In 1820 the union of the companies put an end to the ruinous and criminal struggle. George Simpson, afterwards knighted, {406} who has been sent to look over matters in Athabasca, is appointed governor, and Nicholas Garry, one of the London directors, comes out to appoint the officers of the united companies to their new districts. The scene is one for artist brush,--the last meeting of the partners at Fort William, Hudson's Bay men and Nor'westers, such deadly enemies they would not speak, sitting in the great dining hall, glowering at each other across tables: George Simpson at one end of the tables, pompously dressed in ruffles and satin coat and silk breeches, vainly endeavoring to keep up suave conversation; Nicholas Garry at the other end of the table, also very pompous and smooth, but with a look on his face as if he were sitting above a powder mine, the Highland pipers dressed in tartans, standing at each end of the hall, filling the room with the drone and the skurl of the bagpipes. [Illustration: SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, GOVERNOR OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1820] By the union of the companies both sides avoided proving their rights in the law courts. Most important of all, the Hudson's Bay Company escaped proving its charter valid; for the charter applied only to Hudson Bay and adjacent lands "not occupied by other Christian powers"; but on the union taking place, the British government granted to the new Hudson's Bay Company license of exclusive monopoly to _all_ the Indian territory, meaning (1) Hudson Bay Country, (2) the interior, (3) New Caledonia as well as Oregon. In fact, the union left the fur traders ten times more strongly intrenched than before. {407} By the new arrangement Dr. John McLoughlin was appointed chief factor of the western territories known as Oregon and New Caledonia. When the War of 1812 closed, treaty provided that Oregon should be open to the joint occupancy of English and American traders till the matter of the western boundary could be finally settled. Oregon roughly included all territory between the Columbia and the Spanish fort at San Francisco, namely, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, parts of Montana and Wyoming. It was cheaper to send provisions round by sea to the fur posts of New Caledonia, in modern British Columbia, than across the continent by way of the Saskatchewan; so McLoughlin's district also included all the territory far as the Russian possessions in Alaska. This part of the Hudson's Bay Company's history belongs to the United States rather than Canada, but it is interesting to remember that just as the French fur traders explored the Mississippi far south as the Gulf of Mexico, so English fur traders first explored the western states far south as New Spain. This western field was perhaps the most picturesque of all the Hudson's Bay Company's possessions.