fixed prices. For a bushel of wheat, for instance, the 
company usually gives fifty cents in goods, while it 
receives on its part one dollar and a half in money 
from the Russians in California. 
The Americans, whose claims to the territory of 
the Columbia River are much better founded than 
those of the English, are now merely tolerated by the 
Hudson’s Bay Company. Had the Government of 
the United States given the slightest support to As- 
tor’s enterprise, the Americans in all probability 
would still be in possession of the country ; but, as it is, 
the United States has done nothing to protect its 
claims through treaties. As far back as 1818 a treaty 
was made between the United States and England, 
whereunder both powers were allowed free access to 
the Columbia, without abandoning their respective 
claims. In 1826, the United States proposed to Eng- 
land to draw the line beyond the Rocky Mountains to 
the Pacific Ocean in prolongation of the boundary on 
this side of the mountains, that is to say, on the forty- 
ninth parallel, whereunder the Columbia River would 
have fallen wholly in the territory of the United 
States ; but the proposal was rejected and the former 
treaty was renewed for an indefinite period determin- 
able by one year’s notice. This provisional arrange- 
ment, during which the English, by means of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, have acquired the actual 
control of the country, is still in force. The country is 
too valuable to ever be surrendered voluntarily by the 
English. While the Columbia is navigable for only 
