Columbia River, yet deserves a prominent place in the present narrative, not only because his work contains (we believe) the earliest mention of the Oregon, but still more because he was the first to entertain any thing like just and comprehensive ideas of the relative position and character of the extreme western and northwestern parts of this continent, and because he undertook his journey with the express intention of penetrating through to the South Sea.

Prior to the year 1763, Great Britain was possessed, in one right or another, of the Colonies in North America, which afterwards constituted the original Thirteen United States; of Nova Scotia or Acadia; and of Hudson's Bay and its dependencies, extending indefinitely inland towards the West; while France held the countries of Canada and Louisiana, the former stretching in between Acadia and the Thirteen Colonies, by the course of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, until it joined the latter territory interposed between the British Colonies and New Spain. Though the western limits of all these possessions of Great Britain were (practically speaking) undefined, and thus conflicted in pretensions with the French possessions on many points, yet in one direction a definite Îine had been drawn; for, by the Treaty of Utrecht, concluded the 17th of April, 1713, "Hudson's Bay, together with all lands, &c. which belong thereunto," was restored to Great Britain, and, by commissioners appointed under that Treaty, the forty-ninth parallel of latitude was agreed upon as the limit of the British and French possessions in the Northwest. There still remained a vast region, north of the recognised French settlements in Louisiana, west of the Alleghanies, and south of Lake Superior, which the English regarded as debatable land. But the grounds of question in this quarter were greatly narrowed by the victories of Wolfe and Amherst in Canada, and the consequent events, terminating in the Treaty of Paris, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763. By this treaty, "his Most Christian Majesty renounces all pretensions he may have formed till now, or may form, on Nova Scotia or Acadia, in all its parts, and guaranties the whole and all its dependencies to the King of Great Britain ;" and the treaty proceeds to say; "Moreover, his Most Christian Majesty cedes and guaranties to his

* Jenkinson's Treaties, Vol. II.

said Britannic Majesty, in full right, CANADA with all its dependencies, as also the Island of Cape Breton, and all the other islands and coasts in the Gulf and River St. Lawrence, and, in general, all that depends on the said countries, lands, islands, and coasts, with the sovereignty, property, possession, and all rights acquired by treaties or otherwise, that the Most Christian King and the Crown of France may have had till now on the said countries, islands, lands, places, coasts, and the inhabitants ;" and, by another clause of the same treaty it is provided, that "the confines between the British and French possessions in North America, shall be fixed invariably by a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to the river Iberville; and from thence by the middle of the river Iberville and the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea" (that is, the Gulf of Mexico).* This treaty, therefore, gave to Great Britain undisputed possession (as against any other European Power) of the entire Northeast of America; of the Northwest to the Mississippi; and of the country north and west of the sources of the Mississippi, so far as the Hudson's Bay Company might be able to stretch itself into the interior of the conti

nent.

In the interval immediately following on the conclusion of this treaty, and before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, Jonathan Carver visited and explored the region of country now occupied by Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Carver was an American officer, who served as captain in the provincial troops, which aided Great Britain in the conquest of Canada. In June, 1776, he started from Boston, and proceeded by way of Albany and Niagara to Michilimackinac, and as far west as the river St. Francis, and returned to Boston in October, 1778, having consumed two years and five months in his journey and residence among the Indians, chiefly the Winnebagoes, Sauks, and Sioux. From Boston, after properly arranging his journals and charts, he proceeded to England, and made known his discoveries to the Board of Trade and Plantations, who, in consideration of the value of the information he had acquired, reimbursed to him the sums he had expended in his journey, amounting to thirteen hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling. The Board of Trade

* Chalmers' Treaties, Vol. II.; Martens' Recueil, Tom. I.

↑ American State Papers, Vol. XVIII.; Public Lands, Vol. III., p. 611.

at first prohibited the publication of his journals and charts, and took from him the original, which he had already contracted with a bookseller to publish; but he preserved a copy, and this, after some time, he published in London, under the patronage and advice of Sir Joseph Banks.

Carver's book is entitled "Three Years' Travels throughout the Interior Parts of North America, for more than Five Thousand Miles; containing an Account of the Great Lakes, and all the Lakes, Islands, and Rivers, Cataracts, Mountains, Minerals, Soil, and Vegetable Productions of the Northwest Regions of that vast Continent; with a Description of the Birds, Beasts, Reptiles, Insects, and Fishes peculiar to the Country; together with a concise History of the Genius, Manners, and Customs of the Indians inhabiting the Lands that lie adjacent to the Heads and to the Westward of the great River Mississippi; and an Appendix, describing the uncultivated Parts of America, that are the most proper for forming Settlements." This is a general index to the book, rather than a title, and promises a great deal. But, on the whole, the volume, though a small one, had the merit of giving useful knowledge in regard to a part of North America then but little known; and it was therefore extremely well received, both in England and America, being one of the most popular of the old books of travels among the Indians. Its author, however, was not a man of science; nor has the work itself any great value at the present time, except as a stage in the history of the Northwest. In this point of view, some of the statements in the book are curious and important.

Carver says, that, in undertaking his journey, what he chiefly had in view, after gaining a knowledge of the manners, customs, languages, soil, and natural productions of the different nations which dwell beyond the Mississippi, was, to explore the breadth of the continent in that its widest part. Had he accomplished this, he intended, he adds, "to have proposed to government to establish a port in some of those parts about the Straits of Anian." This he was convinced would greatly facilitate the discovery of a northwest passage, or a communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Besides this important end, a settlement on that side of America, as he justly reasoned, would answer many good purposes; for it would not only disclose new sources of interior trade,

but would be the means of direct and profitable intercourse with China and the East Indies. The failure of his arrangements for the supply of goods, with which to carry on a trade among the Indians, and conciliate their good will, prevented his going any further west than the river St. Francis; but, by his residence among the Indians, and especially the Sioux of the Plains, called by him Naudowessies, he obtained a general idea, to use his own words, of "the situation of the heads of the four great rivers, that take their rise within a few leagues of each other, nearly about the centre of this great continent; namely, the river Bourbon, which empties itself into Hudson's Bay; the waters of St. Lawrence; the Missisippi; and the river Oregan, or the River of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Anian."

This we take to be the earliest precise indication of the existence and locality of the river Oregon, and the earliest printed mention of the name. Afterwards, Carver refers more specifically to the sources of his information on the subject, as follows;

"From the intelligence I gained from the Naudowessie Indians, whose language I perfectly acquired during a residence of five months; and also from the accounts I afterwards obtained from the Assinipoils, who speak the same tongue, being a revolted band of the Naudowessies; and from the Killistinoes, neighbours of the Assinipoils, who speak the Chipeway language, and inhabit the heads of the river Bourbon; I say, from these nations, together with my own observations, I have learned, that the four most capital rivers on the continent of North America, namely, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the river Bourbon, and the Oregan, or the River of the West, have their sources in the same neighbourhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather further west."

In this extract, the reader will perceive, that Carver relies for the authority of his statements on the Naudowessies (Sioux), Assinipoils (Assiniboines), and Killistinoes (Knistineaux). By that which he calls the Oregan, or River of the West, the Indians may have meant the Missouri, or rather one of its sources (for he refers elsewhere to the Missouri by name); and this we are the rather led to suspect, because of his placing the head-waters of the Oregon so near to the head-waters of the Mississippi, contrary to the fact. Besides,

"and

speaking, in another place, of "a large branch of the river Bourbon, which flows from the southwest" into Lake Winnipek, and by which he must intend the Red River of Lake Winnipek, he says, that there is a French factory there, and that to this place the Mahas, who inhabit a country two hundred and fifty miles southwest, come also to trade; that "these people are supposed to dwell on some of the branches of the River of the West." Whether or not any such mistake was made, however, either by Carver himself, or by the Indians, certain it is, that he understood the name as designating a river which flowed into the Pacific, and thus in after times the appellation came to be applied to the Columbia and its country. This is confirmed by what Carver relates of the project conceived in 1774, by Mr. Whitworth, a member of Parliament.

"He (Mr. Whitworth) designed to have pursued nearly the same route that I did; and, after having built a fort at Lake Pepin, to have proceeded up the River St. Pierre, and from thence up a branch of the River Messorie, till, having discovered the source of the Oregan or River of the West, on the other side of the lands, that divide the waters which run into the Gulf of Mexico from those that fall into the Pacific Ocean, he would have sailed down that river to the place where it is said to empty itself, near the Straits of Anian.'

We make another extract from Carver's Travels, in elucidation of the views he entertained, and the ideas he suggested to his contemporaries. After describing the general course of the Rocky Mountains, he says;

"To the west of these mountains, when explored by future Columbuses or Raleighs, may be found other lakes, rivers, and countries, full fraught with all the necessaries or luxuries of life; and where future generations may find an asylum, whether driven from their country by the ravages of lawless tyrants, or by religious persecutions, or reluctantly leaving it to remedy the inconveniences arising from a superabundant increase of inhabitants; whether, I say, impelled by these, or allured by hopes of commercial advantages, there is little doubt but their expectation will be fully gratified in these rich and unexhausted climes."

In fact, Carver looked forward to the realization of his ideas with a trustful reliance, that the time would come when due justice would be done to his sagacious anticipations.