PREFACE. V 



greater, and more urgent therefore is the necessity of en- 

 deavoring to attain that end without delay. 



It was principally with the object of showing the nature, 

 origin, and extent of these various claims, that the author 

 of the following pages composed his " Memoir, Historical 

 and Political, on the North-West Coasts of North America 

 and the adjacent Territories,"* which was published by 

 order of the Senate of the United States in 1 840. He there 

 endeavored to present a complete, clear and impartial view 

 of all the discoveries and settlements, made or attempted, 

 in those countries by civilized nations, and of all the dis- 

 putes, negotiations and conventions, between different gov- 

 ernments with respect to them, from the period when they 

 were first visited by Europeans ; founding his statements, 

 as much as possible, upon original authorities. That Me- 

 moir is the only work hitherto published, approaching in its 

 character to a history of the western portion of North 

 America. The History of California,! printed at Madrid, 

 in 1758, is devoted almost exclusively to descriptions of the 

 Californian Peninsula, and to accounts of the missionary 

 labors of the Jesuits, in that desolate region. The Intro- 

 duction to the Journal of Marchand's Voyage, J which ap- 

 peared in 1799, and the Introduction to the Journal of 

 Galiano and Valdes,^ published in 1802, are confined to 

 the discoveries of European navigators on the North Pacific 

 coasts of America, before 1793; upon which so many de- 

 tails have been made known, since the appearance of those 

 works, that they are now entirely obsolete, and scarcely one 

 of their paragraphs can be^ cited as correct. The Journals 

 of Cook, La Perouse, Vancouver, Mackenzie, Krusenstern, 



* Extract from the Journal of the Senate of the United States. — ,'' f Monday, Feb. 

 10, 1840. On motion, by Mr. Linn — Ordered, That a History of the North-West 

 Coast of North America and the adjacent Territories, communicated to the Select 

 Committee on the Oregon Territory, be printed, with the accompanying map : and 

 two thousand five hundred copies, in addition to the usual number, be printed for 

 the use of the Senate." 



t See page 105. \ See page 223. § See page 241 '- 



B 



