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THE
OREGON TERRITORY,
ITS
HISTORY AND DISCOVERY;
INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE CONVENTION OF THE ESCURIAL,
ALSO,
THE TREATIES AND NEGOTIATIONS
BETWEEN
THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN,
HELD AT VARIOUS TIMES FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF
A BOUNDARY LINE,
AND
AN EXAMINATION OF THE WHOLE QUESTION
IN RESPECT TO
FACTS AND THE LAW OF NATIONS.
BY
TRAVERS TWISS, D.C.L., F.R.S.,
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
AND ADVOCATE IN DOCTORS' COMMONS.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO., 200 BROADWAY.
PHILADELPHIA:
GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET.
CINCINNATI:--DERBY, BRADLEY & CO., 113 MAIN-STREET.
MDCCCXLVI.
PREFACE.
The object which the author had in view, in instituting the accompanying
inquiry into the historical facts and the negotiations connected with the
Oregon Territory, was to contribute, as far as his individual services
might avail, to the peaceful solution of the question at issue between the
United States of America and Great Britain. He could not resist the
conviction, on reading several able treatises on the subject, that the
case of the United States had been overstated by her writers and
negotiators; and the perusal of Mr. Greenhow's Official Memoir, and
subsequent History of Oregon and California, confirmed him in this
impression, as they sought to establish more than was consistent with the
acknowledged difficulty of a question, which has now been the subject of
four fruitless negotiations. He determined, in consequence of this
conviction, to investigate carefully the records of ancient discoveries
and other matters of history connected with the North-west coast of
America, concerning which much contradictory statement is to be met with
in writers of acknowledged reputation. The result is, the present work,
which has unavoidably assumed a much larger bulk than was anticipated by
the author when he commenced the inquiry: it is hoped, however, that the
arrangement of the chapters will enable the reader to select, without
difficulty, those portions of the subject which he may deem to be most
deserving of his attention.
The expeditions of Drake and of Gali have thus necessarily come under
consideration; and the views of the author will be found to differ, in
respect to both these navigators, from those advanced by Mr. Greenhow,
more especially in respect to Drake. Had the author noticed at an earlier
period Mr. Greenhow's remark in the Preface to the second edition of his
History, that he has "never deviated from the rule of not citing
authorities at second-hand," he would have thought it right to apologise
for attributing the incorrectness of Mr. Greenhow's statements as to the
respective accounts of Drake's expedition, to his having been misled by
the authority of the article "Drake," in the Biographie Universelle. He
would even now apologise, were not any other supposition under the
circumstances less respectful to Mr. Greenhow himself.
In regard to Juan de Fuca, if the author could have supposed that in the
course of the last negotiations at Washington, Mr. Buchanan would have
pronounced that De Fuca's Voyage "no longer admits of reasonable doubt,"
he would have entered into a more careful analysis of Michael Lock's tale,
to show that it is utterly irreconcileable with ascertained facts. As it
is, however, the author trusts that enough has been said in the chapter on
the Pretended Discoveries of the North-west Coast, to convince the reader
that both the stories of Juan de Fuca and Maldonado[1], to the latter of
whom, Mr. Calhoun, at an earlier stage of the same negotiations, refers by
name as the pioneer of Spanish enterprise, are to be ranked with Admiral
Fonte's account, in the class of Mythical discoveries.
[1] Maldonado's pretended Voyage bears the date of 1588. In the copy
of Mr. Calhoun's letter, circulated on this side of the Atlantic, it
is referred to the year 1528.
In regard to Vancouver, the author, it is hoped, will be pardoned for
expressing an opinion, that Mr. Greenhow has permitted his admitted
jealousy for the fame of his fellow-citizens to lead him to do injustice
to Vancouver's character, and to assail it with arguments founded in one
or two instances upon incorrect views of Vancouver's own statements. Mr.
Gallatin expressed a very different opinion of this officer, in his
Counter-statement, during the negotiation of 1826, when he observes that
Vancouver "had _too much probity_ to alter his statement, when, on the
ensuing day, he was informed by Captain Gray of the existence of the
river, at the mouth of which he had been for several days without being
able to enter it."
The chapter on the Convention of the Escurial is intended to give an
outline of the facts and negotiations connected with the controversy
between Spain and Great Britain in respect to Nootka Sound, and the
subsequent settlement of the points in dispute. The arguments which the
author conceived them to furnish against the positions of the
Commissioners of the United States, have been inserted, as the opportunity
offered itself, in the chapters on the several negotiations. The author,
however, has introduced in this chapter, what appears to him to be a
conclusive refutation of Mr. Buchanan's statement, "that no sufficient
evidence has been adduced that either Nootka Sound, or any other spot on
the coast, was ever actually surrendered by Spain to Great Britain."
The chapter on the Columbia River attempts to adjust the respective claims
of Heceta, Gray, and Broughton, to the discovery and exploration of that
river.
A few chapters have been next inserted on points of international law
connected with territorial title, which, it was thought, might facilitate
the examination of the questions raised in the course of the negotiations
by the Commissioners of Great Britain and the United States. They do not
profess to be complete, but they embrace, it is believed, nearly all that
is of importance for the reader to be familiar with.
The chapters on the Limits of Louisiana, and the Treaty of Washington,
were required to elucidate the "derivative title" of the United States.
If the author could have anticipated the publication of the correspondence
between Mr. Pakenham and the Plenipotentiaries of the United States, he
would most probably have adopted a different arrangement in his review of
the several negotiations, so as to avoid an appearance of needless
repetition. His manuscript, however, with the exception of the two last
chapters, was completed before the President's message reached this
country. As the earlier sheets, however, were passing through the press,
one or two remarks have been inserted which have a bearing on the recent
correspondence; but it should be observed, that a separate review of each
negotiation was designedly adopted, for the purpose of enabling the reader
to appreciate more readily the variety of phases, which the claims of the
United States have assumed in the course of them.
Some observations have been made in Chapter XII. and other places, upon
the general futility of the argument from maps in the case of disputed
territory. The late negotiations at Washington have furnished an apposite
illustration of the truth of the author's remarks. Mr. Buchanan, towards
the conclusion of his last letter to Mr. Pakenham, addressed an argument
to the British Minister, of the kind known to logicians as the _argumentum
ad verecundiam_:--"Even British geographers have not doubted our title to
the territory in dispute. There is a large and splendid globe now in the
Department of the State, recently received from London, and published by
Maltby & Co., manufacturers and publishers to 'The Society for the
Diffusion of Useful knowledge,' which assigns this territory to the United
States." The history, however, of this globe is rather curious. It was
ordered of Mr. Malby (not Maltby) for the Department of State at
Washington, before Mr. Everett quitted his post of Minister of the United
States in this country. It no doubt deserves the commendation bestowed
upon it by Mr. Buchanan, for Mr. Malby manufactures excellent globes; but
the globe sent to Washington was not made from the plates used on the
globes published under the sanction of "The Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge," though this is not said by way of disparagement to it.
The Society, in its maps, has carried the boundary line west of the Rocky
Mountains, along the 49th parallel to the Columbia River, and thence along
that river to the sea; but in its globes the line is not marked beyond the
Rocky Mountains. Mr. Malby, knowing that the globe ordered of him was
intended for the Department of State at Washington, was led to suppose
that it would be more satisfactorily completed, as it was an American
order, if he coloured in, for it is not engraved, the boundary line
proposed by the Commissioners of the United States. The author would
apologise for discussing so trifling a circumstance, had not the
authorities of the United States considered the fact of sufficient
importance to ground a serious argument upon it.
In conclusion, the Author must beg pardon of the distinguished
diplomatists in the late negotiations at Washington, whose arguments he
has subjected to criticism, if he has omitted to notice several portions
of their statements, to which they may justly attribute great weight. It
is not from any want of respect that he has neglected them, but the limits
of his work precluded a fuller consideration of the subject.
LONDON, Jan. 22, 1846.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Oregon Territory 13
II. The Discovery of the North-west Coast of America 26
III. The Discovery of the North-west Coast of America 50
IV. The pretended Discoveries of the North-west Coast 64
V. The Convention of the Escurial 76
VI. The Oregon or Columbia River 94
VII. The Acquisition of Territory by Occupation 111
VIII. Title by Discovery 115
IX. Title by Settlement 123
X. Derivative Title 129
XI. Negotiations between the United States and Great
Britain in 1818 141
XII. The Limits of Louisiana 153
XIII. The Treaty of Washington 162
XIV. Negotiations between the United States and Great
Britain in 1823-24 178
XV. Examination of the Claims of the United States 189
XVI. Negotiations between the United States and Great
Britain in 1826-27 207
XVII. Negotiations between the United States and Great
Britain in 1844-45 224
XVIII. Review of the General Question 249
THE OREGON QUESTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE OREGON TERRITORY.
North-west America.--Plateau of Anahuac.--Rocky
Mountains.--New-Albion.--New Caledonia.--Oregon, or Oregan, the River
of the West.--The Columbia River.--Extent of the Oregon
Territory.--The Country of the Columbia.--Opening of the Fur Trade in
1786.--Vancouver.--Straits of Anian.--Straits of Juan de
Fuca.--Barclay.--Meares.--The American sloop Washington.--Galiano and
Valdes.--Journey of Mackenzie in 1793.--The Tacoutche-Tesse, now
Frazer's River.--North-west Company in 1805.--The Hudson's Bay Company
in 1670.--The First Settlement of the North-west Company across the
Rocky Mountains in 1806, at Frazer's Lake.--Journey of Mr. Thomson,
the Astronomer of the North-west Company, down the North Branch of the
Columbia River, in 1811.--Expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in
1805.--The Missouri Fur Company, in 1808.--Their First Settlement on
the West of the Rocky Mountains.--The Pacific Fur Company, in
1810.--John Jacob Astor, the Representative of it.--Astoria,
established in 1811.--Dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company, in July,
1813.--Transfer of Astoria to the North-west Company, by Purchase, in
October, 1813.--Subsequent Arrival of the British Sloop-of-War, the
Racoon.--Name of Astoria changed to Fort George.
North-Western America is divided from the other portions of the continent
by a chain of lofty mountains, which extend throughout its entire length
in a north-westerly direction, in continuation of the Mexican Andes, to
the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The southern part of this chain,
immediately below the parallel of 42 deg. north latitude, is known to the
Spaniards by the name of the Sierra Verde, and the central ridge, in
continuation of this, as the Sierra de las Grullas; and by these names
they are distinguished by Humboldt in his account of New Spain, (Essai
Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, l. i., c. 3,) as well as in a copy of
Mitchell's Map of North America, published in 1834. Mr. Greenhow, in his
History of Oregon and California, states that the Anahuac Mountains is
"the appellation most commonly applied to this part of the dividing chain
extending south of the 40th degree of latitude to Mexico," but when and on
what grounds that name has come to be so applied, he does not explain.
Anahuac was the denomination before the Spanish conquest of that portion
of America which lies between the 14th and 21st degrees of north latitude,
whereas the Cordillera of the Mexican Andes takes the name of the Sierra
Madre a little north of the parallel of 19 deg., and the Sierra Madre in its
turn is connected with the Sierra de las Grullas by an intermediate range,
commencing near the parallel of 30 deg., termed La Sierra de los Mimbres. The
application, indeed, of the name Anahuac to the entire portion of the
chain which lies south of 40 deg., may have originated with those writers who
have confounded Anahuac with New Spain; but as the use of the word in this
sense is incorrect, it hardly seems desirable to adopt an appellation
which is calculated to produce confusion, whilst it perpetuates an error,
especially as there appear to be no reasonable grounds for discarding the
established Spanish names. The plateau of Anahuac, in the proper sense of
the word, comprises the entire territory from the Isthmus of Panama to the
21st parallel of north latitude, so that the name of Anahuac Mountains
would, with more propriety, be confined to the portion of the Cordillera
south of 21 deg. If this view be correct, the name of the Sierra Verde may be
continued for that portion of the central range which separates the head
waters of the Rio Bravo del Norte, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico,
and forms the south-western boundary of Texas, from those of the Rio
Colorado, (del Occidente,) which empties itself into the Gulf of
California.
The Rocky Mountains, then, or, as they are frequently called, the Stony
Mountains, will be the distinctive appellation of the portion of the great
central chain which lies north of the parallel of 42 deg.; and if a general
term should be required for the entire chain to the south of this
parallel, it may be convenient to speak of it as the Mexican Cordillera,
since it is co-extensive with the present territory of the United States
of Mexico, or else as the Mexican Andes, since the range is, both in a
geographical and a geological point of view, a continuation of the South
American Andes.
Between this great chain of mountains and the Pacific Ocean a most ample
territory extends, which may be regarded as divided into three great
districts. The most southerly of these, of which the northern boundary
line was drawn along the parallel of 42 deg., by the Treaty of Washington in
1819, belong to the United States of Mexico. The most northerly,
commencing at Behring's Straits, and of which the extreme southern limit
was fixed at the southernmost point of Prince of Wales's Island in the
parallel of 54 deg. 40' north, by treaties concluded between Russia and the
United States of America in 1824, and between Russia and Great Britain in
1825, forms a part of the dominions of Russia; whilst the intermediate
country is not as yet under the acknowledged sovereignty of any power.
To this intermediate territory different names have been assigned. To the
portion of the coast between the parallels of 43 deg. and 48 deg., the British
have applied the name of New Albion, since the expedition of Sir Francis
Drake in 1578-80, and the British Government, in the instructions
furnished by the Lords of the Admiralty, in 1776, to Captain Cook,
directed him "to proceed to the coast of New Albion, endeavouring to fall
in with it in the latitude of 45 deg." (Introduction to Captain Cook's Voyage
to the Pacific Ocean, 4to, 1784, vol. i., p. xxxii.) At a later period,
Vancouver gave the name of New Georgia to the coast between 45 deg. and 50 deg.,
and that of New Hanover to the coast between 50 deg. and 54 deg.; whilst to the
entire country north of New Albion, between 48 deg. and 56 deg. 30', from the
Rocky Mountains to the sea, British traders have given the name of New
Caledonia, ever since the North-west Company formed an establishment on
the western side of the Rocky Mountains, in 1806. (Journal of D. W.
Harmon, quoted by Mr. Greenhow, p. 291.) The Spanish government, on the
other hand, in the course of the negotiations with the British government
which ensued upon the seizure of the British vessels in Nootka Sound, and
terminated in the Convention of the Escurial, in 1790, designated the
entire territory as "the Coast of California, in the South Sea."
(Declaration of His Catholic Majesty, June 4th, transmitted to all the
European Courts, in the Annual Register, 1790.) Of late it has been
customary to speak of it as the Oregon territory, or the Columbia River
territory, although some writers confine that term to the region watered
by the Oregon, or Columbia River, and its tributaries.
The authority for the use of the word Oregon, or, more properly speaking,
Oregan, has not been clearly ascertained, but the majority of writers
agree in referring the introduction of the name to Carver's Travels.
Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut and a British subject, set out
from Boston in 1766, soon after the transfer of Canada to Great Britain,
on an expedition to the regions of the Upper Mississippi, with the
ultimate purpose of ascertaining "the breadth of that vast continent,
which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, in its broadest
part, between 43 deg. and 46 deg. of north latitude. Had I been able," he says,
"to accomplish this task, I intended to have proposed to government to
establish a post in some of those parts, about the Straits of Anian, which
having been discovered by Sir Francis Drake, of course belong to the
English." The account of his travels, from the introduction to which the
above extract in his own words is quoted, was published in London in 1778.
Carver did not succeed in penetrating to the Pacific Ocean, but he first
made known, or at least established a belief in, the existence of a great
river, termed apparently, by the nations in the interior, Oregon, or
Oregan, the source of which he placed not far from the head waters of the
River Missouri, "on the other side of the summit of the lands that divide
the waters which run into the Gulf of Mexico from those which fall into
the Pacific Ocean." He was led to infer, from the account of the natives,
that this "Great River of the West" emptied itself near the Straits of
Anian, (Carver's Travels, 3d edit., London, 1781, p. 542,) although it may
be observed that the situation of the so-called Straits of Anian
themselves was not at this time accurately fixed. Carver, however, was
misled in this latter respect, but the description of the locality where
he placed the source of the Oregon, seems to identify it either with the
Flatbow or M'Gillivray's River, or else, and perhaps more probably, with
the Flathead or Clark's River, each of which streams, after pursuing a
north-western course from the base of the Rocky Mountains, unites with a
great river coming from the north, which ultimately empties itself into
the Pacific Ocean in latitude 46 deg. 18'. The name of Oregon has consequently
been perpetuated in this main river, as being really "the Great River of
the West," and by this name it is best known in Europe; but in the United
States of America, it is now more frequently spoken of as the Columbia
River, from the name of the American vessel, "The Columbia," which first
succeeded in passing the bar at its mouth in 1792. The native name,
however, will not totally perish in the United States, for it has been
embalmed in the beautiful verse of Bryant, whom the competent judgment of
Mr. Washington Irving has pronounced to be amongst the most distinguished
of American poets:--
"Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings."
If we adopt the more extensive use of the term Oregon territory, as
applied to the entire country intermediate between the dominions of Russia
and Mexico respectively, its boundaries will be the Rocky Mountains on the
east, the Pacific Ocean on the west, the parallel of 54 deg. 40' N. L. on the
north, and that of 42 deg. N. L. on the south. Its length will thus comprise
12 degrees 40 minutes of latitude, or about 760 geographical miles. Its
breadth is not so easily determined, as the Rocky Mountains do not run
parallel with the coast, but trend from south-east to north-west. The
greatest breadth, however, appears to comprise about 14 degrees of
longitude, and the least about 8 degrees; so that we may take 11 degrees,
or 660 geographical miles, as the average breadth. The entire superficies
would thus amount to 501,600 geographical square miles, equal to 663,366
English miles. If, on the other hand, we adopt the narrower use of the
term, and accept the north-western limit which Mr. Greenhow, in his second
edition of his History of Oregon and California, has marked out for "the
country of the Columbia," namely, the range of mountains which stretches
north-eastward from the eastern extremity of the Straits of Fuca, about
400 miles, to the Rocky Mountains, separating the waters of the Columbia
from those of Frazer's river, it will still include, upon his authority,
not less than 400,000 square miles in superficial extent, which is more
than double that of France, and nearly half of all the states of the
Federal Union. "Its southernmost points" in this limited extent "are in
the same latitudes with Boston and with Florence; whilst its northernmost
correspond with the northern extremities of Newfoundland, and with the
southern shores of the Baltic Sea."
Such are the geographical limits of the Oregon territory, in its widest
and in its narrowest extent. The Indian hunter roamed throughout it,
undisturbed by civilised man, till near the conclusion of the last
century, when Captain James King, on his return from the expedition which
proved so fatal to Captain Cook, made known the high prices which the furs
of the sea otter commanded in the markets of China, and thereby attracted
the attention of Europeans to it. The enterprise of British merchants was,
in consequence of Captain King's suggestion, directed to the opening of a
fur trade between the native hunters along the north-west coast of
America, and the Chinese, as early as 1786. The attempt of the Spaniards
to suppress this trade by the seizure of the vessels engaged in it, in
1789, led to the dispute between the crowns of Spain and Great Britain, in
respect of the claim to exclusive sovereignty asserted by the former power
over the port of Nootka and the adjacent latitudes, which was brought to a
close by the Convention of the Escurial in 1790.
The European merchants, however, who engaged in this lucrative branch of
commerce, confined their visits to stations on the coasts, where the
natives brought from the interior the produce of their hunting
expeditions; and even in respect of the coast itself, very little accurate
information was possessed by Europeans, before Vancouver's survey.
Vancouver, as is well known, was despatched in 1791 by the British
government to superintend, on the part of Great Britain, the execution of
the Convention of the Escurial, and he was at the same time instructed to
survey the coast from 35 deg. to 60 deg., with a view to ascertain in what parts
civilised nations had made settlements, and likewise to determine whether
or not any effective water communication, available for commercial
purposes, existed in those parts between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The popular belief in the existence of a channel, termed the Straits of
Anian, connecting the waters of the Pacific with those of the Atlantic
Ocean, in about the 58th or 60th parallel of latitude, through which
Gaspar de Cortereal, a Portuguese navigator, was reported to have sailed
in 1500, had caused many voyages to be made along the coast on either side
of North America during the 16th and 17th centuries, and the exaggerated
accounts of the favourable results of these voyages had promoted the
progress of geographical discovery by stimulating fresh expeditions. In
the 17th century, a narrative was published by Purchas, in his "Pilgrims,"
professing that a Greek pilot, commonly called Juan de Fuca, in the
service of the Spaniards, had informed Michael Lock the elder, whilst he
was sojourning at Venice in 1596, that he had discovered, in 1592, the
outlet of the Straits of Anian, in the Pacific Ocean, between 47 deg. and 48 deg.,
and had sailed through it into the North Sea. The attention of subsequent
navigators was for a long time directed in vain to the rediscovery of this
supposed passage. The Spanish expedition under Heceta, in 1775, and the
British under Cook, in 1778, had both equally failed in discovering any
corresponding inlet in the north-west coast, doubtless, amongst other
reasons, because it had been placed by the author of the tale between the
parallels of 47 deg. and 48 deg., where no strait existed. In 1787, however, the
mouth of a strait was descried a little further northward, between 48 deg. and
49 deg., by Captain Barclay, of the Imperial Eagle, and the entrance was
explored in the following year by Captain Meares, in the Felice, who
perpetuated the memory of Michael Lock's Greek pilot, by giving it the
name of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Meares, in his observations on a
north-west passage, p. lvi., prefixed to his Voyage, published in 1790,
states that the American merchant sloop the Washington, upon the knowledge
which he communicated, penetrated the straits of Fuca in the autumn of
1789, "as far as the longitude of 237 deg. east of Greenwich," (123 deg. west,)
and came out into the Pacific through the passage north of Queen
Charlotte's Island. Vancouver's attention was directed, in consequence of
Captain Meares' report, to the especial examination of this strait, and it
was surveyed by him, with the rest of the coast, in a most complete and
effectual manner. A Spanish expedition, under Galiano and Valdes, was
engaged about the same time upon the same object, so that from this
period, i. e., the concluding decade of the last century, the coast of
Oregon may be considered to have been sufficiently well known.
The interior, however, of the country, had remained hitherto unexplored,
and no white man seems ever to have crossed the Rocky Mountains prior to
Alexander Mackenzie, in 1793. Having ascended the Unjigah, or Peace River,
from the Athabasca Lake, on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, to
one of its sources in 54 deg. 24', Mackenzie embarked upon a river flowing
from the western base of the mountains, called, by the natives,
Tacoutche-Tesse. This was generally supposed to be the northernmost branch
of the Columbia river, till it was traced, in 1812, to the Gulf of
Georgia, where it empties itself in 49 deg. latitude, and was thenceforth
named Frazer's river. Mackenzie, having descended this river for about 250
miles, struck across the country westward, and reached the sea in 52 deg. 20',
at an inlet which had been surveyed a short time before by Vancouver, and
had been named by him Cascade Canal. _This was the first expedition of
civilised men through the country west of the Rocky Mountains._ It did not
lead to any immediate result in the way of settlement, though it paved the
way by contributing, in conjunction with Vancouver's survey, to confirm
the conclusion at which Captain Cook had arrived, that the American
continent extended, in an uninterrupted line, north-westward to Behring's
Straits.
The result of Mackenzie's discoveries was to open a wide field to the
westward for the enterprise of British merchants engaged in the fur trade;
and thus we find a settlement in this extensive district made, not long
after the publication of his voyage, by the agents of the North-west
Company. This great association had been growing up since 1784, upon the
wreck of the French Canadian fur trade, and gradually absorbed into itself
all the minor companies. It did not, however, obtain its complete
organisation till 1805, when it soon became a most formidable rival to the
Hudson's Bay Company, which had been chartered as early as 1670, and had
all but succeeded in monopolising the entire fur trade of North America,
after the transfer of Canada to Great Britain. The Hudson's Bay Company,
with the characteristic security of a chartered company, had confined
their posts to the shores of the ample territory which had been granted to
them by the charter of Charles II., and left the task of procuring furs to
the enterprise of the native hunters. The practice of the hunters was to
suspend their chase during the summer months, when the fur is of inferior
quality, and the animals rear their young, and to descend by the lakes and
rivers of the interior to the established marts of the company, with the
produce of the past winter's campaign. The North-west Company adopted a
totally different system. They dispatched their servants into the very
recesses of the wilderness, to bargain with the native hunters at their
homes. They established _wintering partners_ in the interior of the
country, to superintend the intercourse with the various tribes of
Indians, and employed at one time not fewer than 2,000 _voyageurs_ or
boatmen. The natives being thus no longer called away from their pursuit
of the beaver and other animals, by the necessity of resorting as
heretofore to the factories of the Hudson's Bay Company, continued on
their hunting grounds during the whole year, and were tempted to kill the
cub and full-grown animal alike, and thus to anticipate the supply of
future years. As the nearer hunting grounds became exhausted, the
North-west Company advanced their stations westwardly into regions
previously unexplored, and, in 1806, they pushed forward a post across the
Rocky Mountains, through the passage where the Peace River descends
through a deep chasm in the chain, and formed a trading establishment on a
lake now called Frazer's Lake, situated in 54 deg. N. L. "_This_," according
to Mr. Greenhow, "_was the first settlement or post of any kind made by
British subjects west of the Rocky Mountains._" It may be observed,
likewise, that it was the first settlement made on the west of the Rocky
Mountains, _by civilised men_. It is from this period, according to Mr.
Harmon, who was a partner in the company, and the superintendent of its
trade on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, that the name of New
Caledonia had been used to designate the northern portion of the Oregon
territory.
Other posts were soon afterwards formed amongst the Flathead and Kootanie
tribes on the head waters or main branch of the Columbia; and Mr. David
Thomson, the astronomer of the North-west Company, descended with a party
to the mouth of the Columbia in 1811. Mr. Thomson's mission, according to
Mr. Greenhow, was expressly intended to anticipate the Pacific Fur Company
in the occupation of a post at the mouth of the Columbia. Such, indeed,
may have been the ultimate intention, but the survey of the banks of the
river, and the establishment of posts along it, was no less the object of
it. Mr. Thomson was highly competent to conduct such an expedition, as may
be inferred from the fact that he had been employed in 1798 to determine
the latitude of the northernmost source of the Mississippi, and had on
that occasion shown the impossibility of drawing the boundary line between
the United States of America and Canada, due west from the Lake of the
Woods to the Mississippi, as had been stipulated in the second article of
the treaty of 1783. _Mr. Thomson and his followers were_, according to Mr.
Greenhow, _the first white persons who navigated the northern branch of
the Columbia, or traversed any part of the country drained by it._
The United States of America had, in the mean time, not remained
inattentive to their own future commercial interests in this quarter, as
they had despatched from the southern side an exploring party across the
Rocky Mountains, almost immediately after their purchase of Louisiana, in
1803. On this occasion, Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United
States, commissioned Captains Lewis and Clarke "to explore the River
Missouri and its principal branches to their sources, and then to seek and
trace to its termination in the Pacific some stream, whether the Columbia,
the Oregon, the Colorado, or any other, which might offer the most direct
and practicable water communication across the continent for the purposes
of commerce." The party succeeded in passing the Rocky Mountains towards
the end of September, 1805, and after following, by the advice of their
native guides, the Kooskooskee River, which they reached in the latitude
43 deg. 34', to its junction with the principal southern tributary of the
Great River of the West, they gave the name of Lewis to this tributary.
Having in seven days afterwards reached the main stream, they traced it
down to the Pacific Ocean, where it was found to empty itself, in latitude
46 deg. 18'. They thus identified the Oregon, or Great River of the West of
Carver, with the river to whose outlet Captain Gray had given the name of
his vessel, the Columbia, in 1792; and having passed the winter amongst
the Clatsop Indians, in an encampment on the south side of the river, not
very far from its mouth, which they called Fort Clatsop, they commenced,
with the approach of spring, the ascent of the Columbia on their return
homeward. After reaching the Kooskooskee, they pursued a course eastward
till they arrived at a stream, to which they gave the name of Clarke, as
considering it to be the upper part of the main river, which they had
previously called Clarke at its confluence with the Lewis. Here they
separated, at about the 47th parallel of latitude. Captain Lewis then
struck across the country, northwards, to the Rocky Mountains, and crossed
them, so as to reach the head waters of the Maria River, which empties
itself into the Missouri just below the Falls. Captain Clarke, on the
other hand, followed the Clarke River towards its sources, in a southward
direction, and then crossed through a gap in the Rocky Mountains, so as to
descend the Yellowstone River to the Missouri. Both parties united once
more on the banks of the Missouri, and arrived in safety at St. Louis in
September, 1806.
The reports of this expedition seem to have first directed the attention
of traders in the United States to the hunting grounds of Oregon. The
Missouri Fur Company was formed in 1808, and Mr. Henry, one of its agents,
established a trading post on a branch of the Lewis River, the great
southern arm of the Columbia. _This seems to have been the earliest
establishment of any kind made by citizens of the United States west of
the Rocky Mountains._ The hostility, however, of the natives, combined
with the difficulty of procuring supplies, obliged Mr. Henry to abandon it
in 1810. The Pacific Fur Company was formed about this time at New-York,
with the object of monopolising, if possible, the commerce in furs between
China and the north-west coast of America. The head of this association
was John Jacob Astor, a native of Heidelberg, who had emigrated to the
United States, and had there amassed very considerable wealth by extensive
speculations in the fur trade. He had already obtained a charter from the
Legislature of New-York in 1809, incorporating a company, under the name
of the American Fur Company, to compete with the Mackinaw Company of
Canada, within the Atlantic States, of which he was himself the real
representative, according to his biographer, Mr. Washington Irving, his
board of directors being merely a nominal body. In a similar manner, Mr.
Astor himself writes to Mr. Adams in 1823, (Letter from J. J. Astor, of
New-York, to the Hon. J. Q. Adams, Secretary of State of the United
States, amongst the proofs and illustrations in the appendix to Mr.
Greenhow's work,) "You will observe that the name of the Pacific Fur
Company is made use of at the commencement of the arrangements for this
undertaking. I preferred to have it appear as the business of a company
rather than of an individual, and several of the gentlemen engaged, Mr.
Hunt, Mr. Crooks, Mr. M'Kay, M'Dougal, Stuart, &c., were in effect to be
interested as partners in the undertaking, so far as respected the profit
which might arise, but the means were furnished by me, and the property
was solely mine, and I sustained the loss." Mr. Astor engaged, on this
understanding, nine partners in his scheme, of whom six were Scotchmen,
who had all been in the service of the North-west Company, and three were
citizens of the United States. He himself had become naturalised in the
United States, but of his Scotch partners the three at least who first
joined him seem to have had no intention of laying aside their national
character, as, previously to signing, in 1810, the articles of agreement
with Mr. Astor, they obtained from Mr. Jackson, the British Minister at
Washington, an assurance that "in case of a war between the two nations,
they would be respected as British subjects and merchants."
Mr. Astor, having at last arranged his plans, despatched in September,
1810, four of his partners, with twenty-seven subordinate officers and
servants, all British subjects, in the ship Tonquin, commanded by Jonathan
Thorne, a lieutenant in the United States navy, to establish a settlement
at the mouth of the Columbia river. They arrived at their destination in
March, 1811, and erected in a short time a factory or fort on the south
side of the river, about ten miles from the mouth, to which the name of
Astoria was given. The Tonquin proceeded in June on a trading voyage to
the northward, and was destroyed with her crew by the Indians in the Bay
of Clyoquot, near the entrance of the Strait of Fuca.
In the following month of July, Mr. Thomson, the agent of the North-west
Company, to whom allusion has already been made, descended the northern
branch of the Columbia, and visited the settlement at the mouth of the
Columbia. He was received with friendly hospitality by his old companion,
Mr. M'Dougal, who was the superintendent, and shortly took his departure
again, Mr. Stuart, one of the partners, accompanying him up the river as
far as its junction with the Okinagan, where he remained during the
winter, collecting furs from the natives. The factory at Astoria, in the
mean time, was reinforced in January, 1812, by a further detachment of
persons in the service of the Pacific Fur Company, who had set out
overland early in 1811, and after suffering extreme hardships, and losing
several of their number, at last made their way, in separate parties, to
the mouth of the Columbia. A third detachment was brought by the ship
Beaver, in the following May. All the partners of the Company, exclusive
of Mr. Astor, had now been despatched to the scene of their future trading
operations. Mr. Mackay, who had accompanied Mackenzie in his expedition to
the Pacific in 1793, was alone wanting to their number: he had
unfortunately proceeded northwards with Captain Thorne, in order to make
arrangements with the Russians, and was involved in the common fate of the
crew of the Tonquin.
The circumstances, however, of this establishment underwent a great change
upon the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain in
June, 1812. Tidings of this event reached the factory in January, 1813. In
the mean time Mr. Hunt, the chief agent of the Company, had sailed from
Astoria, in the ship Beaver, in August, 1812, to make arrangements for the
trade along the northern coast; whilst Mr. M'Dougal, the senior partner,
with Mr. Mackenzie and others, superintended the factory. They were soon
informed of the success of the British arms, and of the blockade of the
ports of the United States, by Messrs. M'Tavish and Laroque, partners of
the North-west Company, who visited Astoria early in 1813, with a small
detachment of persons in the employment of that company, and opened
negotiations with M'Dougal and Mackenzie for the dissolution of the
Pacific Fur Company, and the abandonment of the establishment at Astoria.
The association was in consequence formally dissolved in July, 1813; and
on the 16th of October following, an agreement was executed between
Messrs. M'Tavish and John Stuart, on the part of the North-west Company,
and Messrs. M'Dougal, Mackenzie, David Stuart, and Clarke, on the part of
the Pacific Fur Company, by which all the establishments, furs, and stock
in hand of the late Pacific Fur Company were transferred to the North-west
Company, at a given valuation, which produced, according to Mr. Greenhow,
a sum total of 58,000 dollars. It may be observed, that four partners only
of the Pacific Fur Company appear to have been parties to this agreement;
but they constituted the entire body which remained at Astoria, Mr. Hunt,
being absent, as already stated, and Messrs Crooks, Maclellan, and R.
Stuart, having returned over-land to New-York in the spring of 1813.
The bargain had hardly been concluded when the British sloop of war, the
Racoon, under the command of Capt. Black, entered the Columbia river, with
the express purpose of destroying the settlement at Astoria; but the
establishment had previously become the property of the North-west
Company, and was in the hands of their agents. All that remained for
Captain Black to perform, was to hoist the British ensign over the
factory, the name of which he changed to Fort George.
Mr. M'Dougal and the majority of the persons who had been employed by the
Pacific Fur Company, passed into the service of the North-west Company;
and the agents of the latter body, with the aid of supplies from England,
which arrived in 1814, were enabled to extend the field of their
operations, and to establish themselves firmly in the country, undisturbed
by any rivals.