Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/162

This page needs to be proofread.

134 Fred Wilbur Powell

of American settlers and traders. He later made a survey of the Columbia river from Fort Vancouver to its mouth and recorded the results upon his map of Upper California and Oregon, to which reference has been made in the preceding chapter.® This was not an instrumental survey, however, for his theodolite was then at the Sandwich Islands. The results of his observations were later presented to congress in a me- moir, which will receive attention in later chapters.*^

Dr. McLoughlin naturally kept himself informed as to all of Kelley's movements, for here was a man who openly chal- lenged his authority. Said Kelley : "All my movements were watched. . . . Had I been willing to place myself under the control and direction of the Company, all would have been peace ; but so long as I was disposed to act independently, as an American on American soil, seeking authentic information, for general diffusion, and pursuing the avowed purpose of opening the trade of the territory to general competition, and the wealth of the country to general participation and enjoy- ment, so long was I an object of dread and dislike to the gasp- ing monopolists of the Hudson's Bay Company. My abode in Oregon was thus rendered very disagreeable."**

It is interesting at this point to note the interpretation of Dr. McLoughlin's attitude as given by Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor :

"It was not altogether Kelley's Mexican costume that excluded Kelley from Vancouver society. Other travelers who had arrived in unpresentable apparel had been made present- able by the loan of articles from the wardrobes of the factors and partisans resident there at the time. It could not be said either that Kelley was uninteresting or uneducated. Quite the contrary, indeed. What he had to tell of his adventures in Mexico and California must have been just the sort of tales to while away winter evenings in Bachelors' Hall.

"I fancy the situation was about this : McLoughlin was pre-

9 Memoir, 55; Mtmoriai, 1848:16; Pttition, 1866:5.

10 S«« Appendix.

11 Memoir. 60.