The Whitman Controversy/3. W. H. Gray
[From the Oregonian of February 1, 1885.]
The Whitman Controversy.
RECOLLECTIONS OF W. H. GRAY.
To the Editor of the Oregonian:
As I am the only person now living who met Rev. H. H. Spalding and Dr. Marcus Whitman, at Liberty Landing on the Missouri river, about April 25, 1836, and as I was for many years associated with them in their missionary labors and settlement in the Oregon country, it would be thought strange if I did not come forward to defend them against a slanderer who has filled four columns of your valuable paper. I will not attempt to review the long list of false insinuations uttered by a writer so steeped in prejudice against all Protestant Christian efforts to ameliorate the condition of the native population of the country, that no effort or proof can induce her to be reasonable. This is distinctly shown by reference to Rev. Myron Eells' pamphlet, and by her first paragraph, in which she claims that she committed a fault, and to confirm that fault she put down forty-six more.
The question is one of personal knowledge of events that occurred in Oregon in 1842, and of events then about to occur in the city of Washington. It was stated in Oregon that a treaty had been signed in Washington, giving to Great Britain all of Oregon, though subsequent facts only showed that the treaty was about to be made, and that it only referred to Maine and our eastern coast. As a consequence of the statement, a citizen of Oregon hastened to Washington to learn the facts, and in case the statement was found not to be true, to inform the United States government that the time had arrived to assert its claim to Oregon, as was then being done by the opposing party, who claimed it on the ground that it had the largest number of subjects in the territory; and by opening a k practicable road, well known to him, for emigrants, so that, by outnumbering the opposing party, with American citizens, the country would be secured to us. The writer can affirm that Dr. Whitman made such a statement before going to Washington, and that on his return he was satisfied with the result of his visit and the treatment he received from all he met in Washington, except Mr. Webster, and the treatment he received from a few members of the Missionary Board whom he visited in Boston, after leaving Washington. Gray's History has two distinct points to bring to the notice of its readers: First, the country was under the British Hudson's Bay Company's absolute control, which meant to hold it as a fur-producing country, and failing in that, to push their unreasonable claim against our government. Second, the causes of the failure of all American efforts among the Indians. The Indians were let loose to put a stop to American immigration. (See General Palmer's pamphlet, and Hon. Elwood Evans, as quoted). Failing in that, their claim is made under a treaty similar to one formerly made with France. In reference to the Northwest Company, it having held possession as against our government, such facts have hot been before stated, nor can we find similar circumstances in the history of our country.
Mrs. Victor claims she has found a "patriotic fable." The writer, and no doubt many others, will consent to have her "patriotic fable" go into her nest among its rubbish, as we are credibly informed she is one of Mr. Bancroft's most important amenuenses in his historical work. She may find a place for it. In bringing forth her "patriotic fable" she says she committed the fault of taking everything for granted without examination of said "fable." This shows the character of our Oregon rat. It appropriates old fables, old iron, bits of nails, and useless rubbish, and mixes it all up, not finding a single scrap of useful history in it. But after telling us of her "fault" she informs us what she proposes to lay before the public in the interest of truth. This is double action "fault," or falsehood, admitting one fault to commit a greater, and claiming the last as the "truth." If any reasonable man or woman will place him or herself in Oregon in September, 1843, and listen to the statements, then the topic, of the boundary question and the future occupation of Oregon, and read the thirty-seventh chapter of Gray's history, they will unhesitatingly pronounce it literally true. Can it be possible that any one in the least acquainted with the habits of the Hudson's Bay Company and mountain men can not appreciate a brigade of boats at old Fort Walla Walla in 1842, when on such occasions Hudson's Bay rum was always used freely; also when an express messenger arrived with the supposed news of the settlement of the Oregon question by the Ashburton treaty? Gray can, knowing all the circumstances; hence the truth of the chapter referred to. Prior to that time, in May, 1837, he was ridiculed for considering that any plan or power of the United States could get possession of Oregon. That it should be done as was stated to Dr. Whitman at Walla Walla (now Wallula) is not strange and improbable under the circumstances of a general drunk.
We will pass down the long column of that rubbish till she notices, in 1834, Hall J. Kelly's sad failure, Missionary Lee's and two years afterwards Whitman and his associates' arrival and settlement on the Upper Columbia, when she says of all Americans up to that time, "These were the first low wash of waves where soon should roll a human sea." We are not sufficiently posted in such "low wash" verses to give it a name, presuming the author culled it from her rat pile, to apply to Kelly's and the American missionaries on account of their failure in their objects. At No. 2 she notices Dr. E. White, but finds no letters from the Presbyterian missionaries, though W. H. Gray had crossed the Rocky Mountains three times, and in passing to his old home in New York, had met with large audiences to hear his report of the country and prospects, and had written to the A. B. C. F. M. in Boston a long letter, which was published by the Executive Board, who sent, under Gray's direction and guidance, eight persons to reinforce their missions in Oregon. Gray and wife visited Washington, were kindly treated by all, and received from the Secretary of War the passports then required to go into the Oregon country as teachers among the natives.
He did not find in Washington the wise men that Mrs. Victor claims to have been there; they only knew of Captain Gray's discovery of a river, which he called Columbia. "Was it in Oregon?"
We had the pleasure of seeing the great Daniel Webster and the great South Carolinian, Hayne, in the senate chamber, from the gallery of what is now the supreme court chamber and gallery. We were escorted to all the notable places in Washington by a New York member of Congress to whom we presented our letters of introduction; his name we have forgotten. In fact we did not think of boasting that we were in Washington, not even about our being there again in 1852, and being taken into the lower house by our delegate, the Hon. Joseph Lane, and receiving an introduction by him to many members of the House and listening to the honorable delegate's speech about giving a territorial government to what is now Washington Territory.
Mrs. Victor makes a tirade against the missionaries, and especially against Gray, for approving Rev. Spalding's congressional document, which was certified to by more than one hundred honorable and Christian citizens of Oregon to contradict the slanderous statements of Vicar General Brouilett and J. Ross Browne's congressional document. It does not please her. It was not presented to me—it it had been I would have signed it. I ask the reader to note and read No. 4, for I have copied it so as not to misrepresent her. She tells us of the arrival of Lord Ashburton, and of Fremont being sent to collect information concerning the Platte Valley, South Pass, etc. Then comes No. 4. She says: "It was one of the methods adopted by government, of showing Great Britain that although the United States bided their time, they were informing and preparing themselves against the final struggle for the possession of the Oregon territory. I need not say more in this place of the opportunities enjoyed by Webster of forming an opinion and a policy concerning Oregon or of the policy formed. The proofs are voluminous and open to any reader of the congressional debates or documents, and the American state papers."
Under this (No. 4) we are referred to a big Oregon historical rat's nest, not surpassed in egotism by any other sacred or profane writer in history. We yield in silent awe at the mighty nest, so kindly mentioned for the information of the dumb-heads of Oregon, and we can but smile at the mild insinuation that there is in that great rat's nest at Washington all the wisdom she has so elaborately referred to, and advised her readers to do the same.
While we stop to digest the wisdom in No. 4, we must leave friend Spalding in his grave at Lapwai mission and pass on, leaving Simpson in London, Dr. McLoughlin in his grave in the front yard of the Catholic church at Oregon City, Webster to manage the cod fishery in No. 6 (and also No. 7, including part of No. 8)—here is a fifty years' nest to dispose of, "too big to be embraced in the Ashburton treaty," and too big for Webster to handle, as subsequent developments have proven. As we have our learned lady's statement we give it verbatim. She says:
"For fifty years the two governments had been negotiating boundaries, without being able to settle this small portion satisfactorily. It stood in the way of the Oregon Question and other important questions. Before it could be settled the Oregon Question had become of world-wide interest and too big to be embraced in the Ashburton treaty."
Did any one ever see so wise a lady, to be able to solve so difficult a question with so few words? We in Oregon, and a great many in England, and even the President of the United States thought it could and would be settled by this high officer of Great Britain and Mr. Webster; and we say it would have been, by giving Oregon to Britain, if Ashburton had been more liberal on the Maine question, and Benton and Linn less active to prevent it. In the remainder of this No. 8, we have the apology for President Tyler, Mr. Ashburton and Mr. Webster, from our learned historian.
Let us look for a moment now at Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16: We are told that Smith and Sublette took ten wagons and two carts to the head of Wind River, which we know not to be the truth. The wagons and carts of the fur company were taken to old Fort Laramie, and these they left there in 1836. Whitman took the mission wagon to Fort Hall, and at that fort the wagon was made a cart to Boise, carrying the two wheels on the cart. In 1838 wagons were taken on to the lower part of Wind River, near its junction with the Yellowstone River, over one hundred miles from the sources of Wind River. Our historical rat has left a vast mountainous country, at that time but little known.
The wild fur trappers of the Rocky Mountains and the traders into Mexico with wagons did not venture over the Rocky Mountains till after the missionary pioneer, Whitman, took his wagon to Fort Boise, where Hudson's Bay Company traders wanted to use it to remove their old corral fort further down on to Snake river, where Gray found it in 1838 well cared for and well used, as when Farnham saw it. That old wagon has done more towards settling the boundary question and holding Oregon and the Pacific Coast than all your diplomacy and long efforts to cover up the Hudson's Bay Company and the Jesuits' efforts to wrest it from our American people. As to Dr. Whitman's leaving it at Boise and the insinuations she makes about it by referring to Payette and Farnham seeing it, is proof of the falsehoods and policy of the Hudson's Bay Company's fear of the next wagon that might come over the Rocky Mountains, which was brought by another band of noble American missionaries headed by the meek and noble Rev. Harvey Clarke and wife, assisted by Mr. A. T. Smith and wife, and P. B. Littlejohn and wife. This party brought two wagons to Fort Hall. They were induced by the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company to leave them and pack through to the settlement. As Dr. Whitman had brought his wagon to Boise, Meek and Newell had said to Whitman's party in 1836, in the Green river rendezvous, if they (the missionaries) succeeded in forming a settlement in the Lower Columbia they would come down and join them.
The wagon and the two women were before them and the man that was now to test the practicability of the route did it beyond all others, and only for Spalding and Gray, his associates, having listened to Hudson's Bay Company's misrepresentations, he could have taken his wagon through to the Columbia and to his mission, as Newell and Meek, those of Rev. Clarke's mission, did in 1841. Those of 1842 left theirs at Fort Hall, from a break-up of Dr. E. White's party, through the same influence, which was then active to prevent American settlement. We must pass No. 16 and the fourteen cows as we know.the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company prevented their being taken further, and touch No. 17. Here we find some italics containing some statements of Mr. Payette about a road that Dr. Whitman and his good old Christian Indian Sticas had found or knew of even before the Northwest Fur Company had come to the country; and Whitman told Payette about it, as the best route for wagons or a road over the Blue Mountains. That Indian has the unqualified assertion of Senator Nesmith that he piloted the immigration of 1843 over that mountain road and was the best Indian he ever saw. The immigration took him at Dr. Whitman's advice.
Again as to time—"Spalding speaks of the Ashburton treaty as not yet concluded, although it was signed on the 9th of August, six months previous to this conversation with Webster. He also makes it appear that Governor Simpson was in Washington at this time, denying that a wagon road could be made to Oregon. But so far from being in Washington or thinking anything about a wagon road to Oregon, Simpson was at that time safe in London, where he arrived from a voyage round the globe in November, 1842, the object of which journey was the study of the fur trade, and not politics."
Mrs. Victor claims, under the above numbers, that the Ashburton treaty was signed before Dr. Whitman reached Washington, as against Spalding and Gray for copying it. We can admit that is a mistake to be corrected. But as to Governor Simpson, we claim that where his agents are doing his business and obeying his orders, he is de facto there, whether at Vancouver, China, London, Washington, or in the Rocky Mountains; his orders were being obeyed in every place he represents, and that his knowledge of the country was accurate, as represented by Rev. Mr. Spalding.
We now come to Nos. 17 and 18, which we copy verbatim, as all the parties named by Mrs. Victor, except myself, are now dead, at least we believe they are, and I have not lost my note-book nor my memory. The scenes and facts were too deeply impressed upon my mind at the time and since by culminating events to be forgotten.
The road spoken of as known to the Hudson's Bay Company was first known to Dr. Whitman from old Sticas, the Indian that piloted the immigration of 1843 through that route. Dr. Whitman had informed Payette of what he, with the Indians, had done to look it out, and wished to get help from the Hudson's Bay Company to properly open it, in order to get the wagon he left at Boise. The help was refused, and Newell and Meek attempted to come through it "with much difficulty," as intimated, and here is Mrs. Victor's statement. She says:
(17.) "There were several immigrants and travelers with the party of 1837, one of whom, Thomas J. Farnham, remained for several days at Fort Boise, and was shown by Mr. Payette, in charge, the cart abandoned by Whitman at that place. Farnham remarks that 'It was left here under the belief that it could not be taken through the Blue Mountains.' But fortunately for the next that attempted to cross the continent, ' a safe and easy passage had lately been discovered by which vehicles of the kind may be drawn through to Walla Walla. '(18.) The italics are my own, and are used to point out that the first suggestion of a ' safe and easy ' road to the Columbia river came from a member of the Hudson's Bay Company, whereas Spalding and Gray affirm and re-affirm that the company put every possible obstacle in the way of wagon travel." [Gray affirms the same to-day, December and January, 1884-5.] "Farnham visited Dr. Whitman's station, and must certainly have talked this matter over with him, and Gray and Spalding must have been aware of it."
Is Mrs. Victor's statement true or false? All at the Whitman mission knew of the practicability of a better route than the one used by the Hudson's Bay Company, that had less brush and logs in it, over a high rocky mountain. The wagon was not abandoned, but left for Gray to bring through at some future time.Let us now look at parts of Nos. 18 and 19. She says: "Having shown the part the government and the people east of the Missouri river were taking in the scheme of settling Oregon by immigration, let me now take up the Spalding-Gray story, of Dr. Whitman's part in it. In the first place let me show how Whitman was situated at this time. He had been six years in the Cayuse country without having either benefited or conciliated the Indians. He found them selfish, thieving, given to lying, haughty and ungrateful. From their stand-point he was a trespasser on their lands, making money out of their country and them, without any sufficient exchange of benefits."
In the above statement we have the egotist, either ignorant or malicious. The writer was present when that mission station was commenced. All the Indians about it assisted to put up the buildings and the fences, to plow the ground, to harvest the mission's and their own crops of wheat, and it was ground for them without toll. They attended constantly to Dr. Whitman's Sabbath Bible reading or lectures up to the time the two Jesuit priests arrived at Walla Walla. Not many hours after an Indian came to the station, and in my presence told Dr. Whitman he had been teaching them lies. They now had the true black gowns, and from that time it was evident to Gray that the Indians and Protestant American missions would be (and have been) a partial failure in the country. It will be borne in mind that the occurrence here alluded to was in the fall of 1838, four years before Whitman went to Washington, and Gray with his family, to Salem; and during these four years he was not asleep.
Mrs. Victor says, under her figures (28): "No one has told us what that object was; therefore, we are at liberty to speculate about it." That is, in reference to Whitman's going to Washington. It must be a deeply prejudiced and perverted judgment that, after all that has been printed on the Whitman trip to Washington, can not understand the object of that trip, which accomplished all that was designed, to wit: to defeat the Hudson's Bay Company's effort to hold Oregon. The results have proved the wisdom of the effort, which the blind influence on a woman's brain, like Mrs. Victor's, can not comprehend. And no candid person can justify her in slandering the dead martyr, nor the dead missionary, Rev. H. H. Spalding.
Gray has met her before in controversy, and has for more than a year known of her present attempt to slander the dead and challenge the living to this controversy. Please look at her quotation under her question No. 28. She asks: "But why did not he (Dr. Whitman) go to Washington and come back with a party of immigrants and a commission, as well as Dr. White?" She evidently meant that her readers should understand that he neither went to Washington nor came back with the company of immigrants—a double falsehood, we have the right to infer, or affirm—as we know he did go to Washington, and did come back with the immigration of 1843.
Under No. 30, she says, referring to letters that related to secret service funds, and a scheme to get settlers into the Oregon country, as well as sheep for Indians: "We admit that to be Dr. Whitman's sole or main object in going to Washington." He was disappointed in not having sheep to give the Indians. We know the treaty of Oregon was signed June 15, 1846. But a short time (eleven and a half months) before, the lives of himself, his wife, and several other Americans with him, were sacrificed as a last spiteful effort to appease the Hudson's Bay Company and the Jesuits. They had been defeated by the influence of this one man.
At this place we give the views of Hon. Elwood Evans in hig annual address before the Pioneer Association, 1877. He says: "The massacre at Waiilatpu on the 29th of November, 1847, was a cold-blooded and perfidious murder without the slightest justifying cause." He further says:
"To depict the internal condition of the country at that time, and exhibit the relations each to the others of such diverse elements of population, I have, upon previous occasions, compared the country itself to a tinder-box. The two white, quasi-hostile races may represent the Hint and the steel, the native race the tinder. As long as no collision between the whites occurred, the Indians might continue quiet; but any excitement indicating hostility between British and Americans, the tinder was in danger of ignition. * * * * It is equally true that there existed an educated bias which had already made the Indian the dependant of the foreign element; there was also an educated prejudice which fostered hostility to the American settler. * * * * He had readily and too aptly learned that King Georges—as he called the British—had no real desire for the Bostons in the country. For him that was enough. He not only thought he was doing service for King George by such hostility, but that he would protect him."
Hon. Mr. Evans says: "Such was the race among whom Dr. Whitman and his heroic wife labored, at a station hundreds of miles distant from the settlements, its inmates numbering some twelve or more, men, women and children.
He further says: "An Oregon audience needs no assurance that Dr. Whitman and his devoted companion were among the very best of their race, that their hospitality and kindness had been of the utmost service to the weary immigrant en route to the Willamette. Pages could be devoted to the praise of their many good works. They were philanthropical, practical, devoted Christians, who literally obeyed the Divine injunction. He was equally the dispenser of charity and benefits to his own race. The Indians never had a more sincere and earnest friend since good William Penn, founder of my native city, gave the world that glorious illustration of 'unbroken faith by the deeds of peace.' The martyr Whitman acted with equal good faith to the perfidious Cayuses. That at this mission had been aggregated all those appliances of civilization, church, school-house, work -shops, etc., by which the Indians were made the recipients of the advantages of civilized life. All these were lain waste, and those eminent benefactors of the Indians, together with every American inmate of the mission, were brutally sacrificed."
We have copied from the Hon. Mr. Evans' address to show the character of the woman and that of the person she attempted to slander and misrepresent, not that we think to convince her and such as agree with her egotism and strong disposition to malign the dead and slander the living. There is in that address of Hon. Elwood Evans, as presented to the large audience of old pioneers at Salem, a careful statement of the circumstances and causes that led to the massacre of the Whitman family, pointed out distinctly, in his "tinder-box illustration," and in the Hudson's Bay Company or King George's education of the Indians. Our personal knowledge of the King George education relieves us of all doubt on that question, as we have listened to the catechising of the Indian children at old Fort Walla Walla (now Wallula) by the officer in charge.
As the writer is the sole survivor of those most intimately acquainted with all the early affairs and trials of the Whitman and Spalding mission, he will here affirm that what is commonly called the honorable Hudson's Bay Company were the prime cause of the Whitman massacre, and to accomplish it and shield themseves, Governor Simpson, as we have learned from pages 24-5 of "Catholic Church in Oregon," arranged to bring to Oregon two Jesuit missionaries—Vicar General Blanchet and Demers, and gave to them every possible assistance to counteract and drive from Oregon every American missionary and settler in it. The two priests of that order commenced their work with the Hudson's Bay Company's servants on starting to cross the country from Canada, and were, as their report shows, permitted to indoctrinate the Hudson's Bay Company's servants and the Indians all along the route to Oregon. In their recent work they boast of their success. It was stated and admitted by Mr. Douglass and Dr. McLoughlin that the priests came to minister to their French and Canadian servants. A plausible excuse for a deeper plan. We might ask, as Mrs. Victor does, and even as Captain Belcher of the British Navy does, "Why did not the company go to their own country for religious teachers?" They were from Protestant England, Scotland, and Wales.
They did, in the case of Rev. Mr. Beaver, when they wanted an extension of time of joint occupation, and found Mr. Beaver favoring the plan of civilizing the Indian, they sent him away and brought the Jesuits to indoctrinate their servants and Indians. The Whitman massacre and the Cayuse war were the results. Honorable Mr. Evans has turned the key to unlock the causes, and it should be a lesson to every pioneer and citizen of the country. Since copying the noble encomium on Dr. Whitman and family by the Hon. Elwood Evans, I have received the Weekly Oregonian of December 26, and find the honorable gentleman has been converted to the principles of our Oregon historical rat's nest discoverer, which brings to our mind the following remark of a good old deacon in an Eastern church in reference to a slanderous statement about a member of the church—"Let the devil alone, it will kill itself." Our honorable friend has followed the example of Madame Victor—first, to confuse his readers, and then, like the good cow that gave a full bucket of nice milk, kicked it all over. We frankly confess that most of his statements in the first column read to us as though he had gathered a bundle of straws to throw at his readers to make them believe that he knew more than any one else about transactions that occurred in Oregon long before he came to it, and when he came to Oregon he went to the missionaries to learn something that he did not know. In other words, in the positions and statements he appears to me to make, he wants to show that a brother lawyer does not know anything about what he knows, in, of, or about the matter Mr. Ross has been writing about; and the honorable Mr. Evans gives honorable Mr. Ross a lecture because he does not know as much as Mr. Evans claims to know of Oregon history. Passing down his first column, in which he makes liberal use of Mrs. Victor's rubbish, he adds Rev. Dr. Atkinson to "Spalding and Gray's fable." This is quite interesting to Gray to know that he is placed, in the over-wise estimation of two such learned historians as the honorable Mrs. F. F. Victor and the honorable Mr. Elwood Evans, as being competent to invent a "fable" that the two, the honorable lady and the honorable lawyer, should call a fable. Now, since railroads have crossed the Rocky Mountains, learned people have caught a spark of electricity,and added to it the wisdom of the moon, by which, they intend to dispense with the light of the sun. The people that lived in the days when Oregon was young, only imagined they were some where else, perhaps in London or Philadelphia, and they knew all about everybody else, and especially such as acted and lived in young Oregon.
Our historical rats of Oregon know the art of gathering a big pile of rubbish, and when found and examined, there is nothing useful, ornamental, nor clean, about or in it. Allow a young, ignorant, romantic, or any other musty name the honorable writers choose to apply, to say:
First— W. H. Gray did not go to the Wallamet (as Frost and Lee write it) until about September i, 1842. He returned to the Whitman station for his family on the 21st of September, 1842. He was not ready to leave the Whitman station till about the 15th of October. I do not like to call Hon. Mr. Evan's statement false, but I will admit he is mistaken in date, by not having read Gray's circular controversy with Mrs. Victor. In May, 1842, Gray was not in the Willamette valley, and it is certain that he was at the Whitman station in June of that year, and a member of that mission, and at that meeting was honorably permitted to leave its service and go where he pleased with his family. Does the Hon. Elwood Evans call his statement the truth? Gray was also at the station at the time of the called meeting after his return from the Willamette valley. The starting of Dr. Whitman at the time he did, to go to the States, caused a delay in his (Gray's) arrangements to go to the Willamette valley. Permit me to call attention to Hon. Elwood Evans' statements, to correct what he claims to be Hon. Mr. Rossignorance or error. After excusing himself, like Mrs. Victor, he then says: "First—Dr. Whitman's winter journey, in 1842-3, had no political intent nor significance whatever." As to the "political intent," W. H. Gray says, being present when he and A. L. Lovejoy started from his station, that it was the prime cause of both going as they did. I do not wish to say that Mr. Evans' statement is absolutely false, but I know it is not true. What could be the object of Dr. Whitman to take Mr. Lovejoy to go only to Boston to get an order of the A. B. C. F. M. rescinded?
The second position—" That no feeling as to the Oregon boundary controversy, or desire or wish to defeat British claim to the territory, or any part of it, had any influence in attracting such journey." This we know not to be true.
The third—" That his exclusive purpose was to secure a rescission by the order of the A. B. C. F. M. of the order of 1841, to abandon the southern stations." Of this third object I have no personal knowledge, nor of its being talked about at the time.
Fourth— Mr. Evans says: "There is no evidence that he visited Washington city during the spring of 1843." I was introduced to Hon. Governor Ramsey when he was in Oregon by Ex-Gov, Gibbs. His reply to me was, he was quite confident he met Dr. Whitman in Washington in 1843, but ^e might be mistaken, as it was so long since.
Mr. Evans claims that Rev. Mr. Lee was in Washington that winter. But we know that Rev. Jason Lee was not at Washington that year, and that he took an active part in the building of the Oregon Institute, and was at the meeting on July 5th, when the Provisional government was established, and was one of the committee to administer the oath of office to the executive committee, and hence he was not in Washington in any part of 1843.
Mr. Evans' fifth statement is proven false by John Hobson, and several others, who have given testimony that he was active in getting up the immigration of 1843.
As to his sixth, seventh and eighth, we have Mr. Webster's statements, and his estimate of Oregon. Can Mr. Evans produce by one of his (Webster's) many speeches, that he had a high value of the Oregon country? Can he prove that W. H. Gray has ever been in Washington, except by his own statement, and that of his wife when alive, (if any one ever heard her say she was there, on her first trip to Oregon)? Can he prove, by documents, that hundreds of men have been there, and conversed with officers of the government, and gone away leaving no record? Certainly he can, because none were left; but the friends of these men can testify that they were men of truth, and believed those that told what occurred when there.
Permit me at this point, in this wild controversy of words without reason or truth, to sum up this whole affair as I have always viewed it:
First— Oregon was, as all admit and documents prove, jointly to be occupied by the citizens and subjects of the two high contract ing parties or powers. Both parties claimed an interest in it by discovery and by purchase. The older country, by the payment of some old horse-dragoon pistols; the other by the discovery of its largest river, and purchase from the actual discoverers by a French title. The nation that bought from the discoverers were the first to enter and name the river, and make a permanent improvement on its largest river shore.
THE COMPANY BETRAYED AND THE COUNTRY SEIZED.
Soon after the citizens of the United States had occupied the country, the French subjects of Britain came into the occupied country of the United States, and a war between the two countries occurred and a vessel of war sent to seize the property of the Americans, which was by treachery transferred to the French subjects of Britain, who eventually held possession under a joint-occupation treaty, and by what may be called doubtful legitimate trade, drove from the country all foreign and especially American traders and settlers from it, up to the year 1834—but one trader, Capt. Wyeth, was allowed to remain till 1S36—there being only transient American vessels that came to it in subsequent years; while sailing and war vessels of Britain were frequent, and war vessels almost stationary in the country, and the organized companies originally chartered by France, forty years before the Hudson's Bay Company had any existence in the country.
THE FRENCH AND HUDSON'S BAY COMPANIES UNITED.
The two companies, after Lord Selkirk joined his interest with the Hudson's Bay Company, an Indian beaver trade—a war in trade—commenced, enlisting the Indians on each side to destroy the profits of the other. This war was continued until the profits of the trade were destroyed, and numbers of the men, and a governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, with a number of his men, were shot down by the men of the Northwest Company (designated by Bancroft, "X. Y. Northwest Company party," page 262); and in his history, pages 378-9, the results are given.
CHARACTER OF THE H. B. COMPANY FROM BRITISH AUTHORITY.
But we are not left to quote our best authority to show the character and actions of the Hudson's Bay Company while in possession of Oregon by joint-occupancy treaty. We have the best of British authority, prepared at the suggestion of the present Prime Minister of England, when the question came before its parliament in 1849. The book is dedicated to the Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, M. P., by James Edward Fitzgerald, having but nine chapters. That our American and adopted citizens may understand the character of the British Hudson's Bay Company —what our American trappers, hunters and traders, missionaries and settlers, had to contend with—we will copy liberally from this best of British authority, giving our own personal knowledge, from the day we crossed the Rocky Mountains to the time they abandoned or were driven out of this country.
Permit me to draw the attention of the reader to the introductory remarks of the author referred to in connection with Hon. Mr. Gladstone, present Prime Minister of England, as found on page 10 of the above-named author, who says:
" It is most important to bear in mind the relative value which must attach to evidence from different quarters on a question of this nature. The power of the Hudson's Bay Company over hundreds of thousands of miles of the North American continent is unlimited. Into those remote regions few ever penetrate but the servants of the company. There is hardly a possibility of obtaining any evidence whatsoever which does not come in some way through their hands, and which is not more or less tainted by the transmission. The iron rule which the company holds over its servants and agents, and the subtle policy which has ever characterized its government, have kept those regions almost beyond the knowledge of the civilized world or of any but the few who guide the affairs and transact the business of the company."
Of the American writers to whose testimony so much weight has been attached, it is well to know that they had good reasons for forming a favorable opinion of the operations of the company.
Whatever may be the justice of the claim which the company assert to the gratitude of the Indian races, and of the settlers in their territories, the United States have, at any rate, a debt which they seem inclined to acknowledge as long as the payment can be made in nothing more valuable than words. We shall presently see of how much use the company was to this country in the settlement of the boundary to the westward of Lake Superior, and that had that corporation asserted the privileges of their charter against American claims as vigorously as they have ever opposed them to British liberties, the boundary between the United States and British North America would never have been settled along the 49th parallel.
It has often been asserted, and is to a great extent believed, because there is very little general information on this subject, that the claim which Great Britain made to the Oregon territory was dependent upon, or at any rate, strengthened by the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Columbia river. We have, in the statements quoted from the best English authors, the designs of the British government to hold possession of Oregon by the settlement of the Hudson's Bay Company.
COMMENCEMENT OF IMPROVEMENTS.
On the 19th page our author says: "This much has been said in order to guard those who take interest in this question against being imposed upon by the array of authority which has been set up in order to blind the public to the real character of that system of iniquity which prevailed over the whole continent of North America, under the sway of the Hudson's Bay Company." Our British author, page 17, charges the company with having an American policy as "a matter of suspicion," and says: "It is very easy to say these are idle tales; they are tales, but such tales as parliament ought to make a searching investigation into their truth."
On the 18th page, he discards the validity of the American testimony, on personal grounds, as favorable to the company, and also that of the bishop of Montreal, claiming that he only went to the Selkirk settlement and saw nothing beyond. He also gives us to understand the full cause of his convictions, and says: "A corporation, who, under the authority of a charter which is invalid in law, hold a monopoly in commerce and exercise a despotism in govern ment, and has so used that monopoly and wielded that power as to shut up the earth from the knowledge of man and man from the knowledge of God."
THE MISSIONARY INFLUENCE.
The Hon. Mrs. Victor, in her "River of the West," page 274, has given us, from her pen, a most apt picture, to show us how it was accomplished, and has sarcastically named it, "The Missionary Wedge." It is due at this time to say of that woman that she, like Hon. Mr. Evans, has apparently withdrawn, and now attempts to prove a truth a falsehood, which our British author and prime minister deemed important enough for parliamentary investigation.
The result of that "missionary wedge," and investigation, has taken from the Hudson's Bay Company half of its Indian dominion. To whom must we look for cause? Certainly not to the beaver trappers, hunters, traders, casual sailors, nor diplomatists, as the two great countries did not settle it till eleven and one-half months be fore the Whitman massacre, and at that time there were in the country five hundred men brave enough to overcome the savage element, and as many more to defend the homes of the American settlers. Such as claimed to belong to the "King George party" were not molested either in person or property. The whole country, from California to Behring's Straits, was, at that time, in 1846, claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company as their hunting ground, and as such occupied.
HON. JAMES DOUGLASS' PLAN OF MEETING AND OPPOSING RIVAL TRADERS AND MISSIONARIES.
To meet and overcome the new element in Oregon, the Hon. James Douglas, who afterwards became governor of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, when in Oregon and at this port, remarked to me, "that as traders, we must meet fire with fire, and as other opposition comes to the country, we must meet that."
At the time that remark was made to me, my impression was that it referred to the vessels coming to the country to trade, but on receipt of the news of the Whitman massacre, another element had been disposed of, and the persons or participants in it must be protected. That is proven by the part taken by Brouilett, at Mr. Ogden's Indian council at Walla Walla, in January, 1847.
We have referred to the company and our British author, also to his reference to Rev. Mr. Beaver being sent to Vancouver as chaplain to the company, when they wished to get an extension of license to the occupation of the country for trade. They dismissed him, as Mr. Beaver insisted on attempting to do something towards civilizing the Indians, like those on the eastern coast. He expected the approval and assistance of the company, which were refused, and was sent back to England. To meet, destroy and drive from the country the American missionaries who were active and successful in their work, and measurably independent of the Hudson's Bay Company, another element to "meet fire with fire" must be brought to the country and assist in its efforts to indoctrinate the servants of the company. As Hon. Mr. Evans, in his pioneer speech, says: "There was also an educated prejudice which fostered hostility to the American settler."
From the date of the dismissal of the Rev. Mr. Beaver, an Episcopal minister in 1837, to the arrival of Vicar-General Blanchet and Demers was but a single year. They, as before stated, "kindled the fire" that was designed to drive Americans and their missionaries out of the country. The result is now a matter of history.
Why our friend Hon. Elwood Evans should assume the position he has we are unable to comprehend. Knowing, as we do, is all the facts, statements and efforts covertly used to hold possession of the country hy the Hudson's Bay Company, and notwithstand ing the hest British authority charge the company, through Dr. McLoughlin's generosity, with the cause of its being given up to the Americans, the company, as such, used their whole power and influence to retain it.
WAR MEASURES TO PROTECT THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
A British war vessel, The Modest, was kept at Vancouver, and bastions and careful defences attached to that establishment but a short time before the Whitman massacre commenced. Rev. Father Demers has given us another statement to confirm our position, and enlighten us on the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company in strengthening the fort. Page 148, "Catholic Church in Oregon," he says: "It is false that the company had anything to fear from the Indians; if the fort was repaired, bastions built, and all other protective and defensive measures were completed, it was to defend itself against another kind of savageness."
Until the publication of that Catholic church work in 1878 we were in doubt as to the object of the company, but had our suspicions that the measures taken by the company, as our Reverend M. Demers says, were as he affirms them to be, which brings to the writer's mind an old saying—"Children and fools will sometimes tell the truth." We must not forget that the good old Dr. McLoughlin had left the service of the company before the Whitman massacre and became a settler in Oregon City. Nor must we forget the statement of Mr. Ogden to Mr. Douglass, as found in Gray's history, pages 516–17. Honorable A. Hinman says: "We went first to Mr. Ogden's room and informed him of the massacre. He was shocked and said—'Mr. Hinman, you now see what op position in religion will do.' We then went to Mr Douglass' room and informed him, and when Mr. Ogden was pacing the room he said—' Mr. Douglass, you see now what opposition in religion does.' After a moment's pause, Mr. Douglass replied—' There may be other causes.'" What were the causes except to dispose of Americans?
After Dr. McLoughlin left that company we have only to turn to their treatment of their own countrymen in their own hunting grounds to show their policy and treatment to be inhuman, as the British author affirms.
Hon. Mr. Hinman informs me that after listening to the reading of McBean's letter that Mr. Douglass turned to him and "wished to know why I was not at home at so perilous a time?" His reply was—" I told him I had received no letter from Walla Walla, and did not learn of the massacre till below the Cascades." At this Mr. Douglass expressed surprise, and said Mr. McBean ought by all means to have informed you of your danger. After this the express was opened, and Mr. Douglass read and I listened to the account as given by McBean, and also of his account of three parties going to destroy the other parts of the mission, including that at The Dalles, Mr. Hinman's place included, as understood by Mr. McBean, who was ordered to keep silent—to let them be destroyed. He, Mr. Hinman, says Mr. Douglass excused McBean, as he had ordered the messenger to say nothing about it at The Dalles, hence we have only to trace effect to first cause and watch the result.
INSTRUCTIONS TO INDIANS ON BUYING THE CAPTIVES.
When Mr. Ogden paid the Indians for their captives—Americans—nor especially must we forget the instruction he gave to the Indians on that occasion, as reported by Brouilette, who was, by special request of Ogden, present, and gives us Ogden's words to the Indians. He (Brouilett) informs us on page 69, "Protestantism in Oregon," that Mr. Ogden told the Indians that "the Hudson's Bay Company had never deceived them; that he hoped they would listen to his words; that the company did not meddle with the affairs of the Americans; that there were three parties—the Americans on one side, the' Cayuses on the other, and the French people and the priests in the middle. The company was there to trade and the priests to teach them' their duties. Listen to the priests, said he, several times, listen to the priests; they will teach you how to keep a good life." See Gray's History, page 533.
The two persons who have called up this Whitman question must have some special object. Is it to delay or defeat the effort for the Whitman monument, or is it to prepare the way for the revision of "Gray's History of Oregon," and a second volume? The material and interest in both is accumulating.
Being, as stated in the commencement of this reply, the oldest and only one now living, who came to Oregon with Dr. Whitman and Rev. Mr. Spalding, and interested in the secular department of the missions, and especially active with Dr. Whitman to defeat the boasts and outspoken designs and actions of the British Hudson's Bay Company, it is difficult for me to allow to pass such slanderous statements as have filled so many columns in the best newspaper we have in the country. My main object in so lengthy a review is to place the Whitman, question where it properly belongs in the history of the Oregon country, being an eye witness in the country and having life and health spared to me, at least, to attempt to defend the actions and character of the dead. We are fully aware of many apparent mistakes in gathering conflicting historical facts. On my last year's trip to New York, I received several old letters written to friends in those early times, that can, at the proper time, be made use of to corroborate what is already written, without going to Washington, or the Boston Board of Missions, for further information.