With this brief survey of the general conditions which have operated to determine the course of events, the narrative of the more important details in the growth of civil government in Oregon may be better understood. We find that in the days of the discoverer, explorer, and fur trader there was no civil government at all, except such as was exercised by the native races for the regulation of their primitive life. Every one was dependent upon his own resources for the protection of life and property. From the time that the first Spanish ship, under the command of Ferrelo, touched the southern shore of Oregon, in the middle of the sixteenth century, until the beginning of the nineteenth, there was as much freedom from the restraints of social order as any anarchist could wish. There was nothing to check the conflicts that might arise between the crews of vessels, from the same or different nations, in their eagerness for the glories of discovery or the profits of trade with the Indians. There was nothing to shield from the danger of massacres from tribes, hostile by nature, or by contact with the whites. The explorer or trader who penetrated the interior must trust to his own ability for safety, and to his judgment in making friends with the Indians. There was nothing to regulate men in the struggle to reap the natural advantages of the region. They had little interest in the Indians, except as they could use them to their profit; they had small regard for the rights of others, as they were outside the pale of rights and laws; they cared nothing for the conditions that they made for the future, as it was not to be their home. It was a period for romantic adventures, to pass away before the quieter but more beneficent regime of social order.