Note 113 — Chapter V · [1] (continued 2)

The sale of spirituous liquors to Indians, during the days of the competition between the fur-companies (see preface to J. Long’s Voyages in our volume ii) was so ruinous and dangerous that early in the nineteenth century the North West Company, moved by the exertions of William Wilberforce and other English philanthropists, made strong efforts to discontinue the traffic, and upon its consolidation with the Hudson’s Bay Company (1821) the liquor-selling to natives was forbidden. Surreptitiously, however, this was continued, especially upon the seacoast and the Russian frontier. Upon the assassination of John McLoughlin, Jr., at his post at Stikeen, caused by a drunken frolic (1842), Sir George Simpson visited Sitka and entered into an agreement with the Russian governor Adolphus Etholin, to suppress the sale of liquor to the Indians in both Russian and British territory. Meanwhile Dr. McLoughlin at Vancouver, used his best endeavors to stamp out the traffic in Oregon. The vessel purchased (1841) as Farnham here narrates, was the “Thomas H. Perkins” from Salem, Mass. The Oregon provisional government made similar efforts, passing a prohibitory law (1844) under which two incipient distilleries were destroyed. Not until the rush of settlement coming with the gold seekers (1848-50) began, did the liquor traffic gain much foothold.—Ed.