The first contingent of the force, consisting of twenty non-commissioned officers and men, left England by the steamer La Plata on September 2nd, arriving at Victoria in November. A second followed soon. In a third party, which sailed by the clipper-ship Thames City around the Horn, were included three officers, a staff assistant surgeon, one hundred and eighteen non-commissioned officers and men, together with thirty-one women and thirty-four children, the whole in charge of Captain B. H. Luard. Moody arrived in December. The La Plata among its despatches to Douglas bore three of special importance: the first including his commission as governor of British Columbia; a second empowering him to make provision for the administration of justice; and a third informing him of the revocation of the charter to the Hudson's Bay Company of 1838 with reference to territory on the mainland west of the Rocky Mountains.

Another appointment of the time, fraught with even greater importance to the colony, was that of Matthew Baillie Begbie as judge of British Columbia. He arrived in November 1858. Though the office, strictly speaking, was judicial, he was instructed for the present to lend his assistance in the framing of laws and other legal business more properly pertaining to the functions of an attorney-general, the first incumbent of that office, Mr. G. H. Carey, not being appointed until some time later. Until his death in 1894, Begbie continued from sheer force of character as well as of intellect to fill a unique and commanding place in the affairs of British Columbia. Born in Edinburgh in 1819, and educated at Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn, he succeeded to the office of chief-justice of the united colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island in 1866, Needham, the chief-justice of the latter, who had followed Cameron in 1858, having been transferred to Trinidad. To Begbie, perhaps more than any other man, the colony owed the healthful ordinances, the liberal provisions of government, and the unbroken reign of peace and order which it enjoyed almost from the moment of its birth. There will be occasion on a later page to notice at least one example of the practical statesmanship of this remarkable man.

W. Wymond Hanley was appointed collector of customs and Chartres Brew, who had served with distinction in the Crimea, chief of the constabulary. Travaillot and Hicks were nominated assistant commissioners of Crown lands at Thompson River and Yale, and W. H. Bevis, revenue officer at Langley. The colonial secretary was W. A. G. Young, and the treasurer, W. D. Gosset. James D. Pemberton, the surveyor-general of Vancouver Island, acted for a time in the same capacity in British Columbia, with B. W. Pearse as his first assistant. By October 27th, 1858, it may be remarked, the governor was able to forward a report from Pemberton on the important subject of the disposal of Crown lands which included a proposal to use the 49th parallel as a base in all surveys, with a suggestion that mineral lands should be held at £1 per acre, town sites according to the value of location, and agricultural lands at considerably less.

On the subject of officers, in general, Douglas was under instructions to make his selections, where possible, in England, it being regarded as of "great importance to the general social welfare and dignity of the colony that gentlemen should be encouraged to come from this kingdom, not as mere adventurers seeking employment but in the hope of obtaining professional occupations for which they are calculated; such for instance as stipendiary magistrates, or gold commissioners." A warning was again added against favouritism to the employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it was again declared that for the avoidance of all appearance of local preference "careful appointments should be made in England." Up to June 30th, 1859, Douglas had recommended the following officers, among others, in British Columbia, nearly every name in the list having since passed into the history of the community: W. R. Spalding, as stipendiary magistrate and justice of the peace at Queenborough; Peter O'Reilly, Thomas Elwyn and H. M. Ball to the same offices at Langley, Lillooet and Lytton, respectively; Charles S. Nicoll, to be high sheriff at Port Douglas; E. H. Sanders, as assistant gold commissioner at Fort Yale; Charles Good, as chief clerk in the colonial secretary's office; John Cooper, as chief clerk of the treasury; W. H. McCrea, as clerk in the Custom House; A. I. Bushby, to be registrar of the Supreme Court; Charles Wylde, as revenue officer at Langley. In addition there were resident at New Westminster, W. D. Gosset, treasurer; F. G. Claudet, assayer; and C. A. Bacon, melter. In later years the number of applicants for office coming from Great Britain, often with influential letters of introduction, was a source of no small embarrassment to Douglas.

It was indeed an extraordinary community to which the offices of government were now to be extended. Scattered along the reaches of the lower Fraser or clambering in widely scattered bands over the mountainous divides in search of further fields, not less than thirty thousand miners had rushed into the district,—of a class, the most unbridled in the world. Of these, however, scarcely more than four thousand were left at the end of the summer season, the difficulties of the high water and of the terrific rapids and canyons of the Fraser having driven out the rest. Another influx occurred in October, but it was of small account compared with the first. The bars began a few miles above Hope, and on the thirteen which lay between that point and Yale two or three thousand men were digging in the sands. At Yale there was another seven or eight hundred. Tents and log huts provided shelter. Provisions, once the first rush was over, were fairly abundant at these lower points. Bacon, salmon, bread, tea and coffee formed the staple diet; and a good meal could be bought for one dollar. Milk and butter were unknown. High spirits prevailed save among the few whom the unaccustomed hardships and deprivations were slowly grinding to death. On the whole, though the camps held many a wild and abandoned character, acts of lawlessness were singularly infrequent; but the mass was as a smouldering fire ready to burst into a flame of revolt on provocation of its untamed sense of justice. Above Yale a different story was told. Ingress barred by the tremendous "lower big canyon" and "upper big canyon" of the Fraser, and by the increasing savagery of the natives, only the most reckless and determined had forced their way thither. Still higher, on the Thompson, a few who had crossed from the Upper Columbia by the old trail of the Hudson's Bay Company, were fighting slow starvation in the absence of stores and the possibility of bringing in supplies. With the exception of the scattered and demoralized fur traders and the outraged and exasperated Indians, such in 1858 was the colony of British Columbia.

During his tenure of the double office, Douglas was of necessity an itinerant governor of the mainland colony, and in the record of his several visits, set forth in ample detail in the reports which he forwarded to the colonial office, a large part of the early history of British Columbia is to be read. The first of these visits has been already mentioned. The second was undertaken in the September following his appointment as governor. A force of marines from H.M.S. Satellite, then acting as guard ship in British Columbia waters, made ready to accompany him, in view of recent troubles with the Indians; it does not appear, however, that the contingent was made use of. The first place of call was Fort Hope, the station at which the detachment of engineers not yet arrived were to be set at work, and from which a road to Yale was urgently needed. Some three thousand miners and traders were huddled at the time about the stockade in tents or huts. Provisions were scarce and dear, pork and flour selling at one dollar a pound. Bad blood between the Indians and the whites had been aroused, the improper sale of liquor being probably the chief cause. Realizing the impossibility of stamping out the traffic among the miners, Douglas determined to turn it to the account of revenue by legalizing it at the rate of $600 for a license. For selling liquor to the natives the penalty was placed at $25 to $100. Town lots were largely demanded and no difficulty was experienced in disposing of a large number under leases terminable at the pleasure of the Crown, held at a monthly rental of £4 8s. payable in advance on the understanding that the holder would be allowed a pre-emption right of purchase when the land was sold, in which case the rent would count as part of the purchase money. Aliens might hold lands for three years, after which they must become naturalized; failing, they would either forfeit their holdings or be forced to convey them to British subjects. The organization of a police force proved impracticable owing to the high wages prevailing, the earnings of the miners in the neighbourhood, which fixed the standard, ranging from £1 to £5 a day. So, too, the idea of a courthouse and jail was abandoned for lack of the sum of £1,000 which the erection would have required. A justice of the peace and revenue officer, however, was appointed, and a chief constable sworn in. Mr. George Pearkes, the Crown solicitor for Vancouver Island, who accompanied Douglas, Begbie not yet having arrived, sat at the head of a commission which brought various offenders to justice; among the latter a miner named Eaton who had murdered a comrade was sentenced to transportation for life.

The enforcement of such penalties in the absence of any penal settlement and owing to the heavy expense of deportation was another of the difficulties of Douglas. From Hope the governor journeyed to Yale, visiting the different encampments by the way. Here grants of land were made on the same conditions as at Hope, a justice of the peace appointed, together with a chief constable at $150 per month. A police magistrate was also appointed at Lower Fountainville. The governor returned on September 26th, having by his speeches and reforms done much to create content among the miners and to allay the irritation of the natives.

On November 17th an imposing party of officials left Victoria for the headquarters of the new colony. The governor was in command, with Rear-Admiral Baynes, Cameron, the chief-justice of Vancouver Island, and Begbie, the judge of British Columbia, who with several officers of the Royal Engineers, had now arrived; and their mission was the formal launching of the colony of British Columbia. They sailed in H.M.S Satellite, with the Hudson's Bay Company's Otter in attendance. Within the mouth of the Fraser, the Beaver and the Recovery received the party, which was landed at new Fort Langley. The day of the ceremonial broke dark and lowering. A guard of honour received His Excellency amid the firing of a salute; and in the presence of about one hundred persons assembled in a large room of the fort, the weather rendering a meeting in the open impossible, the oaths of office were taken, first by Begbie as judge, and afterwards by Douglas as governor. Proclamation was made of the Act establishing the colony; of an instrument indemnifying the officers of the government from any irregularities that might have been committed during the interval prior to the establishment of the Act; declaring English law as the law of the colony; and revoking the exclusive privileges of the Hudson's Bay Company. The governor did not leave the fort until the following day, when a salute of fourteen guns pealed forth in his honour.

It was expected that New Langley, or, as it was now called, Derby, where these simple rites had taken place, would form the permanent capital of the colony, and with that in view a survey of the town was made and a sale of lots held soon after the departure of the governor. The upset price was placed at $100, but so spirited was the bidding that many of the lots brought from $200 to $400, and some of choice locations as high as $750 each. In all, the sum of $68,000 was realized from the sale of about four hundred lots. Work was begun upon a barracks for the Engineers, and tenders were invited for a court-house, a jail, a church and a parsonage. A proclamation to authorize the levying of customs duties was issued. In the midst of these and other preparations, however, Colonel Moody with his second in command, Captain J. M. Grant, arrived, and their report, on military and other grounds, was unfavourable to Langley. It is possible that the close proximity of a large block of lands held in reserve by the Hudson's Bay Company may have had something to do with the original choice. After a careful survey of the river, the site of New Westminster, some distance lower down and on the opposite bank, was approved, and the purchasers of lots at Langley allowed to exchange them for locations in the new town A dispute arose as to the naming of the capital, Moody proposing Queenborough, Douglas Queensborough, and Young objecting to both as a paraphrase of Victoria. The difficulty was referred for settlement to the queen who conferred on the place the title by which it has since been known. In laying out the town, a proposal that one-quarter should be reserved for purchasers in England and other colonies was vetoed by the colonial secretary as a stimulus to speculation by non-residents. In the following June a satisfactory sale of lots took place at New Westminster, three hundred and ten being sold for $89,000. The largest sum paid for a single lot was $1,925. In the meantime tenders for various public buildings had been received, and "Sapper-ton," the quarter chosen for the accomodation of the Engineers, was already rising in a spot notable for its romantic beauty.

Prior to this and immediately upon his arrival in the colony, Colonel Moody and the Engineers had rendered prompt and excellent service in a matter of a wholly different nature. This was the affair of Hill's Bar, the richest and most populous camp on the river, and the headquarters for whatever discontent the restrictions of British law and government had created in the breasts of the foreign miners. Beginning in a quarrel of rival magistrates, the matter was fast assuming the appearance of an armed collision between the Yale and Hill's Bar camps, the latter under the leadership of one McGowan, a notorious ex-judge of California, now a fugitive from the vigilance committee of San Francisco. Moody in response to a despatch threw forward a company of Engineers to Hope, while a hundred marines and blue-jackets from the Plumper and the Satellite were landed at Langley. With Begbieand Lieutenant Mayne of the Plumper alone, Moody himself went on to Yale, with the object of investigating in person the causes and true proportions of the disturbance. The first church service in Yale was held by Moody during this visit. An unprovoked assault by McGowan during his stay confirmed the opinion that occasion alone was wanting for the whole community of miners to break into open insubordination. Under cover of night, accordingly, the Engineers were ordered up to Yale and the marines set in motion at Langley. The vigour and celerity of the demonstration had the desired effect. Apologies were tendered by McGowan and the incipient dissatisfaction was checked before it had time to gather. After a further outrage McGowan fled the country. Though not devoid of travesty, the incident was of wholesome effect upon the scattered and irresponsible community as showing at least the energy and power of the government and its determination to enforce good order.

Even prior to the coming of the Royal Engineers and the establishment of the colony, the governor had launched his famous undertaking of opening up the country by means of roads, for which, if for no other achievement, his administration merits the supreme praise of efficiency. Here, as in so many cases, Douglas's long and thorough training in the needs and methods of the fur trade stood the colony in good stead. With Victoria as centre many miles of excellent roadway had been built in the neighbouring districts of Vancouver Island. When, therefore, on the discovery of gold on the Fraser, the need of roads became the problem of the hour, no lack of official will or understanding had to be overcome. How this need was met in the earliest instance has been already hinted at in the words of the colonial secretary to Moody. As an illustration of the resourcefulness of Douglas and his complete command of those rebellious forces which at the time were all he had at his disposal—forces which in less trained or skilful hands might have run only in disorganized or harmful channels—the building of the first trail to the Fraser diggings is of more than passing interest.

To the miners who had braved successfully the dangers of the sea passage from California, there still remained to surmount the swift and treacherous current of the Fraser, narrowed into a torrent above Yale. Monopoly was soon to lay an added tribute on the country's development, the foreign owners of the steamboats plying on the lower river having joined to raise the cost of transport from £5 to £14 a ton, a charge that brought the inhabitants above to the verge of starvation. By the power of withholding the privilege of registration, however, this evil was in time corrected, and the obstacles against which Douglas fought in the present instance were those of nature alone. From Yale, no other avenue was open to the mines which lay beyond, than the rough and precipitous footpath of the river's edge, where, on men's backs to and fro over the cliff, the food and tools of the miners had perforce to be conveyed. How to transport supplies to the front around these difficulties became at once the all-important question. To some returning miners a route from Anderson Lake to Lillooet, thence by Harrison Lake and river to the Fraser, was shown by the Indians. The distance was seventy miles, over a generally level country. There were five hundred miners at Victoria on their way to the diggings, restless and idle men through the lack of easy transport. With instant appreciation of the situation, Douglas adopted the following plan for the construction of a pack road by the route described. In consideration of a deposit of $25 and an agreement to work upon the trail until it was finished, the Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria agreed to transport the miners to the point of commencement on Harrison River, feed them during the work, and at the end return the value of their deposit in supplies at Victoria prices. The combination of credit and cooperation involved in the plan had been suggested by the miners themselves and at once engaged their support. The work was speedily completed, and at the end the men received their money back, their transportation being reckoned a fair return for their labour, while the company in addition to the temporary use of the money deposited was left with a toll road of infinitely greater value than the transportation and provisions it had cost. Some disagreement arose as to the point at which the supplies covenanted by the company should be delivered, the men holding that the upper end of the trail had been implied while the company declared for the lower. This at the time was an issue of some importance, beans which cost 1J cents a pound at Victoria being worth 5 cents on the lower Eraser and $1.00 at the upper end of the new road. The dispute was ended by a compromise, the goods being delivered in the middle. The home government read a somewhat exalted lesson from this achievement, as Douglas was often to be reminded. If the settlers would combine so readily in the construction of a road, united effort it was thought might safely be reckoned upon in the formation of a police, the establishment of law, the collection of revenue, and in the other efforts that might be necessary to make life secure and the community prosperous.

As it proved, this notable feat was but the prelude of a general plan of road building which under the existing conditions might justly be termed colossal. Roads followed the development of the country everywhere; no difficulty or cost of construction was permitted to stand in the way once the need was thoroughly demonstrated. A wagon road from the Harrison to the Upper Fraser, an enlargement in part of the first pack road, was built in stages by the Royal Engineers in the two years following their arrival. "The construction of the Harrison or Lillooet road," wrote Douglas in 1861, "has been the great source of expenditure this season, that work having cost the colony nearly £14,000. Large as the outlay may appear it very inadequately represents the value of this important public work which has removed the difficulty of access and the great impediment to the development of the mineral regions of British Columbia." Hope and Similkameen were also connected by a road surveyed and built by Mr. E. Dewdney (afterwards minister of the interior for Canada and still later lieutenant-governor of British Columbia), in conjunction with Mr. Walter Moberley, C.E. This road, as subsequently extended and known as the Dewdney trail, passed through the southern interior as far as Fort Steele in East Kootenay, and formed for many years a well-used route of travel. Every season saw the completion of several important reaches in these and other links of the system which Douglas devised, all in accordance with a comprehensive plan. But the crowning work of the series was the completion of the great wagon road to J Cariboo. From Yale along the rocky canyons and defiles of the Fraser, it wound past Lytton and the Thompson by way of Ashcroft and the Bonaparte, joining the road from Lillooet at Clinton, and forming with other units of the plan a mighty artery of travel deep into the heart of the gold country. Even by present standards it was no mean feat of engineering. It opened a region of unexpected richness for agriculture: how rich in gold it was to prove will be referred to further on.

It would seem that even larger plans than these had crossed the mind of Douglas. The trail from Hope to Kootenay, in his ambitious vision, might one day cross the Rockies, meeting at Edmonton a similar road built westward from the Canadas, the two to form a single great highway across the continent by which immigrants from the eastern colonies might enter the country,—for Douglas looked rather to Canada than to England for the replenishing of the Pacific settlements. The dream was realized more fully than even Douglas would have dared to hope when, within twenty years of his own achievements, an army of men were at work upon the mountain section of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

With the building of the system of communications of which the end was the opening up of Cariboo, the work of the Royal Engineers was finished. How large a part they had played in the early history of the colony may have been surmised from the few references given above that show them in the forefront of the colony's early development. Some feeling against their employment and the expense thereby incurred had arisen, and in 1863 it was deemed advisable that they should disband. Colonel Moody and some twenty-five of the force returned to England under the terms of their original agreement; the rest received grants of land and became permanent residents of the country.

In the record of official visits and reports that throw a light upon the early history of the colony, mention should be made of a notable journey taken by Mr. Justice Begbie in the spring of 1859. Accompanied by Nicoll, high sheriff of British Columbia, and by Bushby, as assize clerk and registrar, he proceeded by way of the Fountains to the Upper Fraser, returning by the Lillooet route to Langley. The points which chiefly impressed the judge were, the ready submission of the foreign j population to the will of the executive; the) preponderance of the Californian element in the population; the richness, both auriferous and agricultural, of the country; the need of fixity of tenure for the promotion of agriculture; and the total absence of means of communication, rendering industrial occupations of whatever sort, with the single exception of gold-digging, practically impossible. More important, however, than his observations upon the condition of the young colony, Begbie established on this visit that character for stern justice and utter fearlessness, which left a lasting imprint on the progress of British Columbia. His administration of the law amongst those lawless multitudes had all the force and directness of the vigilance committee, without its passion. A lawyer to the core, he could do right in spite of law. He made himself the guardian rather than the judge of British Columbia, and he accomplished this result by his unflinching resolve that crime of no degree should go unpunished. No region in all that wild and inaccessible territory was too remote for the strong and searching arm of his justice, and the wrong done to an Indian or a Chinaman met with as prompt and sure requital as that done to a white man. With the knowledge gained in a few months' time that in the hands of Begbie justice was swift as it was inflexible, the battle of law and order was already won, and the influence of the judge throughout the colony became greater perhaps than that of any other man.

It will be necessary, too, before leaving this personal chronicle, to notice the visit which Douglas paid to the mainland colony in the autumn of 1859. The tour included New Westminster, Langley, Douglas, Hope, and Yale, and was extended through the passes of the Fraser to Spuzzum and the mining districts west of that locality. There had been a decline in the number of miners since the previous year, and the governor estimated the entire white population of the colony at not more than six thousand men. The absence of wives and children was deplored. At the time, the exports of gold from British Columbia were valued at £14,000 monthly, but the estimate did not include the large amount remaining in the hands of the miners. No schools had yet been established. With regard to the importance of agriculture as a factor making for stability and permanence, the governor's views were pressed as follows: "The colony is yet destitute of one highly important element: it has no forming class, the population being almost entirely composed of miners and merchants. The attention of the government has been very earnestly directed to the means of providing for that want by the encouragement of agricultural settlers, a class that must eventually form the basis of the population, cultivate and improve the face of the country, and render it a fit habitation for civilized man. The miner is at best a producer, and leaves behind him no traces but those of desolation; the merchant is allured by the hope of gain ; but the durable prosperity and substantial wealth of states is, no doubt, derived from the cultivation of the soil. Without the farmer's aid British Columbia must ever remain a desert—be drained of its wealth, and dependent on other countries for daily food." The report also referred to the road-building operations of the moment in the following terms which convey very clearly the views of Douglas on the subject of his greatest work: "The great object of opening roads from the sea-coast into the interior of the country, and from New Westminster to Burrard's Inlet and Pitt River, continues to claim a large share of my attention. The labour involved in these works is enormous ;(but so essential are they as a means of settling and developing the resources of the country, that their importance can hardly be over-rated; and I, therefore, feel it incumbent on me to strain every nerve in forwarding the progress of undertakings so manifestly conducive to the prosperity of the colony, and which, at the same time, cannot fail, ere long, to produce a large increase in the public revenue. We hope to complete the last section of a pack road leading, by the left bank of the Fraser, from Derby to Lytton, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles, on or before February 1st next"

Inseparably associated with the early progress of the colony, and especially with those great undertakings to which reference has just been made— great both from their magnitude, the expenditures which they entailed, and the necessities which they met—was the vexing problem of finance. Here as on other points that will come in due course to be noted the governor and the home authorities were not always in agreement. Douglas, under stress of the immediate need, begged repeatedly for a grant from parliament, or, failing that, for a loan which the colony might repay when it had received the impetus which a wise expenditure would give to the development of its resources. In addition to roads, a seaport town, to render the colony with its five hundred miles of seaboard less dependent upon Victoria, was needed. For this purpose the governor, taking into account the difficulty of access to the Fraser, and looking forward to the time when the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island might be one, would have chosen Esqui-malt, leaving the navigation of the Gulf of Georgia to a class of small, safe and swift steamers. Lighthouses at least the colony must have. To Douglas, with the distrust of the foreigner which he could never wholly dismiss, the military protection of the colony was among the government's chief responsibilities. The Satellite which was placed on the coast-guard service in 1858 had been almost immediately withdrawn, and though the admiral of the Pacific squadron had given what help he could, many boats had escaped the customs and several unlicensed miners had found their way to the diggings. The Royal Engineers, of course, had other and more pressing occupations than that of police duty. To these, and similar appeals, however, the colonial office had but one reply. It seemed inexplicable to Downing Street that a country whose sands were of gold and whose population had sprung up with such incredible rapidity should find the question of a revenue difficult. In vain Douglas pointed to the extraordinary difficulties presented in the opening up of the country; to the outflow of population, easily to be prevented if employment on the proposed works were available; and to the narrow means that were at the colony's disposal, especially in view of the high level of wages and prices which continued as long as free placer gold constituted the source of the country's prosperity. He was met only with repeated commendations to thrift and economy, it being left to his own sagacity to suggest how that policy could be exercised with the greatest safety. Again and yet again it was enunciated that both British Columbia and Vancouver Island must be self-supporting. He was at times even reproached with the slow progress made in road-building.

Over sanguine, it may be, the governor was, in his estimate of the speed with which the colony was likely to attain its full development, and of the extent to which its progress would be helped by public works alone. Yet it is easy to perceive wherein the task of Douglas without help from England must have seemed as the making of bricks without straw. In the end, however, the conservative policy of the colonial office cannot be charged with having retarded a healthy growth. On one point of importance it was unquestionably right. The colony had no cause to burden its finances with the support of a military organization. The assistance which the admiralty was able in a regular way to afford proved entirely adequate to any need of this kind that arose, and the principle that if from England skill and discipline were sent the colony should furnish the raw material of a force, was at least well calculated to instil the habits of self-reliance and freedom. So also, a suggestion that a steamer should be supplied by Great Britain for the conveyance of troops and stores on the Fraser was abandoned without material inconvenience. To the appeal for lighthouses, which involved an expenditure of £7,000, a favourable answer was given —to the extent at least of one-half the cost and the loan of the whole amount, the colonies to assume the other moiety as a joint obligation.

On the whole it was an unmixed boon that the influence of the home government, in so far as it prevailed, was of this restraining character. No feature of the rule of Douglas aroused more lasting opposition than the lavish scale on which he spent the income of the colony. It is true that very great achievements could be pointed to. Lawlessness was effectually suppressed—or rather, as has been seen, was never afforded the opportunity of raising its head; a self-supporting postal department was established; an assay office was founded and a mint projected; the navigation of the Fraser and Harrison rivers was improved; and, finally, communication with the mines, even with those of the remotest regions, was opened up and maintained on the efficient scale that has been noted. It was not to be supposed that results like these could be achieved without a struggle. The customs tax of ten per cent., and the license fees of the miners formed, in addition to the proceeds of land sales, the only sources of revenue. The taking out of licenses, as might have been expected, was avoided in every possible way by the miners, and the fees paid only upon compulsion. An attempt to collect a royalty on the gold output proved a failure, no means being at hand to compel the miners to announce their findings or to support the army of inspectors which would have been required to make an official surveillance effective. The whole led Douglas at one time to suggest an entire remodelling of the mining regulations under a plan by which the gold-fields might have been treated as Crown lands to be let in large or small allotments at a fixed rental. As the regulations stood, however, under the Act proclaimed in 1859, a not inconsiderable sum, despite evasions, was annually reaped by the colony. Nevertheless the end of the administration of Douglas found the colony burdened with a yearly increasing debt, its loans barely negotiable in the London market, and its tax rate risen to nearly £19 per capita annually, or about eight times the rate then prevailing in Great Britain. Only by the most stringent economies in the years immediately following was the credit of the community preserved, so that by 1871 the rate had been reduced to approximately £5, or by over two-thirds. On the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that without the investments made by Douglas the development of the interior would undoubtedly have been retarded, while the control of the government over the heterogeneous and foreign population might have been weakened to the point of danger.

The marked and plenary instructions of the colonial office with reference to the status of the Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia, suggest some mention of the subsequent career of that corporation in the community with whose beginning it was so closely identified. The present is an appropriate connection in which to include a statement of this character, for of all the relations which the company bore to the colony those involving the question of finances were the most provocative of dispute, while the features of the rule of Douglas of which the government of Great Britain took closest cognizance were those which concerned his dealings with the company, his former master. The financial problem resolved itself into the question whether the colony should be responsible for the debts contracted by the company in the initial stages of its rule on Vancouver Island. The position assumed towards Douglas by the imperial government in the other matter had a very patent explanation. From his seventeenth year Douglas had breathed no other atmosphere than that of the great fur-trading monopoly. It was impossible that he should see from any other point of view. If specific instances were wanted, they were furnished by the acts with which on the first discovery of gold in the Fraser Valley he had sought to impose a tribute for the company on the development which immediately set in. It will be remembered that, on the occasion referred to, Douglas had proclaimed that for vessels other than those of the company to navigate the waters of the Fraser was an infringement of the company's rights; and that in a proposal which his government vetoed he would have bound the Pacific Mail Company to carry the company's goods and no others. For acts like these, the fact that his first commission as governor was held in conjunction with the office of chief factor, was to blame, rather than Douglas himself. But even when his direct connection with the company had been severed, a spirit of partizanship was bound to continue and to render necessary the most stringent measures of prevention. How that spirit wrought in the bosom of the governor is well illustrated in a passage which occurs in one of his later despatches, which shows as much by its tone as by the words themselves, his attitude to his master of so many years:

"I will take the liberty," he wrote, "which I feel satisfied you will under the circumstances excuse, of correcting an erroneous impression which appears to pervade the public mind of England. I allude to the often asserted opinion that the Hudson's Bay Company have made an unjust and oppressive use of their power in this country, a statement which I can assure Her Majesty's government is altogether unfounded. On the contrary, it would be an easy matter to prove that they have been of signal service to their country, and that the British territory on the north-west coast is an acquisition won for the Crown entirely by the enterprise and energy of the Hudson's Bay Company. For, on commencing business operations in this quarter the whole coast was held by foreigners, and it is only since the year 1846 that the Hudson's Bay Company have derived any real protection from the license to trade, as until that epoch the trade was open to all citizens of the United States, in common with the Hudson's Bay Company. Perhaps you will excuse me saying this much, as a sense of justice leads me to exert the little influence I possess in protecting from injustice men who have served their country so well. At this moment I am making use of Hudson's Bay Company's establishments for every public office; and to their servants, for want of other means, I commit in perfect confidence the custody of public money."

As to the internal history of the company after the lapse of its special privileges in 1859, a few words will suffice. On the retirement of Douglas, Dallas became the president of the Victoria board of management, of which Work and Dugald Mc-Tavish were the other members, Ogden having died in 1854. Work died in 1861, and as Dallas had been moved to Rupert's Land, McTavish succeeded to the command, with Finlayson and Tolmie on his board of advisers. In 1870, McTavish was tranferred to Montreal to fill a place left vacant by the rise of Donald A. Smith in the service, and James A. Grahame became the head of the board. After Grahame, followed William Charles in 1874, with Alexander Monro as manager of lands. But the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the inflow of population, and the imposition of the Canadian tariff, revolutionized the old conditions of the trade. Winnipeg became the centre of the Western Department as of other portions of the company's domain, the railway permitting frequent visits from the chief commissioner in charge. To-day a series of well conducted retail stores in the leading centres of population as well as in the outposts of settlement are all that visibly remain, in the portions of the country that have been opened to industry, of the once all-powerful domination of the company in British Columbia.

At least one result of the early rule of the Hudson's Bay Company is so important as to warrant special mention. It may be laid wholly to its influence that the opening years of settlement in British Columbia were free from the terrible scenes of Indian outrage. How great was that good fortune may be understood by a glance at the mining history of California or the later chronicles of other of the western states. To the Indians of British Columbia the rush of 1858 took on the form of an armed and unprovoked invasion of their territory. As they had received payment previously for their furs, so now they demanded payment for the gold of their streams and mountains. Without the restraining influence of the company, the product of nearly half a century of intercourse centred now in Douglas as the Indians' trusted friend of many years, a war of extermination might easily have been launched against the whites, especially against the domineering and aggressive immigrants from the United States. Expeditions overland from Oregon in the early days of the inflow had been harassed and the stragglers cut off. On the Fraser, however, in spite of constant provocation from the American miners, no outbreak occurred for some time. An incipient collision was caused in 1858 by the murder of two Frenchmen on the trail above the canyons of the Fraser, but a band of miners which forced its way to the forks of the Thompson put the enemy to flight and was followed by a second detachment which concluded a treaty of peace with over two thousand natives between Spuzzum and the Thompson. Douglas, who was on his way to the diggings at the time of the disturbance, did not deem further action necessary. He had on a previous occasion stood between the miner and the Indian with an impartiality that took count of provocation on either side. The native leader, a man of unusual energy of character and corresponding influence with his tribe, had been taken subsequently into the service of the government, where he proved exceedingly useful in the settlement of other difficulties. The justice of the governor, who reminded the gold-seekers at every turn that their position was one of sufferance under Her Majesty's government, that no abuses would be tolerated, and that the law would protect the Indian no less than the white man, was the most effective instrument that could have been devised in the interests of peace. In a short time the Indians were engaged in the digging of gold in perfect harmony with the other miners at wages ranging from three to five dollars a day. Two massacres perpetrated by the Chilcotins in 1864 were almost the only later outbreaks that occurred. In other words, the fur trade had ceased to be, and the company had bequeathed to the industry that displaced it a docile and a useful native people.

One other gift, of curious interest to the ethnologist, the early traders handed down. Among the first difficulties of the commerce of the north-west coast, not the least was found in the surprising number of the native languages. Within the limited area of Oregon no less than twelve distinct linguistic stocks, utterly dissimilar in words and grammar, were represented, while many of these were further split up into dialects which often differed widely from each other. All alike were remarkable for harshness and obscurity of pronunciation and construction, besides being spoken over a very restricted space. To provide some common means of communication became an immediate necessity, if barter were to be established at all. The result was that a trade language, called afterwards the "Chinook jargon," grew into existence. Though the foreigners took no pains to learn the native languages, it inevitably happened that at Nootka, at first the chief emporium of the trade, a few words of the dialect there spoken became known, while the Indians were made familiar with a few English or Spanish expressions. When the trade shifted to the Columbia, the Chinooks, quick at catching sounds, acquired the new vocabulary, and the jargon in this elementary form was in use among the natives at as early a date as the visit of Lewis and Clark in 1804. Later, the Chinook language was drawn upon for additional words; the French-Canadian voyageur added his quota; and the jargon assumed a regular form, and became a means of general intercourse. In 1840, it contained about two hundred and fifty words, of which eighteen were of Nootka origin, forty-one were English, thirty-four French, and one hundred and eleven Chinook. By 1863 the number had doubled. Rude and formless as it was, it has been the source of great and varied benefits. Trade was made possible by it, friendly intercourse between the tribes was stimulated, many deadly feuds ehminated, and early missionary endeavour assisted. If not a model language, the jargon may at least have served to point the way to some higher invention for the uses of an advancing civilization.

The mention of the Indian and his jargon leads naturally to the subject of the missionary. How the Jesuits from Canada were among the first in Oregon has been already stated. From that time forward, the Roman Catholic Church has never ceased to labour in the vast field of the Pacific slope. Father Demers was on Vancouver Island prior to 1846. Before that, he had visited the Upper Fraser. When in 1847 he was made a bishop, his diocese included not only British Columbia, but Alaska as well. The first Protestant church in the colony was built by the Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria in 1855. The Methodist Church sent its first missionaries to British Columbia in 1859. Thomas Crosby, the greatest name among them, arrived in 1862. Opening a school at Nanaimo in 1863, Crosby had soon extended his influence over one hundred and eighty miles of the coast, and over the Fraser valley as far as Yale. In 1874 he removed to Fort Simpson, whence in time the field was extended over one hundred and fifty miles to the north. A year before Crosby's arrival, the Presbyterian Church had begun the work of evangelization among the Indians and the miners. Perhaps the most signal achievement of the missionaries was that of William Duncan, a layman sent out in 1856 under the auspices of the Church of England Missionary Society, to the savage Tsimpsean tribes of the northern coast. At Metlakahtla near Fort Simpson a thriving industrial community sprang up where before the coming of the missionary the most degraded natives of the coast were given over wholly to violence and superstition. Duncan's aims were evangelistic purely, and the collision which occurred with his ecclesiastical superiors led to the removal of his colony to Alaska after a prolonged and bitter controversy. To the clergy of the Church of England and of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who first entered the field of missionary labour in British Columbia, Douglas assigned a church, school and dwelling-house site forming a block of four building lots, or about an acre of land in extent, in all towns where they resided. He further recommended that free grants of one hundred acres of rural land should be made in aid of every cure in British Columbia. The Duke of Newcastle, however, with the experience of the Canadas in mind, while approving of the first arrangement, objected strongly to the practice of making free grants as endowments to livings.

While developments such as these were in progress in British Columbia, affairs on Vancouver Island were not devoid of incident. Victoria sank with the back-wave of the excitement of 1858, but rose again, this time on a more stable basis, with the discoveries of 1860-61 in Cariboo. The assembly met at leisurely intervals. Matter for a lengthy period of its debates was furnished in the proposed organization of a joint stock company to supply Victoria with water. Some useful wagon roads were built in the neighbouring district. A registration act was passed. Education received some attention. The miners temporarily resident in Victoria were placated, chiefly through the personal tact of the governor. With the increase in population and the growth of political issues, the need for newspapers was felt; and the British Colonist was founded in 1858, soon ranging itself, under the editorship of Amor de Cosmos, in an opposition, not always consistent, to the governor and the council. Among the early occasions of this opposition was an incident which well illustrates the temper of the times, the character of Douglas and the nature of the rule which he maintained.

The legislative assembly of the colony had originally held its sessions in a building belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, which served at once for the meetings of the House and as the offices of government. More commodious quarters becoming necessary, the governor proceeded to supply the want after the manner that seemed fitting. On due thought, the land beyond James Bay commended itself as a site, and a bridge was forthwith thrown across to connect it with the city. As the assembly was not asked for an appropriation (the Hudson's Bay Company as the proprietors of the island contributing the necessary funds under the arrangement of 1849 with the home government), its consent to the change was not deemed necessary. It soon appeared, however, that the assembly did not share this view. Resentment at the governor's attitude ran high, and, in a resolution passed to protest against the removal of the buildings, the action of Douglas was denounced as unconstitutional and a breach of privilege. The governor's reply was characteristic. The assembly had borne no share of the financial burden involved in this or other colonial improvements; as for the bridge, it was the plain prerogative of the Crown to build bridges wherever the public convenience demanded, provided that no private rights were invaded. He added an explanation of the reasons which had dictated his choice of a site. The position of the governor, under the existing constitution of the colony, was impregnable, and the assembly had no alternative but to yield. It may be added that time has set its seal of approval on the governor's action; and the present stately buildings of the province, erected in 1893, stand on the pleasant and convenient ground that was selected by Douglas half a century ago.

Other matters which engaged the attention of the island legislature in its early years were, the legalizing of United States currency, the payment of the liabilities of the colony, and the question of clergy reserves. The first was a plain necessity. In connection with the finances of the colony, the assembly from the first refused to become liable for the debts incurred during the regime of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the latter was left to settle its claims with the home government. The question of clergy reserves arose out of the original agreement between the Hudson's Bay Company and its clergyman on the island. Under this arrangement the major part (£300 of a total of £400) of the latter's stipend was to be derived from the sale of public lands at that time under the administration of the company. On the extinguishment of the company's title in 1859, the question of the continuance of this arrangement at once arose. The appointment of the then incumbent of the office had been intended, it appeared, as a permanent one; and it was necessary therefore to provide for his emolument. There can be little doubt that if it had not been for the prompt and almost violent antagonism which was manifested, the situation would have drifted imperceptibly into that of a state-supported clergy. A reserve in excess of two thousand acres had been already set apart in Victoria alone, and the appointment of a bishop and two other clergymen authorized by the home government. The House of Assembly, however, refused without popular warrant to confirm the continuance of the old arrangement; and in the end even the grant of one hundred acres which it was proposed to make to the clergyman of the company was reduced to thirty and transferred under trustees to the local church. His salary was thenceforth paid by the contributions of his congregation alone, supplemented by missionary funds sent out from England.

Shortly after this signal service to the colony, the first parliament of Vancouver Island was prorogued, the date being November, 1859. The elections followed in January, I860, and the new House, of thirteen members, met about two months later. Helmcken alone of the former assembly was re-elected; and he was continued in the Speaker's chair. The second legislature lasted until 1863, when it was succeeded by the third House, which in turn continued until the union of the two colonies in 1866.

To the period of the dual governorship belong the more important of an extended series of negotiations having to do with the interpretation and enforcement of the Oregon boundary treaty concluded in 1846. The San Juan affair (for by that title the incident in question is usually known) had its root, as will be understood, in times remote, and its final solution was not reached until some years after Douglas had closed his official career. It may be dealt with in its entirety here, as, apart from its intrinsic interest, it presents almost the sole view of Douglas, in the higher sphere of international politics, under stress of a delicate and at times dangerous situation.

It will be remembered that by the treaty of 1846, the 49th parallel of latitude had been accepted as the boundary between the United States and British territory from the Rocky Mountains to the centre of the channel which divides Vancouver Island from the mainland. From that point, it was agreed, the line was to continue by the middle of the channel southward to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, by the middle of which in turn it should proceed to the Pacific. Now, in the southern portion of the Gulf of Georgia, below the point at which the 49th parallel ceases as above to mark the frontier, the Haro archipelago occurs; and as a result of the configuration of these islands a choice of passages was offered by which the boundary might reach the lower waterway. At the time of the treaty only two of these straits had been surveyed: the Canal de Haro, so named, as the archipelago itself was named, from the Spanish explorer,—a strait seven miles in breadth, between the group and Vancouver Island; and the channel to the east, of half the width, known as Rosario Strait,—otherwise as Vancouver Strait, Ringgold's Channel, or the Canal de Fidalgo. The question immediately presented itself as to which of these was intended to mark the boundary by the treaty of 1846, the point involving the ownership of the archipelago mentioned, made up of three large and several smaller islands, of which San Juan, the most valuable, contained about fifty thousand acres. Though both nations, through over twenty years of controversy, as wearisome as it was long drawn out, attempted to prove that a definite understanding existed at the time the treaty was agreed to, it is obvious that the language of 1846 left room for dispute and that neither of the governments in that year took cognizance of the exact path of the boundary as it passed from the Gulf of Georgia to the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

The various steps by which the issue became sharply defined, covering in all the first ten years of the dispute, were briefly as follows. About the time of the founding of Victoria, and as a part of the general policy involved in that development, the Hudson's Bay Company had landed a number of sheep and cattle on the Island of San Juan. The colony prospered, and within a few years' time not less than several thousand head of live stock, including sheep, cattle, swine and horses, were included in the company's establishment. A salmon fishery also was erected in 1851, and the Americans who had already begun to frequent the island were warned to fish inshore. Thus matters remained for a year longer, when the legislature of Oregon proceeded to organize the archipelago, without reference to any political significance which the operations of the British company might have, as a portion of its domain. Again, in 1853, when the territory of Washington took form, the islands passed, or were regarded by the continental authorities as passing, under the new jurisdiction. No outward change in conditions, however, occurred until 1854 when an attempt to levy duties by the United States authorities on stock imported by the company led to a sharp dispute between the latter and the officer deputed to enforce the tax. This brought Douglas for a brief time on the scene, but had little effect beyond calling forth an idle assertion of sovereignty on the part of each nation. No actual collection was made at the time. In 1855, however, thirty or more sheep of the company were seized and sold at auction by the sheriff of Whatcom County, Washington. This at once brought the affair into international prominence; and in 1856 commissioners were appointed by Great Britain and the United States to examine into the data bearing thereon. Pending the expected settlement, by order of the Secretary of State for the United States, no taxes were enforced on San Juan, though the island was not acknowledged as a British possession. A curious amenity during these early years was the protection cheerfully afforded by the company to the United States officials from the roving bands of Indians whose descents were always of peculiar danger to the "Boston" frontiersmen.

The commissioners appointed by Great Britain were Captains Prevost and Richards of the Royal Navy, the former of whom arrived in H.M.S. Satellite in June, 1857. The latter reached Victoria in H.M.S. Plumper a few months later and at once began an extended series of explorations and surveys for the carrying out of which he had been specially delegated. Mr. Archibald Campbell, with a staff of astronomers and engineers, represented the United States. By December, 1857, six formal meetings had been held by the commissioners, ending in a complete disagreement. The treaty, as interpreted by the British, demanded that the channel constituting the boundary from the 49th parallel southward should possess three characteristics: (1) it should separate the continent from Vancouver Island; (2) it should admit of the boundary being carried through it in a southerly direction; and (3) it should be a navigable channel. In the light of these requirements, it was urged against the Canal de Haro and in favour of Rosario Strait that the former could not be said to separate Vancouver Island from the mainland, seeing that the separation was already effected by the other channel ; that a line drawn through the Canal de Haro must perforce run westerly for a considerable distance; that though the Haro channel answered to the third demand, yet, from the rapidity and variableness of its currents and its lack of anchorages, it was less suitable for the navigation of sailing vessels than Rosario Strait, which was the channel followed by the vessels of the Hudson's Bay Company since 1825. The occupation of San Juan by the company for so many years was also held to bind the island to the British colony. On the other hand, the American commissioners contended that of the several navigable passages connecting the Gulf of Georgia with the Straits of Fuca, the Canal de Haro was preeminent in width, depth, and volume of water; that it was the one usually designated on the maps in use at the time the treaty was under consideration; that the other navigable channels through the archipelago separated mere groups of islands from each other; and that the Canal de Haro, since it washed the shores of Vancouver Island, was the only one that could be said to divide the continent from that island. The objection that the Canal de Haro would not throughout its entire course carry the boundary line in a southerly direction was not, in the American view, well taken, seeing that the word "southerly" was applied in the treaty equally to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the general course of which lay north by west. In brief, it appeared to the United States that the deflection of the boundary from the 49th parallel was sanctioned by the treaty with the intention of securing Vancouver Island alone to Great Britain and that with this broad principle in view the archipelago should be considered as belonging to the mainland and not to the great coastal island.

Two years had been consumed in these and other fruitless negotiations, for though a central passage navigable to ships had been discovered by the British survey party and proposed to the United States by way of compromise no tangible result had followed. Meanwhile a number of squatters, consisting mainly of American miners on their return from the Fraser diggings, had settled on San Juan Island. In the year 1859 they totaled some twenty-nine, as opposed to nineteen servants of the company. It was a collision between these diverse local interests that brought on the most acute phase of the dispute—a phase which but for the conspicuous tact of the British authorities on the spot might easily have plunged the nations into war.

It seems that an American named Cutler who had settled on the island in 1859 was much annoyed by the depredations of a hog belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, and had shot and killed the animal. Of the altercation which followed various accounts have survived. According to one, the arrest of Cutler and his removal to Victoria for trial was threatened. At least it was demanded by the company that a stipendiary magistrate should be stationed on the island. The then commander of the military department of Oregon was General Harney, a popular but injudicious officer, whose southern origin has led to the suspicion that on the eve of the war of secession he would have viewed with equanimity the sowing of strife between the United States and England. The news of the Cutler affair reaching his ears during a visit to San Juan, he accepted the version most unfavourable to the British authorities, and, without mandate from Washington, transferred a company of his command to the island, for the protection, as he alleged, of its American citizens. Other detachments followed until the troops on San Juan reached a total of four hundred and sixty-one, with eight thirty-two pounders. A request from the governor for the withdrawal of the force met with a peremptory refusal, in the first instance from Pickett, the officer in charge, and afterwards from Harney himself. A suggestion of a joint military occupation subsequently made by Douglas was also refused in terms that gave just grounds for indignation. At Victoria the excitement was for a time intense and the presence of the Plumper, Satellite, Tribune and other British ships of war, having on board a force greatly superior to that which held San Juan, would easily, under the provocation of the moment, have precipitated an encounter but for the patience of those in command. Under the statesmanlike policy that was adopted, only a single vessel at a time was kept in San Juan harbour, for show of occupation, while the rest were held at a safe distance. When the details of the affair reached Washington, the fruits of this forbearance were quickly reaped. An official investigation was conducted on the spot; Harney was ultimately recalled; the officer who had given offence on San Juan was removed; the American troops were for the most part withdrawn; and an arrangement was entered into by which a force of British equal in numbers to those that were left were landed without opposition on the island. For twelve years the joint occupation was continued amid perfect harmony and good-will.

The dispute, thus stripped of the element of danger, continued for a short time longer to engage the attention of the British minister and the secretary of state at Washington, and then lapsed into oblivion with the outbreak of the American civil war. It revived for a moment in 1866; and in 1869 gathered so much notice as to suggest its reference to the president of the Swiss republic. It was still unsettled, however, in 1871, when a joint high commission met at Washington to consider this and other questions affecting the relations of the United States and Great Britain in North America. After a renewed discussion, as interminable as the first, it was agreed that the whole affair should be submitted to the arbitration of the German Emperor. Prevost was again the British representative at Berlin, while Bancroft, the historian, acted for the United States. Reports of experts were obtained and the question was debated anew from every standpoint. Finally, the Emperor declared his award in favour of the United States. The date was October 21st, 1872. In British Columbia, where the result was accepted with equanimity, though not without keen sense of loss, the hand of time had wrought many changes since the excitement of 1859, and the colony was now a province of the young Dominion.

In the annual message of President Grant in the following year the award was hailed with special satisfaction as leaving the two countries for the first time in history without a question of disputed territory on this continent. The remark was premature. It was only shortly after that the boundary between Alaska and the Dominion was called in question, to remain a subject of negotiations until 1903. The Behring Sea dispute, moreover, had still to arise and run its fevered course until its settlement under the Paris award of 1897.

It is also to the later years of the rule of Douglas, and to the history at large of the two colonies, that the wonderful story of Cariboo belongs. The tale has been often told. It is well worthy of telling by the historian of British Columbia, seeing that the Cariboo placers gave permanency, as the Eraser and Thompson diggings had given form, to the mainland colony. The bars of the Fraser, in fact, began to fail within a few months of their discovery. Population had no sooner reached its highest flow than it began to ebb. This was perhaps inevitable from the very magnitude of the movement. But into the spirit of the country, already sinking, new vigour was instilled at the magic bidding of gold. To the miners pushing on to the remote and inaccessible headwaters of the Eraser, where in their fancy lay the coarse metal of which the lower diggings held but the sandy effluent, the reward came in a series of finds that opened at once a new era in gold-mining. In the autumn of 1859 the first strikes on the Quesnel were reported. Richer and richer discoveries followed, and in six months the famous Cariboo rush of 1860 had begun. The excitement drew upon a much wider field than that of 1858, though it never brought so large and tumultuous an army. From the ends of the earth they came, by sea around Cape Horn, by the Isthmus of Panama (this being the favourite passage), and by caravan across the prairies. From Canada the route lay by Chicago to St Paul, thence by water to Fort Garry, thence by the trails of the fur traders, a desperately difficult journey, as the narratives of several parties attest. Rival agencies of transport to the diggings fought for the traffic; and frauds upon the ignorant abounded. For five years the inflow, though varying, was constant. Most important of all, the immigrants counted many well fitted by birth and training to give a solid basis to the country which was to be theirs long after every creek of the north had yielded up the lure that first attracted them.

The region thus forced upon the attention of the world may be roughly described as the high, wooded plateau that lies between the sources of the Fraser and the Thompson and is contained between the upper reaches of these waters as they move towards their junction. The Bear, the Willow, the Cottonwood and the Quesnel, radiating from the auriferous slate of the Snowshoe Mountains and falling into the Fraser, are its four great rivers, all alike famous from the wealth of the tributaries on which the diggings of the new field were established. It will be seen that the district penetrated into the very heart of New Caledonia, where, since the days of Conolly and Douglas, the Hudson's Bay Company had held the even and prosperous tenor of its way: first under the command of Dease, famous for his discoveries on the Upper Liard and for his Arctic voyages; later under Ogden, wit as well as trader and organizer, and destined, as we have seen, to a larger r61e in Oregon; and at the last under Manson, who for twelve years of diminishing profits held the reins of power in that most desolate of all the company's dominions. Needless to add, the rush into the Cariboo, overflowing soon after to Omineca and Cassiar, sounded the death-knell of the fur trade, already thrust back from the southern districts by the events of the preceding years.

Apart from their richness, a radical change in the method of working contributed not a little to the success of the Cariboo placers. On the lower Fraser, the rocker and the sluice alone had been employed, and operations were confined almost wholly to the surface. In the Cariboo, deep mining was at once introduced; and by shafts, drifts, pumps and hoists the gold-laden earth was brought to the surface. So rich was the result that before the end of the second year two million dollars worth of coarse nuggets had been shipped to Victoria by the fifteen hundred miners of the district, and Cariboo had taken a secure place in history by the side of Ballarat and the Sacramento.

It would be impossible here to trace the steps by which the various camps were opened and the country stripped of its treasure. But the most famous must at least be named. Each creek had a history of its own. Quesnel Forks was the earliest locality to develop into a permanent camp. A party of five with two rockers took out a hundred ounces of gold in a single week, and mining at this point continued for several years. On Cedar and Horsefly Creeks, southern tributaries of the Quesnel, several claims, among them the "Aurora," yielded equal returns. The movement spread also in 1860 to the Bear River. In January, 1861, came the extraordinary finds on Antler Creek, followed in the spring by those on the Harvey, Keithley, Cunningham and Grouse, all the latter streams flowing from the north into the Quesnel. The rush now overflowed to the Willow and the Cottonwood. Barkerville sprang up on Williams Creek in the midst of a district fabulously rich, and has since remained the centre of distribution in Cariboo. The Lowhee and Lightning Creek camps followed. In 1862 the number of miners had risen to five thousand and the output to three millions. Both of these totals were exceeded in 1863; but after 1864 population and gold alike began to decline. In 1867, however, there were still no less than sixty paying claims in operation, and several of the mines continued to produce for many years. In Omineca and Cassiar the excitement did not reach its height until 1871 and had subsided by 1875; but in no year were the results so extraordinary as in Cariboo from which in the first seven years alone an aggregate yield of twenty-five millions was taken. J The gold occurred chiefly in a deposit of blue clay underlying the beds of the creeks, many of which might literally be said to have been paved with the metal. Individual earnings were astounding. Over one thousand dollars a day were made by many. Six hundred dollars to the single pan were recorded. One party took over seven hundred ounces in two days, and in two months had heaped up a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold. The difficulties were correspondingly enormous. Joined to the inaccessibility of the region, the shortness of the season and the terrible severity of the winters, the periodical floods and the depth at which the gold occurred made the workings all but impossible to the average gold-miner. Prices in the early days, when means of transportation in the winter were-limited to dog sleds between Alexandria and Antler, rose to an extraordinary level. Flour was $72 per barrel; beans 45 cents per pound ; and bacon 68 cents per pound. To this the end came with the construction of the Cariboo wagon road. On the whole, it is believed that of the army which invaded Cariboo during 1860-63 one-third returned with nothing, one-third with moderate earnings and the rest with independent fortunes. Terrific feats of endurance were recorded of the men who under the spell of the gold mania struggled against the tangled forests, the yawning canyons and the precipitous mountains covered with snow which made up the region; struggled, too, against the starvation of body and soul that was the miners' lot, bereft as they were of kindly human intercourse, ruled by the law of the beast, and in the end doomed either to disappointment, or, if success were won, to the folly or viciousness that too often seemed its necessary part. Truly if the web of that story is of romance, the woof is of tragedy. Yet it was here the colony struck root; and almost every name in its early annals, excepting those of the fur traders, is associated with the stirring history of the gold-fields of Cariboo.

It was in the year in which the first decline in Cariboo became apparent that the active connection of Douglas with the administration of the two colonies terminated. In the case of Vancouver Island his commission lapsed through the efflux of time in September, 1863. The occasion was marked by popular demonstrations unmistakably sincere; and the crowning honour of his career came in the knighthood conferred upon him by the Queen. He was succeeded by Arthur Kennedy, Esq., who took up the duties of office in the following March. In connection with the retirement of Douglas from the governorship of the mainland colony, which did not occur until 1864, a number of incidents of first importance in the history of the colony require to be mentioned.

As early as 1861, the dual governorship had caused dissatisfaction in British Columbia. Narrow as was the authority of the assembly of Vancouver Island, it was at least a visible recognition of the people's inherent right to govern. On the mainland nothing of the sort existed, the governor being the maker, as, with the assistance of the officials sent from England, he was also the administrator, of the laws. Sectional jealousy, especially that of the leading towns, rather than any deeply reasoned wish for similar institutions, led to an agitation, and the feeling eventually took form in a petition which asked among other things for the establishment of a representative assembly. It will be of interest to note what were regarded by the residents of the lower Fraser as the chief grounds for criticism of the manner in which their government was administered. As described by Douglas himself in his official report on the matter they were as follows :

1. That the governor, colonial secretary and attorney-general did not reside permanently in British Columbia.

2. That the taxes on goods were excessive as compared with the population (the latter being estimated at seven thousand, exclusive of Indians) and were in part levied on boatmen, who derived no benefit from them. The absence of a land tax was also complained of.

3. That the progress of Victoria was stimulated at the expense of British Columbia, and that no encouragement was given to shipbuilding, the leading industry of New Westminster, or to the foreign trade of the colony.

4. That money had been injudiciously spent on public works, and that contracts had been given without public notice, with the result that they were subsequently sublet at a much lower rate.

5. That faulty administration had been made of the public lands, several sections which had been declared public reserves having been afterwards claimed by parties connected with the colonial government.

6. The want of a registry office for the recording of transfers and mortgages was pointed out.

The reply of the governor to the first of these complaints was, that he had spared no exertion in his divided duty to promote the interests of both colonies, and that he had not consciously neglected any opportunity of adding to the prosperity of either. As for the other members of the executive, their offices, if confined to British Columbia alone, would be little better than sinecures. The taxation of the colony as compared, for example, with that of the neighbouring state of Washington, was not excessive, and had been spent on roads and public works in a manner that had materially reduced the general cost of living; moreover the population including Chinamen was ten thousand, or, including Indians (who, inasmuch as they were becoming more and more consumers of imported goods, were entitled to be classed with the other inhabitants), some thirty thousand, so that the rate was £2 per capita instead of £7 10s. as complained of. The remission of duty on shipbuilding material, it was pointed out, would open the door to injustice and discontent, and would do little good to New Westminster as long as the timber business remained a monopoly in the hands of a few persons. Clauses four and five were declared to be wholly unfounded. With regard to the final grievance, a measure providing means for the registration of real estate, the governor promised, would be passed at the earliest moment practicable, the delay having arisen only through the peculiar difficulties of the situation.

On the broad question of the adoption of representative institutions, Douglas was of the opinion that the fixed population of the colony was too small and of too motley a character to render the experiment feasible. The British residents were few in number; there was no manufacturing or farming class; the lumbering and salmon-curing industries which to-day are so important in the Fraser valley had not yet been called into existence; and the traders who constituted the only body in the colony which was not migratory had comparatively a small interest in its development. As a matter of fact New Westminster had in 1862 only one hundred and sixty-four male adults, Hope but one hundred and eight, and Douglas but thirty-three ; and these were the only centres which had definitely expressed approval of the change. The governor's avowed intention had been to proceed by degrees to the establishment of popular institutions, through the formation of municipal councils to serve as training schools for the people prior to the adoption of the larger idea of a colonial assembly.

There was, in fact, a radical difference in the position of the two colonies at this early time of which the discontent on the mainland took too little account. The island had the trades, professions and real estate of its inhabitants on which to levy taxes. British Columbia had its gold alone ; and a duty on the supplies carried inland formed its most obvious means of revenue. The imposition of a tariff had the advantage also of arousing no opposition from the miners, who were the sole support of the colony, and whose requirements in the way of roads rendered a large expenditure necessary. A free trade policy, on the other hand, was essential to Victoria, barred as the city was from the mother country by distance and from the United States by a hostile tariff, in order that the British Columbia market at least might fall to her share. She was the centre of population, the seat of trade, the nucleus of colonization, and the chief source of revenue in the British settlements of the Pacific; to maintain this position it was necessary that she should remain the general marketing place of those possessions. The position of the governor, therefore, if it afforded a unique opportunity from the standpoint of the colonies' interests as a whole, was of no ordinary difficulty in view of the opposing policies which it was his duty if possible to reconcile.

The arguments which Douglas advanced on the occasion of the discontent of 1861 did not ultimately prevail. When the day of his retirement arrived in 1863, the colonial office lost no time in deciding that separate governors for the colonies were a necessity. The decision may have been prompted by the difficulty of securing an officer equal to the task of Douglas; but it was still more largely due to the inherent weakness of the original arrangement. So, also, it was resolved that at least the first step towards the adoption of representative institutions must be taken without further delay. The suggestion of Douglas that the end should be reached through the formation of municipal councils was not approved; but at least it was perceived, though with avowed reluctance, that the approach to an elective assembly must be gradual. The avenue which suggested itself was the organization of a legislative council on a somewhat novel basis. The power of nominating the council was to be vested in the governor; but he was directed at the same time to so exercise that power as to constitute of the council a partially representative body. This end, it was thought, would be secured if one-third of the council was to consist of the executive, one-third of magistrates from different parts of the colony, and the balance of representatives of the people. The plan, it was admitted, did not overcome the difficulties arising out of the migratory nature of the population; but it was preferred with its imperfections to any untried arrangement. The matter of evolving a working plan for securing the popular representation,—whether by ascertaining informally the opinion of the residents in each locality, by bringing the matter before public meetings, or (as in Ceylon) by accepting the nominee of certain corporate bodies or societies,—was left to the wisdom of the governor. To inaugurate the scheme an extension of one year's time was made to the commission of Douglas as governor of British Columbia.

The fact that the truest interests of the colonies lay in union was not overlooked by the government of Great Britain in advising this arrangement. Economy and efficiency of administration, the development of political capacity, and the promotion of commerce, called with one voice for solidarity. In salaries alone the saving would have been considerable. In each, the governor received £3,000, and the chief-justice £1,200. The colonial secretary received in Vancouver Island £600, and in British Columbia £800; the attorneys-general, £300 and £500, respectively ; the treasurers, £600 and £750, respectively; and the surveyors-general, £500 and £800, respectively. In addition, British Columbia had a collector of customs at £650; a chief inspector of police at £500, and a registrar of deeds at £500. Douglas in a despatch written a few months before the end of his official term strongly advocated union. For the time, however, local prejudices proved too strong; and Frederick Seymour, formerly governor of Honduras, was appointed to succeed Sir James in the governorship of British Columbia.

In a previous chapter the words were given of the address with which Douglas as governor of Vancouver Island opened the first assembly of that colony. The speech with which he greeted the first meeting of a representative body on the mainland, is of no inferior interest as reflecting current opinions and conditions. The date was January 21st, 1864. The withholding of popular institutions, he declared, during the infancy of the colony, had been prompted only by regard for its happiness and prosperity. A vigorous prosecution of public works was urged for the purpose of giving value to the waste lands of the colony. For the increase of population public lands had been thrown open to settlement, and every effort made to promote the development of the country, though thus far with unsatisfactory results. From the Indians, favourable reports had been received; reserves based on a maximum allowance of ten acres for each family had been already set aside for them. The opening of postal and telegraphic communications between British Columbia and the head of Lake Superior was foreshadowed. Appropriations for education and religious purposes were recommended, with a disclaimer added of any desire to see an endowed church in the colony. Finally, the expenditures of the past year, amounting in all to £192,860 (of which £83,937 had been spent on roads and £31,615 on civil establishment) were laid before the council. The revenue to meet this was but £110,000 of which over half was derived from customs dues. Of the deficit, £65,805 had been met by loans, a sum which still left £17,055 to be accounted for, besides an additional £10,700 due to the imperial government for the expenses of the Royal Engineers. For 1864, the expenditures were estimated at £107,910 and the income at £120,000, though no provision was made in the former for the maintenance of a gold escort or for the erection of further public works. The address concluded with an appeal to the council for advice on this pressing problem of finances.

It will be of interest to notice before leaving this part of the subject the steps by which the union, after over three years of further intermittent discussion, was achieved. In the beginning the movement was confined entirely to Vancouver Island, where by the year 1865 it had gathered not a little force, the assembly voting strongly in its favour and being willing to leave the question of a constitution unreservedly to the home government. The relations of council and assembly in the island colony had not been altogether happy. There was no medium between the governor and the assembly, and the time of the council was occupied for the most part in correcting the mistakes and undoing the crude legislation of the lower house. The decline of trade which accompanied the exhaustion of the bars of the Fraser, and the fact that the Cariboo mines were never a poor man's diggings and therefore did not attract more than a comparatively small population, had also led in large part to the dissatisfaction felt in Victoria, where the most of the supplies for the mines were sold. Victoria, moreover, had had no share in the important developments which followed in 1864 the discoveries of the Kootenay district, situated about five hundred miles due east of New Westminster and yielding for a time during the " Big Bend" rush, a total revenue to the public treasury of not less than £1,000 a week. The entire supplies for these were secured by the way of New Westminster or the Columbia. The mines even attracted many from Victoria's best customer, Cariboo.

On the other hand there were several reasons why the mainland colony should for the time look askance upon the idea of union. The year 1865 was one of exceptional progress in the opening up of the country. The trail from the Fraser to Kootenay, surmounting three ranges of mountains and not only affording access to the mines but establishing a new route through the Kootenay pass from the Pacific to the Hudson's Bay lands beyond the mountains, was in itself a work which might well infuse self-confidence even into a struggling colony. By the end of 1865 New Westminster was connected with the whole telegraphic system of the United States, Canada and Newfoundland, and with Cariboo. The constitution of 1863 had been successfully placed in operation, the popular candidates being elected at public meetings called by the magistrates. But the real opposition to union lay in the rivalry of Victoria and New Westminster for the honour of being chosen as the capital, and the fear which the latter had of being supplanted by the older, wealthier and more influential community. Being almost the sole municipality which found a voice, New Westminster was able for some time to combat successfully all agitation for union. The upper country cared little whether the colonies were one or separate. But on the lower Fraser it came at last to be felt that the uncertainty was interfering seriously with progress.

In 1866, a petition in favour of union was signed by four hundred and forty-five persons, and there was probably a much wider feeling had it been able to make itself heard. In the end the British government decided the question, and the authority of the executive government and council of British Columbia was extended over Vancouver Island, the number of members of the council being increased to twenty-three. The customs regulations of the mainland colony were likewise extended to the island. Other ordinances remained for a time as before. The original authority of the governor to make regulations for peace, order and good government was not restricted. The Act bore date of August 6th, 1866. A short time after, the attorney-general of Vancouver Island introduced a bill for assimilating its laws with those of British Columbia. There then remained only the question of the seat of government—a rock which the Act of union had discreetly avoided. Amid the violent altercations of partisans, the choice fell on Victoria, and though the bitterness of the defeat rankled long on the mainland no effort subsequently availed to secure a reversion of the decision.

The foregoing outline of the process by which British Columbia, as we know it to-day, attained its united form, has gone somewhat beyond the time when the man who had brought order out of the chaos and had been the chief agent in shaping the progress of the colony in the course it has since pursued, laid down the direction of its affairs. With the setting in active motion of the forces which resulted in union, Sir James Douglas passed from the scene. It is a moment of solemnity, for communities as for individuals, when the past is cast off forever. How large a part was Douglas of all that had happened since the birth of the two colonies has been sufficiently shown. But there was an added reason why his retirement at this time was of no ordinary significance, little though the change was marked by outward or immediate results. The spirit of that old time force, the Hudson's Bay Company, which had been the first to conquer the tremendous barriers by which nature has divided the Pacific slope from the rest of the continent, which had subdued the intractable native, and had opened the first pathway for civilization to the western ocean, lived and breathed in Sir James Douglas. It died only with his passing. The change was for better things, as the future was soon to show, but that this was possible is a tribute to the wisdom with which the foundations had been laid.