PREFACE. IX 



ment with regard to the restoration of Astoria — on these 

 and other points, the London reviewers are silent, or care- 

 fully omit to notice the principal arguments adduced by the 

 author. The same observations apply to the answer writ- 

 ten by Adam Thorn, Recorder of Rupert's Land, to the 

 Memoir on the North-West Coast above mentioned, which 

 was published at London, in 1843, by direction of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company, and has been liberally distributed by 

 its officers. The author, however, takes great pleasure in 

 excepting the article on the same Memoir, in the British 

 and Foreign Review, for January, 1 344 ; which, though not 

 less decided in its opposition to his views on the subject 

 than the others, and far more able in every respect, is as 

 remarkable for its fairness as for the courteous and concili- 

 atory language employed. With regard to the contradiction 

 in the Quarterly Review, (Sept., 1844, article on the Life 

 of Lord Malmesbury,) of the account in page 1 1 1 of this 

 history, of the engagement believed to have been made by 

 the British government, in 1771, to withdraw its subjects 

 from the Falkland Islands, the reader is simply referred to 

 that page as amended, and to the authorities there cited. 



The Memoir " on the Discovery of the Mississippi, and 

 on the South-western, Oregon and North-western bounda- 

 ries of the United States, by Thomas Falconer," pub- 

 lished at London, in October, 1844, contains many stric- 

 tures on the present history, the justice of which the author 

 denies in toto ; and he will, in defence, merely recommend 

 to Mr. Falconer, the observance in future, of a few simple 

 rules of historical composition, from which he has himself 

 never deviated, and the propriety of which, he doubts not, 

 will be immediately admitted. The first is — never to cite 

 authorities at second hand, but always to examine the origi- 

 nal book, document or map cited. Had Mr. Falconer, for 

 instance, examined the treaty of 1803, by which France 

 ceded Louisiana to the United States, he would not have 

 found in it the passage describing the limits of Louisiana, 



