ASSINIBOINE-PIEGAN BATTLE BEFORE THE WALLS OF FORT MACKENZIE
The trade in horses now went on briskly, although McKenzie regarded the Indians with much suspicion. He procured food and bought eighty horses, which he sent off to Spokane. It was about this time that news came to them of Mr. Clark’s ill-advised punishment of the Indians. There was but one opinion among the traders, and they pursued the only possible course: took to their canoes, and went down the river to Astoria.
The journeyings of the party which had started overland to St. Louis the summer before were difficult enough. They starved and travelled, and travelled and starved; crossed the mountains, and wintered on their eastern flanks, and finally reached St. Louis April 30.
Mr. Hunt, after trading along the coast of Russian America, went to the Sandwich Islands and then to Canton. On his return Mr. Hunt waited for a time at the Sandwich Islands, hoping that a ship from New York might come to the relief of Astoria. He waited in vain, and finally chartering the ship “Albatross” he reached Astoria in August.
The war between Great Britain and the United States had led the Northwest Fur Company to believe that before long they could get possession of Astoria, and thus hold the whole trade on the Pacific coast, except that of the Russians. The Northwesters McTavish and Stuart were on their way to the mouth of the Columbia to meet the ship “Isaac Tod,” which was daily expected, and the Astorians had no means of defence. They could fight off the Northwesters, of course, but if a ship with guns came they would be helpless. McDougall seemed to have been quite willing to give up the post and to sell the furs to the Northwesters, and before long this took place. McDougall has generally been charged with secretly agreeing to swindle Mr. Astor by fixing absurdly low prices on the furs and goods. At all events, all of the goods on hand, wherever stationed, were delivered to the Northwest Company at ten per cent on cost and charges, while the furs were valued at so much per skin. Ross declared that the transaction was considered fair and equitable on both sides, but other men who were there speak of it in quite a different way. The Indians, who for the past year or two had declared themselves the firm friends of the fur traders, still wished to defend these friends from the attacks of their enemies. Old Come Comly even professed to be anxious to fight for them, but when the sloop-of-war “Raccoon” came into Baker’s Bay the Indian chief wholly changed his attitude, and declared that he was glad that he had lived long enough to see a great ship of his brother King George enter the river. He received a drink of wine, a flag, coat, hat, and sword, and became wholly British.
Captain Black, of the “Raccoon,” and his ship’s company had hoped to capture Astoria with all its furs—a rich prize—and he was much disappointed when he found that all these things had been sold to the Northwest Company by amicable agreement.
In the spring of 1814 Mr. Hunt, accompanied by several members of the Astoria party, took their final departure from Fort George. A number of those who had been Astorians, when freed from their contracts or agreements by Mr. Hunt, again took service with the Northwest Company, most of them receiving such work as they were qualified to perform. Ross was put in charge of the post at Okanagan, as he had been under the Pacific Fur Company. Stationed here now for some time, he gives an excellent picture of the life, and especially good accounts of the manners, ways, and customs of the Indians, and, with an interesting Chinook vocabulary and a table of weather at the mouth of the Columbia, closes the volume.
As an account of the Astor project to control the fur trade of the Pacific coast and of the difficulties of establishing a trading post among the Indians of the Columbia River, the book is of extreme interest.