Under the act of Parliament of July, 1821, the courts of judicature of Upper Canada were given jurisdiction of civil and criminal matters within the Indian territories and other parts of America not within the Provinces of Lower or Upper Canada, or of any civil government of the United States. Provisions were made for the appointment of justices of the peace in such territories, having jurisdiction of suits or actions not exceeding two hundred pounds, and having jurisdiction of ordinary criminal offenses. But it was expressly provided that such justices of the peace should not have the right to try offenders on any charge of felony made the subject of capital punishment, or to pass sentence affecting the life of any offender, or his transportation; and that in case of any offense, subjecting the person committing the same to capital punishment or to transportation, to cause such offender to be sent, in safe custody, for trial in the court of the Province of Upper Canada. As to how far this law applied to Indians or to others than British subjects or to residents of the Oregon Country under joint-occupancy, it is not necessary here to discuss. It certainly did not apply to citizens of the United States. So far as I can learn, Dr. McLoughlin was never appointed such a justice of the peace, but he caused his assistant James Douglas to be so appointed, at Fort Vancouver. As under joint-occupancy it was doubtful if either the laws of the United States or of Great Britain were in force in the Oregon Country, it was necessary for some one to assume supreme power and authority over the Indians, in the Willamette Valley, until the Oregon Provisional Government was established, and over the remainder of the Oregon Country, at least, until the boundary-line treaty was made. It was characteristic of Dr. McLoughlin that he assumed and exercised such power and authority, until he ceased to be an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company. He did so without question. It is true that this might have been an odious tyranny under a different kind of a man. Under Dr. McLoughlin it was a kind of despotism, but a just and beneficent despotism, under the circumstances. It was a despotism tempered by his sense of justice, his mercy, his humanity, and his common-sense. No man in the Oregon Country ever knew the Indian character, or knew how to control and to manage Indians as well as Dr. McLoughlin did. The few severe and extreme measures he took with them as individuals and as tribes were always fully justified by the circumstances. To have been more lenient might have been fatal to his Company, its employées, and the early white settlers in the Oregon Country. They were of the few cases where the end justifies the means. The unusual conditions justified the unusual methods.