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this latter treaty that Dr. Whitman's actions brought forth fruit. I say actions, for it was actions and not words, that finally settled the Oregon boundary, as I will try to prove further on. In 1841 the Hudson's Bay Company had started an immigration from Red River to Oregon, that reached their destination in the latter part of the year 1842. Mrs. Victor has it in 1841, but the better authority is against her. These were to settle north of the Columbia river, and Sir George Simpson was to turn up in Washington about this time, to show that the English had the most numerous settlement in the country, and on this basis draw the line at least as far south as the Columbia. It appears to me that this was a plausible scheme, and one that might have had weight had the negotiations concern ing the Oregon boundary still been pending. At the time Doctor Whitman started from here neither he nor the Hudson's Bay people, in this country, doubted that such negotiations were still pending, and while he was fighting his way over plain and mountain, through storm and flood, to reach Washington in time to do his country a service, Sir George Simpson was approaching from the other direction. On his arrival at London in November, 1842, he doubtless learned that the negotiations had been suspended, while Dr. Whitman was still pressing on his journey through the wilderness in ignorance of this fact. This turn of affairs made it unnecessary for Mr. Simpson to go on to Washington at that time, probably, yet as to whether or not he was there later in the winter does not appear to me to be either certain or important. But had things gone on as was expected, there is no doubt that either he, or some other agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, would have appeared on the scene to fully represent British interests on this coast.
The Doctor's idea from the start appears to have been this: First, to arrive in Washington before the Oregon boundary line should be settled, and then impress upon the minds of those having the matter in hand the real merit and value of this country. If by so doing he could delay the negotiations, he proposed to show that it was possible, and even practicable, to settle Oregon with an American population overland. To do this he proposed to aid in bringing a wagon train of emigrants across the Rocky Mountains, and on to the Columbia river—a thing that had never before been accomplished by man, but a thing, also, that he had more nearly accomplished than any other person, in the year 1836. In that year Messrs. Whitman and Spalding brought the first wagons across the Rocky Mountains, and brought a cart as far as Fort Boise. Yet
