Remember the seizure of Steamship Beaver and Brigantine Mary Dare in 1851? This, from a letter by W.F. Tolmie, Jan. 3, 1852: The cause of seizure was most frivolous, and much as I think no Collector... would have acted upon, if he properly understood his duty or felt disposed to perform it in a fair and honourable way. Unfortunately for the Company, Collector Moses, as well as his assistants, were new to the business, and he had on arrival been duped by reports that the Company were in the habit of smuggling; indeed a few days prior to the seizures, an American who is endeavouring to found a city on the Companys lands near Steilacoom, mentioned at Olympia that the schooner Cadboro was then at Puyallip Bay 15 miles by land from Nisqually, discharging a cargo of goods which I was getting conveyed to the Fort by night, in Indian canoes and overland with packhorses. The Collector, on receiving this intelligence, left a wedding party where, with his subordinates he was enjoying himself, and dispatched at midnight an armed forced to seize the imaginary smuggling schooner which they of course could not find, neither could a detachment of the force, sent back by land, make any discoveries corroborative of the rumoured smuggling. The Collector was in consequence laughed at about his Puyallip expedition by the better disposed of the Olympians but the failure probably but served as an additional incentive to display his new acquired authority on the earliest opportunity, and [fas ant refus?] to involve the Company in trouble. I feel perfectly convinced that upright dealing towards us was what neither the Collector, nor his deputy contemplated from the first. Evidence of their evil intentions appears in my letter to Mr. Barclay above referred to [which I do not yet have], and a further proof was given in an unguarded admission made to me on the 11th Decr by the [Asst?] Collector that the reason why they had not suggested to Captain [Stuart] the necessity of producing a list of the trade goods on board the Steamer, was because they considered it a good policy [and/to] strengthen their own case.... This, unluckily, was not said in the presence of witnesses.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 20:59:55 +0000
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