In the following month of July, Mr. Thomson, the agent of the North-west Company, to whom allusion has already been made, descended the northern branch of the Columbia, and visited the settlement at the mouth of the Columbia. He was received with friendly hospitality by his old companion, Mr. M’Dougal, who was the superintendent, and shortly took his departure again, Mr. Stuart, one of the partners, accompanying him up the river as far as its junction with the Okinagan, where he remained during the winter, collecting furs from the natives. The factory at Astoria, in the mean time, was reinforced in January, 1812, by a further detachment of persons in the service of the Pacific Fur Company, who had set out overland early in 1811, and after suffering extreme hardships, and losing several of their number, at last made their way, in separate parties, to the mouth of the Columbia. A third detachment was brought by the ship Beaver, in the following May. All the partners of the Company, exclusive of Mr. Astor, had now been despatched to the scene of their future trading operations. Mr. Mackay, who had accompanied Mackenzie in his expedition to the Pacific in 1793, was alone wanting to their number: he had unfortunately proceeded northwards with Captain Thorne, in order to make arrangements with the Russians, and was involved in the common fate of the crew of the Tonquin.
The circumstances, however, of this establishment underwent a great change upon the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain in June, 1812. Tidings of this event reached the factory in January, 1813. In the mean time Mr. Hunt, the chief agent of the Company, had sailed from Astoria, in the ship Beaver, in August, 1812, to make arrangements for the trade along the northern coast; whilst Mr. M’Dougal, the senior partner, with Mr. Mackenzie and others, superintended the factory. They were soon informed of the success of the British arms, and of the blockade of the ports of the United States, by Messrs. M’Tavish and Laroque, partners of the North-west Company, who visited Astoria early in 1813, with a small detachment of persons in the employment of that company, and opened negotiations with M’Dougal and Mackenzie for the dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company, and the abandonment of the establishment at Astoria. The association was in consequence formally dissolved in July, 1813; and on the 16th of October following, an agreement was executed between Messrs. M’Tavish and John Stuart, on the part of the North-west Company, and Messrs. M’Dougal, Mackenzie, David Stuart, and Clarke, on the part of the Pacific Fur Company, by which all the establishments, furs, and stock in hand of the late Pacific Fur Company were transferred to the North-west Company, at a given valuation, which produced, according to Mr. Greenhow, a sum total of 58,000 dollars. It may be observed, that four partners only of the Pacific Fur Company appear to have been parties to this agreement; but they constituted the entire body which remained at Astoria, Mr. Hunt, being absent, as already stated, and Messrs Crooks, Maclellan, and R. Stuart, having returned over-land to New-York in the spring of 1813.
The bargain had hardly been concluded when the British sloop of war, the Racoon, under the command of Capt. Black, entered the Columbia river, with the express purpose of destroying the settlement at Astoria; but the establishment had previously become the property of the North-west Company, and was in the hands of their agents. All that remained for Captain Black to perform, was to hoist the British ensign over the factory, the name of which he changed to Fort George.
Mr. M’Dougal and the majority of the persons who had been employed by the Pacific Fur Company, passed into the service of the North-west Company; and the agents of the latter body, with the aid of supplies from England, which arrived in 1814, were enabled to extend the field of their operations, and to establish themselves firmly in the country, undisturbed by any rivals.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST OF AMERICA.
Voyage of Francisco de Ulloa, in 1539.—Cabrillo, in 1542.—Drake, in 1577-80.—The Famous Voyage.—The World Encompassed.—Nuño da Silva.—Edward Cliffe.—Francis Pretty, not the Author of the Famous Voyage.—Fleurieu.—Pretty the Author of the Voyage of Cavendish.—Purchas’ Pilgrims.—Notes of Fletcher.—World Encompassed, published in 1628.—Mr. Greenhow’s Mistake in respect to the World Encompassed and the Famous Voyage.—Agreement between the World Encompassed and the Narrative of Da Silva.—Fletcher’s Manuscript in the Sloane Collection of the British Museum.—Furthest Limit southward of Drake’s Voyage.—Northern Limit 43° and upwards by the Famous Voyage, 48° by the World Encompassed.—The latter confirmed by Stow, the Annalist, in 1592, and by John Davis, the Navigator, in 1595, and by Sir W. Monson in his Naval Tracts.—Camden’s Life of Elizabeth.—Dr. Johnson’s Life of Sir F. Drake.—Fleurieu’s Introduction to Marchand’s Voyage.—Introduction to the Voyage of Galiano and Valdés.—Alexander von Humboldt’s New Spain.
The Spaniards justly lay claim to the discovery of a considerable portion of the north-west coast of America. An expedition from Acapulco under Francisco de Ulloa, in 1539, first determined California to be a peninsula, by exploring the Gulf of California from La Paz to its northern extremity. The chart, which Domingo del Castillo, the pilot of Ulloa, drew up as the result of this voyage, differs very slightly, according to Alexander von Humboldt, from those of the present day. Ulloa subsequently explored the western coast of California. Of the extent of his discoveries on this occasion there are contradictory accounts, but the extreme limit assigned to them does not reach further north than Cape Engaño, in 30° north latitude.