462 PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. [H. 



lumbia, and who never would have gone there had it not been for Captain 

 Gray's information, performed, no doubt, with fidelity, the mechanical 

 duty of taking the soundings one hundred miles up its course. In that 

 consists his sole merit : in the discovery he had not the slightest share. 

 The important services rendered to navigation and to science, by that offi- 

 cer and by Captain Vancouver, are fully acknowledged ; and their well- 

 earned reputation cannot be increased by ascribing to them what exclu- 

 sively belongs to another. 



Louisiana having been acquired by the United States in 1803, an 

 expedition was immediately ordered by government to examine its west- 

 ern districts. In the course of this, Captains Lewis and Clarke ascended 

 the Missouri to its source, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and ex- 

 plored the course of the Columbia, from its most eastern sources to its 

 mouth, where they arrived on the 6th of November, 1805. There they 

 erected the works called Fort Clatsop, and wintered in 1805-1806. And 

 thus was the discovery of the river commenced and completed by 

 the United States, before, as it is firmly believed, any settlement had 

 been made on it, or any of its branches been explored, by any other 

 nation. 



This is corroborated by the statement of the British plenipotentiaries. 

 After having given, as the date of Lewis and Clarke's exploration, not 

 the year 1805, but the years 1805-1806, they assert that, if not before, at 

 least in the same and subsequent years, Mr. Thomson had already estab- 

 lished a post on the head-waters of the northern or main branch of the 

 Columbia. Had that post been established in 1805, before Lewis and 

 Clarke's exploration, another and more distinct mode of expression would 

 have been adopted. But it cannot be seriously contended that, if Mr. 

 Thomson had, in that year, reached one of the sources of the Colum- 

 bia, north of the 50th degree of latitude, this, compared with the 

 complete American exploration, would give to Great Britain " a title 

 to parity, at least, if not priority of discovery, as opposed to the United 

 States." 



In the year 1810, Mr. Astor, a citizen of the United States, fitted out 

 two expeditions for the mouth of the Columbia ; one by sea, and the other 

 by land, from the Missouri. In March, 181 1, the establishment of Astoria 

 was accordingly commenced near the mouth of the river, before any Brit- 

 ish settlement had been made south of the 49th parallel of latitude. 

 From that principal post, several other settlements were formed ; one of 

 them, contrary to the opinion entertained by the British plenipotentiaries, 

 at the mouth of the Wanahata, several hundred miles up, and on the right 

 bank of the Columbia. 



These establishments fell into the hands of the British during the 

 war ; and that of Astoria has since been formally restored, in conformity 

 with the treaty of Ghent. On the circumstances of that restitution, it is 

 sufficient to observe, that, with the various despatches from and to the 

 officers of the British government, the United States have no concern ; 

 that it is not stated how the verbal communications of the British minister 

 at Washington were received, nor whether the American government 

 consented to accept the restitution, with the reservation, as expressed in 

 the despatches to that minister from his government ; and that the only 

 written document affecting the restoration, known to be in possession of 



