CHAPTER EIGHT
In Oregon—An Unwelcome Guest
It is difficult to account for Kelley's surprise at finding himself unwelcome at Fort Vancouver. For ten years he had lost no opportunity to assail the Hudson's Bay company, and he had every reason to believe that Dr. McLoughlin was fully informed as to his past activities and his plans for the future. The success of those plans would work irreparable loss to the company and the nation for which it exercised civil jurisdiction over the Northwest Coast. Yet he seems to have expected the chief factor to treat all differences between them in a lofty and impersonal manner^ and to accord to him all the courtesies due to an accredited diplomatic agent. Indeed he was not without credentials of a kind. In his baggage were papers showing him to be the attorney of the claimants to the lands on Vancouver Island bought of the Indians by Captain John Kendrick in 1791, but his immediate plan was to form a settlement on the Columbia. These papers were not presented to Dr. McLoughlin, but Kelley believed that they were examined and the rest of his baggage overhauled during his illness.[1] At the worst he fared better than any of the others of his party, for while he was given food and shelter, such as it was, his followers received no favors whatever.
His resentment at the attitude of his countrymen is more easily understood. At the time of his arrival, there were at Fort Vancouver seven men who had accompanied Wyeth on his second expedition, and their presence in that country was the result, direct or indirect, of his efforts. These men were the Lees and their three lay associates, Thomas Nuttall, the celebrated botanist who had served as lecturer and curator at Harvard, and John K. Townsend, a young naturalist. Jason Lee was born in Canada of American parentage, and Nuttall
- ↑ Kelley, Hist, of the Settlement of Oregon, 20; Petition, 1866:6; Bulfinch, Memorial, 9–11, 26 cong. 1 sess. H. doc. 43.
