218 DR. McLouGHLiN TO SIMPSON
and further, that co-operating with the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, the Canadian Government has settled British North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, without a single one of those Indian wars which reddened the soil of America. And yet the Canadian Government had to do with very savage tribes, including head-hunters and cannibals.
Simpson had, it seems to me, a distinct prejudice against young McLoughlin. After the murder, being convinced be- forehand through his own prejudices, that young John was to blame, and alone to blame, he did not investigate the murder with anything like the calm justice or from the impersonal point of view that he should have shown. McLoughlin, on the other hand, passionately devoted to his eldest son perhaps the more so because of his generous qualities, and of the fact that he had been a source of worry to him, expressed an intense bitterness in his letters to Simpson and to the Governor and Committee. John Todd, in the Quarterly article referred to above, says that McLoughlin "has also written a thundering epistle to their honours at home . . . " It was thundering. I have read it, and some other thundering letters addressed to Simpson personally. A letter from Archie 'McDonald to Edward Ermatinger, in that correspondence which throws so many side lights on the Oregon country at this period, is per- haps the best resume that can be made of the Stickeen tragedy that one never knew what the young half-breed sons of the traders would amount to, that so often they seemed to express the worst of both sides, and that they were always a great source of anxiety to their fathers.
Vancouver, 20th March, 1844. To
Sir George Simpson, Gov. in Chief
Rupert's Land Sir
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of yours 21st June, 1843, with the accompanying documents, as p. packet list.
