Page Letter from Gov. Stevens, Congressional Delegate from Washington, to Mr. Cass-Protest against the Tax on Miners History of the affair— The form of license-Alleged Extortions of the Hudson's Bay Company-The Legal Aspect of Treaty made between the United States and Great Page Extract from the Crown-grant Charter of 1838, conferring the privilege of Exclusive Trade with the Indians, upon the surrender of a former Copy of the Treaty between her Majesty Queen Victoria and the United States of America, for the settlement of the Oregon boundary. Signed at Washington, June the 15th, 1846. Ratifica- tions exchanged at London, June 17th, 1846. INTRODUCTION. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. THE history, brief as yet and marvellous, of the country of our El Dorado, by the wash of the North Pacific, stands alone and unparalleled in the long annals of the world. It has eclipsed California and outshone Australia; it has attracted, by an almost magical influence, tens of thousands to its shores, and flashed upon the universe in alluring fascination. It has sprung into life full armed, as Minerva from the brain of Jove. That which, but a brief period gone, reposed a solitary yet riant wilderness, is now alive with the clamours of a rushing sea of men, and the foundations of cities are already laid far down from the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver, that hilly and forest-clad isle of a thousand beauties and a nation's promise-the England of its ocean. Gold is the mighty magnet which attracts them the guiding talisman of their career. For gold has been the absorbing object of their search in the country from which they came, and from which their fellow-men are still rushing in palpitating gladness-a vast and headlong tide towards its favoured clime. The magic spell of the discovery is being felt throughout the world, and nations have been awakened to the knowledge of another-a new-El Dorado, outvying all beside. And this land, upon which nature has so lavished her treasures, in inviting prodigality, rests beneath the sway of the British sceptre, and its riches are open to all. Apart from gold, the other resources with which it is endowed are in every way equally bountiful and boundless; while its geographical position with regard to China and the great islands lying to the northward is destined to make it a grand emporium of trade with |