commence the work afresh. At this date Mr Fleming was of opinion that a direct lino from Tete Jaune Cache could be found via Clearwater and Stillwater lakes to the Fraser, the crossing being a short distance above Big Bend, and ascending westward —on the eastern slope of the Cascade Range—by the valley of the Chilkotin, joining, the Bute Inlet route on the summit level. Later explorations showed this route to be impracticable. Almost the entire force was employed on the survey of the Fraser between Tete Jaune Cache and Fort George, and the several lines westward from the latter point, toward the mouth of the Skeena, Gardner, Dean, and Bute inlets. Gardner and Dean inlets seemed at first to promise best, but ultimately the former was abandoned, as no favorable route could be found through the Cascade Range. The Dean Inlet line was instru- mentally surveyed, and a favorable line marked out, though with high gradients toward the sea. Harbor accommodation was also less favorable than represented, but otherwise the Dean Inlet was preferred to the Bute Inlet route, j The latter was fifty miles longer, and it would be necessary to build the railway to Frederic Arm, on the northern mouth of the inlet, while navigation, both toward Queen Charlotte Sound and the strait of Fuca, was difficult. The advocates of this route were so well aware of these obstacles that they never proposed to encounter them, but rather to cross at once from Frederic Arm to Otter'Cove, V. I., and thence to Esquimalt, a distance of 265 miles. Certain advocates of the Bute Inlet route pointed out that a harbor equal to that of Esquimalt could be reached on the outer coast of V. I. at Quatsino. When all the difficulties connected with the northern routes, including Bute Inlet, became known, it was determined to try the lower Fraser and Thompson rivers by instrumental survey. The result satisfied the govt, and Port Moody, or English Bay, on Burrard Inlet, was selected as the terminus for several reasons, among which maybe mentioned: 1st. That the line to Port Moody was shorter and cheaper than the one to Bute Inlet. 2d. That no gradient exceeded 50 feet to the mile, while on the Bute Inlet route there were gradients of more than 100 feet to the mile. 3d. That the Burrard Inlet route could be commenced at Yale, to which point the Fraser was navigable, and extended to tidal communication. 4th. That the construction of 125 miles to Kamloop Lake would immediately open up the heart of the province. 5th. That the line would pass through or close to the largest coalfield yet discovered on the Island. 6th. That the open sea could be reached 676 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. the virtual fulfilment of the railway clause contained in the terms of union, a telegram was received on the 9th of January, 1880, from the secretary of state for Canada, asking that, in accordance with these terms, twenty miles of land on either side of the line be conveyed to the dominion government. On the 8th of May the conveyance was authorized, and on the 25th of March, 1881, an act was passed by the legislature of British Columbia, providing that "the supreme court of Canada and the exchequer court, or the supreme court of Canada alone, according to the provisions of the act of the parliament of Canada known as the supreme and exchequer court act," should have jurisdiction in controversies between the dominion and the province.21 Thus did British Columbia, possibly of her own free-will, though probably through a slip of the Honorable George A. Walkem, bind herself once more to the dominion, and by a statute which neither England nor Canada had power to enact. Yet one more petition was presented to her Majesty, wherein the oft-recited grievances were rehearsed, the construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo branch insisted upon, : and the threat of secession repeated.22 To this the dominion government replied: "As regards the prayer much more easily than by way of Bute Inlet. Mackenzie's Mem. Can. Pac. Railway, MS., 8-11. A description of each year's explorations and surveys will be found in Fleming's Reports, Can. Pac Railway. In this connection may be mentioned the geologic survey of Canada, undertaken in 1871 by Alfred R. C. Selwyn, F. R. S., assisted by James Richardson of the geologic staff, for the purpose of ascertaining the physical character of the country, the general distribution of the geological formations, and the facilities for travel in the several districts. The route examined was one of those which attracted attention in connection with the surveys for the Canadian Pacific, extending obliquely across the province through the valleys of the Fraser and Thompson to Leather Pass in the Rocky Mountains. Surveys were afterward conducted by Richardson on V. I. and the mainland. For description, see Id., 31 em. Geol. Survey, MS. 21 Also in cases of controversy between B. C and any province of the dominion which might have passed a similar act, and in suits, actions, or proceedings in which the parties in their pleadings raised the question of the validity of an act of the Canadian parliament, or of an act of the provincial legislature, when, in the opinion of a judge of the court in which they were pending, such question was material. 44ih Vict, in-2?. C. Stat., 1881, 17. 22 For copy of petition, see Jour. Legist, Brit. Cot, 1881,60-2; Papers ret Mission De Cosmos, 3-5. PROVINCIAL REVENUE. 677 of the proposed petition to her Majesty, that the province be permitted to regulate and collect its own tariff of customs and excise, until through communication by railway be established through British Columbia with the eastern provinces, the committee of the privy council desire to observe that this request involves a breach of the terms of union, and the virtual severance of British Columbia from the dominion."23 De Cosmos pleaded in London, in 1881, the case of the provincial legislature, and was politely heard, though doubtless her Majesty's government was now somewhat weary of the matter. Said the earl of Kimberley to the marquis of Lome, in a despatch dated August 25, 1881: "The request of the legislative assembly of British Columbia for permission to regulate and collect its own tariff is, in my opinion, inadmissible." "Par be the day," remarked Dufferin, in his speech at Victoria, "when oh any acre of soil above which floats the flag of England, mere material power, brute political preponderance"—whatever that may be—"should be permitted to decide such a controversy as that which we are discussing. A governor-general is a federalist by profession, and you might as well expect the sultan of Turkey to throw up his cap for the commune as the viceroy of Canada to entertain a suggestion for the disintegration of the dominion." Meanwhile work had been progressing, though somewhat slowly, on the Canadian Pacific. Early in 1880, 264 miles of the eastern section, commenced in 1874, were in operation, and up to the 1st of July, 1880, 23 On the other hand, it was claimed in the petition that, under the terms of the treaty, B. C. was allowed to retain its own tariff until ^he C. P. should be completed, but, 'believing in the good faith of the dominion, and being desirous of promoting confederation in its true sense,' surrendered its tariff in 1872. It would seem that the dominion government was in the right. The clause to which reference is made reads: 'It is agreed that the existing customs tariff and excise duties shall continue in force in B. C. until the railway from the Pacific coast and the system of railways in Canada are connected, unless the legislature of B. C. should sooner decide to accept the tariff and excise laws of Canada.' 678 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC KAULWAY. about $16,500,000 had been expended on surveys and construction.24 In June of this year it was also announced by Sir John A Macdonald that negotiations had been concluded in London whereby the^conipletion of the road was to be undertaken by a syndicate composed of capitalists in New York, St Paul, London, and Paris.25 According to the terms of the contract, the portions of the line not yet constructed were to be divided into three sections: the first or eastern section extending from Callander station, near Lake Nipissing, to a point of junction with the Lake Superior section, then being built by the government; the second or central section from Selkirk, on Red River, to Kamloop; and the third or western section from Kamloop to Port Moody. The syndicate agreed to construct by the 1st of May, 1891, and keep in running order, a line of uniform gauge,156 and pay to the dominion the cost, according to an outstanding contract of one hundred miles of road westward from the town of Winnipeg, a few miles south of Selkirk. The dominion agreed to complete the portion of the western section between Yale and Kamloop by the end of June 1885, between Yale and Port Moody by the 1st of June, 1891, and the Lake Superior section according to the contract. The road was to be the property of the syndicate; but until the eastern and central sections were finished, the Canadian government reserved the privilege of working those already constructed. On the completion of the former sections, the dominion agreed to convey to the syndicate the portions of the line then constructed, or to be constructed by the government, and meanwhile to 24 In Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 59-62, are tables showing approximately the sums voted and actually expended for each year between 1871 and 1S82. The total amount voted under all heads up to the latter year was $4G,097,- 812.48. _„ . 25 John S. Kennedy of New York, Richard B. Angus and James J. Hill of St Paul, Morton, Hose, & Co. of London, and John Reinach & Co. of Paris. Chittenden's B. C. and Alaska, 32. 26 Four feet eight and a half inches, THE CONTRACT RATIFIED. 679 grant to them subsidies of $25,000,000 and 25,000,000 .acres of land,27 both of which, as we shall see later, were afterward largely increased. As soon as any part of the road, not less than twenty miles in length, was in operation, the government would transfer to the syndicate their pro rata of cash and land, and agreed to admit free of duty all material needed for the construction of railway bridges, and of a telegraph line in connection with the road. For twenty years from the date of the contract the government also agreed that it would not authorize the building of any line near the Canadian Pacific unless it ran in a south-westerly direction, nor of any that ran to within fifteen miles of the international boundary. The entire railway and its equipments were to be forever exempt from taxation, and the land, unless previously sold, was to remain untaxed for twenty years. On the motion to ratify this contract arose one of the warmest discussions ever witnessed in the dominion parliament. The ceaseless friction which had occurred, however, while the government was in charge of the work, and the fact that there was no prospect of its completion within the stipulated time unless some radical changes were made in the method of prosecuting the enterprise, were strong arguments in its favor. Moreover the ministry stated that under its provisions the line would be finished for some $22,000,000 less than if completed by the government. The measure was finally carried by an overwhelming majority,28 and immediately afterward the syndicate entered upon the execution of its contract, the work being thenceforth prosecuted with energy. According to a measurement in 1882 of the various 27 For the central section $10,000 a mile for the first 900 miles, and for the remaining 450 at the rate of $13,333 per mile; and for the eastern section of 010 miles, $15,384.61. The land-grant was for the central section, 12,500 -acres for each of the first 900 miles, and 16,666.67 acres per mile for the r&- mainder. For the eastern section the grant was $9,615.35 per mile. 28 The vote was 140 to 45. S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 13, 1885. 680 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. sections as finally located, the entire length of line* from Callander to Fort William, on Thunder Bay, at the head of Lake Superior, thence to Winnipeg, and from that point to Savona's ferry, at the foot of Kamloop Lake, crossing the Rocky Mountains by way of Kicking Horse Pass, and from Savona's ferry to Port Moody, was 2,557 miles. To this must be added the sections between Callander and Ottawa, a distance of 228 miles, and from Ottawa to Montreal, 119 miles, making a total of 2,904 miles as the grand trunk road of the Canadian Pacific, though it may be presumed that the entire line from Halifax to Port Moody will eventually be under the control of a single company.29 Of the sections between Callander and Kamloop Lake no further mention is required in these pages; but of the one between Savona's ferry and Port Moody, lying as it does entirely within British Columbia, a description may not be without interest to the reader. The length of this portion of the line was 213.5 miles, and it was divided into five subsections, from Port Moody to Emory's Bar, a distance of 85.5 miles, from Emory's Bar to Boston Bar 29 miles, from Boston Bar to Lytton 29.5 miles, from Lytton to Junction Flat 29 miles, and from Junction Flat to Savona's ferry 40.5 miles.30 The contracts for all these subdivisions, of which the first was awarded early in 1879 and the remainder in the winter of 1882, fell into the hands of A. Onderdonk, an engineer and contractor of good repute, and one who represented several prominent capitalists in California, Oregon, and New York.31 Their amount, including the cost of a bridge across the Fraser at Cisco Flat, was about $11,900,000,32 apart from the expense of the rails 29From Callander to Fort William 650 miles, from Port Arthur to Winnipeg 133 miles, from Winnipeg to Savona's ferry 1,250 miles, and from Savona's ferry to Port Moody 215 miles. *°Ses8. Papers, B. C, 1881, 295; B. C. Directory, 1882 3, 373. 31D. O. Mills of Cal., S. G. Reid of 0r„ and H. B. Laidlaw and L. P. Morton of N. Y. Sess. Papers, B. C, 1881, 295. 32 For the subsection between Emory Bar and Boston Bar $2,727,300„ CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROAD. 681 and fastenings, which for all but the first subsection were furnished by the dominion. Early in 1880 ground was broken; and from that date work was continued almost without interruption until the line was completed. On portions of the road, and especially between Emory and Boston bars, it is probable that the difficulties were greater Canadian Pacific. between Boston Bar and Lytton $2,573,640, between Lytton and Junctipn Flat $2,056,950, and between Junction Flat and Savona's ferry $1,809,150, or an average of nearly $43,000 per mile. The first was to be finished by Dec. 1, 1883, the second by June 30, 1884, the third by December 31, 1884, and the fourth not later than June 30,1885. It appears that contracts were originally made with other parties, but, remarks Walkem, in the report of his negotiations at Ottawa with the dominion government, j the manifest advantages of dealing with one firm of unquestionable means and ability, instead of with three or four firms, in the construction of the work, influenced the government, as I learned, to consent to the transfer of the contracts mentioned/ For the portion between Port Moody and Emory Bar the contract was $2,487,000, or an average of $30,000 per mile, and the estimated cost of the bridge across the Fraser was $250,000. B. C. Directory, 1882-3, 373-4. 682 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAi. than had hitherto been encountered in railroad building, except perhaps in Switzerland and Peru, the average cost per mile being $80,000, and of some miles as much as $200,000. Other lines, difficult of construction, as the Central and Union Pacific, passed around and over the mountains by gradual ascents; but on the Cascade Range no practicable gradients could be found, and it was necessary to run through it, on a line almost parallel with the canun of the Fraser. For almost the entire distance between Yale and Lytton the river has cut its way through this range, plunging in foaming cataracts through deep lateral gorges, flanked in places by spurs of perpendicular rock. Along nineteen miles of the route thirteen tunnels were bored, one series of four being within a mile of Yale, and another of six occurring some 2,500 yards farther in the direction of Boston Bar. Elsewhere the roadway was literally hewn out of rock, the crevices being filled with masonry, and the ravines and rivers spanned by truss and trestle bridges, of which there are many between Savona's ferry and the sea, among them being a three-spanned iron and steel truss-bridge crossing the Fraser below Lytton.33 The road-bed throughout the entire section was substantially built, the cuttings and tunnels being twenty-two feet, the embankments seventeen feet in width, and the track laid with sixty-pound steel rails, and heavily ballasted. To perform this gigantic task, an army of laborers and mechanics was employed, mustering at times more than 7,000 men, and with the aid of the best modern machinery. They were fairly paid,3* and humanely treated; and it is worthy of note, 33 The total length of the bridge is 530 ft, and of the central span 315 it, the ends of the latter resting on piers of solid masonry 96 ft high. The superstructure contains 6,000 tons of iron and steel. The total cost was $280, - 000. Portland West Shore, Dec. 1885, 360. 31 According to a schedule of wages issued at Yale, March 1,1883, laborers received $1.75 to $2 a day; hewers, $3.50; choppers, $2 to $2.50; drillers, $2 to $2.25; blacksmiths, $3 to $3.50; masons, $2.50 to $3.50; stone-cutters, $3 to $3.50; carpenters, $3 to $3.50; foremen, $2.50 to $4. These rates were for A GRAND ACHIEVEMENT. 683 that although some of the work was of an extremely hazardous nature, men being often lowered hundreds of feet down almost perpendicular rocks, in order to blast a foothold on the mountain side, only thirty-two fatal accidents occurred between April 1880 and November 1882, though the average number employed during that period exceeded 4,000. Supplies were forwarded on pack-animals, over trails never before deemed practicable except by Indians, and by them only with the aid of ladders. Building materials were landed at enormous cost, the toll of ten dollars per ton on all freight passing over the Yale and Cariboo road being strictly enforced. As .the work advanced, transportation became each year more costly, until it was resolved to attempt the passage of the Fraser canon to th'e navigable water above, in order to supply the more distant camps, the steamer Shuzzy being built for the purpose. But who could be found daring enough to steer this boat up the swift-running river and through the frightful canon, where the pent waters rushed down in foaming fury? One captain after another, looking at the tiny craft and at the Scylla and Charybdis beyond, declared the feat impossible. At length two brothers, Smith by name, well known for their daring exploits on the upper Columbia,35 consented to undertake the task. With a steam-winch and capstan, and several large hawsers, they set forth on their voyage with a crew of seventeen men, the steamer being in charge of a skilled engineer, J. W. Burse. The severest struggle was at a point called China Piffle, where the power of the engines and steam-winch, with fifteen men at the capstan, and of 150 Chinamen laying hold of one of the ropes, barely ten hours' work and for white labor. Boarding-houses were provided at convenient distances, where the rate was $4 per week, though none were required to patronize them. B. C. Inform, for Emigr., 15; B. C. Directory, 1882-3, 376. 30 S. R. Smith ran the steamer Shoshone down the Snake River for a distance of 1,000 miles, a portion of the route being through the rapids near the base of the Blue Mountains. Up to 1883 this was the only boat that had ever attempted this perilous passage. He also carried a steamer safely over the Willamette Falls, near Oregon City. Chittenden's Brit. Col. and Alaska, 36. 684 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. sufficed to pull the vessel over the shoals. Overcoming this difficulty, and passing safely through Hell- gate and Black Canon, where the stream runs at the rate of some twenty miles an hour, the Skuzzy started with her first load of freight from Boston Bar. Along the entire route between Port Moody and Savona's ferry, and apart from tunnel-boring, some 10,600,000 cubic yards of earth and rock were removed by pick, powder, and nitro-glycerine. On the line between Emory and Yale were complete works for the manufacture of explosives, with a capacity of about 2,000 pounds per day,36 and at Yale were construction and repair shops, supplied with all the machinery needed for the building of cars and engines, and for general work. Port Moody is distant seventy-five miles from Victoria and overland from New Westminster about five miles.37 That it is a safe and commodious harbor is proved by the fact that within fourteen years after the first saw-mill was built, in 1864, six hundred vessels of large tonnage, and countless smaller craft, loaded at and left it, not one of which was injured.88 In 1882 36 The cartridge cases for giant-powder were made of paper dipped in hot paraffine and wax, 5-8 to 1 inch in diameter, and weighed, when filled, about 5-12 of a pound. 37 In section 2 of a report of the privy council of Canada, dated May 19, 1881, the reasons for the change of terminus are thus given: 'On the 6th of June, 1873, in view of the then probability of the railway running by Bute Inlet, an order in council was passed declaring that Esquimalt should be the terminus of the railway on the Pacific coast, but the alignment on the mainland was at that time wholly undetermined. In May 1878, the government, on increased information, determined, however., to select Burrard Inlet as the objective point on the Pacific coast to be reached by the railway^and they cancelled the order relating to Esquimalt. Still further examinations were, however, deemed necessary, particularly with reference to the advantages of a still-more northern route which should terminate at Port Simpson; and to keep the whole question entirely free until additional exploratory survey! should be made, the order in council of June 1873 was in April 1879 re vived, and continued in force until October 1879, when the selection of Bur rard Inlet was finally made.' Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 15. 38 Letter of Capt. Jas Cooper to the gov.-gen., in Fleming's Rept. Can. Pac, Railway, 1877, 306. See also Brit. Oolonist, in Can. Pac. Railway Routes, 4, Admiral Richards, hydrographer to the admiralty in 1882, describes Pori Moody as a snug harbor, and capacious for shipping beyond all probable re quirements. CHOICE OF TERMINUS. 685 a substantial wharf had already been constructed 1,370 feet in length, and with a breadth, for 600 feet from its centre, of 150 feet. It was supported by more than 1,700 piles, from twelve to twenty inches in diameter, strongly capped and braced, the front and sides of the structure presenting a solid wall of four- teen-inch timber, and the surface being covered with four-inch planks, fastened with eight-inch spikes. On this structure, freight and passenger stations, offices, work-shops, warehouses, and other buildings needed for traffic were completed; and here ships could unload in a depth of water never less than four and a half fathoms at low tide. Nevertheless it cannot be disputed that Port Moody was selected, not as the best terminus, but probably because, as the privy council of Canada remarked in its report touching the latest petition of the provincial legislature, "it rendered unnecessary the line between Nanaimo and Esquimalt as a condition of the union with British Columbia."39 In his official report to the premier, dated April 26, 1878—some eighteen months before the selection of the terminus—the engineer-in-chief stated expressly that Burrard Inlet was less eligible than Esquimalt. Navigation to the former point from the ocean was more or less intricate ; nor could it be reached at all by vessels of large tonnage without passing within cannon-shot of a group of islands belonging to a foreign power. As to the Bute Inlet route, supposing even the wide channels of the Valdes Islands bridged at an enormous cost— one which it was almost impossible to estimate—and the road extended to Esquimalt, the travel thence by rail to Bute Inlet would be at least 150 miles farther than direct by steamer to Burrard Inlet, while to substitute a ferry for the bridging between the former inlet and the mainland would entail a very considerable and unnecessary expenditure. From the crossing 89 Papers rel. Mission De Cosmos, 15. 686 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. of Lake Manitoba, about midway on the continent, to Burrard Inlet, the distance was more than eleven hundred miles, and to Esquimalt more than fourteen hundred. In this entire region there were not more than 12,000 white inhabitants.40 It was difficult, in his opinion, "to recognize any commercial advantage in carrying the line to Esquimalt at this period in the history of Canada to compensate for these grave objections ;" and after considering the engineering features of each route, and weighing carefully the commercial considerations,41 he was forced to the conclusion that, if a decision could not be further postponed, some point on Burrard Inlet should be selected as the terminus.42 40 The actual figures were probably nearer 20,000. 41 What the chief engineer had to do with commercial considerations he does not explain. ^Fleming's Rept. Can. Pac. Railway, 1878, 12-14. The chief engineer, in the correspondence, queries, and nautical evidence respecting harbors and waters in B. C, 283, says: 'The railway lines which have been projected across the Rocky Mountain zone touch the navigable waters of the Pacific at the following inlets: 1. Burrard Inlet; 2. Howe Sound; 3. Bute Inlet; 4. Bentick Arm, North; 5. Dean Inlet; 6. Gardner Inlet; 7. Skeena River.* In reply to questions propounded by Fleming to naval officers in high command, as to the selection of a terminus, there was little difference of opinion. In answer to the question, \ Could large sea-going ships approaching by the middle channel pass without danger or difficulty through by Johnston Strait to Burrard Inlet, Howe Sound, or Waddington Harbor (near the head of Bute Inlet)?' Admiral Cochrane answered, 'No;' Admiral Richards: 'The approach would always be attended with some danger;' Admiral Farquhar, that he understood from officers under his orders that the navigation was ' intricate and difficult for large vessels (even steamers)^ and impracticable for ocean sailing vessels.' In answer to the request, ' Ilaving regard to naval and commercial considerations, mention the point on the coast which appears to you the most suitable for the railway terminus,' Cochrane answered: 'I am of belief that the most advantageous site for the tenninus is, as before stated, that of Burrard Inlet; Richards: 'From a nautical point of view, Burrard Inlet is everyway preferable;' Commander Pender: \Burrard Inlet is, in my opinion, preferable to either of the other places named.* Carnarvon's despatch to Earl Dufferin, in Id., 1877, 278 et seq. To Dean Inlet a line was instrumentally surveyed, and a very favorable route was found, but it had high gradients for some distance from the sea. While neither the harbor nor the sea approach to it proved as good as was expected, the route and terminus at Dean Inlet were found in every respect superior to Bute Inlet. To Bute Inlet the railway was, besides, fifty miles longer, even to the head of the inlet; and it was quite clear that it would have to be built on to Frederic Arm, at the north side of the mouth of the inlet. Furthermore, the navigation, either north to Queen Charlotte Sound or south toward Fuca Straits, presented serious difficulties. So well aware were the Bute-Inlet-or-nothing party of the difficulties here mentioned, that the inlet as a terminal harbor, or as of any permanent importance to the railway, was thrown out of the calculation (says Mackenzie); and the terminal COMPLETION OF THE ROAD. 687 Early in November 1885 the Canadian Pacific railway was completed from Montreal to Port Moody, the last rail being laid at Eagle Pass,43 some twenty miles from the second crossing of the Columbia.44 The work was finished more than five years before the date required in the Carnarvon terms, as much as four miles of road having been built on some sections in a day, and twenty-two miles in a week. The cost of the undertaking far exceeded the early estimates, some of which were placed as low as $60,000,000, while the actual outlay was probably more than double that sum, most of the amount expended being drawn from Europe. In London and Paris the syndicate raised nearly all its funds, mortgaging for this purpose its enormous land grant, besides selling at fair prices considerable portions of the most fertile tracts. That the Canadian Pacific would, in the near future, pay dividends on the original outlay was not expected. The main purpose was to establish overland communication within British America, and to open up for settlement the vast, uninhabited, and roadless wilds of interior Canada. In the work of exploration alone more than 50,000 miles were surveyed, of which at least 15,000 were carefully measured, at an expense of some $4,000,000, by chain and spirit-level, through difficulty was avoided by proposing to continue the railway 250 or 300 miles farther than to the head of Dean or Burrard Inlet, and to make the terminus at Esquimalt, on Vancouver Island. 43 So named by Engineer Walker Moberly, who in 1865 was ordered to search out a pass for a wagon route through Gold Mountains. He had well- nigh abandoned his task as hopeless, when one day he observed an eagle flying up one of the narrow valleys near Lake Shuswap, and following the direction of its flight, discovered the pass. Portland West Shore, Dec. 1885, 360. u On this occasion a train, consisting of the official car, a sleeper, and baggage-car, arrived from Winnipeg, making the distance of 1,022 miles to the first crossing of the Columbia in 32^ hours, and stopping a short distance from the end of the track. The honor of driving the last spike was granted to D. Smith, Major Rogers, a civil engineer in the company's employ, holding the tie. The ceremony was not a very demonstrative one, not more than 150 persons being present. As the last blow was struck, cheers were given for the success of the enterprise, and Manager Van Home, being requested to make a few remarks on the occasion, merely replied, 'All that I have got to say is, that the work was well done in every way.' Van Home had been connected -vfcth the line since 1871, when there were but 15 miles constructed. S. F. Alta, Nov. 9, 1885. 688 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. mountain, forest, and prairie. The coast of British Columbia, with its countless fiords, flanked by mountains reaching far above the limit of perpetual snow, was repeatedly explored in the search for a suitable terminus. The northern portion of the province was mapped, at least as far north as Port Simpson, by men who, after laboring in vain amidst extreme peril and hardship, were compelled to abandon it once more to its primeval solitude. In the interior of British Columbia are still vast districts as yet almost untrodden by the foot of civilized man, though forming little more than a speck when compared with the deserts of the dominion. The entire area of Canada is but little smaller than that of Europe; and excluding from each, as almost worthless, the portion within the Arctic circle, it will be found that the surface of the former is equal to that of all the empires, kingdoms, principalities, and republics between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Covering the broadest and not the least fertile portion of the continent, with an almost endless extent of vacant land, an invigorating climate, and unlimited resources; with valuable fisheries in the lakes and rivers, and around the coasts; with boundless forests within reach of navigable water; with immense deposits of coal and iron, gold and silver, copper and lead, on the seaboards and in the interior;—with all these elements of wealth, the question was, how to develop a region thus lavishly provided. This railway is the answer. But the railway was projected also as a*portion of a great national highway, extending from Great Britain to the Indies, and to many portions of the British empire. Esquimalt, the naval station, and probably destined to be the arsenal of the province, was from Liverpool at least a three months' voyage by steamer, while via Halifax and by rail it could be reached in a fortnight. By the construction of this line, the Australian colonies, New Zealand, and every portion of COMPARISONS. 689 England's possessions, both in the North and South Pacific, would be more or less benefited; while to Canada herself, ranking already among the great maritime powers of the world, with a shipping trade greater than that of Germany, and at least twice that of Spain or Kussia, a transcontinental railway under her own control was an advantage worth any reasonable outlay. Whether the building of the Canadian Pacific railway was a somewhat premature enterprise, and whether the line could have been built at smaller cost to the dominion, are questions which I shall not discuss. With the overland roads between San Francisco and New York, or between San Francisco and New Orleans, no fair comparison can be made, not only on account of the disparity of population, but because the latter were mainly commercial enterprises. Perhaps the nearest counterpart may be found in the Australian railroads, and especially in the one between Sydney and Melbourne, many of these lines being the property of the government, and most of them operated at a small profit, on an average probably some two or three per cent. In the Australian colonies, as in the dominion, a large extent of difficult but worthless and unoccupied country was traversed, though the obstacles encountered in the former were by comparison of little moment. In 1873, Canada, with a population somewhat under four millions, a trade of about $218,000,000, a debt of at least $100,000,000, and a rate of taxation equal to $4.58 per capita, contained 2,639 miles of railroad; while in Australia, with less than two millions of people, a trade of $360,000,000, a debt of $32,000,000, and an income derived from taxes and land sales of $5.35 per capita, there were at the same date some 1,500 miles in operation. The volume of trade in either instance includes only exports and imports, and the difference in its ratio to population may be partly Hist. Barr. Col. U 690 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. explained by the paucity of manufactures in the Australian colonies, their most valuable products being shipped to England. Apart from this consideration, it will be seen that in relation to the revenue, debt, and population of the two countries, there was no great disproportion in the extent of their railroads, and twelve years later the disproportion had certainly not been altered in favor of Canada. It would appear, however, that, in the construction of the Canadian Pacific, the dominion added to her burdens all that she could bear, and that the completion of the task according to the strict letter of the terms of union would have driven her to the verge of bankruptcy. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that if the members of the provincial legislature had been less persistent in their demands; if they had acted in the matter not merely as colonists, but as representatives of an integral portion of the dominion and of the British, empire; if they had accepted the spirit as well as the letter of the Carnarvon terms, whereby the completion of the road was to be deferred until the close of 1890, not insisting on the immediate fulfilment of the contract at whatever cost—Esquimalt would have been finally selected as the terminus. None knew better than did the citizens of Victoria that the senate of the dominion was not bound to ratify an agreement proposed by the ministry,45 and the rejection of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo bill by the upper house of Canada was no fair pretext for an overt threat of secession. The warning uttered by Dufferin was not in vain. The line of the Canadian Pacific has been deflected toward the south.. Burrard Inlet already contains a small but thriving commercial port, and the capital of the province has thus far reaped but little benefit from the transcontinental line of British America. 45 The action taken by the senate was indorsed by the imperial government. See Stat. Brit. Cot, 1882, 75. NEW RAILWAYS. 691 Meanwhile new lines of road have been projected in several portions of the province. In April 1882 an act was passed incorporating the New Westminster and Port Moody Railway Company, with a capital stock of $200,000.46 In May 1883 the New Westminster Southern was incorporated by statute, with a capital of $600,000.47 On the same date were also incorporated the Columbia and Kootenai Railway and Transportation Company with a capital of $5,000,000, and the Fraser River Railway Company with a capital of $500,000. By the terms of its contract, the former was required to construct, equip, and work a continuous line of road from the outlet of Kootenai Lake, through the Selkirk Range, to a point on the Columbia as near as practicable to its junction with Kootenai River, and to build and run a line of steamers from that point to the spot on the west bank of the former stream where the Canadian Pacific strikes it, near Eagle Pass.48 The route of the latter was from a point on the forty-ninth parallel near Semiahmoo Bay,49 to connect with the Canadian Pacific near its western terminus,50 and thence to New Westminster district. 46 The original stockholders were Ebenezer Brown, James Cunningham, Robt Dickinson, John Hendry, Wm N. Bole, Loftus R. Mclnnes, and John Irving, all of New Westminster. The line was to be commenced within one year and to be completed within four years from the passing of the act, j from a point in the city of New Westminster to a point at or near Port Moody, or elsewhere on Burrard Inlet, or to a point between Port Moody and Pitt River.' Stat. Brit. Cot, 1884, 65-6. By.act of Feb. 18, 1884, the time for commencement was extended to Jan. 1, 1886, and for completion to Jan. 1, 1888. 47 Hugh Nelson, Thos R. Mclnnes, Joshua A. R. Homer, Ebenezer Brown, Jos. Hunter, Chas M. Carter, and Gordon E. Corbould were the first shareholders. The line of route was a little indefinite—'from some point near the 49th parallel of north latitude between Semiahmoo Bay and Township 16, in the district of New Westminster, to the city of New Westminster, and to some point on Burrard Islet.' 48Also a line of steamers 'from that point on Kootenai River where the southern boundary line of British Columbia intersects the said river, thence down the said river to Kootenai Lake, and through and throughout said lake and its navigable tributaries.' m *• Between the bay and the eastern line of township 22, New Westminster district. ^ 60 Between the terminus and the eastern line of township 27, New Westminster district. The line was to be commenced within two years and finished within five years after the passing of the act. The stockholders were Robt 692 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. Finally, in August 1883, a contract was made with a party of capitalists for the construction of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway and telegraph line, with a subsidy of $750,000, the amount to be contributed by the dominion government, together with a liberal grant of land,51 the capital stock being $3,000,000. The contractors were required to commence work immediately, and to complete and equip the line on or before the 10th of June, 1887, time being declared as of the essence of the contract; and in default of such completion within the date specified, the contractors were to forfeit the subsidy, land grant, and the amount to be deposited as security with the receiver-general.52 The road, with its equipments, was to be exempt from taxation for ten years after completion, and all the W. Deane, Loftus R. Mclnnes, Justus Howison, Jas A. Clark, Henry Elliott* Jas A. Laidlaw, Henry V. Edmonds, Donald Chisholm, Chas G. Major, Alex. Ewen, John A. Webster, John S. McDonald, John Adair, and Sam. Trapp. Id. 1883, 103-4. On the 12th of May, 1883, the Victoria Transfer Company Limited was incorporated, with a capital of $50,000, its main purpose being to build and work street-railroads in Victoria and Esquimalt, and their neighborhood. Acts of incorporation for each company will be found in Stat. B. C. for their several years. 51 On the eastern side of the island; bounded by straight lines drawn from the head of Saanich Inlet to Muir Creek, on the Fuca Straits; thence west to Crown Mountain, and thence north to Seymour Narrows, and on the east by the coast line to the point of commencement, 'including all coal, coal-oil, ores, stones, clay, marble, slate, mines, minerals, and substances whatsoever thereupon, therein, and thereunder.' From this tract there was excepted the portion lying to the northward of a line running east and west half-way between the mouth of Courtenay River and Seymour Narrows. For four years, commencing from Dec. 19, 1883, the entire grant, excepting of course the mineral lands, was to be open for agricultural settlement at the rate of $1 per acre, the government issuing preemption records for 160 acres to actual settlers. See 'Act relating to the Island Railway, the Graving Dock, and Railway Lands of the Province' (approved Dec. 19, 1883), in Stat. B. C, 1884, 62, 64, 67. In the same statute it was enacted that the dominion government should take over and complete, and operate as a dominion work, the dry-dock at Esquimalt, being entitled to the lands, approaches, and plants belonging to it, and the appropriation of the imperial government, paying to the province the amount expended or remaining due for work and material, and a further sum of $250,000. In order finally to settle all disputes with the dominion, it Was also enacted that 3,500,000 acres, in the portion of the Peace River district lying east of the Rocky Mountains and adjoining the northwest territory of Canada, should be transferred in one rectangular block, to be located by the dominion. For correspondence, reports, etc., relating to these disputes and their settlement, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, 157-72, 187-8, 201-2. 52 The sum of $250,000 in cash, on which they were to be paid four per cent interest after the fulfilment and acceptance of the contract. 53 PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 693 material used in its construction was to be admitted free of duty. The character of the line was to be in all respects equal to that of the Canadian Pacific/" and the company was required to maintain it in running order, and to work it "continuously and in good faith."54 It is among the possibilities of the future that this line may be extended northward, and that the terminus on the mainland be eventually at Bute Inlet, and on the island at Esquimalt, the former point being connected with Vancouver by suspension bridges, or steam-ferries, when traffic shall be sufficiently developed to justify the outlay.55 53 With the same gauge, the alignments, gradients, and curvatures being the best that the physical features of the country would permit, the grades not to exceed 80 feet to the mile. The width of cuttings was to, be 20 feet, and of embankments 16 feet. All bridges, culverts, etc., were to be of ample size and strength, equal to the best description of work on the Canadian Pacific. Sufficient rolling stock, and all buildings necessary for the accommodation of traffic, were to be furnished by the contractors. 64 The full text of the contract will be found in Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, 183-6. 55 Among the most valuable authorities consulted in this and the preceding chapter may be mentioned a Memorandum on the Terms of Union and the Pacific Railway, by Alexander Mackenzie, MS., wherein I have been supplied with a clear, brief, and succinct account of the subject-matters. The material furnished by the former premier of the dominion contains, not a statement of his own views, but a statement of the facts, so far as he knew them. It was fortunate for the dominion that, at this juncture in her history, a man of Mackenzie's intuitive caution and foresight had sway for a time over the interests of his adopted country, and for several years, as leader of the opposition, held in check the more ambitious designs of Sir John A. Macdonald. In the Papers in Connection with the Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, between the Dominion, Imperial, and Provincial Governments, in Sessional Papers, B. C, 1881, 139-310, are copies of all the official correspondence relating to the Canadian Pacific, between the 14th of August, 1869, and the 8th of May, 1880. On the former date, while yet the question of confederation had not assumed definite shape, Earl Granville, in a despatch to Governor Musgrave, then recently appointed, says: 'It is evident that the establishment of a British line of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is far more feasible by the operations of a single government responsible for the progress of both shores of the continent than by the bargain negotiated between separate, perhaps in some respects rival, governments and legislatures.' On the 8th of May, 1880. the provincial legislature granted to the dominion, as we have seen, the lands required in the terms of the revised agreement, the contract with the syndicate having been then probably concluded, though not officially announced. In the Correspondence relating to the Canadian Pacific Railway are a few of the more important despatches relating to this controversy, though all of them are contained in the Sessional Papers of 1881. In that year, A. De Cosmos was ordered by the provincial legislature to proceed to London in order to support the petition to the imperial government. He appears to have performed his duty faithfully. In a despatch to the Marquis of Lome, dated Aug. 25, 1881, acknowledging the 694 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. receipt of the petition and of the report of the privy council, the earl of Kim, berley writes: 'I have also had the advantage of several interviews with Sir J. A. Macdonald and with Mr De Cosmos, and I will now proceed to communicate to you the conclusions which I have formed on the subject.. .Having regard'to the statements and representations which have been made tome on the part of the dominion government and of the province respectively, I am of opinion that: 1st, the construction of a light line of railway from Nanaimo to Esquimalt; 2d, the extension without delay of the line to Port Moody; and 3d, the grant of reasonable compensation in money for the failure to complete the work within the term of ten years, as specified in the conditions of union—would offer a fair basis for a settlement of the whole question.' An account of the emissary's negotiations will be found in the Papers relating to the Mission of the Hon. A. De Cosmos. The Opinions of the English Press on the British Columbian Railway Question, Victoria, 1877, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Routes, Victoria, 1877, are pamphlets containing extracts from the Pall Mall Gazette, Saturday Review, London Standard, and British Colonist, the last touching only on the question of the terminus. In The Dominion of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway, by Wm Wilson, Victoria, 1874, is an ex parte statement of the case, as it then stood, from the provincial standpoint, and one for which the preface is a rather unfortunate selection from Dufferin's speech at Simcoe, on the 27th of August, 1874: ' The time has come for laying aside sectional differences, and for combining in one grand effort to create a nationality that shall know no distinction from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.' Vancouver Island and British Columbia, their History, Resources, and Prospects, by Matthew Macfie, F. R. G. S., London, 1865, was, as its author claims, the first work, published in Great Britain, containing full and classified information on the various topics relating to the colonies of V. I. and B. C. In scope and arrangement, it must be admitted that the book is much to be preferred to the one published by D. G. Forbes Macdonald under a similar title, although the latter reached a third edition in 1863. Mr Macfie, who resided for five years in Victoria, devotes the first six chapters of his work mainly to an account of the topography, geology, geography, history, and resources of V. I,, which he terms 'the England of the Pacific,' two of them treating mainly of the gold discovery, and of the trade, progress, and condition of the capital. Then follow chapters relating to the commerce, the mining and agricultural interests, and the fauna and flora of the mainland; concluding with a description of society and of the Indian tribes, the last chapter containing some excellent advice to intending emigrants. The following is an additional list of references to authorities consulted in the preceding chapters: Hansard's Part Deb., vol. clxxii. 51-61, clxvi. 2023-4, and clxvii. 545, 1404-5; Confed. Mess., 35-40; Dom. Min. Privy Council, Dec. 18, 1884; Sess. Papers, B. C, 1875-85, passim; The Geol. Survey, Can. (B. Westminter & Co., N. Y., Dawson Bros, Montreal, 1880); Papers Proposed Union B. C. and V. I. (London, Eyre & Spottis- woode, 1866); the .files of the London Times; Ev. MaU; PaU MaU Gazette; Sat. Review; Standard; Victoria, Brit. Col., Standard, Telegraph; Dom. Pac. Herald; Mainland Guardian; Toronto Globe; London (Ont.) Advertiser; Good's Brit. Cot, MS.; De Cosmos, Government, MS.; Sketches, B. C, MS.; Bayley's Vancouver Island, MS., passim; Acts, B. C, 1871, nos 3, 13, 14, 16, 17, 23; Stat. B. C, 1880, 39^0; Id., 1881, 17; Id., 1882, 3, 65-75; Id*, 1883, 25-8, 39-45, 95-101, 103-11, 113-15, 149-52; Jour. Legisl. Council, 1864, 2, 4-5, 29, 31, 39, 41-4; Id., 1864-5, 1-5, app. iv.-vi.; Id., 1866, 1-4, 39-40, app. i.; Id., 1867, 1-6, 61, 64, 71-2, app. xvL; Id., 1868, 1-3, 11-12, 25-7, 40-1, app. i.-iii., xvii.-xix.; Id., 1869, 2-5, 44-6,70-1; Id., 1870, 2-4,. 28-35, 62-3, app. i.-ii.; Id., 1871, 2-6, 14-17, 23, 27, app. 52; Jour. Legisl. Ass., 1873-4, v.-viii., 1-3, app. iii. 3-16, vi. 1-8, vii. 1-4, 49-67, 85-90; Id., 1875, vii.-xiii. 1-2, app. 487-541, 585-96, 665-86; Id., 1876, viL- xiii.; Id., 1877, vii.-xi. 3; Id., 1878, vii.-xi. 3, 71-6, 105-6; Id., 1879, xiii.- xiv.; Id., 1880, xi.-xvi.; Id., 1881, 3-4, 50-2, app. 64; Id., 1882, ix.-xv. 3, AUTHORITIES. 695 26, 29, 34, 44, 46-8, 50-3; Id., 1883, 2; Sess. Papers, B. C, 1876, 57-72, 165-328,565-92, 637-46, 673-6, 731-2, 737, 751-7; Id., 1877,359-72, 375-84, 389, 400, 431, 449-74; Id., 1878, 379-88, 415-16, 549; Id., 1880, 327-59; Id., 1881,189, 260-1;.Id., 1883, 453; Id., 1884, 157, 183, 325; Indian Land Question, Brit. Cot, 26, 29-36, 38-9, 41-3, 47, 54-7, 64-8, 95-6, 104-6, 154, 165-6; S. F. Alta, Bulletin, Call, Chronicle, Herald, Post, Times, passim; Sacramento Union, Aug. 24, 1855; Oct. 4, 1856; Apr. 25, 1857; June 9, July 9, 10, Aug. 9, 26, Sept. 2, 6, 1859; Mar. 3, Aug. 29, Sept. 15, Nov. 23, 1860; June 21, July 13, 20, 1861; June 1, 1863; Feb. 15, 1884; St Helena Star, Aug. 27, 1880; B. C. Directory, 1882-3, 1884-5, passim; Chittenden's Travels in Brit. Cot, 31-7; St Helena (Cal.) Star, Aug. 27, 1880; Harper's Mag., Aug. 1882; Portland (Or.) West Shore, Dec. 1885, 359-62; Ev. Telegram, Feb. 20, Mar. 22, 29, 1879. CHAPTEE XXXIV, POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. 1870-1886. Tan Victoria and Esquimalt Railway—Protest of the Mainland Population—The Carnarvon Club—Secession or the Carnarvon Terms—Defeat of the Elliott Ministry—A Lively Debate—Thb Legislature Votes for Separation—Discontent in the Capital— Cornwall Appointed Chief Magistrate—Government of British Columbia—The Suffrage—Proceedings of the Legislature—The Judiciary. In the preceding chapters I have endeavored to lay before the reader the main incidents in relation to the Canadian Pacific Railway, avoiding, as far as possible, the political issues to which the project gave rise in British Columbia, as a matter apart from the disputes and negotiations' between the province and the dominion. At the first mention of the scheme, in connection with the terms of union, certain parties in Victoria raised the cry of "no terminus, no confederation;"1 and the question of the Bute Inlet route as against Burrard Inlet was discussed and remarkably well understood as early as 1870. In December of that year a petition was presented to the governor- general, praying that if, after the surveys had been completed, it should be found impracticable at once to extend the line to Vancouver Island, then a road should be constructed between Victoria, Esquimalt, JThe Victoria Standard of Oct. 13,1870, declared that no candidate ought to be returned for that city who would not pledge himself to vote for confederation onlv on condition that Victoria or Esquimalt be made the terminus. (696) RAILROAD POLITICS. 697 and Nanaimo, on the same conditions as were granted to the mainland sections.2 When it was announced by the Macdonald ministry that Esquimalt had been selected as the terminus, an incorporation was organized and chartered by the local legislature, early in 1873, under the style of the Victoria and Esquimalt Railway Company, the length of the proposed line being three and a half miles.3 In July of that year certain members of the government proceeded to Esquimalt, and after driving the first stake for the location survey of the Canadian Pacific at the south-east corner of the dock-yard fence, hoisted a flag upon it, and quaffed champagne in honor of the occasion. Two days later the location for the terminus was selected by the same parties, the ceremony consisting of marking one of the posts at the northwest corner of the fence enclosing the admiral's residence at Thetis Cove with the inscription, C. P. R. S., July 19, 1873. Several hundred yards of trail were cut through brush, though no sod was turned under official authority, Helmcken, who was present as the representative of the Allen company in the Pacific province, declining to officiate. On the same date a telegram was received from Ottawa, stating that the commencement of the location survey was not in conflict with the terms of union, the limit of 2 The petitioners desired to have a clause to this effect embodied in the terms of union. In his reply, dated Ottawa, Dec. 31, 1870, Lord Lisgar said that the route could only be determined after confederation, and after exploration and survey, in which B. C. would be duly represented; that the interests of the whole dominion, including those of V. I., would then be considered; but not until then could the question of a branch road be entertained. Brit. Colonist, Jan 11, 1871. 8 The company was empowered by its charter to condemn lands, and was required to commence building within a year, and to complete the road within two years. In the Consot Stat., B. C, 1877, 614, the time for commencement was extended to July 1876, and for completion to July 1877. Thus, remarked the Colonist of Feb. 26, 1873, - there were two great railway companies—the Canadian Pacific, with a capital of $180,000,000, $10,000,000 paid up, and the Victoria and Esquimalt Railway Company, with $175 paid up;' the object of the latter being to capture the site of the terminus, and the principal parties interested being the champions of the 'no terminus, no confederation' idea. r 698 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. time for the commencement of the line -expiring on the following day.* A year later, after .the downfall of Macdonald, meetings were held at Yale and New Westminster, at which the entire action of the people of Vancouver Island on the railroad issue was repudiated, and their right denied to speak in the name of British Columbia. It was also declared that the beginning or completion of the island road would in no way affect the Canadian Pacific.6 On the defeat of the island railway bill, however, and the refusal to accept $750,000 as compensation, the premier of the dominion dealt with the provincial administration as with one whose interests were entirely identified with the island line, which placed that line before the Canadian Pacific, and whose tenure of office depended on the persistence with which they urged the fulfilment of this portion of the Carnarvon terms. Thenceforth, as we have seen, the principal bone of contention between the two governments was the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railroad. Early in 1876 the attention of the people of Victoria was called to the fact that E. Brown, president of the provincial council, and Forbes George Vernon, chief commissioner for lands and works under the Elliott administration,6 were in favor of accepting the offer of the dominion government.7 In the summer of that year was organized at the capital the Carnar- *Brit. Colonist, July 20, 1873. 5 At Lillooet and Spellmans, in the Lillooet district, meetings were also held, at which similar resolutions were adopted. Colonist, July 12, 15, 1874. 6 Which succeeded to that of George A. Walkem in Feb. 1876. A list of the members of the legislative council and assembly of V. I. during the colonial period, and of the members of the executive council during the provincial period, will be found in the Brit. Cot Direct. 7 Wherefore the ministry was roundly abused by a portion of the Victoria press. 'Do not trust a premier,' said the Standard, in its issue of Feb. 9, 1876, * who says one thing and means another.' To this the |pvernment organ rejoined that one would have thought the Walkem administration had done enough to injure the country, in linking its fortunes with the conservatives, to cure its contemporary and the men whom it supported of their penchant for party politics. B. C. had no interests in common with either of the .political parties at Ottawa. Brit. Colonist, Feb. 17, 1876. CARNARVON CLUB DEMANDS. 699 von club, by the members of which threats of secession were openly avowed in default of the execution of the Carnarvon terms, the visit of Lord Dufferin appearing rather to increase than diminish their clamor. When, in reply to an address from the citizens of Yale deprecating the threat of secession, Governor Albert Norton Richards8 observed that his ministers "did not sympathize with the view that separation must follow as a result of the non-commencement of the island railway," the Carnarvon club demanded an interview with Elliott on business of great public importance.9 Giving audience to a deputation from the club, the premier was asked: "Did the government indorse the sentiment expressed in the governor's reply to the Yale address?" The answer was in the negative; the premier observing that the address was of a mixed nature, containing "a little good and a great deal of an objectionable character;" whereupon the members urged him not merely to repudiate the responsibility of what the lieutenant-governor had said, but to "make him take back his words or stop his supplies." Elliott remarked that the governor received his supplies in the form of a stipend from Ottawa. The Carnarvon club then asked whether the provincial legislature could not reach the matter in some other way—by refusing to pay the salary of the governor's private secretary, or to supply materials needed at the gubernatorial residence. For a moment the premier was staggered; but he was equal to the occasion, and with the versatility of a statesman, replied that he was hardly prepared for such a question. He hoped that before the next session of the house the railroad difficulty would be adjusted, and that addresses and replies would be forgottei. He could Successor to Trutch, who held office from July 1871 to July 1876, Richards being appointed for the ensuing five years. 9 Richards had said, moreover, to the people of Yale: 'I have no doubt but what your views are those entertained by the people of the province at large/ 700 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. not say, however, at a moment's notice what the government might or might not do if no satisfactory settlement were made.10 The deputation then departed, fully satisfied that the interests of the province were safe in Mr Elliott's keeping.11 In January 1877 there were observed at Victoria evidences of unusual activity among the leaders of the two parties. On the convening of the local legislature, Elliott was vigorously attacked by Walkem, Beaven,12 and others, for sacrificing the island railway, and aiding Mackenzie in his repudiation policy.13 A public meeting was held at Victoria on the 3d of March, with a view to demand separation or the Edgar-Carnarvon compromise terms, the one or the other, and in any event the removal of Elliott's non-Carnarvon ministers. A committee was appointed to wait on the premier and ascertain what course he intended to pursue with regard to the chief commissioner of lands and works, who, it was reported, had declared himself opposed to forcing the island railway and the Bute Inlet terminus on the dominion government. Another mass-meeting was held shortly afterward, when resolutions were adopted demanding the resignation of Elliott. In the local parliament Walkem, in discussing a motion respecting the Edgar-Carnarvon terms, remarked that the secret of the change in Carnarvon's views, as to the island railway, was to be found in the influence brought to bear on Dufferin by members of the Elliott government; and Vernon did not deny having advised the governor-general not to undertake the construction of this line. The change to which he referred is probably the 10 Toronto Globe, in Brit. Colonist, Dec. 12, 1876. 11 If we can believe the Ottawa Times, the Carnarvon club was regarded at the capital of the dominion as a dangerous organization, and one with pro- American leanings. To this the Standard replied, in its issue of Nov. 1, 1876: 1 The club is undoubtedly dangerous to Canadian repudiators, but there is no fear of pro-American leanings if the railway contract.be carried out.' 12 Robert Beaven was chief commissioner of lands and works from Dec 1772 to Jan. 1876; was appointed minister of finance and agriculture Feb. 28, 1873, and held the latter office from June 1878 to June 1882. 13 Standard, March 2, 5, Feb. 27, 1877. THE ELLIOTT MINISTRY! 701 one mentioned in the earl's despatch to the governor- general, dated December 18, 1876, wherein, after weighing the considerations on either side, he says: "I wish you to inform your advisers and the provincial government that, while I do not feel myself in a position to decline to entertain the representations pressed upon me by the province, I am nevertheless at this moment unable to pronounce an opinion as to the course which should be taken, either with regard to the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, or with regard to the delays which have occurred or may yet occur in the construction of the main line."1* The followers of the government said that Walkem should be ashamed to follow a leader who had not the courage to show them where the battle was. The ministry must not be allowed to shirk such an important question.15 Elliott's ministry endeavored to control the movement by giving way to it; but in vain. In March 1878 Walkem introduced a resolution in the assembly declaring that if railway construction were not commenced by May 1879, the legislature would demand separation. The Elliott party opposed, pleading that it would be better not to press Canada for another year. In June the Elliott ministry resigned, George A. Walkem, whose second term of office lasted for four years, being again called to the head of affairs. Further action on the resolution was deferred until September. Meanwhile the Mackenzie administration was attacked by the conservatives at Ottawa on the island railway question. On the 23d of March, ^Correspondence rel. Can. Pac. Railway, 15-16. 15 Mr Mara, a member for the mainland, said, on the 3d of April, 1877, that he had strongly opposed the administration of Walkem, as he had been struggling hard for surveys down the Fraser River. If the Esquimalt line and Bute Inlet line had been commenced, it would have been fatal to the Fraser River route. There were no lands fit for settlement on the island, and the expenditure would be useless. In the interior was a region which must be opened up to be in any manner available. It was not in the interest of the whole province that the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway should be commenced first. Standard, April 4, 1877. r 702 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. 1876, a question was asked in the senate as to the purchase of 5,000 tons of steel rails which had been landed at Esquimalt before the line had even been surveyed. The answer was, that the Esquimalt and Nanaimo project had been indorsed by the commons, and that the government was justified in taking advantage of a low market for the purchase of rails. The fact, however, that in 1878, some three years after the railway bill was defeated in the senate, the rails were in process of removal to Yale, was regarded by the opposition in the provincial legislature as an electioneering job. On this and other points, issue was taken in the local parliament, and when Walkem's resolution was again brought before the house a lively debate ensued. Basil Humphreys, provincial secretary and minister of mines, said no one could think that the removal of the rails was in good faith, for the purpose of construction; and they should scout this last deliberate insult of the Canadian government. They were now appealing to the imperial government in a manner not resorted to hitherto, and one which would prove effectual. Every argument had been exhausted, and every legitimate means used, to obtain their just rights, without success. Mr Beaven said it was evident that Canada never intended to build the road. Since confederation, the expenditures of the dominion had exceeded the revenue by over a million dollars annually. Was it reasonable, he asked, for them to expect that a railway to cost more than a hundred million dollars could be built without increasing the rate of taxation? He observed that tenders were invited for the construction of 125 miles of .road from Yale to Kamloop, but this he regarded as a mere trick, designed for electioneering purposes. Mr Abrams said a government that could stoop so low as to cripple, in the way they had done, the late Walkem administration, was an enemy to the province. Dr Ash, who, as provincial secretary under Walkem, FINANCIAL ASPECTS. 703 assisted in obtaining the Edgar-Carnarvon settlement, opposed the resolution on the ground that it would deprive British Columbia of all claim to the building of the road. He recommended a modification, if necessary, of the Carnarvon terms. To this Walkem replied that the doctor well knew that Edgar's proposals were unauthorized, and that it required an order in council to sanction them before they could be entertained. Commissioners were merely channels of communication; with negotiations they had nothing to do. The resolution was adopted by a vote of seventeen to nine.16 Between 1871 and 1878 some ten millions of dollars were expended by the dominion government for the surveys and construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, of which sum about $1,300,000 was appropriated for surveys in British Columbia; but as yet not a single dollar had been expended on construction within the province. It was claimed, moreover, that during this period the contribution of British Columbia to the consolidated fund of the dominion exceeded its proportion to the liability more than a million, the average taxation for 1878 being $9 per capita for the province, as against $5.34 for the dominion.17 It would seem that as yet the former had gained nothing by confederation save the phantom of an unrealized dream. No wonder that there were not a few, and these by no means destitute of intelligence, who, after considering the general bearings of the matter, came to the conclusion that it would have been better to remain an independent colony under the home government than to have united with Canada. Moreover, as I have said, the population of the capital contained a large percentage of Americans, always impatient of control, and especially of dominion control. It should not be ignored, however, that before confederation the province was burdened with a debt that hung like 16 An account of the debate will be found in the Standard, Sept. 4, 1878. 17 Papers ret Mission De Cosmos, 65. 704 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. a millstone around its neck, was virtually bankrupt, and that men had lost faith in its power of recuperation. The terms of union relieved the people of their most oppressive burdens, enlarged their interests, and made them rich, at least in promised greatness. Concerning the government and political annals of British Columbia, there is but little more worthy of record. It may indeed be stated, however, that for many years the latter were so intimately connected with the affairs of the Canadian Pacific railway, that the history of one is almost the history of the other. As in other provinces, the chief magistrate was appointed by the governor-general of Canada and held office for five years, this position being filled, between July 1881 and July 1886, by Clement Francis Cornwall, formerly a member of the Canadian senate.18 Regulations pertaining to customs and excise, trade and navigation, the militia, the postal service, and the administration of justice, together with such other matters as elsewhere in Canada fell under dominion control, were for the most part framed by the privy council, with the advice and consent of parliament, while the province, of course, retained control of its local affairs. In that parliament British Columbia was represented by three senators and six members of the commons, her own legislative assembly consisting of twenty-five members, elected by the people from thirteen districts19 for a term of four years, while of the executive council there were but three members.20 18 Mr Cornwall, a graduate of Cambridge, and a member of the inner temple, is a native of England, and a son of Allan Gardner Cornwall, chaplain in ordinary to the queen. In 1862 he came to B. C, and in partnership with his brother engaged in stock-raising in the neighborhood of Ashcroft, where in 1878 was his country seat. Good's B. C, MS., 53. Elected senator immediately after the confederation, he held that position until his appointment as governor. 19 For the fourth parliament, elected in 1882, there were four members for Victoria City, two for Victoria district, one for the city and two for the district of New Westminster, three for Cariboo, two each for Yale, Esquimalt, Kootenai, Cowichan, and Lillooet, and one each for Nanaimo, Comox, and Cassiar. Their names are given in B. C. Direct., 1882-3/384. 20 In 1S85 the members of the council were Wm Smithe, premier and chief LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS. 705 The cumbersome restrictions on the suffrage existing during the first years of the confederation had now been abolished, registration and twelve months' residence being the only qualifications needed for British subjects,21 and vote being by ballot.22 The proceedings of the legislature between 1872 and 1886 related mainly to municipal affairs, to public improvements,23 to the incorporation of companies, to tolls, taxes, and revenue, to the disposition of the public lands, of all which matters mention will be made later,24 and to the administration of justice, so far as the province was not under the control of the dominion. In 1886 Sir Matthew B. Begbie, appointed chief justice, as will be remembered, in 1858,25 was still at commissioner of lands and wor%s; A. E. B. Davie, atty-gen.; and John Rob- son, provincial sec. •21 According to the terms of the Qualification and Registration of Voters act, 1876, repealing a similar act passed in 1875, the latter repealing a similar act of 1874, and this again repealing acts of 1871 and 1872. For text of the first one, see Stat. B. C, 1870, 21-6. According to its provisions, the franchise was withheld from judges, stipendiary magistrates, and constables, except in certain cases provided in the act; also from persons undergoing sentence for treason, felony, or other infamous offence. The only qualification for a member of the legislature was that he should be duly entered on the register of electors, and should have been a resident of the province for at least twelve months before the date of his election. 22 According to rules prescribed in Id., 1877, 81-7, the polling-places were to bo furnished with a number of compartments, in which the electors could •mark their votes while screened from observation. Each ballot-paper was to contain a list of the candidates alphabetically arranged. The ^elector on receiving the ballot-paper must enter one of the compartments and mark it with a cross opposite the name of the candidates for whom he preferred to vote. He must then fold it so as to conceal the names of the candidates, the marks on its face, and the printed numerals on its back, though displaying the official mark thereon to the presiding officer, and depositing his paper, leave the polling station without making known to any one for whom he had voted. Women were entitled to vote at municipal elections. 23 By act of 1872, it was declared lawful for the lieut-gov. to appropriate any real estate, streams, watercourses, etc., which might, in his opinion, be necessary for the use, construction, maintenance, or improvement of any public work, and especially such as he might deem necessary for the construction of the dry-dock at Esquimalt. In case the owner refused to sell, the-chief commissioner of lands and works might tender what he considered a reasonable value, with notice that the matter would be submitted to arbitration, and 30 days thereafter was authorized to take possession. Consol. Stat. B. C. (cd. 1377), 795. 2-JThe laws enacted by the legislature up to 1877 will be found in Id., passim, and after that date in the yearly volumes of the Stat. B. C. For proceedings^ the legislative assembly, see Jour. Legist Ass. B. C. for each year, where will also be found the governor's speeches.' 25 See p. 422, this vol. Hist. Bbit. Col. 45 r 706 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT. the head of the judiciary, being assisted by four puisne judges.26 Next in rank were the county court judges, many of whom had held office since 1861,27 and for each settlement and electoral district were one or more justices of the peace, of whom more than 200 were in office in 1886.28 Thus the law has been brought to every man's door. Of late years it has been matter for congratulation that, notwithstanding variety of race and diversity of interests, peace and order have been maintained without resorting to any unusual expedients. Absolute protection has been afforded to all, without regard to creed or nationality, and even during the construction of the railroad the vast influx of workmen belonging to every nationality merely rendered necessary the appointment of a few additional constables.29 26 H. P. P. Crease, J. Hamilton Gray, John F. McCreight, and George A. Walkem. At this date there were 25 members of the B. C. bar. rt Good's Brit. Cot, MS., 101, says that in 1878 they were favorably known, not only for their experience, but for the skilful and conscientious discharge of their duties. 26 For names, with jurisdiction and address of those in office in 1885, see B. C. Direct., 1884-5, 234-7. 29 For particulars as to the administration of justice between 1856 and 1880,. see chap, xxiii., this vol. Among the enactments relating to the judiciary during the confederation period may be mentioned the County Courts Practitioners act, 1873, whereby all persons were entitled to appear in the county courts, the courts of stipendiary magistrates, and of justices of the peace, as the advocates of parties to any proceedings in such courts, though not qualified practitioners. Consol. Stat. B. C, 1877, 144. By act of 1877, the province was divided into county court districts. In 1872 an act was passed to provide for the holding of circuit courts in connection with the supreme courts. For acts relating to legal professions, see Id., 601-7; Stat. B. C, 1878, 119-20; 1882, 57; 1884, 101-11. By acts of 1879, judicial districts were established for.the judges of the supreme court, and the practice and procedure of the supreme court were amended. In the Local Administration of Justice act, 1881, provision was made whereby proceedings in the supreme court could be determined in any of the judicial districts as effectually as in the city of Victoria. By the Provincial Superior Court act, 1882, there was established a court of record and of original and appellate jurisdiction, styled Her Majesty's Court of Queen's Bench for British Columbia. For act regulating the powers of supreme court judges in cases of appeal, see Id., 1885, 13-14. The Assize Court act, 1885, appoints the dates for holding courts of assize and nisi prius, and of oyer and terminer, and general jail-delivery, at Victoria, Nanaimo, New Westminster, Yale, Kamloop, Clinton, Lytton, and Richfield. For act relating to the jurisdiction and procedure of county courts, see Id., 1885, 17—64; for acts relating to juries and jurors, see Consol. Stat. B. C. (ed. 1877), 315-16; Stat. B. C, 1883, 47-74; 1884, 69; 1885* 79. CHAPTER XXXV. SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. 1861-1886. Victoria—The Ubiquitous Chinaman—Esquimalt—Nanaimo—The Victoria Coal, Mining, and Land Company—New Westminster— Langley—Lytton—Savona's Ferry—Kamloop—Clinton—Barkerville—Yale—Indian Missions and Missionaries—Metlakathla— Forts—Indifference of the Provincial Government—Civilization of the Native Tribes—Churches—Charitable Societies—Public Schools—Journalism—Libraries. "Barely two centuries ago," exclaimed Dr Pickering, who in 1841 passed through the straits of Juan de Fuca on board the exploring ship Vincennes, "our New England shores presented only scenes like that before me; and what is to be the lapse of the third?" At this date an Indian trail and a few Indian wigwams alone marked the presence of man amid the almost untenanted solitudes where now stand the cities of Victoria and New Westminster. In 1861 the population of Victoria mustered about 3,500 white inhabitants, of many nationalities, English and Americans predominating. At that date the grades and cliques into which society resolves itself in older settlements did not as yet exist, even the lordly Douglas being esteemed no better than his fellow-man. More cosmopolitan, perhaps, than were even the San Franciscans in the days when bonanza society and the board of brokers were unknown, the members of this heterogeneous community, gathered from all quarters of the earth, placed themselves on a common level, and had but a common interest—to better their con- (7C7 ) 708 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. dition, vying with each other only in making their lives, and especially their leisure hours, as agreeable as possible under their altered condition. Free from conventional restraint, dwelling in a spot world-famous for the beauty of its scenery, amid magnificent vistas of forests and mountains clad with richest verdure, and in a climate softer than that of the south of England, there are few among the present citizens of Victoria who, after enjoying this brief respite from the whirl and strife of progress and civilization, do not recall with a tinge of sadness those good old times. At this date the Hudson's Bay fort, with its log buildings and its picket palisade, was crumbling into decay. There were but four streets,1 and the most prominent buildings in the capital were the Hudson's Bay store and the bank of British North America. Two years later the city had made considerable progress, containing, early in 1863, about 6,000 people, apart from the migratory population that thronged the town during the winter season, and some 1,500 buildings, among which were substantial warehouses and stores, several commodious hotels, a theatre, a hospital, five churches, and five banking-houses. The value of real estate was also increasing rapidly, frontage on good business streets commanding a monthly rental of three to seven dollars a foot. In 1867 Victoria was incorporated, being divided into three wards, and the municipal council, which consisted of a mayor and seven councillors, having power to make by-laws for regulating, among other matters, the traffic of the city, and the maintenance, repair, and construction of highways, wharves, and bridges; to purchase, hold, and erect buildings on real estate needed for corporate use; to establish markets; to frame measures for the prevention of fire,2 and the lighting of streets; to 1 Named Wharf, Yates, Fort, and Johnson. Good's Brit. Cot, MS., 1. 2 For the support of an efficient fire department, a tax of J of one per cent a year was to be levied on the value of all buildings, and the sum of $300 a year was to be paid by each fire insurance company, together with a rate not exceeding one eighth per cent on the amount of their insurances. In the CITY OF VICTORIA. 709 regulate the drainage, sewerage, and sanitary condition of the city; and to provide for the taking of a census.3 In 1886 the capital contained at least 12,000 inhabitants,4 and in manufactures and commerce ranked, as we shall see later, among the foremost cities of the coast. In the excellence of its highways and drives, Victoria is almost unsurpassed, well-macadamized roads, built during the colonial period, extending for miles through dense forests of pine, across stretches of green meadow-land, over undulating downs, and skirting the pebbly beach along the margin of the bay. Contiguous to the city on its south-eastern side, and bordering on the straits of Juan de Fuca, is the public park, enclosing a spacious tract of great natural beauty. In its centre stands a mound, named Beacon Hill, from which a view is obtained of the eastern portion of the straits, the islands clustered in the Georgian Gulf, and the rugged, snow-capped summit of Mount Baker. Here it was that, during the early days of the company's regime, signal-fires were lighted each night when the annual supply vessel became due, and hence, as she passed Race Bocks, news of her arrival was carried to the miniature settlement gathered around the walls of the old log fort. business part of the town no wooden building was to be erected more than 18 feet, or one story, high, under a penalty of £500 for each month during which such building was erected or in course of erection. 3 The text of the ordinance will be found in the Consol. Stat. B. C. (ed. 1877), 753-69. In 1862, before the union of the two colonies, an act had already been passed for the incorporation of the city of Victoria, for which see B. C. and V. I. Direct., 1863, 94-108. A list of the mayors and councillors from 1862 to 1882 will be found in B. C. Direct., 1882-3, 85-8. At the latter date Noah Shakespeare, a native of Staffordshire, England, filled the position of mayor. Arriving at Victoria in 1863, being then"in his 24th year, he was glad to find employment at one of the Nanaimo collieries, and after accumulating a little money, returned to the capital and engaged in business. From this small beginning he made his way in life, being elected in 1878 to the city council, and in 1882 a member of the dominion commons, and president of the Mechanics' Institute. In politics he was termed a liberal conservative; always had the support of the working classes. In 1885 the mayoralty was held by Robert Paterson Rithet. 4 This was the estimate of directory compilers. The census of 1881 gives the population at 12,000, exclusive of Indians. In the S. F. Bulletin of March 12, 1885, it is given at 10,000 to 12,000. 710 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. Viewed from any of the neighboring eminences, as from the hill near government house, from Mount Tolmie, from Church hill, or from the head of Pandora avenue, the city, which was laid out, not in rectangular blocks, but following the configuration of the land, presents a beautiful appearance. Many of. the private dwellings are embowered in ivy, clematis, honeysuckle, or other creeping plants, and surrounded with orchards, lawns, luxuriant shrubbery, and neatly trimmed gardens. The business portion was quite early for the most part built of brick or stone, and, though none of the structures were pretentious, not a few displayed considerable taste and architectural skill. The government buildings, containing the provincial offices, were situated on a neck of land connected by a substantial bridge with James Bay, and in their front was a gray granite obelisk, erected by the people to the memory of Sir James Douglas. The dominion buildings, including the custom-house, post-office, and marine hospital, and containing accommodation for the federal officers, were well and substantially constructed. Like San Francisco, Victoria had its Chinatown, occupying a considerable portion of the city, and encroaching rapidly on some of the most valuable properties, while its denizens came into active competition with the mechanics, operatives, and business men of the capital. Apart from the omnipresent laundryman and domestic servant, there were, in 1886, Chinese contractors, merchants, importers, grocers, dry-goods men, dealers in provisions, vegetables, tobacco, clothing, tea, fancy goods; there were Chinese druggists, doctors, tinsmiths, tailors, barbers, bakers, and restaurateurs; and there were Chinese establishments for the manufacture of shirts, clothing, and cigars. During the previous one or two years, acts were passed to forbid the immigration of Chinamen,5 to prevent them b It was declared unlawful for Chinamen to enter the province, those who should afterward make their way into British Columbia being liable to a fine of $50, or six months imprisonment. The person who should bring them to or in any way assist them to reach B. C was to forfeit $200 for each China- THE CHINESE QUESTION. 711 from acquiring crown lands,6 and to control the Chinese population then in the province. The first of these acts failed, however, to receive the approval of the dominion government,7 and a committee, sent from Ottawa to inquire into the matter, reported in favor, of Chinese immigration;8 whereupon another bill, almost identical with the former, was passed by the provincial legislature, but was again thrown out by the cabinet.9 Thus, on the Chinese question, British Columbia was, in relation to the dominion, somewhat as the Pacific United States were to the federal government, little hope being entertained by either that man so conveyed or assisted, or in default be imprisoned for a period not exceeding six months. Certificates of exemption might be granted to those wishing to leave the province temporarily. Stat. B. C, 1884, 5-6. * 6In the preamble of this act, the text of which will be found in Id., 1884, 7-12, it is stated that the influx of Chinese largely exceeded that of any other nationality, threatening soon to outnumber the white population; that they would not submit to the laws of the province, evaded the payment of taxes, and were generally subversive of the comfort and well-being of the community. All Chinamen were made liable to a tax of $10 a year, on the payment of which licenses were to be handed to them by officials, called Chinese collectors, appointed for each electoral district. All employers of Chinamen were required to demand of them their licenses, and retain them during their term of service, producing them for inspection by the collector whenever required to do so. The fee for miners' certificates, when issued to Chinamen, was increased to $15 a year. Exhumation and the use of opium, except for medicinal or surgical purposes, were forbidden, and it was declared unlawful, under a penalty not exceeding $50, to let or occupy any room containing less than 384 cubic feet of space for each occupant, or unless such room contained a window that would open, not less than two feet square. 7 For report of the privy council disallowing the act, and containing a copy of the opinion of the minister of justice, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, 432-3. In answer to this, the assembly, at its next session, forwarded an address to the gov.-gen. in council, extremely regretting that the act had been disallowed, stating that the disallowance was not caused by its being unconstitutional, but on the ground of inexpediency, and that they saw no reasons to change the carefully considered representations, which from time to time had been urged upon the dominion government. Jour. Legist Ass. B. C, 1885, 52. This is hardly a fair statement of the case. In his report the minister of justice expresses much doubt as to the authority of the legislature to passsuch an act, states that it should not be put in force without due consideration, and that, under its provisions, time was not allowed for such consideration. * A law,' he remarks, 'which prevents the people of any country from coming into a province cannot be said to be of a local or private nature. On the contrary, it is one involving dominion and possibly imperial interests.' 8 A copy of the report will be found in the S. F. Call, Feb. 25, 1885. 9 In section 95 of the British North America Act, 1867, it is provided that the legislature of each province may enact laws regarding immigration, but that the parliament of Canada may also pass similar laws for all or any of the provinces, and that the former shall take effect only so far as they do not conflict with the dominion statutes. 712 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. any radical change in the law would be made until the matter came home more closely to the doors of their eastern brethren.10 Though still containing in 1886 a large percentage of Americans, and as a community by no means lacking in enterprise, the citizens of the capital were not disposed to imitate the example of the Pacific coast metropolis, where presided the genius of unrest, and where men had barely time to live their allotted span of life. They took life quietly and somewhat easily, the merchant walking leisurely to his store at nine or ten o'clock, closing often at four, after a long interval for luncheon; and to the stranger within his gates, who might take him to task for his unbusiness-like habits, he would reply that he was sufficiently well-to-do, and would probably enjoy longer days and certainly better digestion than his American cousin. As in other colonies, the people of British Columbia were much given to holiday-making, picnicking, and junketing. Legal holidays were plentiful,11 and when they oc- 10 For order in council calling the attention of the dominion government to the immense influx of Chinese into the province, see Sess. Papers, B. C., 1883, 345-6. At that date there were about 12,000 Chinamen in B. C., of whom more than one half were employed on the C. P. R. For resolution urging the provincial government to adopt means for restricting further Chinese immigration, for compelling those already in the province to comply with the revenue and other laws, and for inaugurating a liberal scheme or assisted white immigration, see Jour. Legis. Ass. B. C, 1883, 17. In April 1880 a resolution was passed in the assembly, requesting the dominion government to authorize the passing of the Chinese tax act, a copy of which will be found in Id., 1880, 21. For petition to the legislature of the Anti-Chinese Association, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1880, 406; for act to provide for the better collection of taxes from Chinese, Stat. B. C, 1878, 129-32; for papers and resolutions of assembly relating to Chinese immigration between 1876 and 1884, Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, 229-43. For views of Mr Justice Begbie on the Chinese question, see Sac. Record-Union, March 12, 1885; for anti-Chinese agitation at Victoria, Id., May 5, 23, 1885; S. F. Chronicle, May 23, 1885, In 1881 there was a railroad strike and anti-Chinese riot at Yale, an account of which is given in the S. F. Alta, May 16,1881; Sac. Record-Union, May 16, 1881. As late at least as 1878 the Chinese invasion was not considered to be a serious evil. Good's Brit. Cot, MS., 104. For additional items and comments on the Chinese question, see Brit. Colonist, Apr. 13, 1878j Toronto Leader, in Vic. Standard, Apr. 17, 1878; Standard, Apr. 17, 1878, Apr. 30, May 15, 1879; New Westminster Guardian, May 10, 1879; Dominion Pac. Herald, March 22, 1879; S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 31, 1865, Aug. 6, Oct. 14, Nov. 4, 1878, March 11, 1879; Call, May 12, 1876, June 13, 1879; Post, May 3, 1876; Alta, June 13, July 4, 1830; Chronicle, Sept. 13, 1878. 11 The principal one was the 21th of May, the queen's birthday, and AN EASY LIFE. 713 curred at too long intervals, little excuse was needed for proclaiming others. Recreation was considered as a portion of the programme of life; and throughout the warm season and the long twilight of the Indian summer, there were few evenings on which the bay was not dotted with pleasure craft,12 and the roads thronged with vehicles, among the favorite drives being those to Esquimalt, to Richmond, and to Beacon Hill.13 In 1861, and for several years thereafter, the incoming voyager was jolted over some three and a half miles of execrable road on his way from Esquimalt to Victoria. The intervening space was appropriated by thousands of Indians from the neighborhood of Nootka Sound, the western coast of Vancouver, and the borders of Alaska, and by human waifs from the Pacific coast settlements—men attracted in ever- increasing numbers since the gold excitement of 1858. There may have been some who came with honest intent, but the majority were gathered for no good purpose, insomuch that the place was turned into a pandemonium, became the receptacle for stolen goods, the site of traffic in illicit whiskey, and illicit amours. Orgies of the most revolting character ceased not by day or night; there were hundreds of savage, drunken, and frenzied beings in human guise encountered at almost every turn of the path, beings among whom among others may be mentioned the 4th of July, the prince of Wales' birthday, coronation day, and dominion day. 12 The favorite resort for boating parties was the Gorge, a narrow arm of the harbor, and opening into it by a passage so narrow that one might almost leap across it. S. F. Bulletin, March 12, 1885. 13 In 1881 Victoria was lighted by electricty. S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 24, 1881. For the Corporation of Victoria Water-works act, 1873, amended by act of 1875, see Consol. Stat. B. C. (ed. 1877), 773-87; for Water-works Debenture Guarantee act, 18-74, Id., 787-90. The water was conveyed from Elk Lake, a distance of seven miles, the cost of the works being $200,000. Brit. Col. Direct., 1883, 11. For mention of earthquakes at Victoria, see S. F. Bulletin, Nov. 16, 1864; Dec. 17, 1872; Call, Oct. 6, 1864; Abend Post, Jan. 8, 1870; Sac. Record-Union, March 14,1881. For condition, progress, etc., at various dates, see S. F. Bulletin, June 26, July 6, 8, 20, 26, Dec. 9, 1858; Feb. 15,16, Apr. 15,18, 1859; May 10, Nov. 10, 1862; Feb. 1, 1870; Alta, June 25, Aug. 25, 1878; May 27, 1859; May 21, 1860; May 13, 1861, March 23, 1862; Call, Jan. 22, 1865; Times, Nov. 2, 1867; Portland West Shore, July 1877. 714 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. the strong arm of the law could scarcely preserve the semblance of order.1* In 1886 Esquimalt, where two or three men-of-war were still usually stationed, furnished to the leaders of the city's fashion recruits for their balls, parties, kettledrums, and lawn-tennis, while among the blue and scarlet attire of the marines and naval officers figured the gorgeous uniforms of the local artillery and militia. Second only to the capital in the beauty of its sight, and far surpassing it in harbor facilities, the town once selected as the terminus of the Canadian Pacific railway, and, as many think, the future terminus, contained at the latter date probably less than a thousand white inhabitants.15 Nanaimo and its neighborhood contained a population of about 4,500, the number being constantly increased by the arrival of miners, mechanics, and laborers. The line of the island railway' passes through its centre, and from the point selected for the company's depot has been located toward Departure Bay. In the midst of a rich mineral and agricultural region, with extensive collieries in full operation, the bituminous coal of this district selling at higher rates than Australian coal, or than any as yet produced on the Pacific coast,16 with an excellent harbor, and with steamers and sailing craft from San Francisco, Portland, Sitka, and other foreign and domestic ports u On one occasion it required the presence of two or three vessels of war and a demonstration in force to restrain them. Good's Brit. Cot, MS., 5. 15 According to the census returns for 1881, the white population of the Esquimalt district was 614, and the Chinese population 4,350. In 1886 the graving-dock, Which, when finished, will be one of the largest on the Pacific coast, had not yet been completed. For papers relating to its construction, see Sess. Papers, B. G, 1880, 327-34; and for reports of the committee thereon, Jour. Legisl. Ass. B. C, 1882, 12, 27, 65. For act to■ incorporate the Esquimalt Water-works Company, see Stat. B. C, 1885, 157-66. 16 At the close of 1885 the price of Nanaimo coal was $7 to $8.23 per ton, according to quality, against $5.87 a ton for Australian coal, $5.10 for Coos Bay, and $8 for Seattle coal. S. F. Bulletin, Dec. 22, 1885. The several descriptions of Nanaimo coal were known as Douglas, Wellington, New Douglas (or Chase River), Newcastle, South Fields, Alexandra, and Harewood. B. C. Direct., 1885, 116. The output of Nanaimo and Wellington coal was from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 1885, about 192,000 tons, the total deliveries for that period being some 887,199 tons. NANAIMO AND NEW WESTMINSTER. 715 constantly at her wharves, Nanaimo, incorporated as a city in 1874, contained one of the most prosperous and contented communities in British Columbia.17 Wellington, a short distance toward the north, and for which the shipping point was Departure Bay, a picturesque inlet of the Georgian Gulf, contained in 1886 about 1,200 people, and Comox, a thriving village in the most northerly agricultural district of Vancouver, some 300 inhabitants. Of coal discoveries, collieries, and coal-mining sufficient mention has already been made in this volume. It remains only to be said that in 1885 the Victoria Coal Mining and Land Company, in addition to their Nanaimo estate, which included the site of the city and many square miles of adjacent land, were the proprietors of the Wellington mine, the island of Newcastle,18 and the Protection Islands, and the Frew and Harewood estates, the latter consisting of some 9,000 acres. The company gave employment to about 600 men, at fair rates of wages,19 and at a depth of 600 feet the well-known Douglas seam was found to be eight feet in thickness. Passing to the mainland, New Westminster,20 with its neat and tasteful residences, built on wide and well- defined streets, rising in regular gradients from the bank of the Fraser, with its salmon-fisheries, its farming and manufacturing interests, and its general air of respectability and thrift, contained in 1886 a population of more than 4,000. Near its centre stood the dominion government building, a handsome brick structure with facings of freestone. On the outskirts of the city were the provincial asylum for the insane, 17 For act incorporating the Nanaimo Water-works Company, see Stat. B. C„ 1885, 165-77. 18Where is a valuable stone-quarry. 19Miners earned from $2.50 to $5 a day; Indians and Chinamen, of whom about 100 were employed as laborers, received $1 to $1.25. B. C. Direct., 1884-5, 119. 20 Of which a description is given in the Portland West Shore, Feb. 1880. For reports of superintendent and commissioners, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1884, 281, 335-45; 1883, 321-31. r 716 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. and one of the provincial penitentiaries,21 the former a brick edifice, commanding a panoramic view, and partially surrounded with evergreen trees. Langley, distant about seventeen miles from the former capital, was a favorite rendezvous for sportsmen; and Lytton, some sixty miles beyond, a town which, like Lillooet, contained during the gold excitement a floating population numbered by the thousand, was again developing, after a long period of decadence, into a thriving town.22 In the Chilli- whack municipality, east of Langley, were several thriving settlements, the one that bears that name being built on one of the most beautiful sites on the mainland.23 Savona's Ferry was at this date a growing and prosperous settlement, and Kamloop bade fair to become one of the leading towns of the mainland interior. Clinton, situated 2,700 feet above the sea- level, at the junction of the Cariboo and Lillooet roads, and noted for the beauty of its scenery, was in a prosperous condition; and Barkerville, at the terminus of the Cariboo wagon-road, with a population of nearly 300 persons, enjoyed a good share of the general business of British Columbia.24 Soda Creek, some forty miles above the mouth of the Chilkotin, was the point from which the upper Fraser was deemed navigable, the river between that village and Yale being obstructed by rapids. In its neighborhood were several flourishing farms, and here the wagon-road to Cariboo, which diverged at Lytton from the line of the stream, again struck the Fraser. Quesnel, about sixty miles beyond, and on the left 21 Reports of the superintendent of police on provincial prisons will be found in Id., 1884, 441-63; 1883, 471-90; 1882, 457-500. There were also jails at Victoria, Nanaimo, and Clinton. 22 At one time it contained only a dozen dilapidated buildings. Good's Brit. Col., MS., 67. In 1885 Lillooet contained only one broad street. New gold discoveries were constantly being made in its neighborhood, and the so- called Bridge River mines paid fair wages during the seasons of low water on the Fraser. B.C. Direct., 1885, 213. 23 Among others were Centreville, the steamboat landing for Chilliwhack, Sumas, Popcum, and Cheam. 24 In 1860 Barkerville was almost destroyed by fire. S. F. Call, Sept. 23, 1868. TOWN OF YALE. 717 bank of the river, was the point of delivery by the steamer plying thence to Soda Creek, and shared wTith Barkerville the trade of the Cariboo country. At Alexandria, forty miles below Quesnel, was still one of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts, in the vicinity of which were also profitable farms, though the soil in parts required irrigation. Next to New Westminster, Yale ranked first among the settlements of the mainland, containing a resident white population of five or six hundred souls, though during the construction of the railroad the number was considerably increased. Built entirely of wood, in 1881 the town was partially destroyed by fire.25 A border place between the mainland coast and the mainland interior, and approached at various epochs by canoe, bateau, and steamboat, it contained, among other buildings, several excellent country-side hotels and stores, two churches, episcopal and catholic, and the provincial government school.26 Among the residents of Yale in 1878 may be mentioned John B. Good,27 who in 1861 arrived in the province as an evangelist under the auspices of the London Church Missionary Society for the propagation of the gospel. Landing at Esquimalt in 1861, at a time when the usually gentle savages had been roused to frenzy by the greed and aggression of mining adventurers, and the wholesale introduction of 25 The loss was estimated at $200,000. During the previous year a fire had occurred, causing damage to the amount of $75,000. S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 19, 20, 1881; Sacramento Union, Aug. 20, 23, 1881; Stockton Independent, Aus. 20, 1881, July 30, 1880. 26 For further mention of towns and settlements in 1882, see Chittenden's Travels in Brit. Cot, 13-15, passim. 27 A native of Wrawby, Linconshire, England. He was in early youth a pupil of John West, the first Hudson's Bay Company's chaplain of Prince Rupert Land, and completed his education at St Augustine college, Canterbury. His first calling as a missionary was to Nova Scotia. To Mr Good I am indebted for a valuable manuscript, one often quoted in these pages as Good's British Columbia, and in which there are many interesting records as to society, politics, industries, and settlement. The most valuable portion ol his narrative, however, is in connection with his experience as a missionary among the native tribes. 718 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. fire-arms and fire-water,28 Mr Good labored faithfully, and not in vain, for the improvement of their moral and physical condition. Among others who have devoted themselves to the same cause may be mentioned William Duncan, who, arriving at Fort Simpson as a missionary sent forth by the same society in 1858, afterward established a mission of his own on the eastern shore of Metlakathla Bay. By 1886 this establishment had developed into a town containing some 1,500 so-called civilized natives, with neat two- story houses and regular streets. The settlement was almost self-supporting, no outside aid being received except the voluntary offerings of visitors. The principal industry was the weaving of shawls. There was also a salmon cannery with a capacity of 10,000 cases a year; a sash and door factory; and a saw-mill and a brick-yard. The church, built entirely by the natives, and the materials for which, with the exception of the windows, were of home production, had a seating capacity of nearly 1,000, and was one of the largest in British Columbia.29 Among the Kootenai tribe a catholic mission was for many years in operation under Father Fouquett, of the Society of Jesus, and in the Okanagan Valley, Kamloop district, near Williams and Fraser lakes, in the Chilkotin country, at Lillooet, and on the lower Fraser were missions belonging to the same order, 28 About this date Good states that men-of-war were constantly needed to check the depredations of roving bands of Indians, hundreds of armed and drunken savages infesting the waters in the neighborhood of Nanaimo. In a passage above Cowitchan gap, just before entering the Nanaimo narrows, was a veritable cave of Adullum, the rendezvous for the members of several lawless tribes, who, under their chief, Archewon, waylaid and murdered parties of explorers and emigrants. It was resolved to break up this pestilential crew, several men-of-war being sent for the purpose, among which was the Devastation, commanded by Capt. Pike. Five of the principal offenders, among whom was Archewon, were arrested, and four of them sentenced to be hanged. Mr Good, who attended them during their last hours, relates that they showed not the slightest symptoms of compunction, and seemed only to regret that more of those whom they regarded as their legitimate prey had not fallen into their hands, which behavior was more consistent than that of the average white villain about to be hanged. Brit, Cot, MS., 27-8.^ 29A description of this mission, among other places, will be found in the S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 27, 1883. INDIAN POLICY. 719 their central missionary station being that of St Mary's, some thirty miles above New Westminster.83 By the missionary society for the gospel propagation missions were established also among the Chim- syans and Nishtacks, the Tahkats, the Cowitchins, and the Fraser and Thompson river tribes, $10,000 being expended annually, and during several years previous to 1871, for the support of eight missionaries and the industrial training of these tribes.81 At the latter date some 5,000 natives were under instruction, and though considerable progress had been made, more teachers were needed. In a letter to the New England Company, the episcopal archdeacon of Vancouver remarks: " The government of this colony has hitherto had no definite or tangible policy with regard to the native Indian tribes. They have preserved for them crown lands under the name of Indian reserves; they have prevented their lands being encroached upon; they have in existence a liquor law, with penal clauses, stringent and severe, but honored more in the breach than in observance. Beyond this they have done nothing, so far as I know. There does not exist an Indian hospital in the colony to ameliorate the evils which contact with a too advanced stage of civilization has brought upon its unprepared victims." Out of an estimated government expenditure in 1869 of £122,250, the amount put down for expenses connected with the Indian tribes was £100.32 In Canada the interests of the Indian population have always been guarded with special solicitude by the government; but in British Columbia the con- 80Good's Brit. Cot, MS., 97-8. It is related that at the Okanagan mission, many years ago, the venerable French padres invited their scholars, one festal day, to partake of some nicely cooked frogs; whereat the savages scattered in terror to their homes, the appearance of a frog being regarded by them as the premonition of calamity. 31 In 1881, according to the return of the Indian department, the natives settled on the banks of the Thompson, above Lytton, owned 5,925 horses, 557 cows, a number of work-oxen, and raised 135 tons of cereals, 652 tons of hay, and 12,570 bushels of potatoes. B. C. Direct., 1882-3, 14. 32 B. C. Papers, Ind. Land Question, 1850-75, 97-8. The archdeacon'n letter was published in the Columbia report for 1870. 720 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. dition of the natives was, until recent years, less satisfactory than in other portions of the dominion. In this province no Indian title to land was recognized, as was the case elsewhere in British America. Under the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company, and under the regime of Sir James Douglas, the title was indeed conceded, but not so in later years. Although there may never have been any danger of serious or permanent revolt, there were, as we have seen, several formidable outbreaks, and frequent danger of collision. There may be seen to-day throughout British Columbia nations and individuals in all conditions, from untutored savagism, attired simply in a verminous blanket, and perched like a bird of prey on a rock, catching his dinner of fish, to the well-clad and industrious inmate of comfortable homes. In the former condition the Indian is neither a producer nor a consumer; in the latter he is both; and in proportion as his condition is improved will he contribute to the wealth of the province. The task of improving the condition of the natives has been rendered less difficult by the fact that the intrusion of the white man has not diminished their supplies of food. Fish and game, which, as in Alaska, form the staple diet of the aboriginal, and were as necessary to him as bread and meat to the white man, or the plantain and banana to the dweller within the tropics, are still as plentiful as ever. To the nomad tribes of Canada the buffalo was their sole resource, supplying them not only with food, but with fuel, clothes, and shelter. The extinction of this animal brought upon them starvation and beggary; while in British Columbia the Indian has not only been furnished with better implements for securing his food, but has been taught how to farm, and thus acquired a new source of food supply. Not only is this the case, but, as I have said, natives are largely employed as herders, laborers, porters, and in various industries,83 83 Especially in the Mainland interior, where their well-known honesty FORTS. 721 and this from no motives of philanthropy. ' j I believe," said the marquis of Lome,34 during his visit to the recommends them for employment. Among the instances of the trust reposed in them may be mentioned one that occurred in the autumn of 1872 or 1873, . when a merchant on his way to Lillooet with a cargo of flour, his craft being stranded on a sand-bar, stacked the entire freight on the river bank, simply covering it with tarpaulin. There it was left until the following spring, when it was found undisturbed. The nearest house was but three miles away, and during the winter the Indians were buying flour in that neighborhood at very high rates. In The Northwest Territories and British Columbia, by JEneas McDonnell Dawson, Ottawa, 1881, is a description of the food, habits, and condition of some of the natives at that date. There are here also remarks on the climate, vegetation, fisheries, industries, fauna, flora, and general resources of B. C The work is of little value, except for the index, which contains items of information culled from various resources. 84 Dominion of Canada Guide-Book, 1885, 75. The following catalogue of forts, with reference to fuller descriptions, points to some of the early centres of occupation. Champoeg, 35 miles from the mouth of the Willamette, was a trading post established by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1840. Gray's Oregon, 42. In 1856 it was still in existence. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 367. Fort Kamloop on the Thompson; forts Alexander, William, Garey, and Abercrom- bie, in New Caledonia; Rupert, on north side of V. I.; Simpson, on the mainland, near the Portland canal; Wrangel, a stockade, originally on Dundas Island, at the mouth of the Stickeen, and afterward removed 60 miles up the river, and known as Fort Stickeen—all belonged to the H. B. Co. Gray's Oregon, 43. Fort Thompson was established by David Thompson in 1810 on the site of Kamloop. Fort Franklin was erected in 1825 on Great Bear Lake for Franklin's expedition to the Polar sea. Lardner, iii. 240. Chinook Point post was in the Columbia district. II. B. Co.'s Rept, 367. The Cowlitz post in W. T. was in existence in 1856. A Spanish fort at Meah Bay, V. I., built in 1792, and surrounded by a stockade, was soon afterward abandoned, and then burned by Indians. Evans' Or., MS., 67. Fort Santa Cruz, on the north point of Nootka entrance, was also a Spanish stronghold and settlement. Viajes al Norte, MS., 385. Long before the conquest of Canada, the French had a post at Pasquia, on the Saskatchewan. Mackenzie's Voy., lxix. On the same river was Fort Augustus. Id., lxix., lxxiii. Fort Carlton, on the south side of the Saskatchewan, was protected by high palisades, and at each angle was a small square tower. In 1835 it was attacked by Indians. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 17; Smet'sMiss., 124; Milton and Cheadle'sN. W. Passage, 49. Fort Cumberland, on Sturgeon Lake, at the mouth of the Saskatchewan, was built in 1774. Franklin's Narr., i. 91; Smet's Miss., 124; Mackenzie's Voy., lxix. Fort h la Crosse was also in the Saskatchewan district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. Fort Edmonton, on the north branch of the Saskatchewan, was built in the form of a hexagon, with high pickets, bastions, and battlemented gateways, and lay on a commanding height. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 18, 124. In 1846 it contained about 130 inhabitants. Kane's Wanderings, 136. It was the chief post in this region, and was also known as Fort Auguste. Smet's Miss., .122-4. Fort Confidence was a mere log structure, without defensive works, forming three sides of a square, and stood at the northern end of Great Bear Lake. Richardson's Jour., ii. 63-5. Dunvegan post lay in the Athabasca district. Hudson's Bay Co. 's Rept, 365. In 1787 there was a fort on Elk River. Mackenzie's Voy., 129. Fort Chipewan, one of the most important posts of the N. W. Co. was built on a rocky point of the northern shore of Athabasca Lake. Mackenzie's Voy., lxxxvn.; Martin's Hudson's Bay, 18; H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365; Franklin's Narr., i. 237. Fort Assiniboine was built on the Athabasca. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365; +uWe-x* ^*'ss-' 124- 0n tne Assiniboine and its tributaries were three posts of the N. W. Co. and two of the H. B. Co. Lewis and Clarke's Map. East Main factory stood opposite Albany Fort at the foot of James Bay, in about lati- Hist. Bbit. Col. 46 r 722 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. capital in 1882, "I have seen the Indians of almost every tribe throughout the dominion, and nowhere tude 52° 30' N. Bouchette, Brit. Dom., i. 33. A log fort was built by Franklin in 1820, at Winter Lake, about 150 miles north of Slave Lake, and named Fort Enterprise. A dwelling-house and storehouse were added. Frank tin's Narr., i. 1-14. Here Franklin passed the winter of 1821-2. Richardson's Polar, 148. Fort Franklin, on the west shore of Great Bear Lake, where Lieut Hooper passed the winter of 1849, was merely a log hut 20 by 18 fee*. Hooper's Tents of the TuSki, 305-6. In the Athabasca district was a post named Fond du Lac. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. Fort Francis, in Red River district, consisted of a number of buildings in the form of a square, surrounded by a ten-foot stockade. Grant's Ocean, 46. In the same district was a jiost known as Lower Fort Garry. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. This was one of the strongest forts in the H. B. territory, the walls being built of stone and with bastions at each corner. It stood on the north bank of Assiniboine River, about 200 yards from its junction with Red River. Kane's Wanderings, 96; Cornwallis, 62; Milton and Cheadles' N. W. Passage, 36. At Georgetown, on Red River, there was in a 1868 a warehouse belonging to the H. B. Co. Coffin's Seat of Empire, 79. Fort Good Hope, in the Mackenzie district, was moved in 1836 about 100 miles above on the Mackenzie, on account of floods. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365; Richardson's Jour., i. 213. At Green Lake post, in English River district, the H. B. Co. and N. W. Co. had establishments on opposite sides of the river in 1820. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365; Franklin's Narr., i. 192. For mention of Fort George on the Saskatchewan, see Mackenzie's Voy., lxix., lxxiii.; of Fort George and Great Whale River post, in East Main district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366; of Grand Lac post, in the Temiscamingue district; of Godbout post, in King's Posts district; of Fort Halkett, in the Mackenzie district. On the northern branch of the Saskatchewan, there was, in 1820, a post named Hudson House. On the east bank of Harricanaw River was a small establishment belonging to the H. B. Co. Bouchette's Brit. Dom., i. 33. In the Moose and Temiscamingue districts were posts named Hannah Bay and Hunter's Lodge. H. B. Co. 's Rept, 366. On He a la Crosse Lake, near Beaver River, the H. B. Co. and N. W. Co. had forts in 1820, situated close together and on the south side of the lake. About 1815 the H. B. fort was captured by the N. W. Co. Id., 365; Franklin's Narr., i. 196; Cox's Advent, 227-8. The lake was named after an island therein, where the Indians used to play the game of la-cr©sse. Franklin's Narr., i. 197. In the King's Posts district was the Isle Jeremie post. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366. The Jasper House post, on the Athabasca, 300 miles above Fort Assiniboine, contained in 1846 only three log huts; but was the centre of communication between the Columbia district and Fort Edmonton. In 1872 it was almost abandoned. Kane's Wanderings, 153-4; Smet's Miss., 124, 127, 130; Grant's Ocean, 232. In Fort Coulonge district was the Joachin post; in Eskimo Bay district, Kibokok post; in St Maurice district, Kikandatch post; in Temiscamingue district, Kakabea- gino post; in Rupert's River district, Kaniapiscow post; in the Kinogumisse district, Kuckatoosh post; in Albany district, Lac Seul post; in Lac la Pluie district, Lac de Bonnet and Lac de Bois Blanc posts; in Lake Superior district, Long Lake and Lake Nipigon posts; and in Lake Huron district, Little Current post. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365-6. On Green Bay, Lake Michigan, was a stockade much dilapidated when visited by Mr Carver in 1766. After its surrender to the English, in 1763, it was garrisoned by 30 men, who were made prisoners soon after the surprise of Michillimackinac, after which it was neither garrisoned nor repaired. Carver, 22. Lac la Pluie was a Hudson's Bay Co.'s trading post on the height of land dividing the waters which flow into the St Lawrence from those which fall into Hudson Bay, and distant some 1,300 miles from Montreal. The N. W. Co. had ,a post here in 1806. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 123; Cox's Advent, ii. 269-70; Lewis and Clarke's Map. La Monte*e was a N. W. Co.'s post about three miles from Carleton. Frank- THE GENTLE SAVAGE. 723 can you find any who are so trustworthy in regard to conduct, so willing to assist the white settlers by their lin's Narr., i. 162. Lesser Slave Lake and Lac la Biche posts were in the Saskatchewan district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. Fort La Crosse, on the border of Long Lake, was in existence in 1848. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 18. Lapierre's House and Fort aux Liards were in the Mackenzie district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. Lake Nepisingue post was in the Temiscamingue district; Lacloche post in Lake Huron district; Lac d'Original in Lake Superior district; Little Whale River post in East Main district; Lac des Allumettes post in Fort Coulong district; and Lachine House post in Lachine district. On the Saskatchewan there was in 1845 a post named Fort des Montaignes. Smet's Miss., 124. Moose Factory, about 700 miles from Montreal, was the principal depdt on the south shore of Hudson's Bay, and there were numerous stations connected with it. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 123. In the Cumberland district was a small post named Moose Lake. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. The trading posts on Methye Lake were mere huts, erected in 1819. Franklin's Narr., i. 201. In Red River district was the Manitobah post; in Albany district, Marten's Falls post; in Kinogumisse dis- trit, Malawagamingue post. //. B. Co.'s Rept, 366. Michipicotou post, on the shore of Lake Superior, was in 1840 the chief factory in Lake Superior district. Ibid.; Martin's Hudson's Bay, 123. At the south end of Lake Winnipeg was Fort Maurepas; on the north branch of the Saskatchewan there was, in 1S20, a post named Manchester House; on Red River one named Marlboro' House, and on Peace River, amid the Rocky Mountains, one named McLeod's Fort. At a council held at Norway House, in 1840, it was resolved to establish missions at that point, and also a Lac la Pluie and Edmonton. A catholic mission was established at He a la Crosse in 1846. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 127-7; Richardson's Jour., i. 104. Norway House; at the north end of Lake Winnipeg, was in 1848 one of the chief depdts of the H. B. Co., and it was intended to make it the residence of the general superintendent of missions. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 124. It was founded in 1819 by a party of Norwegians, who were driven from Red River in 1814-15, and took up their abode at Norway Point. Franklin's Narr., i. 67; Bouchette's Brit. Dom., i. 41. Mamainse post was in Lake Superior district; Fort Macpherson on Peel River near the Mackenzie; Mississangee post iuLake Huron district; Mistasinny and Mechiskau posts in Rupert's River district; Matawa post in Fort Coulonge district; Musquarro post in Mingan district; Mingan post in the district of that name. II. B. Co.'s Rept, 366. Long before the conquest of Canada, the French had a settlement at Nepawi, on the Saskatchewan. In 1790 it was named Ne- pawi House. Mackenzie's Voy., lxix., Ixxiii. Fort Nascopie was in Eskimo Bay district; Natosquan post in Mingan district; and Fort Norman in Mackenzie district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366. Port Nelson River post was captured by the French in 1665. The French port on Port Nelson River was named in 1697 Port Bourbon, and afterward York Fort. Forster's Hist. Voy., 377, 379. In 1819 it stood on the west bank of Hayes River, five miles above its mouth, on the marshy peninsula which separates Hayes and Nelson Rivers. The buildings formed a square, with an octagonal court in the centre, the servants' houses being outside the square, and the whole surrounded with a stockade 20 feet in height. Franklin's Narr., i. 37-8. Fort New Severn was on the south-eastern shore of Hudson's Bay. North West River post was in the Eskimo Bay district; Nitchequon post in Rupert River district; and New Brunswick post in Moose district. II. B. Co. 's Rept, 366. Old Establishment was built in 1778-9 on Peace River, some forty miles from Athabasca Lake, and was the only fort in that region till 1785. In 1788 the post was transferred to the southern side of Athabasca Lake, about eight miles from the mouth of Athabasca River, its name being changed to Fort Chipewyan. Mackenzie's Voy., lxxxvii. On Peace River there was, in 1820, a post named New Establishment. In 1819 Oxford House post, in York district, was falling into decay. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366; Franklin's Narr., i. 57. In Albany district was a post named Osnaburg. 724 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. labor, so independent and anxious to learn the secret of the white mans power. While elsewhere are met H. B. Co. I Rept, 366. Fort de Prairies belonged in 1817 to the N. W. Co., as also Fort Providence, north of Gt Slave Lake. Cox's Advent, ii. 265; Franklin's Narr., i. 313. The Pas post was in Cumberland district; Portage la Loche post in English River district; and Peel's River post in the Mackenzie district. H. B. Co. I Rept, 365. Fort Pitt lay on the Saskatchewan, in lat. 51°S(y, long. 108°. Smet's Miss., 124. Fort Pelly was a compact post on the route between forts Garry and Carlton, having the Assiniboine River in front. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 17. For mention of Fort Churchill or Prince of Wales Fort, see Cox's Advent, ii. 397. Pike Lake post was in Rtrpert's River district; Pigeon River post in Lake Superior district; and Pic post, in the same district, on the north shore of the lake, belonged in 1817 to the N. W. Co. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366; Cox's Advent, ii. 295. Pierre au Calumet, also a post of the H. B. Co., on a high, steep bank on the Athabasca, a little above the confluence of the Clear Water, was so named from the. place'where the stone for Indian pipes was obtained. A post of the H. B. Co. on the opposite bank was abandoned in 1819 for want of supplies. Franklin's Narr., i. 213. Pembina post was in Red River district; Qu'appelle Lakes post in Swan River district; Fort Rae in Mackenzie district; Rapid River post in English River district; Rocky Mountain House in the Saskatchewan district; and Fort Resolution in the Mackenzie district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365. Red Deer River Fort was on or near Lake Winnipeg. Mackenzie's Voy., lxv. Rupert's Fort was in 1766 at the mouth of the river of that name. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366. In 1740 the French had, on the upper waters of the Rupert, a factory which secured all the trade of that region. Dobbs' Hudson's Bay, 50. Rigolet post was in the Eskimo district; Riviere Desert post in Lac des Sables district; Reed Lake post in Red River district; Rat Portage post in Lac de Pluie district; and Shoal River post in Swan River district. II. B. Co.'s Rept, 365-6. In 1789- 93 there were five principal factories on the Saskatchewan, and one named the South Branch House. Mackenzie's Voy., lxix., lxxiii. On the Swan River was a post of the same name, and one named Somerset House. Fort St Louis was built by the Canadian viceroy de Tracey, at the mouth of Richelieu or Iroquois River. It was afterward named Sosel, and then William Henry. In 1817 it was the principal entrepdt of the N. Wr. Co. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366; Cox's Advent, 268-93. Near Swan River Fort, on Lake Winnipeg, were several detached posts. Id., lxv. Shoal Lake post was in the Lac de Pluie district, and Severn post in York district. H. B. Co.'s Rept. 365-6. Sault St Maire post was also in York district, at the point where Lake Superior discharges into Lake Huron. In 1817 the N. W. Co. had large stores at this point. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 366; Cox's Advent, ii. 299. Lake St John's, Tadousac, and Seven Islands posts were in King's Posts district; Touchwood Hills post in Swan River district; Trout Lake post in York district; Temiskamay post in Rupert's River district; Temiscamingue house and post were in the district of that name; Three Rivers post was in St Maurice district; and Vermilion was a post in Athabasca district. H. B. Co. 's Rept, 365-6. On the Saskatchewan was a post named Upper Establishment. Mackenzie's Voy., lxix., Ixxiti. Thorburne House was a post on Red River. Fort Frontenac, originally called Fort Cataraconi, founded in 1670, on the present site of .Kingston, was rebuilt in 1678. In 1768 it was captured by the English. Monette's Hist. Discov. and Settlement, i. 120,132-3. Fort George was in 1842 a large trading post twelve miles below Fort Lancaster (Colo.), and was under St Vrain's management. Scenes Rocky Mts, 160. The N. W. Co. had in 1806 a post on the west shore of Lake Superior, near Grand Portage. Lewis and Clarke's Map. Fort Wedderburne was built by the H. B. Co. on Coal Island, at the western ex. tremity of Athabasca Lake, about the year 1815, when the company hrst began to trade in that region. Franklin's Narr., i. 236. White Horse Pkin post was in Red River district; White Dog post in Lac la Pluie district; FORTS. 725 constant demands for assistance, your Indians have never asked for any; for in the interviews given to Whitefish Lake post in Lake Huron district; Woswonaby post in Rupert's River district; and Weymontachingue post in St Maurice district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365-6. Fort Cass, built in 1826 at the mouth of Big Horn River, with block houses and a log wall 18 feet high, was soon afterward removed 30 miles lower down the Yellowstone. Beckwourth's Life and Advent., 212-13,220, 303. The French colonists under Roberval and Cartier built Fort Charlesbourg near the present site of Quebec about 1541. It was the first European settlement in this part of America. Tytler's Progr. of Discov., 67. Fort Caroline was erected by Landonniere on May River, just above the spot afterward known as St John's Bluff. It was in the shape of a triangle, fronting on the river, with the woods in rear. In 1565 it was destroyed by the Spaniards. Bryant, i. 198. Fort Campbell was in the country of the Blackfeet, 700 miles from Fort Union. Boiler's Among the Indians, 44. Fort Lancaster was on the south bank of the Platte, 900 miles from its mouth, and 35 miles from the Rocky Mountains. Scenes Rocky Mts, 1G4-5. Fort Laramie, or, as it was sometimes termed, Fort John, a post of the American Fur Company, was one mile south of Fort Platte, and on the left bank of Laramie River, and was named after Joseph Laramie, a French trapper, killed near its mouth. It stood on a rising ground, was picketed and bastioned, had adobe walls, and was surmounted by a wooden palisade. Thornton's Oregon, 112-13; Van Tramp's Prairie and Rocky Mt. Advent., 360-1; Scenes Roeky Mts, 66, 131. Six miles below Ft George (Colo.) was the post of Lock and Randolph. Below the Simeon branch of Peace River was built at an early day a little fort named St John. About 1823 it was attacked by a band of Beaver Indians, who shot the commander and four men, and burned the fort. Another Fort St John was built at the bend of the river above. The N. W. Co. had a post on the west side of Buffalo Lake, near Beaver River. Franklin's Narr., i. 199. Fort Erie was on the north side of Lake Erie, near its outlet. Six miles below the mouth of la Fontaine qui Bouit there existed in 1835 the ruins of an old fort, occupied many years before by Capt. Grant as a trading post. In 1866 the fort at Minetarees was occupied by Indians. Boiler's Among the Indians, 416. In 1848 Michipicoten was the chief factory on Lake Superior. Martin's Hudson's Bay, 123. Berens River post was in Norway House district; Big Island post in the Mackenzie district; Batchewana post in Lake Superior district; Chicoutimic post in King's Posts district; Buckingham post in Lac de Sables district; Abitibi post in Moose district. H. B. Co. 's Rept, 365-6. Brochet House was on Lake Winnipeg. Mackenzie's Voy., lxix.; Manuel's Fort on the Yellowstone. Lewis and Clarke's Map. Fort Isle au Niox, or Fort Lennox, on an island in Richelieu River, was fortified by the French in 1759, and by Schuyler in 1775. Green Lake post was in Lake Huron district, and Egg Lake post in Swan River district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365-6. Fort Dauphin, probably near Lake Winnipeg, was established by the French before Wolfe's victory at Quebec. Mackenzie's Voy., lxv. Deer Lake post was in the English River district, at the southern end of Deer Lake; Caweeman post in Columbia district; Fort Ellice in Swan district. H. B. Co.'s Rept, 365, 367. Fort Charlesbourg, built by the French about 1540-1, near the site of Quebec, was the first settlement in this part of America. Brit. N. Amer., 16. The first fort on the St Lawrence was built by Cartier in 1535. Fort Charles was on the south side of the Lake of the Woods. In 1668 Capt. Gillam built for the English their first fort on Hudson's Bay, at the mouth of Rupert River, naming it Fort Charles. Forster's Hist. Voy., 378. Russell, Hist. Amer., ii. 264, agrees with Forster as to date, but says that Grosseliez, a French renegade on White River, 80 miles north-west of Fort Platte, was a fur-trading post. Scenes in Rocky Mts, 72-3. Tadoussac post stood in 1650 at the mouth of Saguenay River. Shea's Missis., xlv. Fort Platte, at the junction of the Laramie and Platte, was built of earth, and in 1842 contained about a dozen 726 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. the chiefs, their whole desire seemed to be for schools and school-masters; and in reply to questions as to buildings and some 30 employe's. Scenes Rocky Mts, 66; Van Tramp's Prairie and Rocky Mt. Advent., 360-1. St Vrain's Fort was on the right bank of the south fork of the Platte, 17 miles east of Long's Peak. Fremont, in Id., 357. Fort Alexander, at the outlet of Winnipeg River, contained in 1817 only five inmates. Fort Abercrombie was on Red River, above the point navigable for steamers. Coffin's Seat of Empire, 79. Fort Albany was at the foot of James Bay. Bouchette'sBrit. Dom., i. 33. It was established before 1780. See Fors- ter's Hist. Voy., 379. Fort Augustus was in Queen's co., Can. Fort Uintah, on a tributary of the Colorado, and one day's journey south of Ashley's Fork, was also known, in 1825, as Rubidcan's Fort. Scenes Rocky Mts, 178, 202. Fort Lawrence was a seaport of Nova Scotia. On the north-east side of Athabasca Lake was Fort Fond du Lac. Pigeon Lake House was at the source of Battle River. Pike Lake House and Green Lake House were north of Stinking Lake; Rapid River House was near Lac la Rouge; and Sturgeon River House between Sturgeon and Beaver lakes. Fairford House and Mission was between Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba. Fort Touchwood Hills lay between the Assiniboine and Qu'Appelle rivers. Mountain House was in the Riding Mountains, west of Lake Manitoba. Fort Pelley was on the Assiniboine. Old Fort, on Pelican Lake, was near the head waters of the Black or West Road River. In recent maps the first Fort Simpson, near the mouth of Nass or Naas River, is also termed Old Fort. Jasper House was at the head waters of the Athabasca; Rocky Mountain House and Victoria House at the head waters of the North Saskatchewan; Salt. River House on Slave River, south of Slave Lake. Robidoux Fort, in the Green River country, was, like many others in its vicinity, the post of a private trader, having in his employ a number of trappers who made their headquarters at the fort. Peter's Kit Carson, 139. On the east side of Okanagan Lake was a catholic mission. Fort Bulkley House was at the north-east side of Tacla Lake. Fort Buchanan lay south-west from Tuscon, near the Santa Cruz branch of the Gila River. Near the head waters of the Gila were forts Bayard and Mimbres. Fort Staunton was at the source of the Rio Bonito, which discharges into the Pico, and on the Pico, above the former river, was Fort Summer. Fort Bascom was on the Canadian River, east of Santa Fe"; Fort Breckenridge, on the San Pedro branch of the Gila, near the mouth of the former. Of Fort McPherson Absaraka says that it consisted originally of shabby log cabins, but subsequently became a well-built fort. Home of the Crows, 46. Kearny or Kearney Fort, built on Piney fork of Powder River, at the base of Big Horn Mountains in 1866, was pronounced one of the best stockades in north-western America. Fort Reno, originally Fort Connor, near Salt Lake City, and so called after General Connor, was built in 1865, and New Fort Reno, 40 miles to the westward, in 1866. Fort Mitchell, a sub-post of Fort Laramie, was in compact and rectangular shape, the sides of the buildings doing duty for walls,/and their windows loopholed for defence. Id., 70. La Pierre's House was on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, near Peel River. Smithsonian Rept, 1861, 59. Fort Wright was in the western part of Round Valley, 100 miles from Chico. Ind. Aff. Rept, 1863, 402. Fort Crocket, also called Fort Misery, from\ itr appearance, stood, in 1839, on the left bank of Green River, two days' journey from Henry's Fork, Col. Wizlizenn's Ausflug, 94. For description of Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia, in 1811-39, see Cox's Advent., i. 83, 109-10; Gray's Or., 20-1; Famham's Travels, 105; and of Fort Boise, Or., in 1832. For mention of forts Yukon, St Michael, and Wrangell, Alaska, see Hist. Alaska, passim, this series. Fort Goodwin was in Tularoso valley, three miles from Gila. Land Off. Rept, 1865, 115-16. Fort Cummings was on the road between Santa F6 and Cubac, 60 miles from Las Graces, Ixew Mex. Id., 1865, 115. For mention of forts Laramie and Leavenworth in 1846^7, see Hist. Utah, passim, this series; Parkman's Cal. and Or. Trail, caps, iii, FORTS. 727 whether they would assist themselves in securing such institutions, they invariably replied that they would be glad to pay for them." ix. Fort Whipple was on Granite Creek, one mile below Prescott, Ar. Land Off. Rept, 1865, 121. Fort Bowie, in New Mex., was on the road between -Santa Fe* and Tubac, 150 miles from the latter. Id., 1865, 115-16. Fort Owen was built by a trader of that name on the site of a mission at St Mary or Flathead village, Mont. Pac. R. R. Rept, i. 261, 292. Fort Lane was in 1855 a eavalry station on Rogue River, near its junction with Stewart Creek. Camp Worth, also called Fort Worth, and Camp Graham were in Texas. Wilhelm's Eighth U. S. Inf., ii. 22, 28. Fort Bliss was at El Paso, New Mex. Id., ii. 43. Fort Orford was on the Or. coast; Fort Harmony on Wood Creek, Utah. Ind. Aff. Rept, 1854, 270; 1856, 233. For list of posts occupied by the eighth infantry with location about 1849, see Wilhelm's Eighth U. S. Inf., ii. 205-82. In Id., ii. 32-56, is mention of a number of posts in New Mex. and Texas, but they are difficult to locate. In the Meteor. Reg., 1843-54, 586-94, is a list of U. S. military posts, including those on the Pacific coast, with geographic position in 1840-54. In the Navajo country, New Mex., there was in 1859 a fort named Defiance, soon afterward abandoned, and in Utah, on the Sta Clara River, was Fort Clara. Ind. Aff. Rept, 1859, 348; 1868, 164; 1856, 234. Fort Simcoe, in east Washington, was abandoned as a military post in 1859 or before, the Yakima Indian agency taking possession thereof. Fort West was in 1863 on the head waters of the Gila. Ind. Aff. Jt. Com. Rept, 1867, 111. In Colo, stood in 1865 forts Riley, Larned, and Lyon. Fort Randall was in Todd co., Dak.; Fort Wingate in the Navajo country, New Mex. Ind. Aff. Rept, 1867, 336, 412. For list of forts in New Mex. in 1863, see Ind. Aff. Jt. Com. Rept, 1867, passim. For list of U. S. forts and military stations in 1825 see Sen. Doc, i. vol. i. 180, 19th Cong., 2d Sess.; in 1851, House Ex. Doc, 2, vol. ii. pt. i., 32dCong., 1st Sess. The names and locations of 70 U. S. forts in existence in 1837, with number of guns and garrisons, are given in Id., 3, vol. i. 201-8, 25th Cong., 2d Sess. For description of H. B. Co.'s forts in Wash., Or., and Id. in 1854, see Sen. Doc, no. 37, vol. vii. 33d Cong., 2d Sess. Adaes, 14 miles from Natchitoches, was a military post founded in 1806. Monette, Hist. Discov. and Settlement, ii. 341. Adams Fort was founded in 1798 on the Mississippi, in Natchez district, a few miles beyond the Spanish line. A stockade fort of the same name was built in 1794, on or near St Mary's River, 47 miles from Greenville, O. Albany was so named by the English, after its capture, in 1664, from the Dutch, by whom it was termed Fort Orange. Bryant, ii. 266. Altona, captured from the Dutch in 1655, was originally called Fort Christina. Id., ii. 162. Amite River, Fla—a small fort on this river was surrendered to Spain in 1779. Monette, i. 438. Amsterdam Fort was founded in 1626; for mention see Bryant, i. 366-7; ii. 266, 341, 348-9, 354. Arbuckle Fort was on the Washita branch of Red River, Tex. A little to the east of it was Fort Washita. Arkansas Fort was established in 16S6 by the chevalier de Tonti, near the mouth of the Arkansas. Pratz, i. 5, 7; Monette, i. map. Another post of the same name was built by the French in 1721, about 60 miles above the mouth of the Arkansas. On the upper waters of the Arkansas there was, in 1806, a block house and U. S. factory. Lewis and Clarke, map. Assumption Fort was built by the French as a depdt in 1739, on the east bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of Mar- got or Wolf River. The following year it was dismantled. Monette, i. 290-1; Bryant, ii. 549. Atkinson Fort was built at the village of Mundan before 1858. In 1860 it was named Fort Berthold, and during that year was destroyed by the Sioux. Boiler, 37, 72, 358. On the Arkansas River, below the Fort Bent, were forts Aubrey, Dodge, and Zaran. Augusta Fort was on the right branch of the Susquehanna, opposite the mouth of the west branch. Fort St Augustine, for mention see Monette, i. 69; Bryant, i. 213. Axacan Mission was founded in 1570, on the Rappahannock River, by a party 728 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. With churches, charitable societies, schools, libraries, and local journals, British Columbia has always of priests, friars, and Indian converts, among them being P. Segura, head of the Jesuit mission of Florida, and Don Luis, brother of the cacique of Axacan or Jacan. The latter relapsed into savagism, and aided in the massacre of the party, of whom only one Indian boy was saved. Baker's Station, a stockade on the east side of the Ohio, at the head of Cresap Bottom, was built for protection against Indians in 1782. Monette, ii. 140. Barancas, a stockade built at Pensacola in 1795, and termed by the Spaniards Fort San Ferdinando de Barancas, was blown up by the British in 1815. Baton Rouge, a post on the Mississippi, about half-way between Red River and New Orleans, was surrendered to Spain in 1779. Bedford Fort stood about 100 miles southeast from Pittsburgh. Benton Fort was at the head of steam navigation on the Missouri, just above Nasia River. Bent Fort on the Arkansas, above Sand Creek, was occupied by Bent and St Vrain as a trading post. Among their hunters was Kit Carson. Fort St Bernard was built by La Salle in 1685 at the mouth of a river which he termed the St Bernard, west of the Mississippi. Pratz, i. 5. Beverside Fort was built by a Dutchman about 1654, near the banks of the Schuylkill, but was not long in existence. Bryant, ii. 151. Big Falls, a trading post above St Anthony's Falls, on the Mississippi, remained standing in 1806. Black's Station stood, in 1776, on the site of Abington, Va. Monette, ii. 82. Bledsoe's Station, in Cumberland River Valley, was founded about 1778. Id., ii. 266-6. Boonesborough Fort was founded by Daniel Boone in 1775, on the site of the present town of Boonesborough. Ky. Bowyer Fort, built at Mobile Point in 1813, was so named after the first lieutenant in command. Brewerton Fort was at the west end of Oneida Lake. Brown's Station, six miles from Nashville, Tenn., was in existence in 1792, and Bryant's Station, a stockade fort on the south bank of Elkhorn Creek, between Lexington and Marysville, in 1782. Buford Fort was being erected by the U. S. government in 1866, on the site of the old Fort Williams trading post. Boiler, 42,* 415. Bute Fort was built in 1765 on the north bank of Bayou Manchac, near its junction with the Mississippi. Within a few hundred yards of it the Spainiards built a small fort, in 1770, for protection against smugglers. Monette, i. 403, 406. Cadot Fort stood, in 1776, at the southeast end of Lake Superior, near the falls of St Marie. Cahokia, three miles below St Louis, was in 1770 a small post dependent on Fort Gage.^ Campus Martius, the first fortified settlement west of the Ohio, was built in 1788 at the mouth of the Muskingum River. Fort Carolina, named after Charles IX., was founded by Ribault in 1562, in South Carolina, a few miles above St Helena Sound. In 1564 it was abandoned, and the same year a new one, with the same name, was built by a French colony, on the south bank oiM&y River, six leagues above its mouth. The latter was destroyed by the Spaniards in 1565. Cassimir Fort was built by the Dutch in 1653 on a bluff in the Delaware, four miles below the mouth of the Christina, to take the place of Fort Nassau, which occupied the present site of Newcastle, Del. In 1654 it was captured by the Swedes and named Trefalldigheet (Trinity Fort). It was retaken by the Dutch in 1655. Bryant, ii. 153,156,158. Chagwageman Mission, founded in 1669 by Father Mesnard on the southern shore of Lake Superior, but soon afterward abandoned, was reestablished in 1685 by Father Allouez. JBryant, ii. 501. Charles—of the three forts so named, one built in 1562 by Ribault, at Port Royal, Fla, was soon afterward abandoned; another was built by the Spaniards at Pensacola in 1696, and a third stood, in 1795, above Council Bluffs. Lewis and Clarke's Travels, 33. Charlotte Fort (originally Fort Conde'), built on the site of Mobile, controlled until 1813, when it was surrendered to the U. S., a considerable region east of the Mississippi. Monette, i. 84, 106; ii. 389. Charlotte Camp, a stockade enclosure with citadel, on the east side of the Scioto, was built in 1774. Chartres Fort, founded in 1720, en the left bank of the Mississippi, and considered one of the strongest posts in FORTS. 729 been abundantly supplied — somewhat over-abundantly, as it would appear, in proportion to the popu- North America, was a century later a massive ruin. Cherokee, or Old Cherokee Fort, 40 miles above the" mouth of the Ohio, was in existence in 1778. Christina Fort was founded by the Swedish West India Co., in 1638, at the junction of Christina Creek with the Brandy wine, near Wilmington. Bryant, i. 466-7. Fort St Clair, on the Miami, 20 miles north of Fort Hamilton, was built in 1791. Monette, ii. 490. Clairburne Fort, built in 1813 on Weather- ford Bluff, on the east side of Alabama River, 85 miles above Fort Stoddard, was a strong stockade with three block-houses and a half-moon battery. Clark Fort, named after the explorer, was in 1858 a dilapidated trading post on the Missouri, near the Riccaree village, and belonged to the American Fur Co. Boiler, 33. Conception Mission was founded among the Illinois in April 1675. Shea's Mississ., 56 Concord Fort was built by the Spaniards on the site of the village of Vidalia, on the west bank of the Mississippi. Monette, i. 540. Crawford Camp, on the Chattahoochy, just above the Florida line, was established in 1816. Creve-Coeur Fort, built by La Salle in 1679, near the head of Illinois River, and so named on account of the financial misfortunes that overtook the founder at this time, appears to have been abandoned the same or the following year. Bryant, ii. 511; Pratz, i. 5. Cumberland Fort was built by the English about 1754, on Will's Creek, near the present town of Cumberland, Md. Defiance Fort was a strong stockade, built in 1694 at the junction of Au Glaize and Maumee Rivers. Monette, ii. 304, 308. Denham Station, near Nashville, Tenn., was in existence in 1792. Detroit was in 1767 a large stockaded village with about eighty houses. Carver's Travels, 152. Dover Fort, N. H., contained, in 1689, five garrison houses, into which all the inhabitants withdrew at night. In 1754 the English began to erect a fort and trading post at the 'forks,' a point of land just above the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, where now stands Pittsburgh; but they were driven off by French under Contrecoeur, who at once built a fort and named it Du Quesne, after the governor of Canada. In 1758 it was attacked by the English, when the French set fire to it and fled, the former naming it Fort Pitt. Easley Station, at the forks of the Alabama and Tombigbee, was built in 1813. Edward Fort was on the left bank of the Hudson, near its northern bend. Ellsworth Fort was on the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas. Elfsborg or Elsingborg Fort, built by the Swedes at the mouth of Salem Creek, "Md, was abandoned about 1652, when the Dutch erected a fort near its site. Bryant, ii. 152. Ely and Curtis' trading post was in 1821 on the Missouri, near the mouth of the Kansas. Beckwourth, 31. Mission St Esprit was near to the western- corner of Lake Superior. Estill Station was on the south side of Kentucky River. Monette, ii. 124. Fairfield Fort, in Maine, was in existence in 1846. Farmers' Castle Station, a stockade with block house on the Ohio, twelve miles below the mouth of the Muskingum, was erected in 1789. Monette, ii. 247-8. Fincastle Fort, afterward named Fort Henry, on the east bank of the Ohio, near the site of Wheeling, was built in 1774. ii. 90, 95. Finley's trading post, in the present Clarke co. in Kentucky, was in existence in 1769. Florida Fort was founded in 1801, a few miles above Fort Stoddard, on Mobile River. Florida Mission was a Franciscan establishment in central Florida, in existence in 1584 or earlier. Floyd Station, on Bear-grass Creek, about six miles from the falls of the Ohio, was established in 1775. Fort St Francis was built in 1739 by the French, on the west bank of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the St Francis. ; Gadsden Fort, on the Appalachicola, below Fort Scott, was in existence in 1818. Monette, i. 93. Gage Fort, a stockade on the east bank of the Kas- kaskia, opposite the town of that name, was, after 1772, the headquarters of the commandant of Illinois. George Fort was built on the southern extremity of Lake George. Fort King George was erected by the English on the Alta- 730 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. lation, estimated in 1886 at not more than 60,000. At the capital there was a Jewish synagogue; the maha, Ga, about 1732. Bryant, ii. 560. Gloucester House was on the Albany River, near Osnaburgh House. Hai^mons' Jour., map. Good Hope Fort was built in 1633 by the Dutch West India Co., on the present site of Hartford, Conn. Bryant, i. 547. Gore Fort was erected in 1774 at the mouth of Hocking River. Monette, i. 381. Gosnold Fort, on Elizabeth Island, Mass., was built in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, who, under instructions from the earl of Southampton, examined the coast southward from Cape Cod. Bryant, i. 262 et seq. Gottenburg, or New Gottenburg, was a fort built by the Swedes in the 17th century, on Tinicum Island, Del. After being captured by the Dutch in 1655, it was known as Kottenberg Island. Gratiot Fort lay, in 1835, at the south end of Lake Huron, about 75 miles from Detroit. Green Bay Mission, in Wisconsin, was opened in 1669. Monette, i. 121. Greenville Fort was built near the present town of Greenville, O. Id., ii. 297. Hallett Fort was on Liard River, west of the great bend. Harmar Fort, built in 1785 at the mouth of the Muskingum, was the first U. S. military post in Ohio. Monette, ii. 218, 223. Harrod Station was a military post founded about 1774, near the present Harrodsburg, Ky. Id., i. 364. Hawn Fort was on Gullet Bluff, near the Tombigbee. Hayes' Station, near Nashville, Tenn., was in existence in 1792. Henry House was near and east from Moose Lake; Hoy's Station, on the Ohio frontier, was some 20 miles from Upper Blue Licks. Mission St Ignace was built on Michilimackinac Strait in 1670, and near to it the Hurons built a palisade. Monette, i., map 1; Shea's Mississ. lxi. Ignatius, St, or St Imigoe, as the common corruption is, was a Jesuit mission founded in Md in 1643. Bryant, i. 497, 512-13. Jackson Fort was built in 1814 on the site of old Fort Tallassee, near the mouth of the Coosa. Monette, ii. 425. James River had on its banks two forts in 1670, and the Potomac, Rappahannock, and York one each. Jefferson Fort, built in 1791, was 20 miles north of Fort St Clair, and about 6 from Greenville, O. Joseph Fort was at the south end of Lake Michigan. Kaskaskia, about five miles from the mouth of Kaskaskia River, and the oldest settlement in the Illinois country, was in 1770 a missionary station, containing a Jesuit college. Monette, i. 162, 166-7. Kenhawa, at the mouth of Great Kenhawa River, was, in 1776, a military post, in command of Capt. Arbuckle, and then known as the 'Point.' Kennebec River; the Popham colony, arriving in 1607, in the ship G\ft of God, built here a fort mounting 12 guns. Labarge Fort was a little above Fort Benton, on the Missouri. La Baye Fort was at the southern extremity of Green Bay. Laurens Fort, a military post, was built in 1778, on the. right bank of the Tuscarawas, just below the mouth of Sandy Creek. Monette, ii. 107, 218. Le Boeuf Fort was built by the French in 1753 on Lake Le Bouef, 15 miles from Presque Isle. Leech Lake Post was a block-house belonging to the N. W. Co. Liard Fort was on Liard River, above the Nahanni. Ligo- nier Fort, 60 miles east of Fort Pitt, was in existence in 1763. Lisa Fort, a trading post belonging to Manuel Lisa, of the Missouri Fur Co., was about five miles below Omaha. Logan Fort, in Lincoln co., Ky, near the Kentucky River, was founded in 1775. London Fort was a stockade post built by the English in 1757, on the north bank of Little Tennessee River, on the present site of Fort Winchester, Va. Lookout Fort was built on the Missouri, near Council Bluffs. Beckwourth, 85. Fort St Louis lay, in 1719, near the mouth of Mobile River. Pratz, i. 138. Another fort of that name was founded, between 1680 and 1683, near the junction of Illinois Riyer and Lake Peoria. Monette, i. 135, 146. A third was built by La Salle, in 1685, on Me- tagorda Bay, Texas. Bryant, ii. 517-18. Madison Fort, Iowa, Wasfestabliahed in 1808 as a frontier post*- Monette, ii. 561. Manchester Fort, with its stockade, was founded in 1790, 12 miles above Limestone, in the Va military district. Id., ii. 314. Mission St Marie, founded in 1669 among the Chippewas, was the oldest settlement in Mich. Shea's Mississ., xlvii. St Mark was FORTS. 731 presbyterians were represented by seven, and the methodist church of Canada by sixteen ministers, while in 1818 a post six miles above the mouth of Appalachy River. Monette, i. 94. Martin Station, on Stoner fork of Licking River, was destroyed by the English in 1670. Massac Fort was a stockade built by the French, in 1759, on the right bank of the Ohio, about 40 miles above its mouth. Mateo, Fort San, was erected by the Spaniards soon after their capture of Fort Caroline, in 1565, and probably close to its ruins. Bryant, i. 214. McAfee's Station was in 1781 a frontier post near the Ohio. Monette, ii. 121. McClellan's Station lay, in 1776, on the north fork of the Elkhorn, near the present village of Geoij^wn, Ky. McConnell's Station was in 1782 near the town of Lexingt .>iu McDowell Fort was on the Rio Verde branch of the Salado, near the mouth of the former. MTntosh Fort was built in 1778, on the north bank of the Ohio, near the mouth of Big Beaver Creek, Pa. Fort St Michael, near Pensacola, was in existence in 1815. Of the numerous forts in the state of Michigan, and in the neighborhood of the great lakes, most of them erected by the H. B. Co., may be mentioned the following: The fort of the Miamis was built by La Salle in 1679 as a trading post, on St Joseph River, near its entrance into Lake Michigan. Fort Laurimie, on the head waters of Great Miami River, was in existence in 1745. In 1752 the French had a stockaded trading post on Mad River, a tributary of the Great Miami. A British post named Miami, on the north bank of Maumee River, about two miles below the rapids, was built before 1763. In 1783 it was abandoned, and in 1793 reoccupied. Columbia, a settlement with block house, was commenced in 1788, on the north bank of the Ohio, three miles below the Little Miami. Fort Hamilton, on the Miami, 20 miles from Fort Washington, was in 1791 an advanced post. Fort Deposit was built in 1794 as a military storehouse, near the head of Maumee Rapids, seven miles from Fort Miami. Monette, Hist. Discov. and Settlement, i. 134; ii. 214, 218, 249, 257, 290, 264. Fort Mackinaw stood on the south side of the strait of Michilimackinac, between lakes Huron and Michigan, and was a repository and place of departure for the upper and lower country. The stockade enclosed nearly two acres and about 30 houses, and was garrisoned by about 95 men, the bastions being protected by brass guns. In 1763 it was captured by Indians. Id., i. 330. In 1766 Fort Michilimackinac, at the junction of lakes Huron and Michigan, enclosed by a strong stockade, and garrisoned by about 100 men, was the most remote of English posts. The name signifies a tortoise, and applies probably to an island a few miles to the north-east, which in appearance resembles a tortoise. The place was captured by Pontiac in 1763, but was restored the following year. Carver, ix. 19. Miro Post, on the Washita River, was built in 1795, on the site of the town of Monroe. Monette, i. 488-9. Mitchell Fort, on the Chattahoochy, Ga, was in existence in 1815, and Montgomery Fort, near Pensacola, in 1818. Nashville was a trading post erected by the French near the present city of Nashville about 1778. Monette, ii. 266. Nassau Fort, a large trading post erected by Hendrick Christiansen, a Dutch captain, in 1614, on Castle Island, near Albany, was the first one built on the Hudson River. Bryant, i. 359. Natchitoches* on Red River, was occupied in 1712 as a trading post, and in 1717 as a military post. Monette, ii. 460. Necessity Fort was built by the English in 1754, a few miles west of Union- town^ but was surrendered the same year to the French. Nelson Fort was built in 1780 on the Ohio, near Bear-grass 'Creek, and Newl ^rry, a settlement with block house, in 1789 on the same river, 22 miles below the Muskingum. Niagara Fort was built by the French in 1726, near the mouth of Niagara River. Old Fort, or Redstone Old Fort, on the Monongahela, was named Brownsville when the latter town was laid out in 1785. Monette, ii. 194. Orleans Fort was built by the French in 1720, on an island above the mouth of Osage River. Oswego Fort, at the mouth of Oswego River, was captured by the. French in 1756. Ouiatenon or Ouatanon Fort stood, in 1767, on the 732 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. the baptist and reformed episcopal churches were engaged in organizing various branches throughout the left bank of the Wabash, near the junction of its sources. Panmure Fort, at Natchez, surrendered to the Spaniards in 1779. Monette, i. 438. Pembina Fort was on Red River, near the mouth of the Pembina. Pensacola Fort was captured by the French in 1719, and soon afterward recaptured by the Spaniards, and again captured by the French. Pratz, i. 93 et seq. It was occupied by the Americans in 1818. Fort St Peter stood, in 1725, near the mouth of the Yazoo River. Monette, i. 223. Pickering Fort was near Memphis, below Wolf River. Pierre Fort, on the Missouri, 1,200 miles above St Louis, was formerly one of the largest forts in the Sioux country, but in 1866 no vestige of it remained. Boiler, 29,417. On hearing of the massacre in Virginia, in 1622, the pilgrim fathers built a fort within the palisades that surrounded the nine houses then comprising the town of Plymouth. Presqu' Isle was on the southern shore of Lake Erie, near Presqu' Isle Bay. Primeau Fort was in 1858 a dilapidated post on the Missouri, near the village of the Riccarees. Boiler, 33. Prince George Fort, about 110 miles east of Fort London, was in existence in 1757. Monette, i. 314. Pueblo Fort, a trading post at the junction of the Fontaine qui Bouit and Arkansas, was built in 1842 by a company of traders. Scenes Rocky Mts, 172. Recovery Fort was built in 1794, on the scene of St Clair's defeat, between St Mary River and Greenville, O. Monette, ii. 300-3. Red Cedar Lake Post, belonging to the N. W. Co., is laid down on Lewis and Clarke's map. Rice Fort was on Buffalo Creek, about 12 miles north of Wheeling. Monette, ii. 140. Robertson Station, founded in 1780, near the site of Nashville, afterward became the centre of the Cumberland settlements. Rosalie Fort was built by the French in 1716, on the bluff where Natchez now stands. Fort St Rose, near Pensacola, was in existence in 1815. Sackville (the old French Fort St Vincent) lay, in 1770, on the left bank of the Wabash, 150 miles above its mouth. Monette, i. 413. Sandusky Fort was built on the site of Sandusky City. Saybrook Fort was built about 1635; for mention, see Bryant, i. 550, 555. Schlosser Fort was on the right bank of the Niagara, opposite Grand Island. Scott Fort, on the Georgia frontier, was in existence in 1816. Monette, i. 91, 93. Simon, Mission St, was located, in 1670, at Great Manitounin Island, Lake Huron. Id., i. map, p. 1. South River Post was built in 1624 by settlers belonging to the Dutch West India Co. They soon afterward abandoned it for Manhattan. Bryant, i. 366-7. Stanwix Fort, also known as Fort Schuyler, was on the right bank of the Mohawk, near its source. Station Prairie, on the Scioto, was built in 1796, near the site of the town of Chillicothe. Monette, ii. 315. Steuben Fort stood in 1782 near the falls of the Ohio. Stoddard Fort was founded in 1801, on Mobile River near the Spanish line, and Strother Fort on the Coosa, near Ten Islands, about 1813. Talassee Fort, six miles above the mouth of the Coosa, and built on the site of Fort Toulouse, the latter being erected in 1714, was reconstructed in 1814 as Fort Jackson. Monette, i, 213, 415. Thompson's Creek Post, a small fort in west Fla, was surrendered to the Spaniards in 1779. Tombigby Fort was built by the French in 1736 on the river of that name, about 250 miles above the site of Mobile. Union Fort, on the Missouri, six miles above the Yellowstone, and in 1830 the headquarters of the American Fur Co., was one of the oldest and best equipped of the company's forts. Boiler, 9, 43; Bechwourth, 360. Valle's Post, on the Missouri, just above Cheyenne, was occupied in 1804 by the French trader Valle. Lewis and Clarke, 70, Venango Fort was built by the French in 1753, on the site of Franklin, Pa. Monette, i. 168, 171. Vincent, Post St, on the Wabash, some distance above White River, was in existence in 1745. Id., i. map. Washington Fort was founded in 1789, on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Licking. Monette, ii. 251-2. Washita Post, built in 1713, on the site of the town of Monroe, was in existence in 1760. Wayne Fort, named after Gen. Wayne, CHURCHES. 733 province.35 Two years before there were five catholic or episcopal dioceses, with nearly sixty clergymen.36 At Victoria there were three hospitals,37 an orphans' home,38 several benevolent societies,89 and the inevi- was built in 1794 at the confluence of St Mary's and St Joseph's rivers. Weatherford was in 1813 a stronghold and town near the south bank of the Alabama, in a swamp known as Ecchanachaca, or Holy Ground. Williams Fort, three miles below the Yellowstone, was moved in 1858 80 miles above on the Missouri. Boiler, 42, Winchester, on the site of a stockade fort built in 1756 in the valley between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany ranges, was declared a military fort in 1757. William Henry Fort was built in 1755, on the southern extremity of Lake George. A fort of the same name, situated at Pemagnid, Me, was demolished by the French in 1696. Bryant, ii. 449. Mission St Francis Xavier was founded on Green Bay, Illinois Lake, in 1670. Shea's Mississ., 11, xi., vii.; Monette, i. map, p. 1. Without venturing to present the reader with bibliographical notices of the various authors from whom this resume' has been written, it may not be out of place to notice a manuscript handed to me at Victoria in 1878, and entitled Forts and Fort Life in New Caledonia, under Hudson's Bay Company Regime, by P. N. Compton, MS. In a few pages Mr Compton has condensed more information as to the subject-matter of his manuscript than can be found elsewhere in such brief space. Landing at Victoria in 1859, in the service of the H. B. Co., Mr Compton was ordered to Fort Simpson, where, as he says, * the daily routine was to get up at six o'clock, dig potatoes, chop wood, clean furs, and shovel snow.' After three years' service he travelled in Europe, principally in Servia and Turkey, returning to Victoria in 1876. In The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island, with an exposition of the Chartered Rights, Conduct, and Policy of the Hon. Hudson's Bay Corporation, by R. M. Martin (London, 1849), the author gives a good general description of the geography and physical features of the company's territory in the north-west, together with information as to site and condition of their forts and stations. Much of the work is devoted to the constitution and working of the corporation at home and abroad, their policy and system being contrasted with those of American fur-traders. Most of the leading authorities then extant have been consulted, among them being parliamentary papers, the reports of missionary societies, the official papers deposited at the colonial office, the board of trade, and the admiralty, and the several charters granted to the company. The book is fairly and impartially written, though somewhat^ tedious and uninteresting in style. Facing the frontispiece is a map showing the location of the company's forts and stations throughout the territory. s^ There were also three branches of the upper Canada auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. B. C. Inform, for Emigrants, 56-7. 86 In 1884 Archbishop Seghers of Oregon was appointed to the episcopacy of V. I. and Alaska. Sac. Record-Union, March 18, 1884. 37 The Royal hospital, the expenditure of which averaged, between 1876 and 1886, about $5,500 a year, the Maison de Santo" Francaise, and St Joseph's, the last being in charge of the sisters of St Ann. 38 The B. C. Protestant Orphans' Home, established in 1872, and of which, in 1885, A. A. Green was president. B. C. Direct., 1884-5, 91. 39 Among them may be mentioned the B. C Benevolent Society, which disbursed about $500 in charities, the insignificance of the amount due rather to the small number of deserving poor than to lack of funds. In the supplementary estimates for 1885-6, the sum of $250 was voted in aid of this society. Stat. B. C, 1885, 124. The St Andrew's Society, organized in 1860, and the Caledonian Benevolent Association, in 1863, were consolidated in 1870 into one association, named the St Andrew's and Caledonian Society. There were also several secret societies, including the Far West Lodge of the 734 SETTLEMENTS. MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. table Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Temperance Union. At New Westminster, Nanaimo, Yale, Cariboo, and elsewhere, there were also institutions for the care of the sick, for mutual aid, and for charitable purposes similar to those in operation at the capital.40 Although an act for the establishment of public schools was passed by the legislature of Vancouver Island as early as 1865, and by that of the united colonies in 1869,41 it was not until several years later that provision was made for an efficient educational system. In the estimates laid before the former for 1866, the sum of $15,000 was included for school purposes; but on August 31st of this year the assembly of Vancouver practically ceased to exist. At that date no appropriation had been made by the legislature, and thereafter none could be made. The chief magistrate therefore informed the superintendent of education that, as there were no means at his disposal, he could not further guarantee the payment of rent, salaries, or other items. Thus the responsibility of maintaining the public schools was thrown on the board of education, and for several months they were maintained by that body under some arrangement unknown, as the colonial secretary remarked, to the executive.42 In a supplementary message, dated February 27, 1867, Governor Seymour states that on the island an attempt had been made to lay the burden Knights of Pythias, the Victoria Lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the American Legion of Honor, the Independent Order of Chosen Friends, Dominion Lodge No. 4, and Columbia Lodge No. 2, of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows. 40 At New Westminster was the Royal Columbia Hospital, of which a committee appointed to inquire into its condition in 1883 reported favorably. See Sess. Papers, B.C.,188*, 283-4. There were also branches of the A. 0. U. W. and Ancient Order of Foresters. Of the Nanaimo Hospital, J. Pawson was president in 1885, and in this town were also lodges of the A. 0. F. and A. O. U. W. For masonic statistics of B. C, see Proceedings Grand Lodge of New Mex., 1879, 55. 41 The latter, which was entitled the Common School ordinance, 1869, repealed the Common School act, 1865, of the former colony of Victoria. This was again altered by the Common School Amendment ordinance, 1870. For text of both, see the revised Laws B. C.f 1871, 392-6, 434-7. i2Jour. Legisl. Council, B. C, 1867, app. xi. SCHOOLS. 735 of expense for educational purposes on the community, while he was compelled to acknowledge that on the mainland the population was yet too sparse and scattered to admit of any regular and organized system. The state, he considered, might aid the parent, but ought not to relieve him of his natural responsibility, "else it might happen that the promising mechanic might be marred, and the country overburdened with half-educated professional politicians, or needy hangers-on of government." But unto Governor Seymour was not vouchsafed, as we have seen, the wisdom of a Solomon, and his views must be accepted for what they are worth. Under his administration the condition of the public schools was deplorable. Between September 1866 and the close of 1868 their total cost in the several districts of Vancouver was about $15,000, of which sum more than $4,000 remained unpaid at the latter date, mainly on account of teachers5 salaries, although there were but five teachers in all Vancouver, none of them receiving more than $75, and the average being $65, per month. During 1867 and 1868 six out of the eleven schools established under the act of 1865 were discontinued for want of funds,43 and of the 425 children receiving instruction early in the former year, nearly one half were turned adrift, while to several of the teachers discharged or suspended there were still due sums varying from |109 to $253, and to all of those retained from $215 to $588. In 1869 matters were but little improved. During that year only twelve public schools were maintained in the several districts of British Columbia, seven being on the island,44 and five on the mainland.45 A grant of $10,376 in all was made by the government, 43 The Esquimalt, South Saanich, Cowichan, Cedar Hill, Salt Spring, and the central school for girls at Victoria. Those still in operation were the central school for boys and the district school, Victoria, the Craigflower, Lake, and Nanaimo schools. Sess. Papers, in Id., 1869, app. vii. 44 Those mentioned in the previous note, and one at Saanich, and one at Cedar Hill. Id., 1870, app. ix. 45 One each at New Westminster, Langley, Yale, Lytton, and Sapperton. 736 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. of which $5,900 was devoted to the payment of teachers' salaries.46 The entire amount received from local aid was but $330. In six out of the twelve districts no local aid was voted, and from three others no returns were received. The average attendance at each school was less than 30, and at all the schools about 350,47 out of a school population probably little short of 2,000. No regular accounts were kept by the local boards. Teachers were appointed without examination as to fitness, and sometimes without inquiry as to character. There was no inspection, as there were no funds wherewith to pay inspectors' salaries, and there were no regulations as to the management other than those framed by the local boards. In this condition, or very nearly so, the educational affairs of the colony and province remained until 1872, when an act was passed providing that a board of education should be appointed for the province, defining the duties of such board, and also those of school trustees, school-teachers, and the superintendent of schools, and authorizing the lieutenant-governor to create additional school districts.48 After this date there was a marked improvement, and in 1874 we find 1,245 names enrolled on the various registers, or more than double the number contained in 1872, provision having now being made for annual inspections and for the examination of teachers.49 For 46 For each school $500, except the one at Sapperton, for which $400 was appropriated. 47At ten of them the total attendance gives an average for the year of 296, and from others no returns were received. Ibid. 48 For text, see Stat. B. C, 1872, 39-49. By this act the ordinances of 1869 and 1870 were repealed. In the report of a select committee on the act of 1872, it was recommended that compulsory education be made general throughout the province, taking as a precedent the compulsory clauses of the Ontario school act, whereby all children between seven and twelve years of age were required to 'attend some school or be otherwise educated for four months in the year.' 49 The superintendent reports a scarcity of efficient teachers, only 8 out of 36 employed in the department during the school year ending July 31, 1874, having undergone a regular training. Many of them failed to pass, or did not attempt to pass, the teachers' examination, as will be seen in Jour. Legisl, Ass. B. C, 1875, 63-9, where is a copy of the examination papers. The questions put were exceedingly simple. A full report of the superintendent for this year will be found in Id., 1875, 14-73. PUBLIC MEASURES. 737 the year ending the 31st of July, 1876, there was a school population of more than 2,500,50 of which 1,685 attended the public schools during a portion of 1875, the average attendance for all parts of the province being 984, while there were still 385 children who did not receive instruction of any kind. During the five preceding years the number of schools had increased from 14 to 45, and of teachers from 13 to 50, the average cost being $22.38 per capita of the pupils.51 On the 19th of May, 1876, an act was approved for the maintenance of public schools, whereby each male resident of the province was required to pay an annual tax of three dollars for educational purposes.52 On the same date the Consolidated Public School act, 1876, received the governor's signature. The latter was repealed by the Public School act, 1879,53 and after some further legislation,54 the laws then in force were consolidated in the Public School act, 1885, wherein there were no salient features, except that clergymen, of whatever denomination, were ineligible for appointment as superintendent, teacher, or trustee, and that all children from seven to twelve years of age were required to attend one of the public or private schools, or otherwise to receive an education, for not less than six months in the year.55 Turning to the thirteenth annual report of the superintendent of education for the school year ending July 31,1884, we find 57 public schools in operation,56 50 The number actually reported to the superintendent was 2,484. Fifth ann. rept of the supt of educ, in Sess. Papers, B. C, 1877, 87. 61 For full text of supt's report, see Id., 87-159. At this date high schools had been established at Victoria and New Westminster; but wiih the exception of these two cities and South Cowichan, none of the settlements contained more than one public school building. b2Stat. B. C., 1876, 111-12. For petition signed by Bishop Seghers and 63 others, protesting against all taxation for the support of non-sectarian schools, and particularly against this special tax, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1876,725. 63 Stat. B. C., 1879, 111-23. It was first amended by acts of 1877 and 1878, for copies of which, see Id., 1877, 111; 1878, 71-2. 54 Amending the act of 1879. Id., 1882, 77; 1884, 131-5. 55 Under penalty of fine, not exceeding $5 for the first wilful offence, and $10 for each subsequent offence. For text of act, see Id., 1885, 125-41. 66 Of which 49 were common schools (this being the phrase usually applied Hist. Beit. Col. 47 738 SETTLEMENTS, MISSIONS, AND EDUCATION. with 75 teachers and 3,420 pupils enrolled, the average daily attendance being 1,809—an increase of 426 over the preceding year, and of 1,234 over the scholastic year 1872-3. The total expenditure for education proper in 1883-4 was $58,361,57 the sums appropriated for buildings, repairs, insurance, and similar items being considered a portion of the government assets. The actual outlay for all educational purposes was $66,655.15, and the amount voted in the estimates for the year $68,415, leaving an unexpended balance of $1,759.85. At no period in the history of the provincial schools had so much interest been shown in the cause of education,58 and at no period was the standard of education so high. Among the six persons to whom were awarded teachers' certificates of the first grade in the first class, at the examination held in July 1884, were four university graduates,69 although the highest salary paid was but $110,60 and the average salary $60.64, per month. While the public schools of British Columbia compared not unfavorably, considering her scant population, with those of her sister provinces and of the neighboring states and territories, it must be admitted that as yet her educational system was but in its infancy. As late as 1886 there was no university in existence, and there was not even a normal school or a teachers' institute. Much, however, had been accomplished, and at moderate expense.61 in the home country to what are termed public schools in the United States), 7 were graded schools, and one a high school (at Victoria). Sess. Papers, B. C., 1885, 151, 169. 67 It is worthy of note that of this sum $50,762.55 was expended for teachers' salaries, while only $2,988.67 was appropriated for the education office, and $4,610.02 for incidental expenses, including rent. 58 The total number of visits to the various schools in the province increased from 2,922 in 1882-3 to 9,486 in 1883-4. 59 Of whom two were granted renewals, the holder of a first-class certificate having the privilege of renewal without further examination. • There were three classes, and to each class two grades. f 60 To the principal of the high school at Viotoria, the principal of the boys school at New Westminster, where the high school had now been abolished, receiving $100 per month. For text of report, see Id., 1885, 151-236. 61 In the report of a select committee, appointed in 1881, it was recommended that a tuition fee of $5 per quarter should be charged for scholars in NEWSPAPERS. 739 "This," said Amor de Cosmos, handing me a green- paper-covered file of the Victoria Gazette, printed between June 25 and July 25, 1858, "was the first newspaper published in Victoria." In December of that year was issued the first number of the British Colonist,62 continued until the autumn of 1863 by the ex-governor of British Columbia.63 In 1885 the Daily and Weekly Colonist, established in 1858 byD. W. Higgins, who was still the proprietor at the former date, was one of the prominent newspapers of the province, among others published at the capital being the Daily and Weekly Standard, Times, and Daily Evening Post. At New Westminster was issued the British Columbian and the Mainland Guardian, at Nanaimo the Free Press,6i at Kamloop the Inland Sentinel,65 and at several of the mainland interior towns were weekly or semi-weekly publications.66 The Mechanics' Literary Institute at Victoria contained in 1886 about 7,000 well-selected volumes, and at New Westminster, at Clinton, and other of the mainland settlements, were smaller libraries, all of them well supplied with periodical literature. the high school. Jour. Legisl. Ass. B. C, 1881, 72. For other reparts of the superintendent of education and of committees on public schools, see Sess. Papers, B. C, 1878, 7-68; 1879, 179-239; 1880, 159-227; 1881, 447-9, 455- 64; 1882, 249-322; 1883,183-270; 1884, 91-156; Jour. Legist Ass. B. C, 1877, app. xxvi.; 1880, app. iii. 62 The last issue of the Victoria Gazette was dated June 23, 1859. During 1858 was published the Vancouver Island Gazette, by Frederic Marriott of the News Letter. It passed through eight or ten numbers, and enriched its owner, by his well-known process of money-making, to the amount of some $8,000. He was then advised to remove. A French newspaper, published by Paul de Gara, expired almost still-born, Tp. this year also was published for a few weeks the North American. 63 Meanwhile a newspaper was published named the Press. Then followed the Evening Express, Prices Current, and other minor publications, some fifteen in all up to 1865. De Cosmos' Govt, MS., 3. 64A semi-weekly, established in 1874 by George Norris. B. C. Direct., 1884-5, 119. 65 A weekly paper, formerly published at Yale. Id., 1884-5, 202. 66 For list of publications in 1878, see PettingilVs Newspaper Direct.r 255. CHAPTER XXXVI. INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. 1880-1886. Agricultural Areas—Public Lands—Stock-raising—Fruits—Fisheries Salmon-canning — Manufactures — Gold-mining — Coal-mining— The Alaska Boundary—Exports and Imports—Comparison with Other Provinces—Banking—Insurance—Shipping—Inland Navigation—Revenue and Expenditure—Public Debt—Comparison of Customs Returns—Elements of Prosperity—Biographical—Bibliographical. In 1886 British Columbia was not adapted to any large immigration of poor families. Abundant, as were her resources, there was lack of funds wherewith to develop them; and for persons without means, excepting laborers and perhaps a limited number of mechanics, there were few openings.1 But for men possessing even a small capital there were few more profitable investments than a cereal farm or cattle rancho within her borders. As an agricultural region the mainland is divided into sections by the Coast Range, the interior having a climate of extremes, the coast a mild and equable temjperature, and the south- 1 In 1861 immigrants were in demand in B. C. S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 28,1861. In 1867 the legislative council recommended that the department of lands and works, in addition to its other functions, be used as an immigration department, and that in the absence of power to make free grants of land to bona fide settlers, *a bounty be offered to actual settlers equivalent to the preemption price of the land that they may be liable to pay under the land ordinance.' Jour. Legist Council, 1867, 66. For immigration statistics in 1869, see U. S. Bureau of Statistics, no. 2, 1879-80, 175, 88. In 1881 there was a scarcity of laborers. S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1881. While the construction of the C. P. R. R. was in progress, laborers and mechanics could always find employment at fair rates. In the first annual report of the immigration agents for 1883, it is stated that about 3,000 Chinese arrived in the province during that year, and some 5,850 white persons. Sess. Papers, B. C., 1884, 297. (740) KM ATTRACTIONS FOR SETTLERS. 741 ern portion, with its wide, trough-like valleys, requiring irrigation during the summer months.2 Though containing large tracts of good arable land, the entire province is better adapted for stock-raising than for the production of crops. Even of the delta lands of the Fraser, with their rich clay loams, where forty bushels of wheat or barley to the acre and sixty of oats were no uncommon yield, but a small portion was under cultivation as late as 1884.3 In the southern portion of the mainland interior, east of the Frazer, were 500 square miles available for agricultural purposes, the most valuable portion being in the Chilliwhack municipality, where an average crop gives about twenty bushels of wheat and forty of oats or barley to the acre. Near the estuary of the Fraser, and in the neighborhood of Hope and of Okanagan Lake, are areas in all of about the same extent. North of the fifty-first parallel and west of the Fraser, in the basin of the Nechacco and its tributaries, is an area of about 1,230 square miles available for tillage, though partially covered with forest, and without means of communication. In the Peace River country are immense tracts of land which, though in part densely wooded, are fertile of soil, one of them, west of Smoky River, and known as Grand Prairie, containing at least 230,000 acres capable of production.4 In all Vancouver Island there are not more 2 For further mention of climate, see p. 40-3, this vol.; Dom. Can. Guide- Booh, 1885, 71; Dawson's N. W. Terr, and B. C, 50, 62-4. For act relating to irrigation, drainage, and diking, see Stat. B. C, 1882, 4; for account of Fraser River dikes and diking enterprises, see W. T. Intelligencer, June 5, 1879; Western Oregonian, June 14, 1879. 3 B. C. Inform, for Emigrants, 1884, 35. These were the average returns of several well-known farms. In a few favored spots as much as 80 bushels per acre of wheat has been harvested, and in one locality, where the surface was a light sandy loam, mixed with alluvial soil, the yield was 40 bushels of oats or barley and 25 of wheat. 4 j My observations tended to show,' remarked Macoun, the botanist of the P. R. survey, ' that nearly all the Peace River district was just as capable of successful settlement as Manitoba.' Dom. Can. Inform, for Settlers, 1884, 25. In his evidence before a parliamentary committee, Dawson states that the Peace River country contains an area of agricultural land which, if all of it were sown in wheat, would produce over 470,000,000 bushels a year, or at the rate of 20 bushels an acre. 742 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. than 300,000 acres of farming land,5 of which less than 15,000 were under cultivation in 1886,6 though on the southern and eastern sides of the island there was a considerable farming population. In the Queen Charlotte Islands, believed, like most of those adjacent to the north-west coast of the continent, to be merely the mountain tops of a submerged tract, from which they have been separated by volcanic action, there are some 15,000 acres of flat and un- wooded land, but of this only a few hundred are suitable for agriculture, the largest patches of cleared arable land not exceeding twenty acres.7 Of level pasture land the area is also limited, a tract of some 400 acres, south of the entrance to Skidegate Inlet, being the largest, and this containing only a scattered growth of coarse beach-grass.8 5 Dom. Can. Inform, for Settlers, 1884, 24. In his Vancouver Island, MS., 55, Mr Bayley remarks: ' Of all the poor apologies for an agricultural country, V. I. exceeds anything that I have as yet beheld. Its surface is diversified with rocks, and for a change, swamps, and swamps and rocks.' In the Early Life on Vancouver Island, by C. A. Bayley, MS., to which reference has been made in former chapters, I have been furnished with some interesting annals touching V. I. and the mainland during the regime of the H. B. Co. Reaching Victoria in May 1851, the author says that there were then no signs of cultivation in its neighborhood. Landing on the beach, near to which stood the old fort, he found in its neighborhood only a few log shanties tenanted by Iroquois, French Canadians, and kanakas. Employed first as a schoolteacher, and then appointed coroner by Douglas, he relates many remarkable adventures among the native tribes during his sojourn in the north-west. He afterward became a member of the legislative assembly for V. I. 6 In 1881 there were only about 10,000 acres in tilth. 7 There are, however, several thousand acres of lightly timbered spruce and alder lands, bordering on the bays and streams, which, if there should ever be a home market, might be cultivated for root crops and dairy purposes. Chittenden's Explor. Queen Charlotte Islands, 34. 8Almost the entire surface of the Queen Charlotte Islands is covered with dense forests of spruce, hemlock, and cedar, containing large quantities of valuable timber, and many spots where spruce can be obtained in abundance, but none where large saw-mills can be profitably worked. The Douglas fir and yellow cedar were in 1866 the only timber which could be profitably exported from the province, and the former was not found on this group, while the latter did not grow south of Skidegate Inlet in sufficient quantity to furnish a good supply of logs. Nearly all the best varieties of fish taken in the waters of B. C abounded in those of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Between 1883 and 1886 the Skidegate Oil Company produced from 35,000 to 40,000 gallons of fish-oil a year, giving employment, during summer, to a large number of Indians. For many previous years the natives had extracted oil simply by throwing heated stones into hollow logs filled with dog-fish livers; but the oil thus obtained was barely marketable. By the use of retorts the company manufactured an oil so pure and clear that it met with ready sale at fair prices, being especially in demand for lubricating purposes. Fur-bearing AGRICULTURE. 743 Of Texada Island, acquired under circumstances that called for an official investigation,9 it may be said that it contains no area adapted either to agriculture or pasturage, or none that is appreciable.10 With such areas of available agricultural land, sufficient to maintain more than ten times her population, it may not be unworthy of note, that in 1884 current retail market prices at Victoria were, for oatmeal more than six cents a pound, for flour nearly 3j cents, and for wheat $2.50 the cental, other articles of consumption' selling in the same proportion, and this in a community where wages were not above those paid in the metropolis of the Pacific coast, in which most of the necessaries of life could be purchased at little more than half the rates demanded in the metropolis of British Columbia.11 Public lands in British Columbia were, with the exception of the railroad belt, vested in the provincial animals, especially bears, land-otters, and martins, were very plentiful, while fur-seals were killed in considerable numbers, and a few sea-otter were taken every season. With minerals the islands were poorly supplied. Bayley's V. I., MS., 9-11; though it has been stated that gold, silver, iron, and copper were discovered between 1852 and 1859. See S. F. Alta, March 8, 1852; Bulletin, Dec. 9, 1858; April 15, 30, 1859. The only discovery of gold worth naming was that made at Mitchell Harbor in 1852, for which see p. 345, this vol. From the Official Report of the Exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands for the Government of British Columbia, by Newton II. Chittenden, Victoria, 1844, and the Geological Survey of Canada, Alfred R. C. Selwyn, F. R. S., F. G. S. Director, Report of Progress for 1878-9, Montreal, 1880, the reader will gather all the information of which he may be in search as to the soil, climate, geology, fauna, flora, and resources of the Queen Charlotte group. Perhaps the most interesting portions of both works are those relating to the physical peculiarities, social customs, and traditions of the Haidahs; but as I have already treated of these subjects in my Native Races, it is unnecessary to mention them further. 9For papers in the case, see Jour. Legisl. Ass. B. C, 1875, 181-246. l? Its main value was a deposit of rich magnetic iron ore, varying from 2 to 25 feet in thickness, and assaying in spots as much as 68 per cent of metal. The mine was within 20 miles of Comox harbor, whence, in 1883, a small quantity was shipped to the eastern states for treatment. Brit. Colonist, Sept. 19, 1883. . 11 In Brit. Cot Inform, for Emigrants, 1884,17-18, is a list of retail prices at the Victoria markets in March of that year. For further items as to agriculture in B. C, see Dom. Can. Inform, for Settlers, 1884, 20-5; Dom. Can. Guide-Booh, 1885, 74-5; Chittenden's Travels in B. C, passim; Dawson's N. W. Ter. and B. C, 50-2, 55-61, 64, passim; S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 12, Mar. 24, 1881; Chronicle, July 22,1878; Alta, May 21, 1862; May 13, 1871; March 31, 1872; Oct. 25,1875; Sac. Record-Union, Jan. 1, 1884; Portland West Shore, June 1, 1880. 744 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. government. British subjects, or those who had declared their intention of becoming such, could preempt, at* the rate of one dollar per acre, a half- section north or east of the Cascade Range, or a quarter-section elsewhere in the province, the price being payable in four annual instalments. Unsurveyed or unreserved crown lands, and surveyed lands not being town sites or Indian settlements, could, after being offered for sale at auction, be purchased for one dollar an acre, payable in cash.12 As elsewhere in British colonies, it was the policy of the government to reserve its domain for actual settlers—men who, by developing and in part consuming the resources of the province, added to its wealth, rather than to dispose of it for a nominal price to speculators and capitalists. Moreover, the public lands were a source of revenue which could be utilized to better advantage, as from year to year the population gradually increased. For stock-raising purposes the mainland interior, and especially its southern portion, east of the Fraser, wras considered the most favorable region.13 The higher plateaux of this district, though little cultivated on account of summer frosts, are for the most part covered with nutritious bunch-grass, which, un- 12 The fee for recording was $2 an acre. The first instalment for preemption claims need not be paid until two years after date of record. After survey, and on proof that, from date of occupation, improvements had been made to the amount of not less than $2.50 an acre, the settler was^ entitled to a 'certificate of improvement,' and on full payment to a grant in fee simple. Naval and military officers could, after seven years' service, obtain free grants of land under the Military and Naval Settlers' act, 1863. Lands and improvements, duly registered, could not be attached for debt up to a value of $2,500, and goods and chattels up to $500. Dom. Can. Inform, for Settlers, 1884, 26-8; Dom. Can. Guide-Book, 1885, 77-8. For reports of commissioners of lands and works, see B. C. Lands and Works Depart. New Westminster, 1866. Jour. Legisl. Ass., 1875, 301-481; Sess. Papers, B. C, 1876, 419-563, iii.-xxii.; 1877, 249-356, i.-xxxvi.; 1878, 263-378,455-93; 1879,247-54; 1880, 265-310; 1881, 389-418. For land acts, see Stat. B. C, 1877, 114; 1882, 6, 13-18; 1883, 17, 77-8; 1884, 16. 13 Dawson's evidence, in Dom. Can. Inform, for Settlers, 1884, 23; B. C. Inform for Emigrants, 29. Good is of- opinion that the section forming the basin of the Thompson, Nicola, Bonaparte, and Spillemeechen rivers, and bordering on lakes La Hache, Kamloop, Nicola, Shuswap, and Okanagan, was the best field for pastoral enterprise. Brit. Cot, MS., 77-8. GRAZING LANDS. 745 less eaten closely, and not allowed to seed, never ceases to grow, its heart remaining green throughout winter, when the exterior is dry and withered*14 On this pasture cattle and sheep thrive, grass-fed beef and mutton being of excellent quality; while, with some provision of winter food, in case of severe weather, sheep and cattle require only the protection of a sheltered spot with little depth of snow. Extending from the railroad line to the heart of the northern interior, the Yale and Cariboo wagon- road passes through or near considerable areas of rich grazing land, in which, beyond the 5 2d parallel, the grasses are mainly what are known as the red-top and blue-joint, interspersed, on the southern slopes of hills, with the pea-vine. Although these grasses could doubtless be cut and preserved for future use, thus saving the necessity of wintering stock elsewhere, the experiment has never yet been tried on any considerable scale. In the Peace River district, and in the north-east angle of the territory, are vast areas of land too remote for agricultural settlement, and which as yet are but little utilized, even for stock-raising. In the coast region the richest lands for pasture, as for agriculture, are found in the delta of the Fraser, although for the former purpose their greater value and limited area render competition with the interior almost impossible. In Vancouver the area available for pasture is somewhat limited, the flat, untimbered region in the southern and eastern portions of the island being turned to more profitable use for agricultural purposes. In many parts, however, there are patches of soil, covered with short, thick, nutritious grasses, where, as in the more thinly wooded sections of the hill country, small herds may thrive the year round without shelter, except protection for the weaklier 14 Bunch-grass is found at intervals between the western slope of the Black Hills and the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. For description, see my Hist. Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and Hist. Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming. 746 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. stock from excessive rains. Among the islands between Vancouver and the mainland, in all of which agriculture and pasture lands are of small extent, may be mentioned that of Salt Spring, adjacent to the Cowichin district, and sharing in its geologic formation, where herbage is abundant and of excellent quality.15 Indigenous to island and mainland are many of the excellent berries and small fruits,10 while in the orchards of Victoria, New Westminster, and other towns and villages may be seen most of the fruits that thrive in temperate climates, the crops, especially in the district of New Westminster, forming no inconsiderable source of profit.17 Among the most valuable resources of the province are its fisheries, the seas, bays, lakes, and rivers swarming with excellent food-fish. Besides the salmon, the herring, bass, flounder, halibut, sole, smelt, sardine, and eulachon are found in abundance, and sturgeon weighing more than 500 pounds have been cfaught in the rivers, estuaries, and larger lakes. The silver salmon begins to arrive in March or early in April, the run lasting till the end of June, their weight usually ranging from four to twenty-five pounds, though some have been captured that weighed more 15 For further items as to stock-raising and cattle-ranges, see Good's Brit. Cot, MS.; Bayley's Vancouver Island, MS., passim; Chittenden's Travels in Brit. Cot, 6-8; S. F. Bulletin, Sept. 22, 1881; Alta, July 11, 1863; Victoria Standard, Dec. 10, 1879. In the Reports of the Minister of Agriculture for the Dominion of Canada, one almost turns in vain for information, their subject-matter relating principally to immigration, patents, quarantine regulations, plagues, pleuro-pneumonia, public archives, art statistics, copyrights, statistiques criminelles, statistics of insolvency, and, in brief, to all conceivable statistics except those which the reports should contain. 16 On V. I. are found the strawberry, barberry, blackberry, raspberry, gooseberry, mulberry, cranberry, blueberry, bilberry, whortleberry, yellow- plum, cherry, and several kinds of currants. B. C. Inform, for Emigrants (1884), 32; Bayley's V. I., MS., 63-6. 17 B. C. Direct, 1882-3, 200. For mention of the flora and fauna of the province, see cap. ii., this vol.; Good's B. C, MS., passim; Bayley's V. I., MS.,, 63-8; Chittenden's Travels in B. C, passim; Dawson's N. W. Terr, and Brit. Cot, 65-71. For Game Protection act, 1883, see Stat. B. C, 1883, 37-8. FISHERIES. 747 than seventy pounds. From June until August are taken the finest varieties, while in the latter month every second year commences the run of the humpback salmon, followed by the hookbill, which continues until winter. Herring and haddock are caught during the winter months; anchovies in the autumn; trout weighing from three to seven pounds are found in the lakes18 and streams; and dog-fish, valuable for their oil, in many of the bays and inlets. The eula- chon, a delicate table-fish, about seven or eight inches in length, and' yielding an excellent oil, enters the Fraser in vast quantities during spring.19 For shellfish there are oysters on many parts of the coast, small, but of excellent flavor,20 and there are crawfish, crabs, and mussels. Of late years the salmon-canneries and other enterprises in connection with the fisheries of British Columbia have, notwithstanding low prices, increased 18 On Salt Spring Island is a large lake about 150 feet above the sea-level, with deep water up to its edge, and in the middle of which no bottom has been found. Here are speckled trout over three feet long, and weighing more than 40 pounds. They will not take bait, but are speared by the Indians during winter. Bayley's V. L, MS., 69. *9At certain seasons it is the chief business of some of the tribes to catch and cure these fish for winter use. Erecting lodges near the bays and inlets where they abound, their fishing is done by moonlight, for it is then only that the eulachon comes to the surface. For taking the fish a large rake is used, with teeth of bone or iron, four inches long and one inch apart. In the stern of each canoe sits an Indian, who propels it toward the shoals of eulachon, while another, holding it firmly in both hands, sweeps it through the mass of fish, bringing it to the surface with one or more on each tooth. After being loaded the canoes are paddled to land, drawn on the beach, overturned, and again launched for another catch. This work continues until the setting of the moon, when the fish disappear. The take is then handed over to the women to be cured and dried, and the oil tried out. See Native Races, this series. Dawson's Northwest Terr, and Brit. Cot, 98-9. In 1881 eulachon oil was believed to be a good substitute for cod-liver oil. Californian, Aug. 1881, 177. Later experience has shown it to be of little value for medicinal purposes. For further items touching B. C fisheries, see Bayley's V. I., MS.; Good's B. C, MS., passim; Chittenden's Travels in B. C, 29, passim; Dawson's N. W. Terr, and B. C, 78-113; Jour. Legisl. Ass. B. C, 1882, 2, 5, 7; House Ex. Doc, 4.6th Cong., 3d Sess., i., pt. 1, 504; Repts. Comm. Fisheries (Ottawa), with supplements, 1874-80; S. F. Alta, Apr. 16, 1882; Bulletin, July 26, 1881; Stockton Independent, Aug. 19, 1881; W. T. Intelligencer, Jan. 13, 1879; Victoria Standard, July 25, Oct. 31, 1877; Brit. Colonist, Dec. 21, 1877. 2,9 At Oyster Bay, in the Cowichan district, were found the best oyster- beds, but the limited demand, and the difficulty in landing the product at Victoria in good condition and at small expense, prevented their extensive use. B. C. Direct., 1882-3, 138. As early as 1853, oyster-beds were pointed out by the Indians at NitinatvBay. Hancock's Thirteen Years, MS., 289. 748 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. largely the exports of the province. In 1876, there were but three canneries in operation, the total output being only 8,247 cases of 48 one-pound tins each. In 1881 the number had increased to twelve, with a yield of 177,276 cases; and in 1882 to twenty, with a production of 255,061 cases, valued at $1,402,835. The total yield of the fisheries for the latter year was estimated at $1,842,675.21 The estimate for the catch of fur-seals was $187,250. At that date the various industries in this connection gave employment, during the season, to more than 5,000 men, and to a fleet of 14 steamers, 12 schooners, and nearly 1,000 boats and canoes.22 Thus, since 1851, when fresh salmon sold at San Juan Island at the rate of sixty for a four-dollar blanket,28 smoked salmon, cured at Fort Langley, was worth, in the Sandwich Islands, $16 a barrel, and canned salmon was exported in small quantity from the mouth of the Fraser,24 the fisheries of British Columbia have given rise to one of the leading industries of the province. Apart from lumber and canned salmon, manufactures in 1866 were inconsiderable, though all that might be expected in a new country. With concentration of labor and capital, it follows, as a matter of course, that the home country, where four dollars a week are probably more than the average earnings of operatives, outdoes her colonies. There were, in the province, at that date, boiler and machine shops, iron and brass works, flour-mills, biscuit-factories, saw-mills,25 book-binder- 21 Including $56,146 worth of barrelled and smoked salmon, $14,291 of barrelled and smoked herrings, $10,460 of fresh fish, $108,113 of fish-oil, and $58,600 for various items. Sess. Papers, B. C, 1883, 379. 22 Id. For additional items concerning the canneries, seeS. F Bulletin, Aug. 29, 1881; W. T. Intelligencer, Sept. 3, 1879; Victoria Standard, April 25, 1877; New Westminster Herald, in Portland Standard, Aug. 10, 1877. 23British Columbia Sketches, MS., 22. At this date there was a small establishment on the island for the curing of salmon. 24 See p. 132, this vol. 25 The first saw-mill was built in 1861 at the Sooke copper mines. BayU^s V. I., MS., 61. Among the flour-mills may be mentioned the one at Chilli- whack, of which in 1885 Robert Stevenson, a native of Williamstown, Ont., was the proprietor. Mr Stevenson arrived in Victoria on board the Orizaba in 1859, and two years later tried hi3 fortune at the Cariboo mines, being one MANUFACTURES AND MINES. 749 ies, breweries, tanneries,26 and factories for the making of boots and shoes, furniture,27 pianos, sashes and doors, soap, matches, and cigars. Nevertheless, most of the wool and other raw material, which in California were largely made up into goods of home production, were in British Columbia almost entirely exported,28 to be returned, for instance, as textile fabrics, with the added charges of freight, commission, and manufacture. In the report of the minister of mines for the year 1884 there are statistics which may not be without interest to the reader. At that date the yield of gold had fallen to $736,165, or an average of only $396 for each of the 396 men engaged in gold-mining. Between July 1858 and the close of 1884 the total output was estimated at $48,672,128, and the average at about $1,900,000, that for 1884 being the smallest. of the first white men to winter there. Prominent among the lumber merchants of Victoria was William Parsons Sayward, the proprietor of the Rock Bay saw-mill, a native of Thomaston, Me., and a Cal. pioneer, arrived in the colony in 1858. 26 In 1884 there were six tanneries in operation—one at Rock Bay, the Bay tannery in close proximity, one at Belmont, seven miles from Victoria, one near Parson's bridge, five miles from the capital, and one each at Nanaimo and New Westminster. In connection with the Rock Bay and Belmont tanneries were boot and shoe factories. The hides and skins were of local production, the surplus being mainly exported to S. F. Hemlock bark, from the Sooke and Otter districts, was chiefly used—though oak bark was imported from Cal. Heathom's Industries of B. C, MS. The Rock Bay tannery, built in 1862 by W. Hartley, was the first one established in Vancouver, and in 1885 was the largest in the province. At the latter date it was producing some 400 sides of sole, and 200 of upper, leather per month, besides calf, kip, seal, goat, sheep-skin, harness, bridle, and aparejo leather. Most of the product, however, was used in the boot and shoe factory. In 1875 the business was purchased by William Heathorn, a native of Guildford, England, who arrived at Victoria in 1862, and to whom I am indebted for this information. 27 In Victoria there were three furniture factories—those of John Weiler, Jacob Sehl, and Joseph Somner, the two first being for household and the last for office furniture. Weiler and Sehl arrived in the colony at an early date, the former, a native of Nassau, Germany, reaching Victoria in 1861, and the latter, a native of Coblentz, in 1858. Both came by way of Cal., where Weiler engaged in mining, and Sehl was a manufacturer and general dealer in furniture. 28 In 1884 a premium of $3,000 was offered by the government for the first one-set mill erected in the province with a capacity for manufacturing not less than 50,000 pounds of wool into yarns, blankets, flannels, and tweeds. Stat. B. C, 1884, 35. For mention of Moodyville Saw-mill Co., see Chittenden's Travels in B. C, 66; and for further items concerning manufactures, see Brit. Colonist, June 17, Oct. 13, Nov. 6, 1879. 750 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. The largest earnings per capita were in 1875, when they reached $1,222, and the average for the 25£ years covered by the report did not exceed $600. Of those working for wages during the season there were 492 white men and 1,366 Chinamen, rates for the former averaging about $3.75 a day, and for the latter $2.75. Of coal, the total yield for 1884 was 394,070 tons, the output for that year being the largest so far recorded, and showing an increase of 46 per cent over that of the preceding year. It is worthy of note that, according to an accepted commercial authority in San Francisco, then the best available market for the surplus coal of the province, the imports of that city and of Wilmington included 291,546 tons of British Columbia coal out of a total of 1,035,076 tons, and against 77,485 tons of California coal, Vancouver Island thus furnishing nearly 30 per cent of the entire supply.29 In his message for 1885, the president of the United States mentioned that her Majesty's government has been requested to consider the question of settling more definitely the boundary line, between Alaska and British Columbia, suggesting that it " be established by meridian observations, or by known geographical features, without the necessity of an expensive survey of the whole. As yet, indeed, it may be said that no exact line of demarcation exists, for, through lack of geographical knowledge of this region, the one determined in the convention between 29 The local consumption of B. C for 1884 was 87,388 tons, and 15,136 tons were shipped to various countries, mainly to the Sandwich Islands. The text of the report, preceded by tables of statistics, will *be found in Sess. Papers, B. C, 1885, 417-36. For acts to consolidate and amend laws relating to minerals, see Stat. B. C, 1882, 8; 1883, 10; and for act to encourage prospecting for coal, Stat. B. C, 1783, 5. ■ In 1855 C A. Bayley first discovered copper near Sansome narrows, and in 1860 the vein was opened, but as the ore did not assay more than 23 per cent, it could not be worked at a profit, and the mine was abandoned. Bayley's V. I., MS., 61. Foradditional items as to mining, mineral yield, and mining enterprise, see the reports of the commissioner of mines for each year, in Sess. Papers, B. C; Chittenden's Travels in B. C, 3-5, 20-2; Scidmore's Alaska, 6-15; Brit. Colonist, passim; Portland Telegram, Oct. 31, 1879; Washington Intelligencer, May 22, Sept. 16, July 23, 1879; S. F. Bulletin, May 25,1875; May 22, June 24, July 1, 20, Aug. 25, Oct. 17, Sept, 29, Oct. 1, Nov. 9, 1881, May 6, 1884; Alta, July 3, 1884; Jour, of Com., May 23, 1877; Com. Herald, July 5, 1877. PORTS OF ENTRY. 751 Russia and Great Britain in 1825 was so vague that it is impossible to follow the text of the agreement.30 So long as, apart from her fur-seals, fisheries, and land peltry, Alaska was considered practically .worthless, and the northern part of British Columbia nearly so, the boundary question was of little moment; but the discovery of mineral wealth in both territories, and in more than one instance near the limits agreed upon in 1825, would seem almost to render it necessary that those limits be defined more clearly, in order to avoid future complications. Moreover, the trade of the province is seriously disturbed by the present condition of the matter. The mouth of the Stikeen River, for instance, is in American territory, Fort Wrangell being the nearest port of entry. There goods intended for the mainland interior must be transshipped, or an officer placed on board the vessel, a part of whose duty it is to see that they are not landed on American soil in transitu. Some thirty miles toward the south a port of entry could be established within the British line, and one which seagoing vessels could enter without breaking bulk; but until the line of demarcation is territorially defined, it may not be advisable to select the site for a port of entry on the verge of the northern boundary. Meanwhile complaints have been made of the illiberal and sometimes inexcusable conduct of the customhouse officers at Wrangell.31 For 1884 the exports of British Columbia amounted to $3,099,814, and of the dominion to $86,521,175; while imports were for the former $4,142,286,32 and 80 For description of the boundary line, see Hist. Alaska, 543, this series; Sess. Papers, B. C, 1885, 453-4. 31 Rept of Comm. Ex. Council B. C on the Alaska Boundary Question, in Sess. Papers, 1885, 451-60, where it is stated that Capt. Irving, manager of the Canadian Pacific Steamboat and Navigation Company, was on one occasion subjected to such treatment, his vessel being illegally seized, and a loss thus incurred of several thousand dollars, for which he was compelled to seek redress in the U. S. courts. In 1878 a conditional boundary line in the valley of the Stikeen River was temporarily accepted by the governments of Canada and the U. S. House Ex. Doc, 45th Cong., 3d. Sess., i., 339-48. 82 Of dutiable goods, $3,445,409, and of goods exempt from duty, principally railroad material, $696,877. r 752 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. for the latter $108,282,601. Thus, apart from domestic trade the commerce of this province, with a population then estimated at 60,000, was nearly four per cent of that of the entire dominion, with a population of about 4,500,000, the ratio of population being as one to seventy-five, and of imports and exports as one to twenty-five. Due allowance being made for the fact that competition in trade was less severe on the Pacific than on the Atlantic coast, and that between them there was a vast and almost unpeopled interior, it must be admitted that thus far the youngest offspring of the mother country has not been slow of growth. Comparing British Columbia with Quebec, for instance, we find for the latter province, with a population in 1884 of about 1,500,000, an external commerce of $82,545,184, the ratio of population being as twenty-five to one, and of imports and exports as one hundred to nine. Exports in 1884 consisted mainly of coal and gold, fish and fish-oils, peltry, hides, and lumber, of which Great Britain purchased to the value of $878,883, including canned salmon valued at $670,758, the United States $1,691,767, and Australia $257,262. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1872, the twelvemonth following the confederation of the colony, the total exports amounted to $1,912,107.83 That with the completion of the railroad and her advantages for inter- oceanic communication, the commerce of the province will develop yet more rapidly, is almost beyond a per- adventure. Supported by British capital, it would seem that' British Columbia may, in the not very distant future, be no inconsiderable factor in the traffic, not only of the dominion, but of the mother country.34 88 Of which G. Brit, took $224,944, and the U. S. $1,405,217. Tables oj Trade and Nav. Dom. Can., 1872. 84 For statistics and items as to trade, see Tables Trade and Nav. Dom. Can. Ann. Repts B. C. Board of Trade, passim. In the Acts of Incorporation and By-laws, B. C. Board of Trade, Victoria, 1879, 34-5, are tariffs of fees that compare somewhat to the disadvantage of those collected in San Francisco. San Diego, Portland, Port Townsend, Sitka, and Wrangell. For addi- BANKS AND BANKING. 753 With banking and insurance facilities British Columbia was but poorly supplied. In 1885 there were but three banks in the entire province—the bank of British Columbia, with a capital of $500,000, with its head office in London, with branches at San Francisco, Portland, Victoria, and New Westminster, and agencies in Mexico, South America, India, China, and Australia; the bank of British North America, with its main office at the capital; and the Dominion Savings Bank, with its headquarters at New Westminster,85 and with numerous branches. There was not a,t this date a single local insurance company, though there were several agencies of Canadian, British, or foreign companies, the British Columbia Insurance Company, incorporated in 1877,86 having then ceased to exist. In this respect British Columbia contrasted somewhat unfavorably with her sister provinces, and with the Australian colonies, in which latter there were few settlements mustering say 500 inhabitants wherein there could not be found one or more branches of colonial banks, and several agencies of colonial life, fire, or marine insurance companies. During the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1880, there arrived at the port of Victoria 471 seagoing vessels, with a total measurement of 365,649 tons, and of which 135 were British or Canadian, 319 belonged to the United States, and the remainder sailed under the flags of various foreign nations. The clearances for the same year numbered 465, of which 118 carried the British and 333 the United States tional information as to trade and commerce, see House Ex. Doc. 45th Cong., 2d Sess., xxi., no. 90, 28-72, 134-76; Id., xxiii., no. 102, 507; Id., 46th Cong., 2d Sess., xvi., no. 7, 30-78, 142-98, 264-300; Jour. Legisl. Council, 1869, 15, app. ii—iii.; U. S. Bureau of Stat., no. 2, 1879-80, pp. 143, 162, 164, 189. Brit. Colonist, May 14, 1878; Apr. 11, July 12, Oct. 24, 1879; Victoria Standard, Apr. 26, 1879; Standard, Jan. 28, March 10, 1880; S. F. Bulletin, June 7, 1858; May 14,1859; Aug. 18,1863; Oct. 24,1864; July 22, 1874; Alta, May 21, 1860; Feb. 22, 1866; Feb. 16, 1867; Sept. 12, 1871; Feb. 3, 1877. 85B. C. Direct, 1S84-5, 88, 168; 1882-3, xxiii. For further items as to banking, see S. F. Alta, July 20, 1864, May 5, 1873; Com. Herald, Aug. 29, 1868. 86 For act of incorporation, see Stat. B. C, 1877, 141-7. Hist. Bbit. Col. 48 754 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. flag, their aggregate measurement being 353,687 tons. Of the arrivals only 73, and of the departures only 53, were sailing ships, and of these a large proportion sailed or reached port in ballast. The preponderance of American vessels is, of course, explained by the traffic between Victoria, San Francisco, Portland, and other points on the Pacific coast of the United States, all of it, or nearly so, being in the hands of American ship-owners.37 There were about this time five steamers plying on the Fraser, between New Westminster and Yale, Victoria and Yale, Soda Creek and Quesnelle, Kamloop and Savona's ferry, all of them belonging to the Pioneer Line, which succeeded to the British Columbia Navigation Company, then under the management of John Irving.33 Before the line of the overland railway was located, the Thompson River, containing, with its affluents, some 300 miles of navigable water, held in its mountainous basin a population sufficient to support several small steamers.33 On the completion of the projected canal between Okanagan and Shuswap lakes—the two being almost on the same level, separated only by a single valley, and with the Thompson as the outlet of the latter—more than 100 miles, would be added to the navigable channel of this stream. Thus, since the days when the little black steamer Beaver—the first to perform such an exploit—rounded Cape Horn on her voyage from London to Esquimalt, being used first by the Hudson's Bay Company to 37 Complete navigation returns for the province will be found in the Tables of Trade and Nav. Dom. Can. for 1880, 756-7, 802-3, 830. 38 The only son of Wm Irving, who arrived in S. F. in 1848, in charge of the bark John W. Caton. In 1852 the latter engaged in the steamboat business on the Columbia, whence, in 1859, he removed to the Fraser to take charge of the affairs of the B. C. Nav. Co. The names of .the five steamers were the William Irving, the Reliance, the Victoria, the Peerless, and the E. J. Irving, the last, a fine vessel of 625 tons, being burned at Hope in Sept. 1881. the entire capital invested in them was $175,000. In 1882 two new steamers, one of 800 and the other of 400 tons, were being built for the Pioneer line. HitteU's Com. and Ind. Pac. Coast, 198. 89 Built by Mara and Wilson, of which firm J. A. Mara was one of the- leading men in the Kamloop district, and a member of the provincial parliament. REVENUE. 755 collect peltry and convey supplies, then as a government surveying vessel,40 and ending her career as a tug, vast strides have been made in the shipping interests of the territory. From one supply-ship a year, with an occasional visit from some storm-bound or dismantled craft, in 1846, to an average of at least four vessels a day, cleared or entered in 1886, is a somewhat startling contrast. Why it is that British Columbia never, as yet, ranked ship-building among her industries, does not at present appear. If, within this century, Sitka could, to a small extent, compete with Okhotsk41 and Port Townsend with Bath and Bangor, there would seem to be no good reason why Victoria and Port Moody should not enter into com- petion with Halifax and St John.42 For the fiscal year ending June 30,1884, the total revenue of British Columbia amounted to $887,686, of which $207,996 was received from the dominion government,43 $91,433 on account of land sales, $48, 686 for provincial revenue tax, and $384,512 for the transfer to the dominion of the graving-dock, and for money expended on its construction by the province. For the same period the expenditure under all heads was $590,629, of which $81,953 was on account of the 40In which capacity she did excellent service. Bayley's V. I., MS., 76. 41 See Hist. Alaska, this series, p. 691, note 45. 42 Additional information as to shipping matters will be found in Tables of Trade and Nav. Dom. Can., passim; Bayley}s V. I., MS., 75-7; Cooper's Maritime Matters, MS., passim; S. F. Call, June 4, 8, 1865; Apr. 21, 1870; Bulletin, June 11, 1861; Portland West Shore, July 1877. For account of wreck of the steamer George S. Wright, and massacre of her crew, see S. F. Bulletin, March 3, 4, 19, 1873; July 23, 1877; Call, Apr. 6, July 23, 1877; Post, Apr. 7, June 4,1877; Alta, March 3, 1873; Virginia City ChronicU, Apr. 7,1877; Steilacoom (W.T.) Express, July 26,1877. For loss of the Saranac, seeS. F. Post, June 22, 25, 1875; Call, June 22, 1875; and for other disasters by sea, S. F. Alta, June 20, 1872; Call, Dec. 26, 1874; Bulletin, Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 1881. Pilotage regulations will be found in the Victoria and Esquimalt Pilotage By-laws, Victoria, 1880; B. C. Direct, 1882-3, 393-6. For information as to rules and customs of port and harbor masters, port-wardens, and quarantine regulations, see Hand-Books of the Board of Trade. As late as 1875 there were but three light-houses in the entire province, one each at Race Rocks, at the entrance of Esquimalt Harbor, and on South Sand Head, at the entrance of the Fraser. List of Lights, Dom. Can., 37. 43 Of the latter sum, $24,996 was for interest, $35,000 for subsidy, $48,000 for grant per capita, and $100,000 for lands conveyed. Sess. Papers* B. C, 1885,44. 756 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. public debt, $47,323 for the civil service, $97,480 for the administration of justice, and $217,491 for public works. At that date there were debentures outstanding to the amount of $747,500.^ Compared with other provinces, and considering the large percentage of expenditure devoted to public works, it must be admitted that, finances were in a healthy condition, one of the most noticeable features in the comparison being that the average debt per capita was for the province little more than $12, and for the dominion about $46.45 In the amount of customs paid into the consolidated revenue fund of the dominion, pro rata of population, the contrast was still more remarkable. Taking, for instance, the fiscal year 1878-9, for which there are exact returns at hand for all the provinces, we find that British Columbia, with a population amounting only to 12^ per cent of that of Nova Scotia, paid more than 43 per cent of the sum contributed by the latter; nearly 11 per cent of the sums contributed by Ontario and Quebec, where the ratios of population were respectively as 40 and 30 to one; 88 per cent more than was paid by Manitoba, with about an equal population; and 150 per cent more than was paid by Prince Edward Island, with double the population.46 In presenting to the reader the annals thus far recorded of British Columbia, I have spoken of a people 44 A statement of the public accounts for each year will be found in the reports of the minister of finance, in Sess. Papers, B. C. See also Jour. Legisl. Ass. B. C; Stat. B. C, passim. For 1872 the revenue was $827,514; 1873, $370,150; 1874, $372,417; 1875, $351,241; 1876, $381,120; 1877, $408, 348; 1878, $430,786; for the first six months of 1879, $213,057; for the fiscal year July 1 1879, to June 30, 1880, $390,908; 1880-1, $397,035; 1882-2, $453,244; 1882-3, $425,808. The expenditure was, for 1872, $432,082; 1873, $390,919; 1874, $584,282; 1875, including $213,400 of the sum raised under the B. C. loan act of 1874, $829,277; 1876, including $66,600 for balance of loan, $796,710; 1877, $698,345; 1878, $518,970; 1879-80, $457,026; 1880-1, $379,790; 1881-2, $474,492; 1882-3, $594,102. 45 For further items as to revenue and finance, see Mackenzie's Mem. Can. Pac Railway, MS.; Canada Public Accounts, 1876-7; Canada Inland Rev. Repts, 1876-80, passim. 46Speech of De Cosmos in the dominion house of commons, Apr. 16, 1880. See Hansard's Debates; Dawson's N. W. Terr, and B. C, 178-9. GENERAL DEVELOPMENT. 757 which, if not among the richest, is among the most contented, hopeful, and thrifty communities of the Pacific coast. The youngest offspring of the mother of nations, this province contains a population whose members regard their adopted country as one not merely as a place in which to grasp at wealth, but as one in which they are content to live, in which they are proud to live. And in their adopted country the impartial observer may find much that is worthy of admiration. The territory comprises within its area, entirely or in part, the streams which beyond the forty-ninth parallel flow westward into the Pacific, and the tributaries of the Mackenzie that flow north toward the Arctic. With a shore line of more than 7,000 miles,47 containing many harbors and navigable inlets, with her magnificent fauna and flora, her wealth of minerals and fisheries, her growing commerce, her commercial position, and her facilities for communication48 and manufacture, it is not improbable that, even within the life-time of the present generation, British Columbia may rank among the foremost provinces of 47 As computed by A. A. Anderson, inspector of fisheries, in his report for 1879. Hittell's Commerce and Industries, 41. 48 In 1885 it was officially announced that a mail service was to be established between Hong-Kong and Victoria. S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1885. For postal convention with the U. S., see Mess, and Doc, 1870-1; Navy and P. 0. Dept. 133-5. In 1880 there were 22 postal routes in the province, of which 7 were by steamer or sailing vessel, the number of trips varying from two each day between Victoria and Esquimalt, to one every two months between Hope and Kootenai. The subsidies paid for regular services varied from $75 a year, for the route between Maple Bay and Somenos, to $13,333.34 a year, for the one between Barkerville and Yale, the total being $34,928.44. Rept of Post.-Gen. for 1880, 112-13. Of course, after the completion of the railway, the cost of the more expensive routes was greatly reduced. In 1882 there were 62 post-offices on the island and mainland. For list, see B. C. Direct., 1882-3, 370. In 1868 mails were first sent direct to S. F. by steamer. S. F. Call, Apr. 30, 1868. In 1886 steamers sailed from S. F. to Victoria every eighth day. At this date, also, a submarine cable connected Victoria with the mainland, crossing the gulf of Georgia at Nanaimo, while another cable, laid across the straits of San Juan de Fuca, connected the capital with Washington and thence with all parts of the world. B. C. Direct, 1884-5, 9. Soundings for a submarine cable were taken in 1881. S. F. Bulletin, May 12, 1881. In 1868 a cable had already been laid between Victoria and S. Juan. S. F. Call, Sept. 8, 1868; and in 1865 across the Fraser. S. F. Alta, April 1, 1865. For mention of the proposed Russian-American telegraph line, see S. F. Call, Apr. 12,1864; N. Y. Shipping List, in S. F. Mer. Gazette, Nov. 12, 1864; S. F. Bulletin, Jan. 6, 1865. 758 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. the dominion. Meanwhile she can claim, at least, the distinction of being one of the most progressive regions of British North America, and though but a few years ago considered almost as a cipher when compared with other provinces, may prove to be a cipher which contributes untold value to all the rest. As in other parts of the Pacific coast, and as in Australia, the rescources of British Columbia would not have been even partially developed but for the discovery of gold; and here, as elsewhere, though of the thousands lured by expectation of sudden riches a few acquired a fortune, and a considerable number realized modest gains, the majority not only became bankrupt in pocket, but, suffering hunger and privation, had cause to rue their folly in forsaking more substantial gains, and awoke from their visions of phantom wealth to the stern realities of their condition, as an outcast from a dream of paradise. To such daring, open-handed, and often noble-hearted men, countries which have since attained to prominence are indebted, not only for their origin, but for much of their progress; and on the forgotten graves of these reckless adventurers, abandoned in life to the bitterness of despair and degradation, will rest the pillars of mighty states and empires. In closing the records of British Columbia, it may not be without interest to refer once more to the Canadian Pacific railway, which, as the reader will remember, was completed in the summer of 1885, the terminus being at Port Moody, though it would probably have been removed to Vancouver, at the mouth of Burrard Inlet, but for the destruction of that town by fire in June 1886.49 It is claimed that the distance from Chinese or 49 Caused by the brush fires on the railroad lots. In this conflagration several lives and $800,000 worth of property were lost. At least 3,000 persons were rendered homeless. S. F. Chronicle, June 14, 1886. For description, see Id., June 15, 1886. A few weeks later a large fire occurred at Victoria. Id., Sept. 3, 1886. RAILROAD FACILITIES. 759 Japanese ports to Liverpool by way of the Canadian Pacific is from 1,000 to 1,200 miles nearer than by other Pacific railroads. Moreover, vessels bound, let us say, with cargoes of tea from Canton to Victoria would, while in the trade-winds, take about the same course as if bound for San Francisco; but those destined for the former port would save about 700 miles of sea route, in addition to a considerable saving in port charges and wharfage. From Vancouver to Montreal by rail the distance is 2,905 miles, and from San Francisco to New York by the Central and Union Pacific it is 3,363; thus in the transit of the cargo there would be a further saving of 458 miles. The dominion government has determined to establish a steamship line between Liverpool and Quebec in summer, and between Liverpool, Halifax, and Portland, Maine, in winter.50 Arrangements have also been made for a service between San Francisco and the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific, the traffic to be under the entire control of the company. It is claimed, also, notwithstanding statements to the contrary, that the line can be operated throughout its entire length every day in the year.51 Finally, it is probable that a line of British mail steamers will be established between Vancouver and ports in China, Japan, and Australia, and that this line will be subsidized by the British government. Thus it will be seen that the Canadian Pacific is by no means an insignificant rival for the transcontinental traffic of North America. In this relation other factors must also be considered. The Canadian Pacific is virtually national prop- 50 Circulars were addressed to steamship owners in Oct. 1886, asking for tenders for a weekly mail service. The contract was to be for ten years, the vessels to have a speed of not less than fifteen knots, and the contractors must not discriminate against Canadian freight. Id., Oct. 24, 1886. 61 Letter of C. Van Horn, vice-president Can. Pac. R. R., in Id., Feb. 18, 1886. Mr Horn states that a very large amount of money has been expended with this purpose in view. ' On our main line,' he writes, ' from Quebec to Canmore in the Rocky Mountains, which is as far as we have been operating the line this winter, a distance of 2,500 miles, we have not been obliged to cancel a single train on account of snow or any other reason.' 760 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. erty—the property of the dominion of Canada—and, as the reader is aware, government railways seldom earn more than nominal dividends. In Great Britain, whence the greater portion of the capital for this project was derived, and where railroads were built by- private enterprise, four and a half per cent is considered a good return on ordinary stock, and on preferred stock less than four per cent. In Australia, where the railroads were built by government, the returns are probably between two and three per cent on the capital invested. Encumbered with the huge load of debt which the dominion government incurred by its subsidies, at least working expenses must be earned, and as soon as possible some reasonable interest on the outlay. But as yet the line runs for the most part through a solitude, though a solitude fertile in agricultural and mineral resource. To earn expenses merely, and to build up a business that gives prospect of moderate dividends, it may be necessary to enter into aggressive competition with other, transcontinental lines. The road is well equipped; the rolling stock, especially the passenger- cars, is of excellent quality, and in all the provinces the line has naturally absorbed the bulk of the traffic which was formerly in the hands of American railway companies. During the summer of 1886, freight by way of St Paul was taken for Chicago and points on the Missouri Biver at from $10 to $12 per ton, and during the same year the Canadian Pacific offered to convey farming produce and ore, whether for assay or working, from Savona's Ferry and intervening stations to Port Moody at $4 per ton—a rate which would enable miners to forward ores to San Francisco-at $6 per ton.52 At such rates it would appear that there should be no great difficulty in obtaining traffic. First-class fares from San Francisco or Port Moody to New York were in November 1886 $70, against $81 from 62 The rate on canned goods was $11 a ton, and* by other lines $18. Id., Aug. 29,1886. TELEGRAPH SYSTEM. 761 San Francisco over the Central or Southern Pacific. The trip by the northern line possesses at least the charm of novelty, and many who have already travelled over the Central and Southern routes will take it for that reason; the more so as the province of British Columbia presents scenery of surpassing beauty and grandeur. In conclusion, the Canadian Pacific is out of debt, or very nearly so,53 and considering the low rates of wages prevailing in Canada, and the low prices of material and supplies, the working expenses of the road will be considerably smaller in proportion than those of American railways. In 1886, the immense telegraph system of the company, extending from Montreal to the Pacific Ocean, was completed, and connection made with American lines. United with the Atlantic cable at Halifax, as proposed, British Columbia will be placed in telegraphic communication with the British possessions in the East, soundings having already been taken between Vancouver Island and Japan. Fears have been expressed that the establishment of a British steamship between China and the Pacific coast may result in a large importation of coolies. This would seem improbable, in view of the fact that under the Chinese regulation act a tax of $50 is collected on each Chinese passenger before he is allowed to land. The people of British Columbia are as much opposed to Chinese labor as are those of California, but as yet there has been little anti-Chinese agitation.54 When, however, it was ascertained that one of the Mexican states was in need of coolie labor, 53 In 1886 the company owed the government $20,000,000, and it was proposed to settle the claim by cancelling $10,000,000 worth of its land grant, and the-monopoly clause of its charter, giving the company exclusive rights in the Northwest for a term of twenty years. Ottawa Times, in S. F. Chron., April 12, 1886. 5i On the 7th of September, 1885, a body of working men visited the various establishments where Chinese were employed, and demanded work. The proprietors refused, except the owner of a shoe factory, who, knowing that there were no Chinese in the crowd, offered an advance of 25 per cent on the wages paid to Chinamen. S. F. Chron., Sept. 9, 1885. 762 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. offers were at once made to the authorities to supply them with all that they needed, and on their own terms. As to the affairs of government, there is little more to be said. Of late, except for a collision between the dominion and provincial police55 in September 1885, and a slight Indian disturbance in the northern part of the province in September56 of the same year, the placid current of events has seldom been disturbed by even a ripple of excitement. As in most British colonies, the people are contented and prosperous, receiving absolute protection under the law and from the law, living in perfect security as to rights, person, and property, and secure also from all danger of legal oppression. Some dissatisfaction has been, caused'by the want of reciprocal action on the part of the American government as to the extradition treaty. In 1886 a noted criminal,57 who had escaped from British Columbia, was discharged by the United States court, although a deputy attorney-general was sent to watch the case for the crown. On the other hand, all prisoners demanded by the United States for extradition have been promptly surrendered. A fugitive convict captured some years ago on British soil was sent back at an expense of $2,700 to the provincial government; but in 1886 this sum had not been refunded by the United States. Another question which has given rise to some dissatisfaction is.the seizure in 1886 of British vessels engaged in seal-hunting in the Bering Sea. The crews of the vessels thus seized laid their case before the minister of marine and fisheries at Victoria, and their statement was forwarded to the home govera- 55 Caused through the seizure by the dominion police of liquors held by parties having a provincial license. For description, see Id., Sept. 5, 1885. 56 Among the Metlakatlas, who refused to permit the civil engineer to survey the Indian reserve on behalf of the dominion government, claiming that the entire country was theirs. S. F. Bull, Sept. 16, 1886. &7 Known as Bull Dog Kelly. S. F. Chron., Feb. 15, 1886 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 763 ment for consideration. By act of congress, ^ dated July 27, 1868, it was made a penal offence to kill fur- bearing animals within the limits of Alaska or Alaskan waters. But how shall the phrase Alaskan waters be interpreted ? During the earlier period of the Russian American company's occupation it was alleged that all the waters between Alaska and Siberia belonged to Russia; but that country did not succeed in making good its c°aim. Moreover, by referring to the imperial oukaz, granted to the company in 1799, and quoted in my History of Alaska,58 it will be found that no mention is made of any special rights in the Bering- Sea, or even in inland waters, but only to "use and profit," in certain territory, " by everything which has been or shall be discovered on the surface and in the bosom of the earth." In 1867 this territory was transferred to the United States, the consideration being $7,200,000. The dividing line, defined merely to include all of this territory, runs northward into the Arctic, and southward into the north Pacific Ocean; but it does not appear that by the payment of this sum of $7,200,000 the United States acquired an exclusive right to the Arctic Sea and the north Pacific Ocean.59 58 Pp. 379-80. 59 In the Maratime Matters on the Northwest Coast, and Affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company in Early Times, by James Cooper, MS., I have been furnished with much valuable information. Commencing with the year 1844, at which date Mr Cooper, a native of Wolverhampton, England, entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and when the three supply-ships Vancouver, Cowlitz, and Columbia were the only regular traders, his narrative is contiued until the death of Gov. Seymour in 1869. British Columbia Sketches, MS., is the title of a work also relating in part to maritime affairs. One of these sketches is by Herbert George Lewis, who sailed for Vancouver in 1848, as an officer in the Cowlitz, and afterward found employment on board various craft. He has supplied me with many items concerning the company's ships and the men-of-war stationed on the coast. At this date the vessels of the H. B. Co. traded with several countries. The Cowlitz, for instance, after discharging cargo at Fort Vancouver, in 1848, loaded with wheat for Sitka, and thence sailed for the Hawaiian Islands, with lumber and fish, returning with a freight of sugar and mok sses to Fort Vancouver, whence she was despatched with a cargo of furs to London. Of Michael and Robert Muir, of whom the Sketches supply partial memoirs, mention is made on p. 193-4,255, this vol. William John Macdonald, a native of the Isle of Skye, also came out to Vancouver in the company's service, landing at Victoria in 1851. Ordered to San Juan Island during this year, to take r 764 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. charge of a party of French Canadians employed in salmon-curing, and being still in the company's service at the time when the forbearance of Admiral Baynes alone prevented war between Great Britain and America, his account of the San Juan difficulty, already recorded in these pages, is of special value. In 1859 Mr Macdonald was elected a member of the legislative assembly of Vancouver for the Sooke district. In Palmer's Wagon Trains, MS., I have been furnished with an interesting account of a journey made'by Joel Palmer, from Independence, Mo., to Oregon in 1845. A native of Canada, though of American parentage, Gen. Palmer, when grown to manhood, found employment in Penn. on public works and canals, being afterward placed in charge of a 25-mile section of the Penn. canal. In 1844 he was elected a member of the Penn. legislature. During his journey across the plains and mountains he took notes of the road and distances traversed, which were subsequently embodied in a Guide- Book for Emigrants, published in Cincinnati. Residing for a brief space in Victoria, at the time when Douglas was the leading spirit on the island and mainland, he has supplied me with items of value concerning this period. To the Characteristics of James Douglas, MS., by E. Cridge, I am also indebted for a description of the means whereby this skilful ruler of men, ably seconded by A. F. Pemberton, whom he appointed commissioner of police, made English law respected and obeyed during the troublous times of the gold excitement. Of the few works thus far published concerning British Columbia, mention has for the most part been made. In the Facts and Figures Relating to V. I. and B. C, by J. Dtspard Pemberton, London, 1860, we have a brief description of the general condition of the country, its fauna, flora, and geology, of the progress and commerce of the two colonies, with their principal settlements, and of the society which they contained, with some excellent advice to intending emigrants. The Naturalist in V. I. and B. C, by John Keast Lord, F. Z. S., in two vols, London, 1866, besides the natural history of the island and mainland, contains some interesting descriptions of travel, sport, and adventure in the north-west. In the appendix is a detailed list of the zoological collections made by Mr Lord, while employed as naturalist to the boundary commission. In Travels in B. C. and Alaska, by Newton H. Chittendon, Victoria, 1882, are briefly outlined the resources and capabilities of the province, and there is also some mention of various settlements and industries, with an account of the railroad, as matters stood with this enterprise at that time. In the Reports of Progress of the Geological Survey of Canada axe contained Selwyn's Journal and Report of Preliminary Explorations in British Columbia; Richardson on the Coal-Fields of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands, with map of former, an app. by J. W. Dawson on fossil plants, another by Billings on mesozoic fossils, and a third by Harrington on the coals of the west coast; Selwyn's Observations in the Northwest Territory, with app. by B. J. Harrington on western coals; Richardson on Geological Explorations in British Columbia; Whiteaves' Notes on the Cretaceous Fossils collected by Mr Jas Richardson at Vancouver and the adjacent Islands, with lithographed plate; Sehoyn's Report on Explorations in British Columbia, with appendices by Macoun, Whiteaves, and Le Conte; Dawson's Report on Explorations in British Columbia; Scudder on the Insects of the Tertiary Beds at Quesnel, British Columbia; Dawson's General Notes on the Mines and Minerals of Economic Value of British Columbia, with a List of Localities, reprinted with additions and alterations from the railway report, 1877; Whiteaves' Notes on some Jurassic Fossils collected by Mr G. M. Dawson in the Coast Range of British Columbia; Richardson's Report on the Coal-Fields of Nanaimo, Comox, Cowitchan, Burrard Inlet, and Sooke, British Columbia, with three illustrations and a map; Scudder's Additions to the Insect-Fauna of the Tertiary Beds at Quesnel, BrUish Columbia; Dawson's Preliminary Report on the Physical and Geological Features of tlie Southern Portion of the Interior of British Columbia; Dawson's Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and app. A to G—ap. A relating to the Haidahs; B BIBLIOGRAPHY. 765 to their vocabulary; C, by J. F. Witeaves, to some marine invertebrata from the Queen Charlotte Islands; D, by S. J. Smith, to Crustacea from the Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Islands; E, by J. Macoun, containing list of plants from the Queen Charlotte Islands; F, meteorological observations; and G, notes on latitude and longitude; Dawson's Report on an Exp lor atian from Fort Simpson, on the Pacific Coast, to Edmonton, on the Saskatcheivan,^ with app. containing list of plants collected, and meteorological observations in the northern part of British Columbia, the Peace River district, and between Edmonton and Manitoba, together with notes on latitude and longitude; Comparative Vocabularies of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia, with a map illustrating distribution, by W. Fraser Tolmie and George M. Dawson; Report on the Polyzoa of the Queen Charlotte Islands, by Thos Hincks, reprinted from the Annals and Magazine of Natural Historg, London, Dec. 1882, June 1883, March 1884; Mesozoic Fossils, by J. E. Whiteaves. Vol. i., parts i.—iii., with lithographed plates, Montreal, 1876, 1879, 1884. For list of geological and other maps, see List of Publications of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada, Ottawa, 1884, passim. British North America is the title of a vol. published by the Religious Tract Society of London. The writer resided in several of the provinces, and had advantages of making himself acquainted with their condition. He likewise drew much information from Blue Books issued by the Canadian govt, and parliamentary paxDers. It briefly touches upon the early history and discoveries of several portions of the territory, and affords considerable statistical information. A good deal of the book, however, is about the aborigines and Canada, not serviceable for historical purposes, and the hand and style of the missionary is traceable throughout. Of the various guide-books, directories, and prospectuses of mining and other associations, published from time to time in the colonies or the province, no further mention is required in these pages. On the 29th of October, 1861, the colonial government of V. I. by public notice invited essays on the resources of the island and the advantages which it offered to settlers. A premium of £50 was offered for the best essay, and £10 for the second best. The competing essays were to be sent to the colonial secretary sealed, no name or mark being attached whereby the authors might be known to the adjudicators. To the manuscript, however, must be affixed a distinctive motto, whose duplicate should be written on the outside of a sealed envelope, within which the name of the author should be written. All essays received were to remain the property of the government, but the sealed envelopes of unsuccessful candidates were to be returned unopened if desired. A board, consisting of C. T. Woods, W. F. Tolmie, and G. M. Sproat, was appointed to decide upon the relative merits of the compositions. In accordance with this announcement, several essays were received, and after careful examination the prize was awarded to Charles Forbes. Mr Forbes' production was printed in 1862 by the colonial government, under the title of Prize Essay: Vancouver Island; Its Resources and Capabilities as a Colony. 85 pages, 8vo. It is divided into five parts, embracing climate, physical features, society, products, and prospects. It is statistical rather than historical, and possesses transient rather than permanent interest. Desultory in its construction, the searcher in any one branch of information is obliged to glean from every page and closely to regard every paragraph. Yet the pamphlet answered very well the purpose for which it was written. It seems that the mainland was expecting about the same time a similar r£suin6, setting forth its good qualities, but was disappointed. None of the attempts made did justice to the cause. In this emergency, following the example of the island, rewards were offered, on the 11th of March, 1862, of like amounts for like productions, subject to the same conditions. As the result of this action, there appeared, printed at the Royal Engineer Press at New Westminster in 1863, British Columbia: An Essay by the Rev. R. C. Lundin Brown, M. A., Minister of St Marys, Lillooet, an unbound octavo of ninety-seven pages. The second chapter opens with a description of Fraser River and New Westminster, written by Sheepshanks. 766 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. Brown's production is much clearer, more comprehensive, and yet more concise than that of Forbes. In 1872 A. C. Anderson published a government prize essay, entitled The Dominion at the West, embracing all points of interest touched by any of his predecessors, and covering both island and mainland. To a thorough knowledge of the country Mr Anderson united fine literary tastes and much experience as a writer. Hence we find his work in every respect wellnigh perfect in its way. In the latter part of 1878 I wrote Mr Anderson for information further than that in my possession concerning his prize essay entitled The Dominion of the West; a Brief Description of the Province of British Columbia, its Climate and Resources. Government Prize Essay of 1872, and published at Victoria the same year. This is one of a series of excellent essays on the features of the country and its attractions, written and printed under the auspices of government. I also asked Mr Anderson concerning the other prize essays. He answered me the 30th of December: ' I rather think that the prizes for V. I. and B. C were offered simultaneously at the time you state; and that the necessary competition not having been elicited for the B. C. essay, the prize was not adjudged, and a new invitation was issued. This elicited Mr Brown's essay, which took the first prize. 1 myself wrote, too, on this occasion, my essay being, with necessary alterations to suit the time, almost a counterpart in chief particulars of my last published essay. To my production of 1862 the second prize of £10 was awarded, but it was not printed. I am not aware of any other publications; of a local nature save two or three tours, chiefly of geographical import, printed by officers of the royal engineers, entirely of an official nature. In 1868 I completed my large map of B. C, scale ten miles to the inch, which comprised all that was then known of the country, including my own notes and those of the late Mr Black. A descriptive treatise, chiefly on natural history, accompanied this. The whole was accepted by the government of the period, but save as affording a foundation for other maps since published, my map has never been brought forward. Indeed, the more accurate surveys effected by the railway parties render it out of date for utility.' For further items concerning Mr Anderson, see pp. 158-9,169-70,182-4, this vol.; and for biography and decease, S. F. Alta, May 11, 1884. Alexander Allen, after mining in Cal. for six years, removed to Victoria in 1860, and in 1866-7 edited the Cariboo Sentinel. Allen's Cariboo, MS., 1. Dr Baillie, an old resident of Victoria, was drowned by the capsizing of the brig Florentia, near Cape Flattery. Barrett-Lenard's Travels in B. C, 113-14. London, 1862. The author of this last-mentioned work came from England in 1859, and passed nearly two years in V. I. and the mainland, sailing round the former in a small yacht which he brought with him. The book relates mainly to his own observations and adventures, and contains little of historic value. John Bis- sell, a pioneer, for decease of, in 1883, see Sac. Record-Union, Feb. 6, 1883. Robert Brown, in his Vancouver Island Exploration, Victoria, 1864, has written the narrative of an expedition, undertaken for the discovery of gold, to Cowichin Lake, Barclay Sound, San Juan Harbor, Sooke, Leech River, and various points on the island, a reward of $5,000 having been offered for such discovery by the colonial government. C. C. Coffin, in The Seat of Empire, Boston, 1870, gives an account of a tour in the northern U. S. and B. C., with observations on the advantages of the north-west as to settlement, soil, mining, and farming. Nicholas Cooke, a native of Germany, came to B. C. in 1858, being one of the first miners on the Fraser. His decease occurred at his home at Plumper Pass, Oct. 18, 1870. Seattle Intelligencer, Oct. 27,1870. K. Cornwallis, author of The New El Dorado, London, 1858, arrived in Victoria in June 1858, and after making a short trip to the Fraser diggings, considered himself qualified to write a book about the two colonies, which he did, in a rambling style, somewhat after the fashion of a cheap Sunday newspaper. H. C. Courterey, a native of Dublin, arrived at Victoria in 1861 in the Kaffir Chief from London, and tried his fortune at the Cariboo mines. Courterey's Min. B. C, MS., 1. W. F. Crate, an'employe* of the H. B. Co., .first crossed the Rocky Mountains in 1828, and again in 1850, on this occa- BIBLIOGRAPHY 767 sion in company with Douglas and others who afterward became prominent in the service. He early built a saw and grist mill at Fort Vancouver. After 43 years' experience of frontier and colonial life, he died at Cowichin during the year of the confederation. Olympia Transcript, Oct. 7, 1871; Brit. Colonist, Oct. 3, 1S71. George Dixon, for 18 years in the service of the H. B. Co., died at Victoria in 1859. Thomas Earle, a native of Lansdowne, Ont., reached Victoria in 1862, via the Isthmus, and opened business as a wholesale grocer, becoming one of the best and most intelligent of citizens. Jules Fe"ry, in his Gold Searches, MS., furnishes a brief account of the Cariboo and Cassiar mines during the winter of 1861-2, a portion of which was passed by the author in hunting for gold. Simon Fraser is the author of an Original Journal, April 12 to July 18,1806, MS.; Id., May 30 to June 10, 1808, MS., and of Letters from the Rocky Mountains, Aug. 1, 1806, to Feb. 10, 1807, MS., the former giving a narrative of a journey to the head waters of Peace River, to a post on Trout Lake, and thence of a southerly exploration for the purpose of examining the country and discovering sites for new trading posts. In the latter is a description of the progress of Fraser, Stuart, and Quesnel, down the great river of the mainland, and through the country of the Chilkotins. The dangerous character of the rapids, and the difficulties of each day's journey, are fully recorded. George Gladman, whose father was a chief factor to the H. B. Co., was employed by the company as a clerk between 1814 and 1836, at the latter date receiving a commission as chief trader. Appointed store-keeper and accountant at Moose and York factories, he resigned in 1845, was recommissioned five years later, and again resigning in 1853, retired to his farm near the settlement of Hope. Rept H. B. Co., July, Aug., 1857, 390. G. M. Grant, the author of Ocean to Ocean, London, 1873, was secretary to the expedition made in the interests of the overland railway in 1872, his party following about the same route as the one taken by Milton and Cheadle. The book consists mainly of a diary of his journey, with the adventures incidental thereto, and contains little information of value. Then there was a Grant—James, I think, was his name—a native of Canada, and for several years stationed at Fort Hall, in the service of the H. B. Co. He was * rather a mediocrity,' says Roberts, ' fond of tipple, and a very large, I may say an extra fine-looking, man. It is related that, when attired in uniform, he was the observed of all observers by the sex.' Recollections, MS., 51. Ebey speaks of him as * a fine specimen of the old English gentleman, active as a cat at 70 years of age, and with hair and beard white as snow.' Journal, MS., 197. Hardisty, in 1854, clerk in charge at Fort Yukon, was in 1867 commander of the Mackenzie River district, northern department. D. W. Harmon, a native of Vt, and a chief factor of the H. B. Co., was in charge of Fort St James, in 1811-17. His diary or journal was published in book form, and the frequency with which it has been quoted is some evidence of its merit. Jerome and Thad- deus Harper, Americans by birth, were for many years the proprietors of a grist-mill at Clinton, which supplied the Cariboo miners with flour. On the decease of his elder brother, about 1875, Thaddeus Harper took charge of the business, and besides his other interests, was in 1878 the largest owner of live-stock in B. C. Good's Brit Cot, MS., 83. J. S. Helmcken, a native of London, England, and by profession a medical practitioner, arrived at Victoria in 1850, and with the exception of a few months in 1870, continued to reside in the capital. In 1852 he married a daughter of Sir James Douglas, and in 1868 was elected a member of the legislative council. Further mention may be found on p. 243-6, this vol. W. H. Hooper, in his Ten Months Among the Tents of the Tuski, London, 1853, gives an account of the expedition of H. M. S. Plover in search Sir John Franklin and his party in 1848-51. Though descriptive mainly of the Eskimo tribes, Arctic exploration, and the incidents of the voyage, the work also contains information as to several of the H. B. Co.'s posts. J. S. Kennedy, qne of the earliest pioneers of B. C, and for 20 years acting as surgeon to the H. B. Co. at Fort Vancouver, Nisqually, and Nanaimo, was also a member of the Vancouver house of assembly. 768 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. He died at Victoria in the spring of 1859. W. Kane, a native of Ireland, served for 26 years under the H. B. Co., and being recommissioned in 1846, after a visit home was appointed, in 1850, to the charge of Fort Liard. Kane's Wanderings of an Artist, 68-9; Hooper's Tents of the TusU, 387-8. A. McDonald, chief factor of the H. B. Co., was married to the daughter of a Blackfoot sachem, by whom he had a child, named Christine, who, when she grew to womanhood, was described as 'a very modest, well-bred, and fine- locking young woman.' She was an expert horsewoman, riding astride, and with a scrape buckled round her waist. McDonald was a man of remarkably fine physique, six feet high, erect and of stately carriage. His long, flowing hair hung down over his shoulders in Indian fashion. He spent most of his time in the saddle, and would never get into a wheeled vehicle. Puget Sound, MS., 10-11. There is a McDougall mentioned in Whymper's Alaska, 251, as in command at Fort Yukon in June 1867. For mention of Thomas McKay. son of Alexander McKay of Tonquin massacre fame, see Anderson's North Coast, MS., 74-5. John McLean, in his Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory, 2 vols, London, 1849, treats mainly of trapping and trading experiences in Vancouver and New Caledonia. Sir Richard Maitland, in 1861 in command of the flag-ship Bacchante, at Esquimalt, is mentioned by Mr Good as an officer remarkable for his strict discipline; in consequence of which, twenty of his men, including warrant-officers, deserted the vessel and escaped across the Sound. Brit. Cot, MS., 2. W. Mitchell was in 1860 chief trader in charge at Fort Rupert. Barrett Lenard's Travels in Brit. Cot, 68. For further items, see Brit. Colonist, Jan. 13, 1S76; Victoria Standard, Jan. 19, 1876; Willamette Farmer, Feb. 18, 1876. W. S. Mitchell, formerly one of the proprietors of the British Colonist, was killed in 1867, by falling down a mining shaft at Cariboo. S. F. Call, June 9, 1867. William Moore first attempted to run a steamer up the Stikeen in 1862, but suffered shipwreck. Meeting with success at the Cassiar mines, he built another steamboat. A lien's Cariboo, MS., 10. Mr Reynolds settled as a farmer in the Fraser Valley, west of Okanagan, in 1859. Two years later his land produced abundant crops. Douglas, Private Papers, first series, MS., 149. Rocky Mountain Journal, Dec. 20, 1805, to Feb. 28, 1806, MS., gives merely a record of the daily labor and routine at one of the Northwest Company's outlying forts, and is otherwise entirely uninteresting. H. R. Schoolcraft, in his Personal Memoirs, Phil., 1851, has scattered throughout his narrative a few brief notices of the fur-traders, and their mode of traffic. His experience was, for the most part, limited to the Canadian frontier, near the lower end of Lake Superior, and at Michilmackenack, where he was stationed as Indian agent. Thomas Spence, a native of Dundee, reached Victoria in May 1858, and soon afterward began business as a contractor, building the portion of the Cariboo road between Boston Bar and Lytton within four months, and employing on this work nearly 600 men. In connection with Trutch, he obtained the contract for building the Alexandria bridge, and superintended many other public works, among them the removal of the Sister rocks in the Fraser, and the Beaver rock in Victoria harbor. Vowell's Mining Districts, MS., 23-30. G. M. Sproat, in his Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, treats mainly of the tribes in the vicinity of Barclay Sound, and on the west coast of V. I., their customs, characteristics, language, etc., as they appeared to him during a residence of six years, beginning Aug. 1860, while in charge of the settlement of Alberni. British Columbia, Information for Emigrants, issued under the direction of the agent-general for the province, London, 1873, by the same author, is a model emigration pamphlet, and gives more exact and condensed information than any similar work at that time extant. Mr Tait was in 1872 agent for the H. B. Co. at Kamloop. Francis Tarbell, a native of New York, arrived in Victoria in July 1858, bringing a stock of goods from S. F., on which he realized a fair profit. About 1867 he bought an interest in the steamer George S. Wright, which ran between Portland, Victoria, and Sitka, in opposition to Ben Holliday's line, to which he sold out, some two years later, afterward settling at Olympia, where, in 1878, he was territorial treasurer. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 769 Tarbell's Victoria, MS., 1-10; Olympian Club Conversations, MS., 17. John Tod, of whom full mention is made on p. 138-56, this vol., died in 1882. S. F. Call, Sept. 2, 1882. P. F. Tyler, in his Historical View of the Progress of Discovery, Edinburgh, 1833, merely gives a compilation from the original accounts of the discoverers themselves. A. W. Vowell, for several years gold commissioner in various districts, and author of Mining Districts of Brit. Cot, MS., is a reliable authority as to the gold regions, to which the subject-matter of his manuscript solely refers. Alfred Waddington visited the mines and wrote a brochure of 49 pages, entitled The Fraser Mines Vindicated; or, The History of Four Months. Price fifty cents. It is printed in Victoria by P. De Garro, Wharf street, and the preface is dated Nov. 15, 1858. The j history,' as its title indicates, is an argument in behalf of the mines, which a simple statement of their product would much more satisfactorily explain; and but for the fact that business revived just before the publication of the book, one might be led to believe that its issue had something to do with the improvement of the times. In his preface Waddington claims this to be | the first book published on Vancouver Island,' but corrects the mistake before publication in favor of the Rules of Practice.. An the Supreme Court of Civil Justice, printed one or two months previous at the Gazette office. He might also have rightly added another, a small pamphlet of Proclamations relative to the government of British Columbia issued from the Gazette press, shortly after the Rules of Practice, and so have placed his book third. A tract addressed to the colonists of Vancouver Island, published at Victoria in 1859, and entitled The Necessity of Reform, was merely a tirade against the restricted franchise, and the petty infelicities of the day. The first edition of the Sketch of the Proposed Line of Overland Railroad through British North America, Ottawa, 1871, by the same author, was published in London in 1869. Although Waddington had travelled over but a small portion of the route of the Canadian Pacific, he was well acquainted with the configuration of the country, and, including data from published and other surveys, made an excellent preliminary report, which was probably not without influence in the embodiment of the railway terms. For further mention of his career, see Brit. Colonist, Oct. 22, 1867, March 6, 27, 1872. Frederick Whymper, who came from England in 1862, passed three winters in Victoria, and travelled through the interior of Vancouver and along the coast of the mainland. Joining the Western Union Telegraph expedition under Capt. Bulkley, an account of which is given in my History of Alaska, p. 576-8, he set forth for northern Alaska, his party journeying overland in sledges from Unalachleet, on Norton Sound, to Fort Nulato, and thence in canoes to Fort Yukon. His various journeys, with their incidents, are described in an interesting volume entitled Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, of which the first five chapters are devoted to Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Books are written mostly in praise of men or things. We have many biographies of Christ, very few of Belial. This is a hopeful feature of human nature. The bad we heartily denounce, but we do not care to dwell upon it. Colonists particularly seldom write except in commendation of their country; and few, who are merely travellers, take the trouble to print a fat octavo in proof of what nature has wrongfully done, or has failed to do, for a country. Most of the books on British Columbia see little but the good; therefore, it startles one somewhat to find a writer who discovers little that is not bad. If the country presents itself to the mind of D. G. F. Macdonald, before mentioned, with quite an alphabet of honors following, only in repulsive shadows, so does not the author of this man's works appear to himself, j To advance opinions on the resources and capabilities of our colonial possessions,' he is.abundantly ' qualified by education, knowledge, and experience.' Had the country any good thing ? 'I venture to believe I possess the qualifications which alone can enable a man to discern these important characteristics, and to arrive at a just estimate of them, since the subject has formed the education of my youth and the study of my maturer years.' To an audience before whom he is delivering a lecture on British Columbia, he says: ' You are not Hist. Beit. Col. 49 770 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. listening to a man who never saw a blade of grass grow, or slept under the impervious shades of the eternal forest.' The wild ass might advance the same argument, and with as crushing an effect. Then follows a page of his accomplishments, which, however entertaining, I cannot recite. The country he calls picturesque but gloomy. ' British Columbia is a miserable country,* he groans. That throughout this wide domain there are' no babbling brooks, no soothing shades, no softly swelling hills,' is news indeed to those who have spent their lives there, j But in their stead streams white with foam, rushing along between cliffs, down ravines, and over water-falls in deafening thunder; tremendous precipices, yawning gulfs, and naked towering rocks, splintered with the storms of countless years; boundless forests, fearful in their gloom, and fearful in their howling beasts of prey.' Filled in with spectral sights and fabulous monsters, such as strange countries are often accredited with, by very able writers, we would have a gOod ghost story to frighten children withal. So I might go on through the whole shallow effusion of this egotistical writer. If we believe him, it is a poor field for man or beast. It is bad for the healthful man, and bad for the invalid; bad for the settler, and bad even for the student of natural history. 'Victoria is by no means a desirable -place of residence,' and ' indeed, it is doubtful whether the island will ever be able to produce enough for its own consumption.' The flora is forbidding; the savages are a disgrace to savagism, and the animal kingdom to brutes. It seems a pity that so able a man should jvaste so much time over so worthless a subject! Mr Macdonald has published two works on British Columbia, both in London, 1863, one a Lecture, and the other an octavo of 524 pages, with map, entitled British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, already noticed on p. 425-6 of this vol. Of these writings Mr. A. C. Anderson, who is frequently cited in them as an authority, remarks, Prize Essay, 1872, appendix, p. 33, that they ' convey an impression so utterly at variance with the observations of others, that, were the contrary not known, he might have inferred that the author had never set foot within the province. ' And yet Mr Macdonald seems particularly desirous of being believed. Toward the close of his lecture he touchingly asserts: * I have no interests to serve but those of humanity; no feelings to gratify but such as must animate the breast of every one who sees hard-working men drawn to their ruin with all to lure and none to serve. It is hard to attribute dishonest motives to .any man, and some have put forth misstatements who ought to be above suspicion; but it requires the experience of a practical farmer to form a correct estimate of the value of soils, and it requires a lengthened residence, and extensive travel through a country, to enable even the farmer, with all his experience, to give an opinion at all. Now, none of the gentlemen who have put forth such glowing statements are possessed of either of these qualifications. They appear to have visited the colonies at the most favorable season, and to have relied for the rest upon the reports of residents—men, perhaps, who had spent their whole lives in these regions, and had come to think that extreme heat in summer and intense cold in winter, varied by alternations of snow and rain and fleet and fogs for eight months in the year, formed the natural and universal course of the seasons. In no other way can I account for the boldness with which assertions have been made which a few months' residence must scatter to the winds. But there are men" who deserve no such merciful consideration—harpies who never meant to dwell in the colony—who invested their capital in buying up all the best allotments, in order to resell them at^r advanced prices to the real settlers. They now find they have made a bad/" speculation, and are eager to dispose of their land; but customers are not there, and they neither stick at any falsehood to induce them to come, nor care what becomes of them after "they have fleeced them. These are the parents of the juggling paragraphs which appear from time to time in the newspapers, and the no less juggling letters; these are they who ruin colonies and colonists; and it is in the hope of keeping the emigrant out of their clutches that I have raised my voice, and shall continue to raise it, as long as I think I can be of any service to the poor fellows who have to fight this BIBLIOGRAPHY. 771 world's hard battle with scanty means.' Mr Macdonald is not alone in his condemnation of false statements made concerning this county. Says Mr R. Byron Johnson, in his Very Far West Indeed, p. 277-8, London, 1872: 'I have seen many shameful accounts published by interested persons from which we would imagine the country to have been the original site of the Garden of Eden. The real fact is, that it depends on California and Oregon for almost every pound of flour that is consumed in it; and that compared to these neighboring countries it is what I have heard it before described by a person who knew it well, a howling wilderness.' Undoubtedly there has been exaggeration. The successful enthusiast will certainly praise, while the disappointed will rail. Probably no countries have been more heartily cursed than Oregon and California. More men have left Oregon for Puget Sound than have ever left Puget Sound for Oregon. British Columbia's best days have not yet come. Her resources are inexhaustible, and her greatest gold discoveries, thus far, as compared with her yet undeveloped resources, will be remembered in history only as the little flush of 1858-9, Very Far West Indeed is a sprightly little book from the sprightly little mind of R. Byron Johnson. It was printed in London in 1872. Carried away by immigration pamphlets and newspaper notices, the author yielded to the enticements of adventure and started for the new El Dorado. He saw many things never seen before or since; he heard dialects as they were never before spoken; hence he was constrained to write a book. It is well for those who have travelled in the United States by rail twenty-five or fifty thousand miles to know at last that 'nearly all American trains have got a bar' where intoxicating drinks are sold. The chronic national animosity between Britons and Americans was illustrated by the shooting of an Englishman by a ' western man ' on the Panama and San Francisco steamer, for celebrating the queen's birthday too broadly—an incident to every one else unknown. By the time Mr Johnson has reached Victoria he has become so accustomed to the Yankee dialect, which he invented while crossing the Isthmus, that he does not now hesitate to put it in the mouth indiscriminately of Englishman, Dutchman, and African. After numberless perils by sea and land, after undergoing every experience written in books, recited round camp-fires, or told under forecastles, Indian and bear adventures, robbery and gambling scenes, boiler-bursting, shipwreck, battle, and murder, after having encountered all the varied phenomena of success and starvation, the author finally returns to England a wiser and a better man. Yet, notwithstanding these quite innocent indulgences, of ' which the book is full, and which no intelligent person is expected to believe, Mr Johnson has produced a very interesting and valuable book. It has the great merit of being natural, and I will venture to say that Mr Johnson is not only a good friend and a good fellow, but an intelligent, honest man, and a good citizen. Of many of the pioneers and prominent colonists, want of space forbids me to make more than passing mention. Subjoined is a list of some whose names have not yet appeared in these pages, together with the sources from which information can be obtained as to their arrival, career, or decease, and additional items concerning others already noted. William Atkinson, Bayley's Vancouver Island, MS., 6; Jos. Austen, Cot, July 4, 1871; Paul Augar, Standard, July 12, 1876; A. N. Birch, N. IV. Brit. Columbian, June 26, 1867; A. S. Bates, Cot, Jan. 8,1879; Wm Bowden Id., July 29, 30, 1879; Jos. I. Brown, Cot, July 10, 1869; Thos Buie, Id., Apr. 23, 1873; David Burns, Id., July 31, 1S66; Jas Burns, Cot, Nov. 20 1879; A. T. Bushby, N. W. Pac. Herald, May 22, 1875; M. Cameron, Col' June 17, 1876; D. Cameron, Id., May 15, 1872; Sir G. Cartier, Id., May 22, 1873; Cary G. Hunter, Cot, Sept. 18, 1866; Charles, Tarbell's Victoria, MS., 5; T. Clarke, Cot, June 26, 1879; Cleryon, Id., March 1, 1864; J. J. Cochrane, Id., March 12, 1867; P. F. Corbiniere, Id., May 17, 1871; W. E. Cor- mack, Id., May 16, 1868; John Costello, Id., Jan. 25, 1871; T. Coupe, Col Jan. 4, 1876; J. Cox, Cot, Oct. 15, 1873; W. F. Crate, Cot, Oct. 3, 1871; J C. Davie, Cot, May 15, 1869; E. B. Daggett, Id., July 19, 1864; G. E. Dennis 772 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. Cot, Aug. 24, 1871; S. M. Driard, Coi., March 15, 1864; Geo. Dunbar, Id.9 Dec. 11, 1872; A. 0. Elliott, Cot, Jan. 29, 1876; W. Emery, Col, May 10, 1871; J. Evans, S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 28, 1879; J. Fleming, Cot, May 24, 1871; Mitchell Foy, Id., Feb: 2, 1870; L. Franklin, Cot, Aug. 10, 1873* J. Graham, Seattle Intelligencer, Oct. 23, 1871; E. Grancini, Cot, Nov. 12, 1879; Standard, Nov. 12,1879; Grant,Bayley's V. I., MS., 2; C. J. Griffin, Col, Aug. 19, 1874; J. B. Griffith, Id., May 17, 1871; A. H. Guild, Id., Nov. 12, 1873; T. Hall, Col, Dec. 19, 1874; O. Hare, Id., Dec. 28, 31, 1876; S. Harris, Standard, May 3, 1877; S. W. Herring, Dom. Pac. Herald, Aug. 27, 1879; E. Head, Col, Apr. 11,1868; A. G. Heffley, Col, June 11,1872; A. Hibbard, Col, June 26, 1869; Sir F. Hincks, Col, Sept, 14, 1872; A. Hoffmeister, Col. Sept. 30, 1874; Standard, Sept. 30, 1874; J. Howe, Col, June 11, 1873; E. H. Jackson, Standard, June 28, 1877; Kennedy, Col, March 22, 1864; J. James, Sac Record-Union, Jan. 23, 1884; A. Lane, Col, Sept. 12, 1865; R. Lewis, Col, Jan. 3, 1875; J. Livermore, Col, Jan. 30, 1869; L. MeLure, Id., March 8, 1864; N. W. Brit. Columbian, June 26,1867; T. G. Marshal, Standard, Apr. 4, 1877; W. Miles, Col, Nov. 20, 1872; M. Moore, Id., Oct. 15, 1873; Monatt, Id., Apr. 26, 1871; W. B. Naylor, Nanaimo Gazette, Oct. 13, 1866; Col, Oct. 3, 1866; R. Newell, Evan's Hist. N. Coast, MS.; P. Ogden, Seattle Intelligencer, Oct. 27, 1870; John Please, Sac Record-Union, Nov. 25, 1852; C. J. Pritchard, Col, July 20, 1870; Wm Robertson, Id., Dec. 18, 1872; J. Rogers, Standard, Oct. 29, 1879; Col., Oct. 26, 1879; J. Rueff, Id., Sept. 1, 1875; H. Schultz, Standard, March 11, 1878; Sleigh, Col, May 22, 1869; E. Stamp, Id., Jan. 31, 1872; Col, July 23, 1872; N. W. Pac. Herald, Jan. 24, 1872; E. A. Starr, Col, July 15, 1876; M. J. Stone, Id., Dec. 19, 1874; J. Swanson, Id., Oct. 22, 1872; Col, Oct. 23,1872; J. H. Turner, Portland West Shore, Sept. 1879, p. 264; D. Thomas, Col., Sept. 11, 1866; J. B. Timmerman, Id., May21,1873; J. Titcomb, Id., July 10,1869; J. W. Trahey, Col, Dec. 28, 1868; J. W. Waitt, Col, July 13, 1870; J. R. Watson, SeaUXe Intelligencer, July 12, 1869; Olympia Republican, July 19, 1869; J. Wherty, Col, Dec. 11, 1872; H. Wilkinson, Col, Nov. 26, 1869; H. C. Williston, Cot, Aug. 15, 1868; H. Wootton, Col, Dec. 29, 1875; A. Young, Col, Sept. 13, 1872. Final list of references: Good's Brit. Col, MS.; Brit. Col. Sketches, MS.; Bayley's Vancouver Island, MS.; De Cosmos, Government, MS.; Coopers Maritime Matters, MS.; Palmer's Wagon Trails, MS.; CHdge's Characteristics of Jas Douglas, MS.; Mackenzie's Mem. Can. Pac. R. R., MS.; Elliott's Brit. Col PoKtics, MS.; Mem. Geol Surveys, MS.; Finlayson's V. I. and N. W. Coast, MS.; Tarbell's Victoria, MS.; Brown's Indians and Settlers, MS.; Evans, Fraser River Excitement, MS.; Hancock's Thirteen Tears, MS., passim; House Ex. Doc, 45th Cong., 2d Sess., xxi. no. 90, 28-72, 134-76; csxiU. no. 102, 507; 45th Cong., 3d Sess., i., pt 1, 339-47; Jfith Cong., td Sess., xvi., no. 7, 30-78, 142-98, 264-300; 46th Cong., 3d Sess., i., pt 1, 504; Mess, and Doc, 1870-1, Navy and P. O. Dept, 133-5; Sess. Papers, B. C, 1876, 79-152, 419-563, 588, 601-23,725; 1877, 83-159, 249-356,401-48; 1878, 7-68, 263-413, 455-93; 3879, 179-326, 371-87; 1880, 159-310; 1881,315-464; 1882, 249-322, 363-408*, 435-7, 457-500; 1883, 107-304, 321-31, 345, 351-72, 379, 399, 471-90; 1884, 7-84, 91-156, 189, 229-83, 295-307, 335-45, 399-423, 432, 441-63, 809; 1885, 129-36,151-236, 451-60, passim; Revised Laws, Brit. Col. (1871); Consol. Stat. Brit. Col, (1877) passim; Stat. Brit. Cot, 1877,91- 4, 111-13, 133, 141, 638-9; 1878, 71-2, 89-90, 93-5, 129-32; 1879, 23, 37-48, 69-75, 111-23, 150-6; 1880, 1-8, 49, 59; 1881, 43-6; 1882, 4-8, 13-55, 77; 1883, 2-22, 35, 37-8, 47-69, 77-8, 81-2; 1884, 16, 32, 35, 181; 1885, 5, 75- 6, 125-41, passim; Jour. Legisl Council, B. C, 1864, 32, 36; 1867, 29-30, 66-7; 1868,2, app. iv.-viii.; 1869,15, 66-7, app. ii., iii., v.-vii; 1870, app. iv.- ix.; 1871, 54-60; Colonial Estimates, in Id., 1871, 2-12; Jour. Legisl. Ass., Brit. Col, 1873-4, 1-2, 56-7, app. i. 27-49, ii. 5-66, v. 1-7, vii 5-8,35; 1875, 2-3, 47-8, app. 3-12, 14-73, 181-246, 301-481, 545-78, 639; 1876,2-3,63; 1877, 1-2, 13, 67, app. xxvi.; 1878, 1-2, 68, 78-9; 1879, 1-2, 64; 1880, 1-2, 21, 45, app. iii. 1881, 1-2, 59-60, 72; 1882, 1-2, 5, 7, 12-54; 1883, 3, 17, 65; FINAL AUTHORITIES. 773 1884, 2, 81, 88; 1885, 1-4, 35, 52, passim; U. S. Bureau of Statistics, no. 2, 1879-80, p. 143,162,164,175,188-9; Hand-Books, Brit. Col. Board of Trade, passim; Brit. Col. Ind. Land Question, 63, 97; Zamora, iv. 282-3; Chittenden's Travels in Brit. Col, 5-8, 20-9, 40-2, 48, 50, 67; Whymper's Alaska, 258, passim; Dawson's N. W. Ter. and Brit. Col, 50-2, 55-77, 85-113; Scidmore's Alaska, 6-15; Hittell's Commerce and Industries, passim; Barneby's Life and Labor, 88-156; The Mines, Miners, etc., 507; Delmar's Hist. Precious Metals, 169; The Mining Industry, 22; Seward's Speech at Victoria, 1869,17-20; Brit. Col. Affairs, pts 1, 2, 3, 1858-60; Brit. Col. Explorations, Brit. North Amer.; Brit. Col. Lands and Work Dept Repts. Brit. Col Minister of Mines Repts. Brit. Col Papers connected with the Indian Land Question, 1850-75; Brit. Col. Public Accounts, 1876-7, 1880-1; Canada Census, 1880-1; Canada Customs Tariff, 1877; Canada Debates in Parlt, 1877, 1878; Canada Dept of the Interior, Ann. Repts, 1874-80; Canada Repts Comm. Fisheries, 1876-9; Can. Geol. Survey Repts. of Progress, 1870-9; Canada Inland Rev. Repts. Canada Marine and Fisheries, Ann. Repts, 1874-80; Canada Minister of Agric Repts, 1877-80; Canada Postmaster-General Reports, 1872-80; Canada Public Accounts, 1875-7; Canada Tables of Trade and Navigation, 1873-80; Taylors Spec. PQ-ess, 479£; Brit. Colonist, May 7, Dec. 2, 1877; Jan. 3, Feb. 3, 2S, Apr. 13, May 14,~July 16, 1878, March 20, Apr. 11, 19, 22, 29, July 1, May 13, July 23, Aug. 10, 23, Sept. 25, Oct. 13, 16, 20, 24, 26, Nov. 6,1879; Victoria Weekly Standard, Oct. 22, Nov. 26, Dec. 10, 1879, Jan. 28, Feb. 4, March 10, Apr. 28, May 5, 1880; Dy Standard, Apr. 25, May 2, July 25, Oct. 17, 31, Nov. 21, 1877; Apr. 17, 1878; Apr. 19, 26, 30. May 15, 1879; Dom. Pac. Herald, March 19, 22, 1879; New Westminster Mainland Guardian, Feb. 8, May 10, 1879; Nanaimo Free Press, May 19, 1880; S. F. Alta, March 8, 1852; July 7, 1853; Nov. 7, 1857; Apr. 28, May 27, June 26, 27, Aug. 25, Oct. 7, 15, 23, Nov. 13, 1858; May 21, June 13, July 3, 1860; Feb. 11, March 10, Apr. 13, May 2, 13, July 6, Oct. 18, Nov. 29, Dec. 21, 1861; Jan. 14, March 11, 22, 23, Apr. 14, 15, May 12, 13, 21, June 11, July 11, 12, Aug. 25, Sept. 5, Oct. 13, Nov. 10, 1862; Jan. 30, March 22, Apr. 24, May 11, Sept. 8, Oct. 30,1863; Jan. 10, 14, 28, 29, Feb. 20, March 7, 22, 31, Apr. 1, 6, 19, May 1, 4, 10, 19, 21, 27, June 9, 10, 21, 30, July 12, 20, 27, Aug. 10, 12, 14, 27, Sept. 12, 13, 19, 27, Oct. 6, 14, 16, 24, Nov. 13, 23, Dec. 28, 1864; Feb. 24, Apr. 1, 30, May 19, June 2, Aug. 5, 1865; Feb. 22, Apr. 25, May 10, 1860; Jan. 4, 9, 13, 19, Feb. 8, 16, March 4, 7, 12, 25, Apr. 14, May 24, 28, Aug. 7, 25, Sept. 12, Oct. 1, 24, 1867; Jan. 14, Oct. 20, 1868; Apr. 13, 23, July 4, 1869; Feb. 21, 1870; May 13, Sept. 12, Dec. 27,-1871; Jan. 26, Feb. 14, March 31, Apr. 28, June 16, 20, July 15, Aug. 18, 28, 1872; March 3, 18, May 5, Oct. 29, 1873; Oct. 22, 1874; Sept. 19. Oct. 25, 1875; May 18, Aug. 25, Sept. 16, 1876; Feb. 3, May 12, 1877; Aug. 3, 1878; May 19, 1880; May 16, 1881; Apr. 16, 1882; Apr. 5, May 14, July 3, 1884; Bulletin, June 1-5, 7, 11, 12, 26, July 6, 8, 15, 20, 26, Nov. 3, Dec. 8, 9, 28, 1858; Jan. 3, 11, 12, Feb. 15, 16, Apr. 15, 18, 30, May 14, 18, 31, June 3, 10, 11, 25, 30, July 15, 18, 29,30, Aug. 1, Sept. 1, 14, 19, Oct. 28, Dec. 6, 1859; Feb. 23, May 4, July 7, 1S60; March 27, June 11, 18, Oct. 15, 17, 28, Nov. 4, 6, 14, 23, 1861; May 10, July 3, 24, Oct. 23, Nov. 10, Dec. 12, 1862; Jan. 12, Feb. 10, March 4, Apr. 21, Aug. 1, 19, Dec. 16, 1863; June 9, Sept. 20, Oct, 24, Nov. 16, 1864; Jan. 16, Feb. 3, Aug. 31, 1865; July 3, 1866; Jan. 20, Sept. 4, Nov. 3, 1868; Feb. 19, Oct. 23, Nov. 23, 1869; Jan. 6, Feb. 1, June 30, 1870; Apr. 1, June 26, Dec. 17, 1872; March 3, 4, 19, Sept. 4, 1873; July 22, 1874; May 25,1875; Feb. 7, May 3, Aug. 30, 1876; July 23, Aug. 1, 1877; Aug. 6, Oct. 14, Nov. 4, 1878; March 11, Apr. 25, 28, June 11, Aug. 27, 1879; Apr. 29, May 7, 12, June 9, 24, July 1, 12, 20, 21, 26, Aug. 2, 19, 20, 23, 25, 29, Sept. 22, 29, 30, Oct. 1, 12, 14, 22, 24, Nov. 8, 9, 24, 1881; Aug. 27, 1883; Apr. 4, May 6, 1884; Feb. 27, March 12, Oct. 24, 1885; Call, Jan. 8, March 31, Apr. 12, May 27, June 19, Oct. 8, Nov. 2, 1864; Jan. 22, June 4, 8, 30, Sept. 30, 1865; Jan. 6, 19, Feb. 16, March 22, May 24, Aug. 7, Sept. 12, Oct. 24, 1867; Feb. 27, March 10, Apr. 30, Aug. 5, Sept. 8, 23, Oct. 25, 1868; Apr. 21, 1870; June 8, Oct. 22, 1872; Dec. 26, 1874; June 22, 1875; May 12, 1876; Apr. 6, July 23, 1877; 774 INDUSTRIES, COMMERCE, AND FINANCE. March 8, June 16', 1878; June 13, 1879; June 21, 1882; Jan. 12, Feb. 2, Apr. 14, 1884; Feb. 25, March 11, Dec. 4, 1885; Chronicle, Dec. 15, 1876; July22, Sept. 13, 1878; Apr. 14, 1880; Apr. 1, 1884; Jan. 5, March 1, 13, May 23, 1885; Comm. Herald, Aug. 30, 1867; Aug. 29, 1868; July 5, 1877; Jour, of Commerce, May 23, 1877; Merc. Gazette, Nov. 12, 1864; Nov. 9, 1865; Post, Oct. 23, 1873; June 22, 25, 1875; Apr. 27, May 3, Aug. 24, 28, 30, 31, Sept. 13, 29, Oct. 14, 19, 30, Dec. 4, 7, 1876; Apr. 7, June 4, Aug. 4, 1877; JtUy 16, 1878; July 24, 1885; Pacific Churchman, Nov. 19, 1868; Times, March 30, Nov. 2, 22, 1867; Jan. 14, Apr. 1, July 20, Oct. 26, 27, 1868; Feb. 16, March 15, 1869; Abend Post, Jan. 8, 20, 1876; Stockton Independent, July30, 1880; Aug. 19, 20, 1881; Steilacoom Express, July 26, 1877; Intelligencer, Jan. 13, May 22, June 5, 17, July 23, Sept. 3, 1879; Alturas (Modoc co., Cat)Independent, Sept. 29, 1877; Ashland Tidings (Or.), Aug. 3, 1877; Olympia Transcript, July 5, 1879; Port Townsend Argus, May 31, 1883; Portland Catholic Sentinel, Sept. 11, 1879; Western Oregonian, June 7, 14, 1879; Californian, Aug. 1881, p. 177; Virginia (Nev.) Chronicle, Apr. 7, 1877; Oregon Slate (Eugene City) Journal, Apr. 10, 1880; Gold Hill Neivs, June 12, 1866] El Fronterizo (Tucson), Jan. 27, 1882; Portland Telegram, Oct. 29, 31, 1879; Portland Standard, Aug. 10, 1877; Portland West Shore, Jan., July, 1877; Feb., March, June, 1880; Sac. Record-Union, Feb. 29, 1856; Aug. 22, 1860; Oct. 13, 31, 1879; March 14, May 16, June 28, Aug. 20, 23, 1881; July 25, 18S2; Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 1883; Jan. 1, 12, 19, Feb. 2, March 18, Apr. 26. 1884; Jan. 14, March 12, May 5, 23, 1885. INDEX. "Activa," ship, 15, 28. • "Active, "U. S. steamer, 260, 405, 610, 622. Adair, John, miner, 550. Adams, mining on Fraser River, 349- 50. Adams Creek, gold discovered, 460. Adams River, mining on, 460. Adams Lake, gold discovered, 461. Adderley, Mr, on H. B. Co.'s charter, 378. "Adelaide," bark, 361. Admiralty Inlet, original name, 11. Agriculture at forts, 61-2, 80,93, 119, 127-9, 131, 182-205, 260; among fur traders, 80, 81, 312; growing importance, 80; areas and condition, 1880-6, 740-4. Ague, prevalence of, 67. Ahern, miner, murdered by Inds, 530. Ahousets Inds attack whites, 429. Alden, Capt., in comd of "Active," 260, 622. Alder, Lt, in comd of the "Three Brothers," 28. Alfred Bar, mining at, 441. Allan, G. T., justice of peace, 264. Allan, Sir Hugh, railway contract, 652-4. Allard, 0., in charge at Ft Yale, 385. Allen, miner, murdered by Inds, 530. "America," H. M. S., 120-4. American Bar, mining at, 441. Anderson, A. C, on H. B. Co.'s policy to Inds, 50; comd at Ft Colville, 60; at Ft Nisqually, 62-3; biog. and bibliog., 157-9; explor. experts to, 157-70, 175-6; map of route, 162; on gold discovery, 349; report on gold yield, 470; on mining licenses, 571; bibliog., 761. Andrews, B. S., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Anderson, David, before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 381. Anderson Gulch, mining at, 482. Anderson River, expedt. on, 167. Antler Creek, mining at, 457, 479, 491-3, 512, 515; town at, 492-3; society, 492. Anvil Island named, 20. Applegate, J. K., attacked by Inds, 1859, 614-15. "Aranzazu," Spanish man-of-war, 29. Arctic Creek, prospectors on, 547; mining, 551. "Argonaut," ship, seized by Spaniards, 1789, 8. Artesian Co., lease and plans, 499-500. Assembly, first on V. I., 320-7; called, 320; qualification of members, 320- 1; members, 321, 326-7; business, 322-7; gov.'s address to, 322-3. Astoria as a trading post, 78-81. Atnahs Inds, character, 136; conspiracy of, 143./ Auriferous region, extent, 539. Authorities quoted, xxi-xxix, 72-7, 309, 579-81, 694-5, 766-9. "Aventure," ship, built by Vancouver, 15. B Babine River prospected, 556. Back, Sir G., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Baillie, T., visited by McElroy, 260. Baillie, Hamilton's Bay named, 191. Baker, Lt, in Vancouver's expedt., 16. Bakerville, prosperity of, 716. Balch, Capt., gold-hunting expedt., 344. Bald Mountains, mining about, 505; geology, 513. Ball, H. M., justice of peace at Lytton, 416; on gold discovery, 486; gold, commissioner, 206; of first legis. council, 583. Ballou, W., starts express, 351-2. Banking facilities, 1885, 753. Barclay, Capt.,' visit of, 1787, 5. I 775 ) 776 INI>EX. Barclay Sound named, 5; Spanish name for, 11. Bate, M., manager V. Coal Co., 569 mayor Nanaimo, 574. Bauerman on Cariboo geology, 513 on B. C. coal-fields, 570. Barker Claim, mining at, 488, 497. Barkerville, importance, 495, 503 509; named, 497; burned, 1868, 497; wages, provisions, 516; H. B. Co. at, 516; reading-room, 519. Barnes, Ellis, sells H. B. Co.'s property on H Juan Isl., 608. Barr, R., conducting colonial academy, 260; clerk of assembly, 340. Barriere River, mining on, 459-60. Beale Co., work, 1S66-7, 518. Bear River, mining at, 479; coal discovered, 579. Beaufort mine coal seam, 568. "Beaver," steamer, 59, 71-2 84, 92, 93, 95. 101, 100, 188, 289, 405, 616. Beaver Harbor, coal discovered, 186- 90; named, 188. Bedrock Flume Co., yield, 1868-9, 540. Begg Creek, mining on, 505. Begbie, M. B., chief justice, 337, 361, 405, 408, 412, 417, 420, 422; first circuit, 422; character, 423-6, 430- 3; disliked by miners, 430; on Fraser River, 445; on mining, 463, 465- 6, 514. Bell, G. W.J hanged, V. I., 435. Bell, Jas, explores Lightning Creek, 506. Bellacoolas Inds at Victoria, 428. Bellingham Bay named, 20; Spanish name, 21; coal discovered, 200; fort on, erected, 613. Bevis, W. H., revenue officer, 405. Big Bar, locality, 455; mining at, 457. Big Bend gold excitement, 470, 522, 524, 530, 539; mining, 531, 535; failure, 534. Birch, A. N., of first legis. council, 583. Birch Bay, named, 20; Spanish name, 21. Blanshard, R., visit to coal mines, 195; influence on colonization, 231; apptd gov. V. I., 265; arrival, 266; to serve without pay, 267; relations with H. B. Co., 268-72, 276-80; character, 275; resigns, 280-1; before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Blakely Island, 606. Blanchet, plants cross on Whitbey Isl., 1840, 100. Blenkinson, G., at Ft Rupert, 192-4; has sailors killed, 273. Blue Nose Bar, gold discovered, 441, 444. Blunt Island, Ind. attack on, 1859, 614-15. Bayley, C. A., coroner, Nanaimo, 426. Baynes, Admiral, arrives at Esquimalt, 404-5; in comd of English fleet, 624; actions in S. Juan affair. 624-5. Bazalgette, Capt. G., in comd of Eng. troops at S. Juan, 633, Bodegay Cuadra, comm. for Spain in Nootka affair, 1792, 15. Bolduc, J. B. Z., at Camosun, 97-8; celebrates mass, 99; at Whitbey IsL, 99-100. Bond, G. P., U. S. commissioner in S. Juan trouble, 610. Boston Bar, mining at, 447-8. "Boxer," H. M. S., 572. Bradley, H., discovers coal, 568. Bradley Creek, coal-mining, 268. Brew, Chartres, establishes constabulary, 404; Hill Bar trouble, 411; of first legis. council, 585. Bridge River, mining at, 453-4. British America, jurisdiction of Canadian courts in, 217. British Bar, mining at, 455-7. British Colonist, newspaper, 739. British Columbia, summary of earliest voyages, 1-31; configuration, 33-40; physical divisions, 34-5; climate, 40-3; fauna, 43-4; natives, 44-51; forts, 52-72; explorations, 157-70, 175-6; gold discovered, 341-75; travel to mines, 354-70, 382; effects of discovery, 374-5; colony and govt established, 383; H. B. Co. stations, 385; govt of 1858-63, 388- 418; created crown colony, 406; law established, 406; acct of gold-fields, 420-2; mounted police, 434; popular tribunals, 436; gold yield, 47t£-l; mining population, 471,. 482; coal discoveries, 565-80; legis. council organized, 583; a province of the dominion, 598-601; S. Juan Island difficulty, 605-93; Canadian Pac. Railway, 640-93; politics and govt, 1870-86,696-706; settlements, 1861- 86, 707-717; missions, 717-27; education, 734-8; newspapers, 739; industries, 760-6; commerce, 746- 52; finance, 753-6. British Columbian, newspaper, 739. Brooks, Port, coal discovered, 201. INDEX. 777 "Brother Jonathan," the steamer, wrecked, 467. Broughton Archipelago named, 26. Broughton, Lt, in comd of the "Chatham," 15; expedt. of 1792, 18. Broughton Straits, Spanish name for, 26. Brown, D., shooting of, 452. Brown, L., on Fraser excitement, 358. Brown, P., killed by Indians, 331. Brown, Dr R., on gold discovery, 463; on gold-field formation, 466, 521; on V. I. coal, 567; on Queen Charlotte Isl., 574-5. Brown, Rev. R. C. L., at William Creek, 519; prize essay by, 760-1. Brown, Thos, gold discoverer, 496. Browne, Ross, on Columbia gold-field, 521. Buchanan, Pres., actions in S. Juan affair, 626. Buckley's party prospecting, 549. Bukley, T. A., works Harewood Coal Mine, 573. Burns Creek, mining on, 482; yield, 1875-7, 515. Burpee, Mr, originates Canadian Pac. Railway, 644. Burrard Inlet, Spanish name for, 24; coal discovered, 576, 579. Burton, Lieut, destroys Indian village, 274. Butler, Capt., at Manson Creek, 1871, 552. Butler, Wm, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Byrnes, on gold-hunting expedt. report, 547-9. Caamano, comd of the "Aranzazu," 29. Cache Creek town, growth of, 458. "Cadboro," schr, 59, 72, 101, 106. Caldwell, Wm, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. California, effect of B. C. gold discovery, 357-62, 372-3, 481, 478; exodus of population, 358-9, 362; resemblance to Fraser River gold- fields, 463; coal formation, 566. ' California miners at Fort Victoria, 180-1. California Creek, mining on, 482, 500. Call Canal named, 26. Calvert Island named, 26. Cameron Bar, mining at, 441, 443, 451, 464, 465, 497, 517. Cameron, D., chief justice, 327, 335- 7, 405; resigns, 422. Camosun, examined by Douglas, 86-8; fort built, 94-101. Campbell, Arch., U. S. commissioner in S. Juan trouble, 610. Canadian Bar, mining at, 441, 498. Canadian Pacific Railway, cause of founding, 374; reasons for and against project, 840-4; bill carried in the commons, 644; resolutions passed by Canadian parliament, 645-6; preliminary surveys, 649-52; Hugh Allan contract, 652-4; the Canarvon terms, 661-2; petition to her Majesty, 683-4; Earl of Duffer- in's speech, 606-70; contract with syndicate, 678; engineering difficulties, 681-4; Port Moody, reasons for selection as terminus, 684-6; completion of the line, 687; costly undertaking, 687-91. Canal de Sasamat. See Burrard Inlet. Canoe country mining, 456, 473. Canon Creek, mining at, 509-10. Capcha Ind. attack on the "Kingfisher," 429. Cape Disappointment, Capt. Meares at, 1788, 6; trading post at, 182. Cape Lookout, Captain Meares at, 1788-6. Cape Orford named, 15. "Captain Cook," ship, 178. Carry, E., gold discoverer, 545. Cariboo, mining in,, 470, 472-92, 510- 19; map of region, 474; missionaries at, 519; influence of excitement, 546. Carnarvon Club organized, 698-9; demands of, 699. Carnarvon terms, acceptance of the, 661r2. CarnesVCreek mining, 532, 537. Carnes, Hank, gold discoverer, 1S65, 537-8. "Caroline," ship, 614. Carpenter Bar, mining at, 559. Carriers, Inds, character, 50. Cartier, Sir G. E., actions in Pacific Railway, 651-2. Cary, G. H., solicitor-general B. C, 405. Casey, Col, reenforces Pickett at S. Juan, 622; imprudence of, 622-3. Casey Bar, gold discovered, 441. Cass, Sec, actions in S. Juan affair, 627. Cassiar mining district, location, 543; gold excitement, 1861, 559; mining, 559-64. 778 INDEX. Cattle brought into N. W., 62; at forts, 106-7; stealing, 331. Cavanaugh, A., miner, murdered by Inds, 230. Cayoosh, Ind. village, 452. Cayuses, Inds, character, 50. Cedar Creek prospected, 487-8. Centras, Capt. John, treats with Indians, 396. Chancellor sent from Eng. to report on mines, 231. Chapman party prospecting, 1869, 547. Charbonnedern, A., in Anderson's explor. expdt., 159. Charles, Wm, manager Hudson's Bay Co., Pacific coast, 382. I Chatham," H. M. S., 15, 18, 21, 28. Cheadle, report on gold formation, 486; at Cariboo mines, 498. Chemanis district, coal discovered, 579. Cherry Creek, mining on, 538. Chilcats, Inds, attack whites, 48. Chilkotins, Inds, attack on pack-train, 428. Chilliwack River, coal discoverd on, 579. • Chimsyans, Inds, at Victoria, 428; missionaries among, 719. Chinese, Ind. regard for, 49; mining in gold-fields, 329, 330, 343,348, 398, 444, 454-5, 458-9, 471, 487-8, 501, 509, 511, 526, 540, 541, 551, 553, 563; at Victoria, 710-11. Chinese question in B. C, 711-12. Chinooks, language of, 51. Coisholm Creek, mining at, 482, 507. Chittendon, N. H., bibliog., 759. Christian, J., opens mine, 460. Christy opposes H. B. Co., 213. Clallams, Inds, country of, 93-4; attend mass, 99. Clayoquet Harbor, Vancouver winters at, 15. Clayton, trade controversy, 207. Clearwater River, mining on, 505. Clinton, prosperity of, 716. "Clio," H. M. S., 417; attacks Ind. village, 429. Cloak Bay named, 5, Coal discoveries, 186-96, 196-200, 165-80; formations, 565-8; license to discover, 571-2; mine regulations, 577-8; minister's report, 577; yield, 1884, 750. Colnett, Capt., ship of, seized by Spaniards, 8. " Columbia," H. B. Co. ship, 8, 15, 120, 238. " Columbia," P. M. Co. steamer, 359. Columbia River, failure to enter, 1792, 29; settlers' encroachments on, 81; mines, 520-42; geology, 528. Columbia and Kootenai Railway Co. incorporated, 691. Colville Coty, gold discovered, 348; mining, 520-1. Commercial Inlet, coal discovered, 198, 200. "Commodore," steamer, 369, 361. "Cormorant," ship, 134, 190, 266. Comox coal seam, area, 576. Comox Harbor, coal mining at, 568, 578. "Concepcion," ship, 29. Confederation first mooted 1822, 595; in effect 1841, 595; B. C. a province of the dominion, 598-602. Conklin Gulch, mining at, 482, 500, 508, 515. Connolly, Nellie, marries Douglas, 289. "Constance," frigate, 124, 180. Convict labor at Victoria, 435. Cook, Capt. James, at Nootka 1778, 3; map, 3; on Pacific coast, 4. Cooper, Jas, trader on Fraser River, 255-6; settles at Metchosin, 256-7; at Esquimalt, 260; signs settlers' petition, 314; before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381; on gold discovery, 350, 354; of council, 281, 316, 320. Copals, Indian chief, 393. Corbett, G. O., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. C6rdoba Harbor, 10. See Victoria. Cornwall, C. F., chief magistrate 1881-6, 704. "Cortes," steamer, 361. Cottonwood Creek, mining at, 515. Coucey, Capt. Michaelde, at Esquimalt, 404. Council, provisional, of V. I., 316. Courtney, Capt., at V. I., 124. Courts, Canadian, jurisdiction in B. A., 217. Cowichins, Inds, attend mass, 95, 99; attack Ft Camosun, 107-10; Douglas' policy toward, 331; missionaries among, 719. Cowitchen Bay, coal discovered, 567, 578. "Cowlitz," H. B. Co. ship, 120. Crease, H. P. P., of first legis. council, 583; judge, 706. Crest, W., gold discoverer, 645. Crickener, B.» chaplain, arrives V. I., 407. INDEX. 779 Cridge, view of Douglas, 299. Crofton, J. F., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Cuadra, exploration of, 1774-9, 3. Cunningham Creek, mining at, 477, 479, 489-91, 497, 500. Cunningham, W., exploration cf, 506. Cumshewas Harbor, coal seam at, 574. " Curlew," sloop, 361. Cutler, L. A., hog affair of S. Juan Isl. 1859, 616-17. Cypress Island named, 20. "Dgedalus," H. M. S., 28, 29, 274. Daily Evening Post, newspaper, 739. Daily and Weekly Colonist, newspaper, 739. Daily and Weekly Standard, newspaper, 739. Dallas, A. G., claims S. Juan for British soil, 616. "Dameras Cove," ship, 344. "Daphne," H. M. S., 274, 281. Datson, murder of, 435. Davis, Wm, in Anderson's explor. expdt., 159. Davis Gulch, mining at, 482. Dawson, G. M., on Cariboo mines, 472, 513; on B. C. coal, 567, 579; railway survey expedt., 650. Day Bar, mining at, 455-7. Deadwood Bar, gold discovered at, 441. Deans, G., settles at V. I., 258, Deans, Jas, biog., 113-15; at V. I., 258-9. Dease Lake, mining at, 560-2. Decatur Island, 606. Deception Bay, Captain Meares at, 1778, 6. Deception Passage named, 18. De Courcy Islands, coal discovered, 567, 579. De Courcy, Maj., magistrate at S. Juan, 618. Deep Sea Bluff named, 26. De Groot, H., on gold discovery, 348, 350, 463. Denman, Admiral, destroys Ind. village, 429. Derby, town, 406-7. Desolation Sound named, 25. Destruction Island, Capt. Meares at, 1788, 6. "Devastation," H. M. S., 429. Dewdney, E., surveys William Creek, 502; on Kootenai trail, 530. Deitz, W., miner, 483-4, 495; claim, 497. Diller, miner, 486. "Discovery," H. M. S., 15, 16, 26. Discovery claim, mining at, 488, 494, 507, 508, 527, 534, 537, 533, 561. Dixon, Geo., visit of, 1787, 5. Dixon Strait named, 5. Dog Creek, mining at, 450. Donnellan, B. C, chief of police, 402. Douglas coal mine, work at, 569; compared with Newcastle, 572. Douglas, Capt., visit of, 1788, 6. Douglas, David, death of, 135. Douglas, James, builds forts, 48, 95- 101, 290; quarrel with McNeill, 69- 71; explores Tako river, 67-72; visits Cal., 72, 291; surveys Royal Bay, 87; report on Camosun, 88-9; on Esquimalt, 89-90; character, 115, 118, 120, 292-5, 387; chief factor, 119, 295; at Ft Vancouver, 131; at Ft Victoria, 133; report on coal discovery, 189-90; visits coal mines, 199-200; opposes Blanshard, 266, 278; on council, 281; on board of management, 283; gov. of V. I., 283, 310-28; biog., 285-96; early relations to McLoughlin, 286; education, 285-90; marriage, 288-9; rescues Lassertes, 291-2; personal appearance, 292-3, 299-300; retires from H. B. Co., 296; death, 296; compared to McLoughlin, 296, 300- 9; calls first assembly, 320; policy to Inds, 299, 331-5; policy to settlers, 305-6; address to Assembly, 322-3; rept on gold discovery, 348- 51, 353-4, 370, 475, 521; mining proclamations, 352-3, 402-3; policy to gold miners, 361, 364-6, 370-1, 381-2, 386-94, 400, 408; Gov. of B. C, 384, 387, 401-3, 405; examines mines, 390-4; withdraws from H. B. Co., 403; address presented to, 587; knighted, 587; character as gov. 588-9; proclamation against invasion of S. Juan, 620; commun. on S. Juan affair, 621. Douglas, Wm, ship of, seized by Spaniards, 8. Downie,'Maj., report on mines, 514, 576, 578. Dragon Rocks named, 15. Draper, W. H., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. "Driver," ship, 266. Dufferin, Earl, visit and speech, 654, 666-72. Duffin, Robt, explor. trip of 1788, 6. r 780 INDEX. Dunbar claim, yield, 508. Duncan, Wm, missionary act. as magistrate, 434, 718. Dunn, J., bibliog., 188-9. Dunsmuir, Robt, coal discovery, 572. Dunsmuir coal mine, 569-70, 572. Duntze, Capt. J. A., visit of, 124-5, E Eagle Bar, gold discovered at, 441. Eagle Pass, last rail of C. P. laid at, 687. Ebey, I. N., actions in S. Juan trouble, 1854, 607-8; murder of. 613. Edgar, James D., actions in Canadian Pac. Railway affair, 656-8. Education, 1865-84, 734-8. Edwards, J. E., discovers gold, 480. Elgin, Lord, complaints against H. B. Co., 212; investigates, 232. Elisa, expdt. of 1791, 11-14; map, 12. Elisa Bay. See Pedder Bay. Ellenborough peninsula named, 191. Ellice, E., M. P., on colonization, 208; on V. I. grant, 230; on character H. B. Co., 378; before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 3S1. Elmore Gulch, mining at, 554. Emery, E. E., at Nanaimo, 1871, 572. Emory Bar, mining at, 443, 464, 465. Elwyn, Thomas, justice of the peace at Lilloet, 418. "England," ship, 195, 273. England offers reward for discovery of N. W. passage, 3-4; sends comm. to Wash, to negotiate treaty 1871, 637. Englefield harbor, gold discovery at, 347. Ent, Noel, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. "Enterprise," steamer, 364, 587. Ericsson Mining Co., yield, 498, 500; members, 516. Ermatinger at Ft Kamloop, 135. Esquimalt Harbor, original name, 10; description, 87; Douglas examines, 89-90; society at, 714. Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway, contract for construction, 692. Etholin, gov. of Sitka, 68, 207. Evans, killed by Indians, 368. Evans, Ellwood, on gold discovery, B. C, 355. "Experiment," ship, 26. Exports, list and value, 1884, 751-2. Express Bar, gold discovered, 441. Fanshawe, Capt., attacks Indians, 274-5. Farris, Michael, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. "Fauntleroy," brig, 610. "Felice," ship, 5, 8. "Fenis," ship, 29. Fery Creek, mining on, 510. Fery, Jules, on Cariboo mines, 514. Ferguson Bar, locality, 455-6; mining at, 457. Fidalgo, S., Capt. of the "Princesa," 20. Fife Passage named, 26. Fifty-four Forty Bar, gold discovered, 441. Finance, revenue, and expenditure, 1863, 584; 1864, 590-1; 1870, 603. Finlay, Jas, explores Finlay River, 555. Finlay River, mining on, 530, 546-55. Finlayson, R., with Douglas, 71, 100; comd at Ft Camosun, 101-15, 118- 32; bibliog., 103-4; character, 104- 6, 157; defends Ft Camosun, 108- 10; at Ft Victoria, 181; discovers coal, 188; chief accountant, 282-3; signs settlers' petition, 314; mem. of council, 320; on gold discovery, 348-9, 359-60; treasurer H. B. Co., 359-60; chief factor, 382; at mines, 516, 527- "Fisgard," ship, 124-5. Fisheries, value and extent, 746-8. Fisherville, rise, 1864, 523-4; famine, 1865, 524; pulled down 1866, 525. Fitzgerald, J. E., on grant of V. I., 221, 225-6, 22S. Fitzhugh Sound named, 26. Fitzwilliam, C. W. W., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Fitzwilliam, Earl, on settlement V. L, 262. Flattery Cape named, 4. Fleming, Sandford, of the Pac. Railway construction Co., 653. Forbes, Dr, on gold discovery, 463; on mines, 513, 571. Forbes, Charles, prize essay by, 760. Fort Albert. See Ft Camosun. Fort Alexander, location, 57. Fort Babine, location, 57-8. Fort Bellingham established, 617. Fort Camosun founded, 92-101; purpose of, 93; cattle at, 106-7; attacked by Inds, 107-10; description, 111-16; name changed, 118. Fort Colville, removal of, 184. INDEX. 781 Fort Connolly built, 290. Fort Defiance erected 1792, 15. Fort Edmonton, mining at, 525. Fort Fraser, location, 57. Fort George, location, 57. Fort Hope established, 176; importance, 393. Fort Kamloops, location, 134, 136; commanders of, 134-5; Tod at, 134- 56; Inds trading at, 136; Shushway conspiracy, 134-56. Fort Langley, situation, 59; destroyed, 67; as a trading post, 82. Fort McLeod, location, 57. Fort McLoughlin, location, 59; abandoned, 93, 100. Fort Nisqually, agric. at, 62. Fort Rupert established, 193-4; society at, 194-5; coal mining, 193-6. Fort St James, location, 57-8. Fort Simpson, situation, 59. Fort Tako established, 48; location, 59; built, 72; abandoned, 93, 100. Fort Thompson. See Ft Kamloops. Fort Vancouver, agric. at, 62-3; library at, 63. Fort Victoria, as a post, 119-20, 130; hospitality at, 121-5; agric. at, 127- 9, 131; as a whaling station, 128; rising importance, 12C, 130; town laid out, 258. See Fort Camosun. Fort Yale established, 171-6. Forts of B. C, 53-72, 130. Forts, catalogue of, 721-33. Forts, northern, map of, 193. "Forty-Nine," steamer, 533-4. Forty-nine Creek, mining at, in 1867, 530. Foster Bar, mining at, 451. Fouquett, Father, missionary, 718. Foulweather Bluff named, 16. Foulweather Cape named, 4. Fountain, the, mining at, 440, 454- 5, 464, 482. Foy, M., miner, 546. Foy, P., miner, 557. Fraser, A., prospects Nation River, 1870, 555. Fraser, D., on Cariboo mines, 482, on gold discovery, 486, 492. Fraser, Paul, at Umpqua, 57-126. Fraser River, discovery of, 24; Sir G. Simpson descends, 159; character of, 161; gold discovered, 353-4; excitement begins, 355-6; mining on, 438, 461, 468-71; character of mines, 429-40; ascended by steamers, 444; overland routes to, 445-7, 449- 50; kinds of gold in, 462, 465-6; rush to, 466-8, 522; yield, 468-71; coal discovered, 577, 579; bridge across, 680. Fraser River Railway Co. incorporated, 691. Fraser, Simon, bibliog., 702. Frederick Arm, Spanish name for, 26. Free Press, newspaper, 739. Freezy, Ind. chief, character, 51. French Bar, mining at, 441, 444, 451, 453. French Canadians as settlers, 56, 62, 248. French Creek mines discovered, 531, yield, 532; flooded, 534; decline, 535. Friendly Cove, Meares erects house at, in 1788, 5. Fry, J., director V. Coal Co., 569. Fuca Strait named, 6. Fur-traders, language, 51-5; in B. C, 53-72; dress, 54-5; assimilation with natives, 54-5, 129-30, 249; horse brigade of, 59; hospitality, 129; as colonizers, 224, 247; life of, 288. G Galiano, Capt., expedt. of 1792, 20- 8; map of, 23. Gambling in Cariboo, 518. "Ganges," H. M. S., 404, 624. Gardner, G. C, U. S. commissioner in S. Juan trouble, 610. George, dry-diggings, location, 464; mining at, 465. "Georgiana," ship, 344, 361. Germansen Creek, mining, 551, 553. Germansen, Jas, gold discoverer 1870, 551. Germany, S. Juan question referred to emperor of, 638-9. "Gertrudis," ship, 29. Gibbs, B., captured by Inds, 427. Gilchrist, trial for murder, 432-3. Gladstone, W. E., opposes H. B. Co., 212, 214, 233, 379. Gold commissioner, powers, 421. Gold discovery, B. C, 1858-78, 341- 75, 438-92; on the Fraser River, 353-4, 438; effect on Wash, and Or., 356; effect on Cal., 357-62, 372- 3; effect on B. C; 374-5; effect on fur trade, 392; on Inds, 392; in Cariboo country, 472-94; in North, 520-64. Gold-fields act, the, provisions, 420-2. "Gold-Hunter," ship, 361. Goldsmith, S., miner, 546, 557. Gooch, Lieut, Hill Bar trouble, 411. 782 INDEX. Good, Rev. J. B., acct of Ft Hope, 176; biog. and bibliog., 717-18. Good," <iepy minister of mines on B. C. gold yield* 468-9. Good-as-Any Co. claim, yield, 553. Goodyear, W. A., on Monte Diablo coal, 566. Goose Creek, mining on, 482. Gordon, Capt., H. M. S. "America," examines N. W. coast, 121-4. Gordon,Capt., H.M. S. "Cormorant," at Victoria, 124; examines coal, 190. Graham, Capt., attacks Indians, death, 396-7. Grant, Capt., builds road, 447. Grant, G. M., bibliog., 702. Grant, John, on council V. I., 320. Grant, R., justice, 264. Grant, W. C, settles at Soke Inlet, 253-5; bibliog., 253. Gray, Capt., visit of, 1788, 6; attacked by Inds, 8; meets Vancouver, 15. Gray, J. Hamilton, judge 1880, 706. Gray Harbor surveyed, 29. Gregory, Cape, named, 4. Grey, Earl, attitude to H. B. Co., 203, 208, 228, 263-5; on grant of V. I., 215; appoints gov., 263-5. Griffin, C. J., actions in S. Juan trouble 1854, 607-8. Griffith claim, yield, 526. Grouse Creek, mining on, 480, 493-4, 515. Grouse Creek Flume Co., Grouse Creek War, 429. Grouse Creek war, the, contestants, cause, 429; result, 430. Guichon Creek, coal discovered, 579. " Guilietta," schr, 361. Gulf of Georgia named, 18. Gun Creek, gold discovered, 454. H Haggaret, J. M., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 618. Haidahs, Inds, hostility of, 427. Half-breed claim, yield, 535-6. Haliburton, J., dir. V. Coal Co., 569. Haller, Maj. O. G., establishes post at Port Townsend, 613. Hanley, W. O., of first legis. council, 583. Hanley, W. T., cob of customs, 405, 417. Hang Ditch completed, 529. Hanna, Capt. J., trade with natives, 1786, 4-5; localities named by, 26. Hard Curry Co. claim, yield, 498. Harewood coal mine, yield, 573, 577. Harney, Gen., actions in S. Juan affair, 617; commun. on, 620-1; recalled, 632; quarrel with Gen. Scott, 633-5. Haro, Gonzalos de, northern expedt. 1788, 3; at Nootka, 8. Haro Strait named, 10; surveyed 1791, 13-14. "Harpooner," ship* 253, 257. Harvey Creek, mining at, 479, 489- 90, 515. Haskell Bar, mining at) 455, 457. Hawes, aids Hudson's Bay Co., 214. Haynes, J. C, judge, 435; gold commr, 524 Hazel Point named, 16. Hazlitt, W. C, gold discoverer, 343. Heceta, exploration of 1774-9, 3. Hector, Jas, on gold-field formation, 466; on Nanaimo coal, 571. Helmcken, J. S., at Fort Rupert, 243- 6; personal appearance, 243; magistrate, 244-5, 271, 273; as a doctor, 245; speaker first assembly, 324, 327. "Herald," surveying ship, 124-5. Herd, David, before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 381. Heron claim, yield of, 493-4. „ Hicks, , commr for crown lands, 405. Higgins, J. E., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. High Low Jack claim, yield, 500. Hill Bar, govt at, 302-3; rivalry with Yale, 409—14; mining at, 441, 443, 465; town laid out, 441. Hill, Bishop, reports gold discovery, 453. Hippa Island named, 5. Hixon, miner on Caiion Creek, 510. Hixson Creek, mining on, 510. Hog affair of the S. Juan Isl. 1859j 616. Holbrook, H., of first legis. council, 583. Homer, Joshua A. R., of first legis. council, 583. Home Sound, coal discovered, 201. Homfray Channel, Spanish name for, 25. Hood Canal named, 16. "Hope," brig, 29. Hope, town surveyed, 400; laid out, 402; mining in dist, 442, 444, 464, 466, 471. "Horcasttas," schr, 11. INDEX. 783 Hornby, Capt., at Esquimalt, 404; urges joint occupation of S. Juan, 620; interview with Col Casey, 623-4. Horse Beef Bar, mining at, 453. Horsefly, the, mining on, 486-7; re- resemblance to California gold- fields, 487. Hovey diggings, mining at, 465. Howe Sound named, 20. Howell, R., gold discoverer, 553. Hubbs, C. H., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Hubbs, Paul K., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Hudson Bar, gold discovered, 441, 443, 444. Hudson's Bay Co., treatment of Inds, 44-51, 207, 280, 331-5, 378, 391; drive opposition from coast, 59-60; policy to settlers, 64, 81, 204-5, 235, 248; relation to Russ. Amer. Co., 61, 68-9, 128, 178-9; character of officers, 81, 129, 210, 372; effect on, of Cal. gold discovery, 180-4; policy, 203-7, 210-11, 381, 379; as colonizers, 211, 223, 234, 250-2. 260-1; claim to Rupert Land, 211; opposition to, 212-17, 232-4, 251-2, 261, 313-14, 386; renewal of charters, 217-19, 316; colonizes V. I., 223-37, 313; causes of failure, 337- 40, 251-2, 311-13, 379; rule in V. I., 234-7; relation to Gov. Blan- chard, 268-72, 276-80; monopoly on V. I., 312; effect on, of gold discovery, 341-54, 393, 467; gold export, 351, 353; attitude to miners, 360-1, 371-2, 386; decline of power, 376-87; discussion on charter, 376- 81; union with N. W. Co., 377; stations, 380, 385; restrictions on trade, 467; Inds discover gold and coal, 545, 569; coal-mining, 569; take possession of S. Juan, 607. Hume, J., opposes H. B. Co., 232-3; explores Lightning Creek, 506. Hunt, Capt., in comd of Amer. troops at S. Juan, 630. Hurley, killed by Indians, 368. "Huron," brig, 343-4. Idaho Terr., configuration, 39; climate, 42, "Imperial Eagle," ship, 5. Imports, value 1884, 751. "Inconstant," ship, 124. Indians, early trade with, 4-5; attack Meares' party, 1788, 6; under H. B. Co. rule, 44-51, 207, 235-6, 274- 5, 280, 331-5, 391; hanged, 46, 236, 324, 429; persecutions of, 46, 274- 5, 425-7; regard for Chinese and negroes, 49; influence of civilization on, 54-5; writers on, 75; settle N. W. terr., 76-7; hostility of, 108- 10, 173, 194, 236, 331, 365-8, 391-5, 427-8, 434, 614; as farmers, 127; slavery among, 132; small-pox among, 149; liquor trade with, 207, 271, 280; character, 288-9, 426, 431-2; as gold discoverers, 345, 348, 351, 353, 392^3, 545; treaty with • miners, 396-9; law among, 426; attack on ships, 427, 429; flock to Victoria, 428; discover coal to H. B. Co., 568-9; missionaries among, 718-19; govt treatment, 719-27.. Inland Sentinel, newspaper, 739. "Iphigenia," ship, 6; seized by Spaniards, 1789, 8. Irwin, J. V. H., director V. Coal Co., 569. Isbister, Alex., before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 381. Isherwood, B. F., on merits of eastern and western coals, 575. Jack of Clubs Creek, hanging at, 436; mining on, 482, 515. Jamieson, A. J., leads prospecting expedt., 434. Jervis Canal named, 20. Johnson, Peter, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Johnson, Reverdy, instructions to, on S. Juan question,. 635. Johnstone, James, in Vancouver's expedt., 25. Johnstone Strait, Spanish name for, 26. Jones, Capt., meeting with hostile Inds 1859, 614. Jordan and Abbott claim, yield, 509. Judiciary, admin, of justice, 419-37; plan for, 420. Julia," steamer, 622. Kamloop Lake prospected, 458-9. Kamloops, gold discovered at, 348; growth of, 458. 784 INDEX. Kamloops, Inds, character, 136. Kanakas at Fort Camosun, 127, 130, .192. Kane, miner, 548-9. Kane, P., artist, in north-west 1846, 131-2. Kauffman, J., 537. Keithley, miner, 483-4, 486. Keithley Creek, mining on, 486, 489- 90, 515. Kellett, Capt. H., surveys Fuca Strait, 125. visit of, 1788-9, 8. gov. at V. I. 1864, Kendrick, Capt., Kennedy, Capt., 593. Kennedy, J. F., mem. of first assembly, 321, 327. Kernaghan, Wm, before comm. in England on H. B. Co., 381. King, murder by, 401. King, Richard, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381, "Kingfisher," schr, plundered by Inds, 249. "King George," ship, 5. King George Sound named, 4. King George's Sound Co., formed for '•fur-trading, 1786, 5. Kirbyville started, 533. Knight Canal named, 26. Kootenai mines, 521-9, 532; inacces- .';...sibility of, 522; roads to, 523. Kootenais, Inds, character of, 50, 136; missionaries among, 718. "Kossuth," schr, 361. "Labouchere," steamer, 533. Labouchere, despatch to Douglas, 317; instructions to col. govt, 318-20; on H. B. Co. charter, 377-8. Lacourse, T., in Anderson's expedt., 159. Lacy, Lt, massacres Inds, 275. La Fleur Co. claim, yield, 532. "Lagrange," ship, 48. Laing, , captured by Inds, 427. Laird River, mining on, 560-2. Lake Hill Farm, 261. j Laketown, trade at, 563-4. Lane in north-west, 131. Langnevin, minister of public works, 502, 504; on gold yield, 557. Langford, E. E., settler at V. I., 250, 261; farm of, 251; mem. of first assembly, 321, 325. Langley, site surveyed, 400; as mining locality, 444; description of, 716. La Perouse, on N. W. coast 1786, 3. Lassertes, accident to, 291-2. Last Chance Creek, mining on, 482, 507, 517. Lawrence, A., U. S. minister, 207. Lawrence Island, Spanish name for, 21. Lay, Kootum, Indian chief, 393. Leech, P. J., discovers coal, 568. Lefoy, J. H., before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 381. Legislative council, organized 1863, 583. Legislature, proceedings of 1872-86, 705. Lewis, H. G., voyage 1851,195; biog. and bibliog., 758. Lewis, P. H., with overland party, 368, 482. Liard River, mining on, 563. Library among fur-traders, 63. Lightning Co., work, 507; yield, 608. Lightning Creek prospected, 480-2; rush to, 496; history, 506; mining at, 506, 508, 513, 515; coal discovered, 579. Lilloet River, mining at, 452, 471. Lincoln, Earl of, opposes Hudson's Bay Co., 213, 232-3. "Live Yankee," bark, 361. Lolo, J. B., Ind. chief, character, 140-1; reveals conspiracy, 141-5. London, Allan's attempt to raise loan in, 653; syndicate formed to build railway, 678. Lopez Island, 606. Lord, J. K., bibliog., 759. "Lord-Western," ship, wrecked, 254. Lost Creek, mining on, 551, 554, 558. Lowhee Creek, mining on, 482, 496, 509, 515. Lyons, Lord, Eng. minister at Wash., 625; actions in S. Juan affair, 625- 7; proposes abitration, 635. Lytton district, mining at, 447, 449, 450, 464, 466, 471. Lytton, Sir C. B., on gold discovery B. C, 370. M Macdonald, A., "map of N. W., 55. Macdonald, Wm J., biog., 758-9. Macfie on Cariboo mines, 498. Macoun, Professor, in railway sur? vey expedt., 650. "Madonna," bark, 361. Mainland Guardian, newspaper, 739. Mamoosie mine, coal yield, 200. Manitoba created, 385. INDEX. Manson, D., in Anderson's expedt., 174; justice, 264. Manson River, mining on, 551, 553, 558. Manufactures of territory, 603, 748-9. Maps, Camosun and vicinity, 86; Shushwap country, 137; Anderson's routes, 162; Yale and Hope, 177; northern forts, 192; south end of Vancouver Island, 259; the lower mining region, 442; the upper gold dists, 459; Cook's 1788, 3; Meares', 7; Quimper's, 9; Elisa's, 12. Vancouver's No. 1, 17; Vancouver's No. 2, 19; Galliano's, 23; Vancouver's No. 3, 27; Cariboo country, 474; Archipelago de Haro, 606; Canadian Pacific, 681. Maquinna, Ind. chief, 28, "Maria," steamer, 364. Maria Bar, gold discovered, 440. Mariaville established, 443; mining at, 444. Marrowstone Point named, 16. "Martin," steamer, 532. Martin, R. M., on policy H. B. Co., 210-11; on grant of V. I., 221, 224; bibliog., 221. Martinez, northern expedt. 1788, 3. Mary's Peak named, 76. Mason, Sec, visits Victoria, 352. "Massachusetts," steamer, 617, 619, 624, 627. Maury, Lieut, on geography N. W. coast, 374. Maynard, Joseph, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Mayne, Lieut, Hill Bar trouble, 411- 13; on the Fraser, 445; on gold discovery, 463; on coal discovery, 569, 570. McArthur Creek, mining on, 505, 515. McCallum Creek, mining on, 482. tMcCauly, Samuel, Amer. settler on, S. Juan, 617. cClellan, G. B., discoversgold, 347-8. McCreight, John F., judge 1880, 706. McCulloch Creek, mines discovered, 531; mining at, 532, 536. McDame Creek, mining on, 562-3. McDonald, mining on Fraser River, kills partner, 350-1. McDonald, gold-hunter, 479, 483, 492; character, 483-4. McDonald, Alex., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. McDonald, Angus, clerk at Ft Colville, 349, 355; chief trader, saves Inds, 368; at Ft Shepherd, 385; prospecting expedt., 521. Hist. Brit. Col. 50 McEwen, gold discoverer, 344. McGoffey dry-diggings, mining at, 451, 464-5. McGowan, Ned, Hill Bar trouble, 408, 410,412-14; altercation with Phifer, 414. McGraugh, gold discoverer, 527. McGuill's claim, yield, 527. Mcintosh, at Fort McLeod, 58. McKay, Charles, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. McKay, J. H., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. McKay, J. W., examines N. W. coast, 126-7; visits Cal., 127; chief factor, 178-80; outwits Shemelin, 179; discovers coal, 196-9; character, 197; builds Ft Nanaimo, 199; explores V. I., 255; mem. of first assembly, 325, 327; with Douglas among Inds, 333; discovers gold, 343; reports discovery, 460. McKenzie, F., in charge of McLeod Lake station, 385. McKenzie, Geo., at V. I., 251. McKenzie, Mrs, at V. I., 250. McKey, treatment of by Inds in 1786, 5. McKinlay, A., among Inds, 131; justice, 264. McLean, chief trader at Kamloops, 348-9, 352, 354. McLean, J., gold discoverer, 347. McLeod, John, at Ft Kamloop, 135. McLeod, Malcolm, view of Douglas, 299. McLaughlin, David, leads overland party, 367-8. McLaughlin, James, with overland party, 367. McLaughlin Island, Spanish name for, 21. McLoughlin, John, idea of Astoria as a post, 78; retires from H. B. Co., 87, 119, 126, 293-4; as chief factor, 282; mem. of board of management, 283; trains Douglas, 285-6; character, 296, 300-9; personal appearance, 300; policy to settlers, 297, 304-5; before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. McLoughlin, John, Jr, at Stikeen River, 103; assassination, 103. McMullin, Gov., visits Victoria, 352; visits Douglas rel. to S. Juan trouble, 614. McNeill, Capt. W.. quarrel with Douglas, 69-71; explores V. I., 84; establishes Ft Rupert, 192-4; at Beaver Harbor, 271. INDEX. McTavish, Dugald, chief factor, 283, 328, 382, 384; personal appearance, 383. Meares, Capt., visit of, in 1788, 5-8; map of, 7. "Mexicano," schr, 20. Miles, John, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Milton, Viscount, on gold-field formation, 466, 498. Minehaha claim, yield, 504. Mines, scarcity of provisions at, 393; govt, 393, 421-2; elements governing, 511-12; gold yield, 514, 515; population at, 514-15; list of, 515; missionaries at, 519; women at, 519; on Columbia, 520-42; Kootenai, 522- 9; report of minister 1884, 749-50. Mining on Fraser River, 438, 442; name of localities, 441, 448, 451, 455; sluice method, 443; dry-diggings, 461, 464; in Cariboo, 472- 519; hill, 512; underground, 517. Mining license, 361, 370, 388, 390-1, 401, 421. Mink Gulch, mining on, 504. Missionaries on the N. W. coast, 57; at mines, 519. Mission Creek, mining on, 540. Mitchell Harbor, gold-hunters in, 346-7. Moberly Creek, mining on, 460, 538. Moberly, W., at the fountains, 455; discovers mine, 460. "Modesk,"H. M. S., 151. Moffat, gold discoverer, 556. Moffat claim, yield, 498. Moffat River, gold discovered, 556. Montigny, E., in Anderson's explor. expedt., 159. Moody, R. C, colonial officer B. C, 407-8; settles Hill Bar troubles, 411-13, selects site for capital, 414- 15; begins New Westminster, 416; lieut-gov., 417. ' Moore, Wm, arrest of, 630. Mooyie River, mining at, 527. Moresby Isl., physical description, 34; coal seam, 574. Mormon Bar, mining at, 451-2, 455. Mosquito Creek, mining on, 441, 504, 515. Mountain system of N. W. coast, 33-40. Mount Baker named, 16. Mount Rainer named, 16. Mount St. Helens named, 29. Mount Stephens named, 26. Muir, A., at Victoria 1853, 259-60. Muir, John, coal-mining, 193-8; mem.! of first assembly, 321, 327. Muir, Mrs, reception by Inds, 194. Muir, M., at Fort Rupert, 273. Murchison, Sir K., on Cariboo geology, 513; on gold deposits, 539. Musgrave, A., gov. 1869-71, 596; official acts, 597. Mustang Creek, mining on, 504-5. N Naches Pass, gold discovered at, 348. Nanaimo, Spanish name for, 22; coal discovered at, 196-200, 569, 578; fort built, 199; gold discovered, 343; development of town, 574; description of, 714. Nanaimo Coal Co. sell interest, 569. Nanaimo mines, work at, 570-1, 573; output, 571, 574; area, 573. Narvaez, Jos6 M., survey of Haro Strait 1791, 13-14. Nass River, gold discovered, 347. Nation River prospected, 555. Neah Bay, original name, 11. Nechaco River, coal discovered, 579. Needham, chief justice, 337; retires, 423. Nehannes, Inds, character, 50. Nelson Creek, mining on, 482, 515. Neversweat claim, yield, 498. New Caledonia, configuration, 36-9; climate, 40-3; fauna, 43-4; natives, 44-51; fur-traders' life in, 288; govt, 370; influx of gold-miners, 381-2. Newcastle, Duke of, on settlement V. I., 262. Newcastle Isl'., coal discovered, 198, 200, 573. Newcastle mine, work at, 569, 571; compared with the Douglas, 572. New Dungeness named, 16. Newittees* Inds, massacre of, 274-5. Newspapers in B. C, 739. New Westminster laid out, 415-16; port of ■ entry, 416; incorporated, 417-18; legis. council at, 1864, 583- 5; banquet to Douglas, 588, description of, 715-16; newspapers, 739. New Westminster and Port Moody Railway Co. incorporated, 691. New Westminster Railway Co. incorporated, 691. New Zealand Co. claim, yield 1875, 554. Nez Perce's, Inds, character, 288-9. Nicaragua Bar, mining at, 448, 464, 465; formation, 463. Nicol, C. J., manager V. Coal Co., 569; report 1860, 570. INDEX. 787 Nicola, Ind. chief, 51; conspiracy of, 152-6. Nicola Lake named, 76. Nicoll, C. S., high-sheriff, 416-17, 422. Nicoutamuch, Inds, character, 136. Nind, P. H., gold commr, 489, 491; of first legis. council, 583. Nishtacks, missionaries among, 719. Nobles, Robt, prospects Carnes Creek, 537. Nomenclature, authorities on, 76-7. Nootka, possession of, taken for Spain 1774-9, 3; ships at, in 1778-9, 8; abandoned and reoccupied 1789-90, 8; meeting at to settle Eng. claims 1792, 14, 28-9. "Norman Morrison," ship, 257, 258. "Northerner," steamer, 627. Northern Pacific Railway founded, 374. North Metropolitan Post, necessities of, 78-9. "Northwest America," ship, 6, 8; seized by Spaniards 1789, 8. Northwest Fur Co., feud with Hudson's Bay Co., 79. Northwest Terr., eastern parallels, 32; limits, 33; configuration, 33-40; climate, 40-3; fauna, 43-5; natives, 44-51; occupied by Eng. and U. S., 63-6, 81, 121-7; settlements, 248; sold by H. B. Co., 385. Nugent, John, U. S. commr to B. C, 358, 360, 405, 453, 468-9. Oak Cove named, 16. Oakes, D. W., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Ogden, P. S., chief factor, 57; at Ft Vancouver, 131; report on coal discovery, 189-90, justice, 264; on board of chief factors, 283; at Ft St James, 385; at Stewart Lake, 548, 550. Okanagan Lake, mining on, 540. Okanagans, Inds, character, 136; hostility, 368. Olney, Oscar, dept. collector on S. Juan Isl., 609. Omineca mines, location, 544; gold excitement, 547; winter life at, 552; yield, 552-3, 557-8; hydraulic mining, 553; failure, 556-7. Onderdonk, A., contract for building railway, 680. Oppenheimer, C, miner, 526, 535. Orcas Island, 606. Oregon, soil of, 40; settlers' character, 54; early limits, 55-6; settlements, 56, 248; early politics, 126; effect of Cariboo gold discovery, 356, 478; coal formation, 566. Oregon treaty 1846, terms, 172-3. O'Reilly, Peter, justice of peace, 416, 433; character, 434; gold commr, 441, 524, 551, 554; of first legis. council, 583. Orr, James, of first legis. council, 583, "Osprey," schr, 361. "Otter," steamer, 334, 390, 444, 607, "Pacific," steamer, wrecked, 562. Pacific Railway Construction Co., members of, 653. Palmer Creek, gold yield? 529. Palmer, Lieut, H. S., arrives at Victoria, 407; on gold discovery, 463; on mining dist, 472, 541, 544. Palmer, Joel, with overland party, 368-70; biog., 759. Palmerston, Lord, trade controversy, 207. "Pandora," steamer, 361. "Pandora," surveying ship, 124-5. Parke, Capt., examines Columbia, 121, 123. Parke, Lt John G., U. S. commissioner in S. Juan trouble, 610. Parkington, Sir J., presents settlers* petition, 261. Parsnip River, mines on, 555, 579. Parsons' bridge built, 251. Passage Canal named, 20. Passage Island named, 20. Pate Creek, mining on, 505. Pat Kelly's Co. claim, yield, 552. Peace River named, 77, 544; mines on, 545, 579. Pedder Bay, original name, 9. Peel, Lieut, examines Columbia, 121, 123. Peers, H. N., discovers coal, 576V7. Pelly, Sir J. H., gov. H. B. Co. in Eng., 205, 207, 208, 215; nominated gov. of B. C, 263-4. . Pemberton, A. F., judge, 433. Pemberton, J. D., mem. of first assembly, 321; colonial surveyor, 400, 404; on- gold yield, 469; bibliog., 759. Pend d'Oreille River, gold discovered, 521. 788 INDEX. Pend d'Oreilles, Inds, character, 50. Penn Cove named, 18. Pearkes, G., crown solicitor, 402; plan for judiciary, 420. Perez, exploration of, 1774-9, 3. Perkins, Geo., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Perpetua Cape named, 4. Perrier, Geo., justice, Hill Bar, 394, 409-10; dismissed, 413. Perry, F., miner, 460, 526, 531. Perry Creek, excitement at, 526. Phifer, M. W., altercation with McGowan, 414. Physical features, authorities on, 72-3. Pickett, Capt. G., with troops to Bellingham Bay, 613; to S. Juan Island, 617-18. Pine River, coal discovered, 579. Pioneer and Democrat, newspaper, on gold discovery, 355. Pleasanton, Adj.-Gen., instruction in S. Juan affair, 620. "Pleiades," H. M. S., 404, 619. "Plumper," H. M. S., 390, 408, 416, 569, 570, 610, 619. Plumper Sound surveyed 1791, 14. Pohallok, Ind. chief, 165-6. Point Atkinson named, 20. Point Chatham named, 26. Point Duff named, 26. Point Francis named, 20. Point Gordon named, 26. Point Gower named, 20. Point Grenville named, 15. Point Grey named, 20. Point Marshall, 25. Point Partridge named, 18. Point Roberts named, 20. Point St George named, 15. Point William named, 20; Spanish ships at, 21. Point Wilson named, 18. Police, mounted, character of, 331, 434. Popular tribunals in B. C, 436. Port Cox named, 6. Port Discovery named, 16. Port Effingham named,- 6. Porter, F., shoots Barr, 539. Port Gardner named, 18. Portlock, Capt., visit of, 1787, 5. Port Moody, reasons for selection as terminus, 684-6. Port Neville named, 26. Port San Juan named, 9. Port Susan named, 18. Port Townsend named, 16. Possession Sound named, 18. Poverty Bar, mining at, 441. Prevost, Capt., on gold discovery, 355; at Victoria, 388; commr in S. Juan trouble, 610; urges joint occupation of S. Juan, 620. Prince Albert Bar, mining at, 464, 465. "Princesa," ship, 15, 20, 29. "Princess Royal," ship, seized by Spaniards 1789, 8. Protection Island surveyed, 16. Puget, Lt Peter, in Vancouver's expedt., 16. Puget Sound named, 18; early.importance, 373-4; Eng. men-of-war on, 623. Puget Sound Agricultural Co., inaugurated, 52; growth, 82; attempt to colonize V. I., 226-7; farming by, 251, 260-1, 313. Puget Sound Bar, gold discovered, 441-2, 444. Puget Sound Mining Co. formed, 206; colonize V. I., 251-2, 260-1. Q Quackolls, Inds, inform H. B. Co. of coal-fields, 186-8. Quadra, town, founded, 576. Quartz Creek, mining on, 551, 562. Quatsino Sound, coal mining at, 20 L 569, 578. "Queen Charlotte," ship, 5. Queen Charlotte Coal Mining Co. formed, 575-6. Queen Charlotte Island named, 5; configuration, 34; coal discovered, 201, 567, 578; gold discovered, 343- 5, 558-9. Queen Charlotte Sound named, 26. Quesnel River, mining on, 457, 473, 485-6, 515. Quimper Bay named, 10. Quimper, Manuel, explorations of, 1790, 8-11; map, 9. R Raby claim, yield, 498. Rae, John, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Rae, W. G., at Stikeen River, 103. Randall Co. claim, yield, 540. Rattray, Dr, on gold discovery, 463. Ray, J. R., preempts on Fraser, 392. " Recovery, ship, 331, 346-7, 405. Red River .settlement, colonization of, 226-7. INDEX. 789 Reese River, mining on, 542. Reid, Capt., visits Victoria, 259-60. Rennie Bros, death of, 482. "Republic," steamer, 361. "Resolution," ship, 16. Revenue, 330, 337-40, 370-1, 390, 400, 402-3, 417-18, 755-6. Rice, killed by Indians, 368. Richards, Capt., report on Nanaimo coal, 571; commr on S. Juan trouble, 610; urges joint occupation, 620. Richardson, coal discoverer, 567. Richardson, Sir John, before comm. in Eng. on 1L B. Co., 381. Richfield mining settlement, 504. Ridge Co. claim, yield, 535. Rim Rock Co. claim, yield, 553. Roberts, C. C, on Fraser excitement, 358. Robertson, W., on Big Bend excitement, 531. Robinson's Bar, mining at, 451, 453. Roche, A. R., before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Rock Creek mines, yield 1860-1, 539. Rocky Point named, 15. Roebuck, on Hudson Bay Co. charter, 378. Rosario Strait, original name, 11. Rose, miner, 479, 483, 492; death, 483-4. Ross, Alex., at Fort Kamloop, 135. Ross, Chas, commands Fort Camosun, 101; dies, 102. Ross, John, before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Rouse, Capt., attack on Inds, 395. Rowland, discovers gold, 344. Royal Bay, original name, 10; situation, 87. Rupert Land, sale of, by H. B. Co., 385. Russell, Lord John, opposes H. B. Co.'s charter, 213, 215^ Russian American Co.'s relation to H. B. Co., 61, 68-9, 128, 178-9; to Eng. traders, 178. Russian Creek, mining on, 510. S Sacramento Bar, mining at, 441, 443. Sailor Bar, mining at, 448. St George Bay named, 15. "St Joseph," ship, 29. Salmon Creek, mining at, 529. San Antonio Point named, 9. San Bias, supplies sent from to Nootka, 8. "San Carlos," ship, 8, 11, 21, 29. Sanders, E. H., judge, 433; of first legis. council. 583. San Eusebio Point named, 9. "Santa Gertrudis," ship, 15. Sangster, Jas, signs address, 282; signs petition, 314. San Juan Island, area, 606; H. B. Co. take possession of, 607. San Juan Island difficulty, 1854-72, 605-49. Sankster, Mr, actions in S. Juan trouble 1854, 607-8. " Santa Cruz," steamer, 361. Santa Cruz Point. See New Dunge- ness. Saskatchewan, gold excitement 1866, 524-5. "Satellite," H. M. S., 355, 388, 389, 405, 428, 610, 618. " Saturnina," ship," 21. Saunders, E. H., asst gold comm. at Ft Yale, 417. Savary Island named, 25. kSavona's Ferry, growing prosperity of, 716. Scott, Gen., sent to Pacific coast, 627; - actions in S. Juan affair, 627-31; quarrel with Gen. Harney, 633-5. Scran ton, J., visits Victoria, 352. "iSea Bird," steamer, 364, 444. " Sea Otter," ship, 5. Seemann, B., on Ft Camosun, 112-13; on H. B. Co.'s trade, 129-30. Selby, P., director V. Coal Co., 569. Selwyn, Mr, railway survey expedt., 650. Semiahmoo Bay, meeting of S. Juan commissioners at, 610-13. Settlers, encroachment on the Columbia 1843, 81; restrictions on, 210-11; term defined, 247; of Oregon, 248; of V. I., 252-61; petition to parliament, 261; petition to gov., 281-2; character,- 307. Seward, Sec, actions in S. Juan affair, 635-7. Seymour, town, 458, 533. Seymour, Fred., succeeds Douglas as gov. of B. C, 588; official actions 1864-5, 589-1; death, 596. Seymour, G. F., commander of fleet in South Pacific, 125. Shaw Island, 606. Shemelin, Russ. agent, 179. Shepherd, Capt., at V. I., 124. Shilkumcheen, Ind. village, 166. Ship-building, V. I., 255. Shipping, first vessel built on N. \Y. coast 1788, 6; arrivals 1880, 753. 790 INDEX. Shoalwater Bay, Capt. Meares at, 1788, 6. "Shubrick," steamer, 624. Shushwap River, mining on, 460. Shushwaps, Inds, character, 50; hos- tilitv, 134-50; country, 137; dress, 139-40. Sibie r, H. W., trade controversy, 207. Siddt'l, surgeon, arrives V. I., 407. Silver Creek, mining on, 1870, 551. Similkameen, Inds, character, 136. Similkameen River, mining on, 348, 541, 579. Simpson, Sir G,, in Korenais country, 37-8; at V. I., 84-6; at Ft Kamloops, 135; descends Fraser river, 159; gov. H. B. Co. in Amer., 205, 207; before comm. in Eng. on H. B. Co., 381. Simpson River, coal discovered, 576, 579. Skeena River, mining on, 345-7, 555, 576, 578. Skeleton Creek, mining on, 551, 554. Skidegate Isl., coal discovered, 201. Skinner, Thomas, mem. of first assembly, 321, 327. "Skuzzy," steamer, 683. Slavery among Indians, 132. Small-pox among Indians, 149. Smith, A. G., miner, prospecting, 525, 535. Smith Inlet named, 26. Smith, R. T., gold commissioner, 532; of first legis. council, 583. Smith, S. R., takes steamer up the Fraser, 683. Smith, Wm, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Smith, W. G., secy H. B. Co., report, 339-40. Smuggling in B. C, 417. Snow, Capt., voy. of 1836, 48. Snowshoe Creek, mining on, 482, 489, 515, 562. Snyder, H. M,, treats with Indians, 396-8. Soke Inlet, Spanish name, 9; settled, 253-4; coal discovered, 579. Songhies, natives V. I., 95, 111; attend mass, 99; attack Ft Camosun, 108-10. Sovereign Creek, mining on, 482. Spaniards op. coast of B. C. 1774-9, 2-3. Spaulding, W. R., justice of peace at Queensborough, 416; postmaster, 417. Spence, T., gold discoverer, 441. Spindulen Flat, mining at, 451. Spintlum, Indian chief, 401. Squazown, Ind. village, 166. Staines, Mrs, at V. I., 239, 250. Staines, R. J., at Victoria, 238-41; opposes H. B. Co., 240-2; death, 243. Stephens, Gov., leads exploring expedt., 374. Steptoe, Col, fights Indians, 395. Stevens Creek, mining on, 482, 505. Stevens, Gov., comm. on S. Juan trouble, 608. Stikeen country, description, 38-9. Stikeen River prospected 1861, 559. Stock-raising, favorable regions for, 744-6. Strawberry Bay named, 20. Stuart, John, descends Fraser River, 159. Sugar Creek, mining on, 482, 504. Sullivan, gold commissioner, drowned, 562. "Surprise," steamer, 364, 444. "Susan Sturgis," ship, 346. "Sutil," Spanish brig, 20. Sutro, Adolph, on gold discovery B. C, 373. Suan, J. M., visits Victoria, 229, 231. "Swiss Boy," brig, captured by Inds, 427-8. Tababoo Creek, mining on, 482. Tahkats, missionaries among, 719. Tako River, Douglas explores, 71. Taylor, J. F., U. S. commissioner on S. Juan trouble, 610. Teet, Inds, character, 136. Tellatella Quatza, Indian chief, 393. Tennant, James, before comm. in Eng. onH. B. Co., 381. Tennent, G. W., secy law-makers, 393. "Tepic," ship, 346-7. "Termagant," H. M. S., 417. " Thames City," ship, 404. "Thetis," H. M. S., 124, 236, 331. Thibert Creek, mining on, 560-3. Thistle Creek, mining on, 482. Thompson, D., builds Ft Thompson, 134. Thompson River, mining on, 458-61; 469, 579. Thompson Sound, Span, name for, 26. Thornton, John, miner,. on Salmon Creek, 1865, 530. "Three Brothers," ship, 28. Tillamook-''Bay, natives at, attack .Gray's men 1789, 8. INDEX. 791 Tod, John, at Kamloops, 134-56; personal appearance, 138-9; crushes Ind. conspiracy, 141-52; outwits Nicola, 152-6; justice, 264; farmer, 278-9; on council, 281, 316; at Ft McLeod, 288. Tolmie, W. F., manager agric. co., 62-3; character, 157; discovers coal, 187; justice, 264; on management H. B. Co., 328. "Tonquin," ship, seized by Inds, 45. "Topaze,"H. M. S., 417. "Tory," ship," 195, 257. Toy, P., miner, 546; prospects Finlay River, 555. Trafalgar Bar, gold discovered at, 441, 444. Travaillot, 0., commr for crown lands, 405; gold commr, 451. "Tribune," H. M. S., 404, 619. "Trincomalee," H. M. S., 236, 334. Tsilaltach, Songhies chief, 97-9; attacks Ft Camosun, 108-10. Tsoughilam, Cowichin chief, attacks Fort Camosun, 107-10. Tucker, attacked by Indians, 394. U "Umatilla," steamer, 364, 401, 445. "Una," ship, 345. Union Act, provisions of, 594-5. Union Bar, gold discovered at, 441, 444. Union Coal Mining Co., work, 568. Urquhart, miner, 504. V Vail, light-keeper at Blunt Isl., 614. Vald6s, Capt., expedt. of, in 1792, 20-8. Valdes Harbor., See Esquimalt. "Vancouver," ship, 71, 120. Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Co. organized, 569. Vancouver, G., com. for Eng. in Nootka affair 1792, 14-15; voy. and places named by, 15-29; maps of, 17, 19, 27. ' Vancouver Island named, 29; configuration, 34; climate, 42; fauna, 43; importance of situation, 83-4; occupation of, 93-101; coal discovered, 106; granted to H. B. Co., 202-22; colonized by H. B, Co., 223-37; settlements, 247-62, 314; map, 259; population, 1853, 260; govt es tablished, 263-84; seal of, 279-80; under Douglas, 310-28; legislature, 317-27; electoral dists, 320; judiciary of, 329-40; revenue, 330, 337- 40, 592; supreme court created, 419-20; first capital execution, 435; mining population 1859-61, 471; coal mining, 566-80; population 1864, 592. Van Valzah, expedt. against Inds 1859, 615. Van Winkle Creek, -mining on, 482, 506-8. Vashou Island named, 18. Vantrin, J. B., in Anderson's expedt., . 159. Vavasour, Lieut, report on Nisqually, 52; census of Ind. tribes, 75; describes Ft Camosun, 112; examines N. W. coast, 125-6, 189; report on coal discovery, 189. Verdia, pilot in Elisa's expedt., 13. Victoria laid out, 113; settlers, 258 population 1853, 260: 1861, 707 1863, 708; 1866, 709; gold dis covered, 343; port of entry, 403 Inds flock to, 426-7; business de pression 1860, 470; revival, 477; banquet to Douglas, 587-8; incorporated, 708; city described, 709- 11; newspapers of, 739. See Ft Victoria. Victoria Bar, gold discovered, 441, 444. Victoria Coal Mining and Land Co., mines and land owned by, 715. Victoria and Esquimalt Railway Co., charter granted, 697. Victoria Gazette, first newspaper in Victoria, 739. Vitalle Creek, mining on, 549, 558. W Waddington, A., miner, 348, 350; attacked by Inds, 428; estimate of gold yield B.C., 469. Waldron Island, 606. Walkem, G. A., attorney-general, 656- 8, 676, 701-3. Wanquille, Ind. chief, 51. Wanquille River named, 76; mining on, 458. Warre, Lieut, report on Nisqually, 52; census of Or. terr. Inds, 75; examines N. W. coast, 125-6, 189; report on gold discovery, 189. Warren, J. D., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. 792 INDEX. '' Washington," ship, 6, 8. Way, F., starts ferry, 446. Webster, A., in railway survey expedt., 650. Welden, Capt., captured by Indians, 427. Wellesley, Capt., attacks Indians, 274. Wellington mines, work at, 570, 573; fire at, 576. Wells Passage named, 26. Whalers, northern rendezvous for, 83, 100, 120. Whannell, P. B., justice, 402, 409-10. Wharton, H., Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Whatcom, rise and fall, 359-64. Whidbey, Joseph, in Vancouver s expedt., 16, 24. WThipsaw Creek, mining on, 505. Wicananish, Ind. village, 6. Wild Horse Creek, mining on, 523, 524, 529. Wild Horse Creek ditch completed, 529. "Wild Pigeon," schr, 355. Willamette Valley, settlements in, 56, 61, 80. William, Emperor, S. Juan question referred to, 638. " William Berry," ship, 361. William Creek, mining on, 482, 484, 495-509, 512, 513, 515, 517-18. Willow River, mining on, 451-2, 482r 505. Wilson, with overland party, 367. Wilson, Mrs, on McLouglin, 300. Witty, John, Amer. settler on S. Juan, 617. Wolf, trader, with overland partv. 367. Women, first arrival of whites, 249- 50; at Cariboo mines, 519. Wool, Gen., establishes post at Bellingham Bay, 613. WTork, John, chief factor, 133, 328, 384; justice, 264; signs settlers' petition, 314; on council, 216; hunts for gold, 346-7. Yale, gamblers at, 360; site surveyed, 400; govt established, 401; mining troubles at, 408-14; mining at, 441- 7, 471; town described, 717. Yale, J. M., at Ft Langley, 67; character, 171-3; justice, 264. Yankee Doodle Bar, gold discovered, 441. Yates, James, settler on V. I., 258; signs petition, 314, mem. of first assembly, 321, 327; fur-trader, 400. Young, W. A. G., colonial sec. B. C, 406.
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Indians of North America
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Central America--History
British Columbia--History
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The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXXII, History of British Columbia. 1792-1887
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