In the Colony of British Columbia during the 1860s, Governor Douglas had three priorities to protect the two colonies he governed: to protect the boundaries, to uphold law and order, and to provide access to the gold fields. In 1859, the Pig War together with McGowan's War the previous year, underlined concerns that American settlers might challenge the British jurisdictions. After the native population in the Washington Territory was devastated and the annexed land was opened to colonization, its colonist population grew rapidly to more than 11,000. General William Harney, after meeting with Douglas, reported to Washington that the population of the colony was largely American with few British and that it would soon be a commercial necessity for the colonists to yield Vancouver Island to the U.S. government. In these circumstances, Douglas enhanced the limited military capability of the Royal Engineers and developed the office of gold commissioner buttressed by the periodic visits of a traveling judge.