3 2 4 McLOUGHLIN AND OLD OREGON
look out of her western window to the sea. But no one thought of the Indian. With news of the boundary settlement came news of the Mexican War and the occupation of California. The front of the world had changed.
But when the Oregonians learned that the line was 49 instead of 54 40' there was an outcry "A third of Oregon gone? Polk has betrayed us. Oregon reached Alaska."
And the Hudson's Bay barque sailed as usual, with a million dollars' worth of furs.
As colonial treasurer Ermatinger gained so good an insight into the strength or weakness of the little colony for no one knows on which side Ermatinger was working that just after the departure of Parke and Peel he suddenly handed in his resignation and left with the March express for England, committing his young wife to the care of Dr. McLoughlin. There may have been a political motive for the flight at that time. If so, it failed, for before he could sight the hills of Cornwall the treaty had been proclaimed, June 15, 1846.
Ermatinger visited the scenes of his English youth. Of his old friends few were left, some were dead, some were gone, and all were changed. Homesick, he set out for his old post on the Columbia. At Montreal he met Sir George Simpson "You will hereafter be stationed at Athabasca," said the autocrat of the fur trade.
"Athabasca! "gasped Ermatinger. "Good God, can't I go to Fort Vancouver for my wife? "
"You understand the terms of this service, sir." Sir George passed on as though he had brushed a caterpillar from his sleeve.
