A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic InformationGray, W. H. (William Henry)
History
A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information
Gray, W. H. (William Henry)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Oregon Territory -- History
This is truly an acre of wonders, and this Hudson's Bay Company and its
productions are entitled to some consideration for their ingenuity, if
not for their honesty. It will be interesting to look at our British
cousins and see what is said about this "_itself_ and _its other self_."
Mr. Fitzgerald says, page 260: "It is a matter of importance to know
whether the Hudson's Bay Company is about to submit itself and _its
other self_--the Puget Sound Association--to the same regulations which
are to be imposed on other settlers of Vancouver Island and British
Columbia."
On page 287, he further states: "The Oregon Territory was peopled, under
the influence of the company, with subjects of the United States.
(Since Writing the former chapter, I have heard this account given of
the conduct of the Hudson's Bay Company, in regard to the Oregon
boundary, which offers still stronger ground for inquiry. The country
south of the 49th parallel, it seems, was hunted up--therefore the posts
of the Hudson's Bay Company were become of no value at all. By annexing
all that country to the United States, and inserting in the treaty a
clause that the United States should pay the company for all its posts
if it turned them out, the company were able to obtain from the
Americans a large sum of money for what would have been worth nothing
had the territory remained British.) That lost us the boundary of the
Columbia River. That is one specimen of the colonization of the Hudson's
Bay Company. The boundary westward from the Lake of the Woods, we have
seen, gave to the United States land from which the company was engaged,
at the very time, in driving out British subjects, on the plea that it
belonged to the company; and now that the boundary has been settled only
a few years, we learn that the settlers on our side are asking the
United States to extend her government over that country."
If this does not show a clear case of abortion on the part of that
_honorable_ Hudson's Bay Company east of the Rocky Mountains, tell us
what does. But it is interesting to trace a little further the British
ideas and pretensions to this Pacific coast. Our British author says,
page 288:--
"Make what lines you please in a map and call them boundaries, but
it is mockery to do so as long as the inhabitants are alienated from
your rule, as long as you have a company in power whose policy
erases the lines which treaties have drawn.
"Forasmuch, then, as these things are so, it becomes this country
[Great Britain] to record an emphatic protest against the recent
policy of the Colonial Office in abandoning the magnificent country
on the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson's Bay Company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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