VIEW OF VICTORIA, VANCOUVER ISLAND
As the capital of the islandm Victoria undoubtedly owes its pre-eminence to Mr. Douglas, the present governor. As far bachk as 1843, when it was considered desirable by the Company to establish a station in the island, Victoria had been selected by him for that purposes; and later, when the Oregon boundary question was settled, and the mouth of the River Columbia, on which Fort Vancouver, the pricipal station of the Company in West America, stood, fell into the hands of the United Statesm it was to Victoria that their head-quarters were transferred.

R. C. Mayne, Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island, London, 1862