Columbia, were sold to the North-West Company, for about fiftyeight thousand dollars.

Whilst the business of valuing the furs and goods at Astoria, and of transferring them to their new owners, was in progress, the British sloop of war Raccoon appeared at the mouth of the river, under the command of Captain Black, who had been despatched from the South Pacific, by Commodore Hillyar, for the purpose of taking the American forts and establishments on the Columbia, and had hastened thither in expectation of securing some glory, and a rich share of prize-money, by the conquest. On approaching the factory, however, the captain soon saw that he should gain no laurels; and, after it had been formally surrendered to him by Mr. Macdougal, he learnt, to his infinite dissatisfaction, that its contents had become the property of British subjects. He could, therefore, only haul down the flag of the United States, and hoist that of Great Britain in its stead, over the establishment,* the name of which was, with due solemnity, changed to Fort George; and, having given vent to his indignation against the partners of both companies, whom he loudly accused of collusion to defraud himself and his officers and crew of the reward due for their exertions, he sailed back to the South Pacific.

The brig Pedler arrived in the Columbia, as before said, on the 28th of February, 1814, and Mr. Hunt found Macdougal superintending the factory, not, however, as chief agent of the Pacific Company, but as a partner of the North-West Company, into which he had been admitted. Hunt had, therefore, merely to close the concerns of the American association in that quarter, and to receive the bills on Montreal, given in payment for its effects; after which he reëmbarked in the Pedler, with two of the clerks, and proceeded, by way of Canton and the Cape of Good Hope, to New York. Of the other persons who had been attached to the Pacific Fur Company's establishments, some were murdered by the Indians on Lewis River, in the summer of 1813; some, including Mr. Franchère, the author of the narrative of the expeditions, returned over land to the United States, or to Canada; and some remained on the Columbia, in the service of the North-West Company. The long-expected ship Isaac Todd reached Fort George on the 17th of April, thirteen months after her departure from Eng

* See the account of the capture of Astoria, extracted from Cox, in the Proofs and Illustrations, under the letter G, No. 3.

land, bringing a large stock of supplies; by the aid of which the partners of the North-West Company were enabled to extend their operations, and to establish themselves more firmly in the country.

Such was the termination of the Astoria enterprise; for no attempt has been since made by any of the persons who were engaged in it to form establishments on the western side of America. It was wisely planned: the resources for conducting it were ample; and its failure was occasioned by circumstances, the principal of which could not have been reasonably anticipated at the time of its commencement. That ships might be lost at sea, or that parties might be destroyed by savages, or perish from cold or hunger,— casualties such as these were expected, and provisions were made for the contingencies. But, in 1810, when the Beaver sailed from New York, no one believed that, before the end of two years, the United States would be at war with the greatest maritime power in the world. By that war the whole plan was traversed. Communications by sea between the United States and the Pacific coasts became difficult and uncertain, whilst those by land were of little advantage, and were always liable to interruption by the enemy; and there was, in fact, no object in collecting furs on the Columbia, when those articles could not be transported to China.

The Pacific Company, nevertheless, might, and probably would, have withstood all these difficulties, if the directing partners on the Columbia had been Americans, instead of being, as the greater part of them were, men unconnected with the United States by birth, or citizenship, or previous residence, or family ties. Mr. Astor declares that he would have preferred the loss of the establishments and property by a fair capture, to the sale of them in a manner which he considered disgraceful; yet, although the conduct of Macdougal and Mackenzie, in that sale, and subsequently, was such as to authorize suspicions with regard to their motives, they could not have been expected to engage in hostilities against their compatriots and former friends. Being thus restrained from defending the honor of the Pacific Company by force, they may have considered themselves bound to take care of its interests, by the only means in their power, as they did in the sale. American citizens would have resisted the North-West Company, and would doubtless have maintained their supremacy, in the country of the Columbia, for some time, possibly until peace had been made between Great Britain and the United States.

Restitution of Astoria to the United States by Great Britain, agreeably to the Treaty of Ghent - Alleged Reservation of Rights on the Part of Great Britain - First Negotiation between the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, respecting the Territories west of the Rocky Mountains, and Convention for the joint Occupancy of those Territories - Florida Treaty between Spain and the United States, by which the Latter acquires the Title of Spain to the NorthWest Coasts - Colonel Long's exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains Disputes between the British North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies - Union of those Bodies - Act of Parliament extending the Jurisdiction of the Canada Courts to the Pacific Countries - Russian Establishments on the North PacificExpeditions in Search of Northern Passages between the Atlantic and the Pacific - Death of Tamahamaha, and Introduction of Christianity into the Sandwich Islands.

THE capture of Astoria by the British, and the transfer of the Pacific Company's establishments on the Columbia to the NorthWest Company, were not known to the plenipotentiaries of the United States at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814, when they signed the treaty of peace between their country and Great Britain. That treaty contains no allusion whatsoever to the northwest coasts of America, or to any portion of the continent west of the Lake of the Woods. The plenipotentiaries of the United States had been instructed by their government to consent to no claim on the part of Great Britain to territory in that quarter south of the 49th parallel of latitude, for reasons which have been already stated; and, after some discussion, they proposed to the British an article similar in effect to the fifth article of the convention signed, but not definitively concluded, in 1807, according to which, a line drawn along that parallel should separate the territories of the powers so far as they extended west of the Lake of the Woods, provided, however, that nothing in the article should be construed as applying to any country west of the Rocky Mountains. The British plenipotentiaries were willing to accept this article, if it were also accompanied by a provision that their subjects should have access to the Mississippi River, through the territories of the United

* For the reasons and the convention here mentioned, see chap. xiii.

States, and the right of navigating it to the sea; but the Americans refused positively to agree to such a stipulation, and the question of boundaries west of the Lake of the Woods was left unsettled by the treaty.

It was nevertheless agreed, in the first article of the treaty of Ghent, that "all territory, places, and possessions, whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, excepting only the islands hereinafter mentioned, [in the Bay of Fundy,] shall be restored without delay; and, in virtue of this article, Mr. Monroe, the secretary of state of the United States, on the 18th of July, 1815, announced to Mr. Baker, the chargé d'affaires of Great Britain at Washington, that the president intended immediately to reoccupy the post at the mouth of the Columbia. This determination seems to have been taken partly at the instance of Mr. Astor, who was anxious, if possible, to recommence operations on his former plan in North-West America; but no measures were adopted for the purpose until September, 1817, when Captain J. Biddle, commanding the sloop of war Ontario, and Mr. J. B. Prevost, were jointly commissioned to proceed in that ship to the mouth of the Columbia, and there "to assert the claim of the United States to the sovereignty of the adjacent country, in a friendly and peaceable manner, and without the employment of force."*

A few days after the departure of Messrs. Biddle and Prevost for the Pacific, on this mission, Mr. Bagot, the British plenipotentiary at Washington, addressed to Mr. J. Q. Adams, the American secretary of state, some inquiries respecting the destination of the Ontario, and the objects of her voyage; and, having been informed on those points, he remonstrated against the intended occupation of the post at the mouth of the Columbia, on the grounds "that the place had not been captured during the late war, but that the Americans had retired from it, under an agreement with the NorthWest Company, which had purchased their effects, and had ever since retained peaceable possession of the coast;" and that "the territory itself was early taken possession of in his majesty's name, and had been since considered as forming part of his majesty's dominions;" under which circumstances, no claim for the restitution of the post could be founded on the first article of the treaty of Ghent. At what precise time this possession was taken, or on

See President Monroe's message to Congress of April 15th, 1822, and the accompanying documents.

what grounds the territory was considered as part of the British dominions, the minister did not attempt to show.

Mr. Bagot at the same time communicated the circumstances to his government, and they became the subjects of discussion between Lord Castlereagh, the British secretary for foreign affairs, and Mr. Rush, the American plenipotentiary at London. Lord Castlereagh proposed that the question respecting the claim to the post on the Columbia should be referred to commissioners, as many other disputed points had been, agreeably to the treaty of Ghent; to which Mr. Rush objected, for the simple reasons that the spot was in the possession of the Americans before the war; that it fell, by belligerent capture, into the hands of the British during the war; and that, "under a treaty which stipulated the mutual restitution of all places reduced by the arms of either party, the right of the United States to immediate and full repossession could not be impugned." The British secretary, upon this, admitted the right of the Americans to be reinstated, and to be the party in possession, while treating on the title; though he regretted that the government of the United States should have employed means to obtain restitution which might lead to difficulties. Mr. Rush had no apprehensions of that kind; and it was finally agreed that the post should be restored to the Americans, and that the question of the title to the territory should be discussed in the negotiation as to limits and other matters, which was soon to be commenced. Lord Bathurst, the British secretary for the colonies, accordingly sent to the agents of the North-West Company at the mouth of the Columbia a despatch, directing them to afford due facilities for the reoccupation of the post at that point by the Americans; and an order to the same effect was also sent from the Admiralty to the commander of the British naval forces in the Pacific.

The Ontario passed around Cape Horn into the Pacific, and arrived, in February, 1818, at Valparaiso, where it was agreed between the commissioners that Captain Biddle should proceed to the Columbia, and receive possession of Astoria for the United States, Mr. Prevost remaining in Chili for the purpose of transacting some business with the government of that country, which had also been intrusted to him. Captain Biddle accordingly sailed to the Columbia, and, on the 9th of August, he took temporary possession of the country on that river, in the name of the United States, after which he returned to the South Pacific.

In the mean time, Commodore Bowles, the commander of the