The first step looking to the extension of the company's influence northward was taken almost immediately after the establishment of Fort Vancouver. In 1824, an expedition sent out by McLoughlin made a careful examination of the shoreward territory lying between the Columbia and the Fraser; and its members were the first to enter the latter river from the sea. Before further action was taken, however, the strengthening of communications with New Caledonia, which, as above noted, had already been established through Kamloops and Alexandria, required attention. This was accomplished by the founding of Fort Colville, in 1825-6, on the Upper Columbia, a post which at once attained importance as a de"p6t for the surrounding territory and as final place of call for the brigades which, from this time forward, began to pass regularly eastward from the coast to Edmonton and Norway House.

After this interlude, McLoughlin turned again to the north, and Fort Langley was erected on the Lower Fraser in 1827. Langley therefore represents the earliest occupation of the lower mainland of British Columbia. The schooner Cadboro which carried the crew and supplies for the new post was the first sea-going keel to ruffle the Fraser and the many bays of the neighbouring coast. Langley at once became important, the more so on account of its excellent salmon fishery. For a time, also, the trade of the coast northward was conducted through the Indians alone, with Langley as entrepot.

But competition pressed, that especially of the American traders; and in 1831 a bold resolve was taken. Fort Simpson was tremblingly erected at the mouth of the Naas, some hundreds of miles north of Langley. It arose in the midst of the most treacherous savages known on the coast; and its occupation became in a peculiar degree a test of military endurance. It was the outpost for many years of the company's effort to monopolize the north-west trade.

To occupy the territory between Fort Langley and Fort Simpson now became the concern of McLoughlin. In 1833, Finlayson, Manson and Anderson were sent north in the brig Dryad, John Dunn, known as the author of a history of Oregon, serving as their interpreter. At Millbank Sound, they were joined by McNeill in the Llama. (As throwing light upon conditions at this juncture, it may be explained that McNeill's first appearance on the coast had been as the agent of a Boston company with a shipload of gewgaws for the Indian trade. These completely outbid the company's staple commodities, with the result that McLoughlin, to rid himself of the nuisance, had bought the ship and her cargo outright and enlisted its captain in the company's service.) In the all but impenetrable forest that stretched to the water's edge, a space was cleared and a fort erected, closed in by the usual picket, one hundred and twenty yards square in this instance, with a height of eighteen feet. Such was Fort McLoughlin. From the first it was a scene of conflict with the Indians. Manson and Anderson were left in command, Tolmie succeeding Anderson in 1834 and Manson being replaced by Charles Ross in 1838. The first circulating library on the Pacific slope was founded by Tolmie and Manson for the benefit of these posts. In the same year as Fort McLoughlin, Fort Nis-qually was erected between Langley and Fort Vancouver, and in 1835 Fort Essington was built to serve as intermediate station between Forts Simpson and McLoughlin.

With the completion of these operations, the way was prepared for the inevitable collision with Russia that soon followed. As early as 1825 the need of a partitionment of interests between Great Britain and Russia on the north-west coast had been fully appreciated, and had resulted in the signing of a convention which was destined to affect far distant and strangely altered times and which therefore is among the most important episodes in the period at present in review. Under its terms, the subjects of both governments were free to navigate the Pacific and to trade with the natives of any shore not already occupied by Europeans. The traders might land at the posts of their rivals for shelter or repairs, but for no other reason, unless by express permission. Prince of Wales Island was established as the southern limit of Russian territory, the island to belong wholly to Russia. On the mainland, the boundary, after following the channel of the Portland Canal to the 56th parallel, was to lie along the summits of the coast range of mountains which it should follow parallel to the shore as far as longitude 141°. Thence it should run due north to the Arctic Ocean. Where the summits of the mountains, however, from the 56th parallel northward should be more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the dividing line, it was agreed, should curve with the curving of the shore at that distance. For ten years the British were granted the right to trade throughout the Usiere and to the port of Sitka in all save arms, ammunition, and spirits. To the streams running through the shore-strip to the ocean, the right was granted in perpetuity. Such was the beginning of the Alaska boundary question, a matter that was not finally laid to rest until 1903. The terms were dictated purely by the circumstances of the rival trading companies, the only value of the coast-strip to the Russians being that it excluded the British from the trade of the interior. Intercourse was held at that time by the Russians only with the Indians of the coast, the latter bartering with the inland tribes at the head of the mountains. Furs and furs alone were the cause of contention in 1825 ; the land, which in 1903 was the point at issue, was at that time regarded as worthless.

The navigable rivers, it will have been noted, were left as an avenue by which the British traders might pierce the Russian cordon to the interior. In 1834, the first attempt to utilize this concession was made. The most considerable river crossing the strip of land below the 141st degree was the Stikien. To enter it, traverse the Russian zone, and establish a post in the hinterland, was the object of an expedition sent north under Ogden and Anderson in the year mentioned. The party was well equipped, as befitted one whose mission was the founding of a station able to support itself a thousand miles from any base of supplies, and to fight both savages and rivals. But it had apparently reckoned without its host. At the mouth of the Stikien a Russian blockhouse was encountered, supported by a corvette and two gunboats to forbid the entrance to the river. The Russians well appreciated the danger to their trade that lurked in the designs of the British ; and the alleged sale of firearms and spirits to the natives was now used by Baron Wrangel, the Russian governor at Sitka, as the grounds for a request to the imperial government to rescind the clause of the treaty which gave the British access to the river. Without awaiting a reply, Wrangel had fortified the Stikien as soon as news of the projected move of the Hudson's Bay Company reached Sitka. The coast Indians, jealous of their commerce with the interior tribes, added their refusal to that of the Russian governor. Heated negotiations were conducted on the spot between the rivals; but after a delay of a few days the company's ship was put about and returned to Fort Vancouver, armed with a lengthy protest and bill of losses for reference to the home government. On the way back, that the expedition might not be wholly fruitless, Fort Simpson was removed some forty miles to the south.

The negotiations that followed between Russia and Great Britain took shape finally in a commission which met in London. As a result, the shore-strip reservation was leased to the Hudson's Bay Company by Russia at an annual rental of two thousand land-otter skins. The Stikien post was handed over ; and permission was given to erect another post still further northward on the Taku. It was agreed also that the British should supply the Russians at Sitka with provisions, which the inclemency of northern latitudes prevented the Russians from raising for themselves. So satisfactory in the issue did this arrangement prove that it was three times renewed, while in addition to Fort Taku on the coast, two posts, Mum ford and Glen-ora, were erected on the Upper Stikien, where they remained until the advent of the gold-seeker drove the game from the district.

Douglas played a prominent part in directing the events which ended as above described. Soon after his arrival on the coast he had revised and greatly improved the system of accounting by which the several posts of the department made annual returns to Fort Vancouver. At least once he had been in charge of the York Factory express, a difficult and dangerous service, the route lying by way of Walla Walla, Colville, and the Athabaska Pass, to Edmonton, thence to Hudson Bay and return. This was in 1835, the party consisting of twenty-nine Canadians in three boats, eight months being consumed in the journey. It was Douglas, also, who, in 1840, was in command of the party which raised the British flag above Fort Stikien. The mission was of considerable importance. Rae, Finlayson and the son of McLoughlin, with fifty men, made up the force. By way of Nisqually and Langley, the latter being found in ruins from an Indian attack, and passing forts McLoughlin and Simpson, they steamed in the Beaver to the headquarters of the company in the leased territory, where the formal act of transfer was completed. A brave rescue by Douglas of a member of his crew who had been swept away while fording the icy waters of the Nisqually River was recorded on this journey. Rae, with eighteen men, was left at Stikien, and Douglas with the rest passed on to Sitka. Ten days were spent with Etholin in the final ratification of the agreement. Some words were dropped as to the purchase of Ross in California, but nothing definite resulted. On the return from Sitka, Fort Durham, commonly known as Taku, was erected. In that desolate spot of almost constant rain and snow, and among some of the wildest natives of the coast, it had a life of only three years. Douglas was again in charge of the party which dismantled the post. Fort McLoughlin on Mill-bank Sound was at the same time moved to the head of Vancouver Island and renamed Fort Rupert. Indian turbulence, here as in no other part of the company's dominions, constantly menaced its affairs. McLoughlin the younger, who had followed Rae at Fort Stikien, was shot in 1842, perhaps the most signal victim of the animosity in the teeth of which the company drove its northern trade.

With the movement upon Russian trade by way of the sea, it had been decided to attack from the land as well; and the result was a series of expeditions in the northern interior of British Columbia that recall the days of Mackenzie and Fraser. With a courage not less conspicuous, the company pushed its way into the region of the Upper Liard and Yukon which the white man had never before seen. The incident belongs in part to the development of the Mackenzie River Department, and in part to later history, though it may fitly be mentioned here. On the Liard, the most wild and dangerous of all the great eastern streams that dash down from the Rocky Mountains, the earliest post to be established within the confines of British Columbia was the fort which took its name from the river itself. Fort Nelson on the eastern branch, was built about the same period, or shortly after the beginning of the century. Twenty years later, Fort Liard was pillaged by the Indians and its people murdered. Meanwhile Fort Halkett had been founded on a higher branch, shortly after the amalgamation of the rival companies. In 1834, the Upper Liard was ascended by McLeod to its southern source in Dease Lake. It was not, however, until 1838 that a post was built in this remote country by a Scotsman named Robert Campbell, the most distinguished man which the place and period produced, and the last of the great explorers which the fur trade gave to the western continent. Ordered to the Mackenzie in 1834, Campbell, after his operations at Dease Lake, crossed to the Pacific by the Stikien. Here he was taken prisoner by the Indians. On his escape, after terrible hardships, Fort Dease was burned to the ground. But it was not until 1840 that Campbell, under orders from Sir George Simpson, undertook the journey that was to make him famous. This was the ascent of the northern branch of the Liard through the great gorge that had previously barred all hope of access to its source, Lake Frances. After a desperate struggle, Campbell surmounted the barrier, and on Lake Finlayson, a tributary reservoir, saw the waters divide, part to flow into the Pacific, part to begin the long journey to the Arctic. Beyond the height of land he sighted the cliffs of the Pelly. After descending this river a few miles he turned back. The honour of naming it from himself he refused. In the following year, with a post on Lake Frances and another on Pelly Banks as a basis, he again set forth, but was again compelled, this time by hostile natives, to return, after reaching the point where the junction of the Lewis and the Pelly forms the great river of Alaska. It was not until eight years later that Campbell's efforts were crowned with success. On that occasion, after erecting Fort Selkirk at the mouth of the Lewis, and tracing the latter to its source, he descended the Yukon several hundred miles to the junction of the Porcupine, where Fort Yukon, the most remote of the company's posts, lying one hundred and fifty miles within the Alaska boundary and on the Arctic Circle, had been built some four years earlier by the trader Bell. Here Campbell united his own discoveries with those made by way of the lower and less difficult branches of the Mackenzie. Ascending the Porcupine and crossing to the Peel, he arrived by way of the Mackenzie at his original point of departure, Fort Simpson on the Liard. He had traversed in that great circle over three thousand miles of river and mountain; he had mapped a huge region which before had been wholly unknown; and he had given a lasting impetus to the trade inland in the direction of the Russian competitor; all with a forgetfulness of self that was only equalled by the splendid courage and endurance which the achievement demanded.

In California, the endeavour of the company to secure a foothold, while Fort Vancouver remained the entrepot of the department, was extended over sixteen years. The descendants of the Spaniards, who now held the country after throwing off the yoke of Spain, had neither the enterprise to establish trade nor the inclination to foster it by government. Fish and furs, in small quantities only, found an outlet through Mexico. Nevertheless, the efforts of Russia, England, and the United States, to establish trading-posts in the south, met with fierce opposition. The first attempt of the Hudson's Bay Company to invade California was before 1830, the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin having at an early date attracted the attention of McLoughlin. A party sent to the assistance of the American trader Jedidiah Smith, who, on crossing from Salt Lake in 1827-8, had been roughly handled by the Indians and had lost a convoy of furs, penetrated as far as the Umpqua. A second expedition, under Ogden, reached the Sacramento River, and in 1835 the company established a post at the junction of the Sacramento and Jesus Maria. A few years served to exhaust the furs of these outlying districts, and, with the desire to reach still further southward, a collision with Mexico became inevitable. At this contingency, Douglas was sent in charge of a party to treat with the Mexican governor. Sailing from Fort Vancouver, December 3rd, 1840, on the ship Columbia, with a crew of thirty-six and a cargo of miscellaneous goods, he cast anchor at Monterey on New Year's Day, 1841. The design of the voyage was largely political, but the crew had been increased by stockmen who were to drive northward a supply of cattle. The negotiations with the governor lasted until January 19th. Douglas undertook to check the operations of the company in the Tulare and outlying valleys, and in return obtained a temporary relaxation of the law which confined the coastwise trade to Mexican bottoms, together with the important right for the company to trade in California by express sanction of the government. Fifty cents, it was agreed, should be paid by the company for each beaver skin taken. San Francisco was immediately visited with a view to an establishment, not without friction with rival traders; and Douglas was back in Fort Vancouver by the following May. Rae, the son-in-law of McLoughlin, was recalled from the Stikien and appointed to the new post, which was situated on Yerba Buena Cove, in the Bay of San Francisco. Simpson, then on his famous voyage around the world, and McLoughlin as chief factor, visited the post soon after. For two years the record of the company's transactions was the history of San Francisco, and its servants made up almost the entire population. With the interior a steady trade in supplies sprang up. But the scale of profits from the first was below the expectation of the company. Rae fell ill, and in 1845 committed suicide. Forbes took over the control; but the governor had already decided, against the judgment of McLoughlin, to abandon the post. The end came in 1846, when the company sold the establishment at Yerba Buena and retired forever from San Francisco Bay.

These vigorous efforts of the company in the outlying regions of the department were accompanied by developments in the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Vancouver which were of even greater importance. The agreement with the Russians relative to the supplying of provisions had been fraught with far-reaching consequences. From the first, McLoughlin, in spite of prejudice to the contrary, had recognized the agricultural possibilities of Oregon. The mild and equable climate and the depth and richness of the soil tempted a diversity and luxuriance of growth that invited the most unwilling to husbandry. In the open spaces about Fort Vancouver axe and plough were set to work, and corn and live-stock reared. Sheep were brought from California, hogs from the Sandwich Islands, and cattle from Ross. Soon a flour mill worked by oxen was set up. Grist and sawmills followed on the Willamette. Horse breeding for the brigades became extensive. By 1835, some thirty-five hundred feet of lumber were being sawn daily; while the yield of grain was annually several thousands of bushels, and the number of animals constantly on hand several hundreds. By these activities the company was saved the expense of bringing supplies through the mountains or around Cape Horn. The growing of grain was still a mere auxiliary to the trade in peltries, and while it remained so the inherent incompatibility of the two was not apparent. In a land of abundance, however, the supply soon exceeded the local demand. Flour and lumber from the Columbia began to seek a market in the Pacific Islands. Salmon was shipped to Boston and London. With the Russian treaty, and the stimulus which it immediately gave to farming on the Columbia, this new phase was accentuated. The first intimation had been given, to those who could understand, of the final destiny of the region. Fur-trading and settled industry cannot live together. The company knew this full well. But, as it could not alter the decree of nature, its primary concern in the situation was one of organization merely— the keeping of the two divisions of its activity separate, now that the industrial branch gave promise of attaining large proportions.

To have charge of the important commercial and agricultural interests of the company, a separate body was deemed necessary. The formation of a cattle association by some settlers on the Willamette pointed the way; and in 1838-9, McLoughlin obtained the sanction of the directors to the organization of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. The new undertaking was brought into being under the immediate auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company, which furnished nearly all the original shareholders. It was officered from the staff of the parent body; and it was expressly forbidden to deal in furs. On the other hand the Hudson's Bay Company handed over all its cattle, sheep, horses and farming implements to it and renounced husbandry forever in Oregon. The rich and level region which lay about Nisqually and between Puget Sound and the headwaters of the Cowlitz, a branch of the Columbia which joins the latter about fifty miles from the ocean, offered a favourable field for the rearing of flocks and herds and the production of wool, hides and tallow. Farms were also opened on the Willamette. McLoughlin was appointed the first manager; skilled farmers and shepherds were brought from Canada and England; and the company was finally inaugurated in 1840, with a capital of £200,000 in £100 shares. Of this capital, however, no more than £16,160 were found to have been paid up at the time the company's affairs were finally settled.

It would seem that the enterprise suffered almost from the start from a variety of opposing circumstances. Into the history of its chequered career it is unnecessary here to enter, lying as the period does some years in advance of the time at present under discussion. The adoption of the 49th parallel as the international boundary, in 1846, under circumstances to be explained further on, was a blow from which the company never attempted to recover. Its men deserted for the free lands of the homesteader; the natives destroyed its stock ; while the technical differences between "possessions" and "possessory rights" under the boundary treaty, were a source of perpetual dispute between the companies and the United States. An offer was finally made to sell all rights and titles to the United States for $1,000,000. This was not accepted, and the friction continued. Again, in 1860, it was intimated, through the British ambassador at Washington, that the sum of $500,000 would be accepted by Great Britain on behalf of the companies, and would release the United States from all engagements under the treaty. The company, however, maintained its position until the year 1867, hoping that by continuing in business, though at a loss, it would make good its case against the United States. In the year mentioned, a commission was appointed by which the various claims were at last determined. Those of the Hudson's Bay Company were settled for $450,000; those of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, for $200,000. It was discovered by the commission that the latter body was indebted to the parent company in the sum of £25,000, and that except at intervals it had not paid a profit to the shareholders. The highest dividend declared was ten per cent., and this was continued for five years only, 1848-53. The last dividend paid was in 1854; it amounted to five per cent. The Hudson's Bay Company had an interest as purchaser in one thousand three hundred and eighty-six shares issued at par. In 1853, the company claimed one hundred and sixty-seven thousand acres at Nisqually, eighty thousand acres of which were prairie land. At Cowlitz, it claimed three thousand six hundred acres. In 1856, according to Tolmie, it had seven hundred and forty acres fenced at Nisqually. Of its operations on Vancouver Island there will be mention later.

A word may be added with regard to the course observed by the Hudson's Bay Company towards the settlers from the United States. It was indeed a difficult situation; on the one hand, suffering men and women, the terrible passage of the plains having left nearly all the earlier settlers in a state of destitution and defencelessness; on the other, the loss of the country to the trade. Yet there can be no doubt that to missionaries and immigrants alike the attitude of the company was one of kindness and hospitality. How much of this was due to McLoughlin is a question hard to answer. The significance of the influx was never misunderstood; and if upon McLoughlin the bitterness of the losing battle fell, the fact remains that when Douglas succeeded to his place no change in policy followed. Perhaps it was then too late; though in any event the movement was irresistible from the first. To rival traders, of course, no quarter was given; they were fought with every weapon which the wealth and long experience of the company had placed in its hand, and with unvarying success. Ingratitude on the part of those who had received its bounty is hard to account for. Yet it is a fact that the ill-will which McLoughlin incurred from the company for befriending the settlers, excused as it might be by the heavy losses sustained through the policy which he had adopted, was more than equalled by the hatred with which he was pursued by some of those whom he had rescued from death in its most terrible forms, whom he had fed, clothed, and supplied with the means of obtaining a livelihood, and for whom he risked his own future with the company. Political passion alone can account for this perversion. A year before the Oregon boundary had been finally determined, McLoughlin, the picturesque and admirable, the "great white eagle" of the Pacific slope, had been forced from his command; and Douglas, more rigid in his obedience, though no more able, as it proved, to stem the tide, ruled in his stead.