Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/102

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MIGHTY MRS BEAVER.
51

but the chaplain's wife had a way with her, recognized in all Christian communities, of calling such manner of living vile. These lords of the Hudson's Bay Company were compelled to chew the reflective cud, and to stifle their warmth at clerical interference, while they slowly made up their minds to take the only alternative left them, if they would associate with clergymen and clergymen's wives. It was not enough for the Beavers that the governor, the chief factor, chief traders, and clerks attended the Sunday service and observed decorum. There was an abomination within the walls of the fort that Christianity could not tolerate.

Had Beaver's objections to the domestic relations of Fort Vancouver been his sole ground of criticism, his natural flippancy and professional arrogance might have been tolerated. But he found many things that were wrong in the practices of the Hudson's Bay Company, and so reported to the Aborigines Protection Society at London, to which he complained that his attempts to introduce civilization and Christianity among one or more of the neighboring tribes had not succeeded, because his efforts had not been seconded by the company. The truth was, that Beaver was quite too nice for the task of civilizing Indians in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver. He was dissatisfied with the plain quarters assigned him, the parsonage being only a cottage built of rough lumber, uncarpeted except with Indian mats, which Mrs Beaver pronounced filthy, and unfurnished with any of the elegancies of an English parsonage. He despised and disliked the natives, and abhorred the practice of the gentlemen at Fort Vancouver of cohabiting with them.

Roberts says that Beaver kept a good table, although his salary was only £200 a year; but everything was furnished him except clothes. He was kind enough to invite the young clerk to dinner frequently, but Roberts thinks the risk imposed upon his soul in