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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1889)
18 THE WEST SHORE. Spanish possessions of Meiico and California, and west of the Mississippi river. On the north and west of it was a very indefinite boundary, and it is very questionable whether the French title added much strength to the claim of the United States to that region bordering on the Columbia river. From the Mississippi to the Kocky mountains it was good enough as far north as the headwaters of the Father of Waters, but west of the great continental divide the French had no claim whatever except the uncer tain one of " contiguity," which its successors to the title made- the most of in the subsequent controversy with Great Britain. Immediately after purchasing Louisiana, congress dispatched an exploring expedition, under the com mand of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clarke, who left St Louis in 1801, and re turned again in 180G, having twice traversed the dis tance between that city and the mouth of the Colum bia. They made a fairly accurate map of the region within a hundred miles on either side of their route, and for the first timo something definite was known of the character of the country and the native tribes occupying it In 1810 John Jacob Astor organized tho Pacific Fur Company and dispatched two expe ditions to tho mouth of tho Columbia, one by sea and ono by land. The ship Tonqttin arrived off the river in March, 1811, and Mr. Astor's partners built near tho mouth of tho stream a post which they called As toria. This was tho first actual settlement on the Columbia, though an unsuccessful effort had been made tho year beforo by American traders at Oak Point, some forty miles up tho stream. The land party, after tho most terrible experiences, reached Astoria in February, 1812. Upon learning of Astor's plans, tho Northwest Company sent a party overland, but it did not reach the mouth of tho Columbia until throo months after Fort Astoria was built, and at ouco returned. The war of 1812 gave the English company another opjwtunity. A second party was dispatched overland, which reached Astoria in the spring of 181:1, bringing intelligence of tho hostilities and of tho disheartening fact that an English war vessel was on tho way to capturo the fort Under stress of circumsUnces tho property was sold to the agent of tho Northwest Company in October, and in December tho fort was surrendered to the command or of tho liaaxnn, which had come for the purpose of capturing it In 1817 tho United States dispatched the sloop Ontario to the Pacific, to receive tho surrender of fori ueorga (Astoria) in accordance with the terms of peace at the treaty of (ihent, notice of intention to reoccupy the captured fort having been given two years before. This brought matters to a crisis at once, and a spirited discussion of the subject follow, ed, involving the question of abstract rights by dig. covery and absolute rights by possession, both parties claiming under both titles. The claim of the United States to title was four fold: First, as a portion of Louisiana, purchased from France in 1803; second by right of discovery by the Spanish explorers, Fer! relo in 1543, and later Perez, Aguilar, Heceta, Bodega y Quadra (Cuadra) and others, the benefit of whose discoveries accrued to the United States by the Flor ida purchase made in 1819, (this title was not assert ed in the first negotiations, as the purchase was made subsequent to the first temporary settlement); third, by reason of the discovery of the Columbia river by Captain Eobert Giay, in 1792; fourth, by reason of the explorations of Lewis and Clarke and the estab lishment of posts at Astoria and two other points by the Pacific Fur Company, denying that the sale of these posts, effected under duress of threatened cap ture by a man-of-war, was such as to effect the right of the United States to the benefits to be derived from settlements made by its subjects, especially as the terms of peace provided that they should again be surrendered to the United States government On the contrary, Great Britain claimed that the country north of the forty-second parallel was originally dis covered by Francis Drake in 1578. Drake was an English freebooter, who plundered the Spanish com merce in the Pacific, and was knighted for his success in that business. Ten years later, he commanded a portion of the fleet which defeated the great Spanish armada sent by King Philip to overwhelm England. To make this claim effective, it was necessary to deny that the prior voyage of Ferrelo had extended as far north as the Oregon line. As the coast had also been explored by Cook and Vancouver, and had been visit ed by Meares and other English fur traders, all be tween 1775 and 1793, these facts were urged as sup plementing the original discovery of Drake. It was also necessary to deny that Gray discovered the Col umbia river, and to do this it was claimed that the entrance of the river by him was but one step in a ee nes, that the discovery was a successive one, partici- j pated in by Heceta, Meares and Vancouver, who bad observed the mouth but supposed it to be only a bay, by Gray, who had actually entered the estuary of the river, and by Broughton, who had explored it in boat for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. Its claim by richt of nnHUAfloinn aB hA noon the establishment, in 1805, of a fort on Fraser lake, by Simon Fraser, an agent of the Northwest Company, and the purchase, by the same company, of the prop erty or tne i'acinc Fur Company, the Northwest WB pany then holding possession of the Columbia region by means of posts at Astoria and other points alorg