EARLY HISTORY OF OREGON. 



of 43° and 48°, the British have applied the name of New 

 Albion. Since the expedition of Sir Francis Drake, in 1578- 

 5 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, endea- 

 voring to fall in with it in the latitude of 45°.* At a later 

 period, Vancouver gave the name of New Georgia to the 



ast between 50° and 54°, whilst to the entire country, north 

 of New Albion, between 48° and 56° 30', from the Rocky 

 Mountains to the sea, British traders have given the name of 

 New Caledonia, ever since the Northwest Company formed an 

 establishment on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, in 

 1806. 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 Cali- 

 fornia in the South Sea." 



If we adopt the more extensive use of the term Oregonf 



* See Cook's Voyage to the Facific Ocean, 17S2. 



f The authority for the use of the word Oregon, or Oregan, has not heen 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, 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, 

 »n its broadest part, between 45° and 46° of north latitude. Carver did not succeed in 

 penetrating to the Pacific Ocean, but he first made known, or at least established a 

 oelief in the existence of a great river, termed, apparently, by the Indian 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, although 

 it may be observed, that the situation of the so called Straits of Arian themselves, 

 were 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 cf the 



