Chapter X: Part 10

From an old manuscript report of one of the Company's traders, who took part in the proceedings detailed, the following particulars are gleaned. In January, 1828, Mr. Alexander McKenzie and four men under his charge were murdered on Puget's Sound, on their way from Fort Langley, and an Indian woman of the party carried off, by the tribe known as the Clallums. All the effective men at Fort Vancouver were mustered and told by Chief Factor McLaughlin of the affair and of the necessity for an expedition being sent off in search of the murderous tribe, to make a salutary example of them if possible. A call for volunteers brought a ready response and on the 17th June a force of upwards of sixty men under Chief Trader Alex. R. McLeod set forth, with a salute of cannon from the fort and cheers from the officers and crew of the _Eagle_--presumably an American vessel. The voyageurs having enjoyed their customary _regale_ and the Iroquois their war dance, on the previous evening, no delay for these ever necessary functions occurred and the expedition proceeded down the Columbia and up the Cowlitz to the _portage_, where their boats were _cached_, and horses obtained. Then the motley army, consisting of Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, Sandwich Islanders and Chinooks, with Scotch and English officers, mounted, set forth, looking, as the chronicler thought, more like a band of gypsies than a force collected for the purpose in view. At the end of the _portage_ the force again embarked in canoes and on 1st July, coming upon a couple of lodges, one, understood to be occupied by Clallums, was at once attacked and death immediately dealt out to its inmates, ruthlessly, regardless apparently as to whether they were concerned in the murder of McKenzie and his party or not, while in the semi-darkness of evening men, women and even children appear to have shared the same fate.

Off Cape Townsend the company's vessel _Cadboro'_, Captain Simpson, was sighted. Thereafter the land and naval forces co-operated--so far, at least, as the somewhat divergent views and orders of their respective commanders permitted. A day or two was spent off one of the Clallum villages, near New Dungeness, in apparently fruitless negotiations for the return of the Indian woman, whose father was a man of great influence in his own tribe. Not until a chief and eight others had been slain by shots from the vessel's guns and a bombardment of a village, where some articles of Mr. McKenzie's were found, had taken place, was the woman brought on board. A second village, from which the murderers of McKenzie's party were said to have set out, was burned. The force then parted from the _Cadboro'_ and returned to Fort Vancouver. The Indians stated that seven people had been killed at the lodge fired upon on the 1st, and that the friends of these had at once avenged their deaths, by putting to death two of the principal murderers of McKenzie. In all, they reported 25 people killed in these various affrays, to avenge the original crime, not to speak of a very considerable quantity of Indian property destroyed.

It would be unjust to charge Dr. McLaughlin with the responsibility for the entire proceedings of this merciless expedition. What his instructions to _Mr. McLeod_ were that gentleman kept pretty well to himself. Unfortunately the latter showed vacillation and timidity, at the moments when firmness and promptness were required, disputed and quarrelled with Captain Simpson on board his own vessel, assumed too much authority at one time, too little at another, with the result that indiscriminate slaughter and destruction of property seem to have taken the place of just and merited punishment. It is to be presumed, however, that the deterrent effect was produced, at any rate as to the Clallums.

The population, native and foreign, of the Columbia district, at this period, was of a wonderfully heterogeneous character. The number of small tribes into which the native population of the Pacific Coast and islands was divided is well known to have been large. Yet Indians from the plains and Iroquois from the far East had come in as servants of the company, while Sandwich Islanders--or Owhyhees (Hawaiians) as they were termed--were among almost all the company's crews and forces. French half-breeds and others of varying tints and gay costumes lent picturesqueness to the Hudson's Bay posts and campfires. Sir George Simpson gives a striking instance of the variety in colour and language afforded by a single boatload. "Our batteau carried as curious a muster of races and languages as perhaps had ever been congregated within the same compass in any part of the world. Our crew of ten men contained Iroquois, who spoke their own tongue; a Cree half-breed of French origin, who appeared to have borrowed his dialect from both his parents; a North Briton, who understood only the Gaelic of his native hills; Canadians who, of course, knew French; and Sandwich Islanders, who jabbered a medley of Chinook and their own vernacular jargon. Add to all this that the passengers were natives of England, Scotland, Russia, Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company's territories; and you have the prettiest congregation of nations, the nicest confusion of tongues, that has ever taken place since the days of the tower of Babel. At the native camp near which we halted for the night, we enriched our clans with one variety more, by hiring a canoe and its complement of Chinooks, to accompany us."

Sir George Simpson was at this time on his famous overland journey round the world, having the previous day, Sept. 1st, 1841, left Fort Vancouver, where, by the way, his party found two vessels of the United States exploring squadron under command of Lieutenant (afterward) Commodore Wilkes, which contributed much to the enjoyment of their week's stay there. The circumnavigators had parted on the beach at Fort Vancouver with Lieutenant Wilkes and party and had added to their number another Hudson's Bay officer, Mr. Douglas (afterwards Sir James Douglas, governor of Vancouver Island) and had visited the company's extensive dairy on the delta or island of Multnomah or Wapatoo. Thence down the Columbia and up the Cowlitz, across to Fort Nisqually and Puget's Sound, visiting the Cowlitz farm and the sheep ranch--a four days' journey from Fort Vancouver brought them to the company's steamer, the _Beaver_, on which they set out for the posts of the Pacific coast and Sitka--that coast trip now familiar to thousands of gold-seekers.

At the Stikine (or Stickeen) River--a place much in the world's eye during the past year or two--Sir George found young John McLaughlin, a son of the big doctor, in charge of the company's post, with a force of twenty-two men. The governor next proceeded to Sitka, and, after a somewhat protracted side trip to California and the Sandwich Islands, returned in the Spring of '42 to Stikine on board the company's ship, the _Cowlitz_, in tow of a Russian steamer loaned him by Governor Etholine of Sitka--to find that young McLaughlin had just been murdered by his own men, who were in a state of mingled mutiny and intoxication within the fort, while about 2000 Indians were gathered without, in readiness to take advantage of the insurrection within! The opportune arrival of Sir George, with two ships' crews at his disposal, enabled him to speedily quell the disturbance and disperse the Indians, after preparing their minds for a measure which the company was anxious here as elsewhere to enforce--the discontinuance of the liquor traffic. It may here be remarked that the one good result of this most unhappy tragedy at the Stikine was the agreement arrived at soon after with the Russian company--whose bad example had been held to necessitate the British company's fighting "firewater" with "firewater" at competitive trading posts--under which agreement both companies inaugurated a prohibitory liquor law on this coast.

Doubts as to his powers and the best policy to pursue led Sir George to take the man who fired the fatal shot with him to Sitka, whither he was returning _en route_ to Siberia and Europe. For a less comprehensible reason he sent another man--a supposed participant in the affair--to Fort Vancouver, accompanied by a letter to Dr. McLaughlin, apprising him of the tragedy and casting some blame upon the murdered son for the insurrection. The letter the big doctor had, of course, no alternate but to receive, but the man he would not see nor so much as suffer to set foot on shore at Fort Vancouver--but had him kept a prisoner on board the _Cadboro_. On a trip of that vessel to Vancouver Island, this man saw Mr. Douglas and at once made a confession to him, implicating all the people at Stikine in a plot to murder John the younger. He even stated that an agreement to that effect had been drawn up by the man who was acting as a temporary assistant or clerk to the murdered man. The confession absolved the young trader from the charge of drunkenness and contradicted the depositions taken by Sir George in every material point. Little wonder is it that the doctor, smarting under the blow received, was not satisfied with the apparently easy methods pursued by Sir George, with whom he had moreover recently exchanged some angry words in California on matters of business; nor that he sent an officer of the company to Mr. Manson, with a complete new complement of men, to the Stikine to re-open the investigation--with no known retributive result, though the evidence taken tends to justify the doctor's summing up--his vigorous penmanship adding strength to his words--"The short and the long of the affair is, these fellows wanted to impose on my son, to which he would not submit"--true chip of the old block it seemed!--"They, finding they could not make him bend, conspired and murdered him."

It is worthy of note that at the last the young man seems to have relied upon his Owhyhees (Hawaiians) to make a stand against the whites.

The doctor's subordinate officers at these various and remote posts eagerly scanned all news of the affair which reached them and sympathized with the afflicted father--but they could scarcely grasp the situation in all its details of doubt and difficulty as to criminal procedure, territorial jurisdiction, etc. "I fear we have got ourselves into a hobble and that it will turn out we are more _au fait_ in our humble occupation as Indian traders than as the dispensary of Her Majesty's criminal law," wrote one. But the big doctor's feelings were still aroused--he attributed, whether rightly or wrongly, his son's death to Sir George indirectly, as a result of the governor's having removed a trusted man, Mr. Finlayson, from the post of assistant to the young trader, substituting a labourer in his place--and he carried the matter before the heads of the company in England--"wrote a thundering epistle to their honours at home, concerning Sir George, ripping up old grievances," as another old trader, John Tod (1 Sept. 1842) put it. Yet Sir George remained at the head of the company, while the old doctor continued to mourn the unavenged death of the son he evidently loved much.

The witnesses who were examined by Mr. Manson at Stikine testified that the document referred to by their former comrade in his confession, as an agreement to murder the trader, was simply a formal complaint against him, which they intended presenting to Sir George Simpson, as head of the company, on his expected arrival--but that it was never presented, but destroyed, because it was too dirty to be presented to the governor. Not only was Sir George a man whose examples as to soiled documents had to be considered, but he seems to have had a prejudice in favour of clean linen as well--as the following less tragic incident would seem to indicate: Sir George at one time wrote Dr. McLaughlin to remove the officer in charge of Fort George (Astoria), with a seven years' pension. The doctor declared the governor "must do his dirty work himself," and took no decisive steps to interfere with the officer in question, who was described as youthful in appearance, though fat and indolent, but with "children enough far a colony." The officer nominated to succeed him enquired of the condemned, what he had done to offend the governor. He stated that Sir George had sent two cotton shirts ashore to be washed and while they were being taken, under the fat officer's charge, from the fort to the ship, one of them fell overboard, but he declared his intention of sending another to London and hoped his offense would be forgiven. His propitiatory offering, or Sir George's better feelings, it is presumed, prevented his becoming the victim of another "tale of a shirt," by an ignominious expulsion from office, for such a cause.

On December 8th, 1846, there arrived at Fort Vancouver a person whose errand was of a novel character to dwellers upon the Columbia--Mr. Paul Kane, to whom reference has already been made, was a native of Toronto, who had adopted painting as the profession of his choice and, after spending some four years in Europe qualifying himself in his art, conceived the idea of making an overland trip across the continent, making sketches, as he proceeded, of the representative Indians of the various tribes and of the scenery of the country through which he passed, then an almost unbroken wilderness. He spent nearly four years in these wanderings, to and from the Pacific, sketching portraits of chiefs, medicine men, warriors, their wives and daughters--also fishing, hunting and other scenes, illustrative of the customs, occupations and amusements of the red men and the physical features of the country. From these sketches he subsequently executed many paintings, some of which are on the walls of the embryo Canadian national gallery at Ottawa, but a much more extensive and elaborate series in oils--numbering about 100 canvasses--is among the valued possessions of a Toronto gentleman, the Hon. George W. Allen, Canadian senator.[214] The artist's Journal, published in London in 1859, with specimens of his work--now unfortunately out of print--gave an interesting narrative of his travels and adventures, with much of the history and folklore of the various people of the Northwestern regions.

Kane reached the height of land on November 12th. His voyage down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver he accomplished in little more than a fortnight--including stoppages at Forts Colville and Walla Walla _en route_--whereas it took him four months to cover the same distance on his return the following year.

It may well be imagined that the advent of such a character excited no little interest. At Fort Vancouver two chief factors, Messieurs Douglas and Ogden, now reigned, in place of Dr. McLaughlin, with eight or ten clerks and 200 voyageurs. Her Majesty's warship _Modeste_, with her complement of officers, lay in the broad river, opposite the fort. Outside the stockade was the village with its motley population of English, French, Iroquois, Sandwich Islanders, Crees and Chinooks, and its confusion of tongues. The artist enjoyed the hospitality of the officers at the fort for about a month and on 10 January, 1847, in company with Mr. MacKenzie, a chief trader, proceeded up the Willamette to Oregon City, passing "two cities that are to be," one of which contained but two houses and the other not much more advanced. Oregon City, located by Dr. McLaughlin, who owned the chief mills, contained then about ninety-four houses and two or three hundred inhabitants, a Methodist and a Roman Catholic church, two grist mills and as many hotels. A lawyer and "doctors ad libitum" were already on the ground. That it would be rivalled, if not eclipsed, by a city to be built where Portland now is, was even then predicted, owing to intervening impediments to navigation. A few weeks at Oregon City and a few days at the Roman Catholic missions further up the Willamette, and Kane returned to spend the balance of the winter pleasantly with the Hudson's Bay and naval officers at Fort Vancouver in riding, and in fishing and shooting the waterfowl and seal with which the neighbourhood abounded. In the Spring he made a trip to Vancouver Island and adjacent coasts and islands, returning to Fort Vancouver in June, and on July 1st began his homeward journey.

The artist was regarded as a great "medicine man" by the natives, who sometimes gathered in great numbers to watch him manipulate his supposed implements of magic--insomuch that at one village on the coast of De Fuca Straits, so great was the crowd gathered in the head chief's lodge that it was filled, and those outside climbed to the roof and, tearing the mats from their supports, to which they slung one upon another, peered down at him from above. He experienced much difficulty everywhere, however, in prevailing upon the natives to sit for their portraits, owing to their superstitious fear that the possessor of their likenesses would have some mysterious power or evil influence over them. In addition to entreaties and bribes, he had sometimes to resort to various strategies and arguments to attain his end--as, for instance, that the pictures were to be shown to their "great mother," the queen, who would no doubt be much disappointed on missing his proposed subject's portrait. On one occasion he allayed the fears of a repentant sitter, who continued to pursue him only by hastily preparing a duplicate sketch of him and destroying the duplicate in his presence--on another occasion he was in great peril owing to the unexpected death of one of his subjects--a woman--whose demise was attributed to his malign influence.

Kane, notwithstanding, had many interesting subjects. Among others he met at Fort Victoria the great Yellow-cum, head chief of the Macaws at Cape Flattery and the wealthiest man of his tribe in slaves and iaquas, the shell money then in circulation there. His father was the pilot of the _Tonquin_, who escaped destruction by the terrible explosion, which blew in pieces Mr. Astor's ship, with the man who fired the magazine and all the savage horde on her deck. On his way home he paid a four days' visit to Dr. Whitman, the well known missionary, and his family at their home on the banks of the Walla Walla. The doctor took him to see an Indian named To-ma-kus that he might take his likeness--his appearance being the most savage, Kane says, he ever beheld. The Indian, a prey to superstitious fears, endeavoured to burn the sketch made of him by Kane, who snatched it from him and fled, the man appearing to be greatly enraged. The circumstance is referred to, as it must have been peculiarly distressing to the artist to hear when at Colville of the massacre of Doctor and Mrs. Whitman and a dozen others and that the ferocious To-ma-kus was the man who had tomahawked his late host, while another Indian, whom he had sketched, was present when the deed was done. Kane had, however, done all he could to warn Dr. Whitman of his danger and endeavoured to persuade him to seek safety at Fort Walla Walla--having, indeed, taken a three hours' ride back from the fort, where he had heard and seen enough to arouse his fears for the missionary, to the missionary--but in vain. The devoted man said he had lived so long among these Indians that he had no apprehension of their injuring him--yet they attributed, it seems, to him various ills which Providence and their enemies visited upon them, with the lamentable result just mentioned. Rev. H. Spalding and family were made prisoners by another tribe, from whom, however, Mr. Ogden, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had at once repaired to the scene on hearing of the trouble, purchased their release.

The light of the gospel had first been brought to the natives of the Columbia some 14 years before this sad occurrence by a young Indian lad, christened Spaganbarry, by the English missionary at Red River, where he with some other sons of chiefs, had been sent in 1825, through the instrumentality of Governor Simpson. He returned in 1832 and subsequently spent some time in instructing his people, but afterwards himself lapsed into a profligate and savage life, according to the testimony of Governor Simpson himself. The Methodist Episcopal mission on the Willamette was begun by the Lees in 1834. In 1836 Dr. Whitman and Rev. H. Spalding with their wives--said to have been the first white women to cross the mountains--had begun their work among the Indians, as did also two Roman Catholic missionaries in 1838--while a chaplain, Rev. Mr. Beaver, and his wife, had come from England to supply the spiritual wants of Fort Vancouver. More than a decade of Christian teaching, it will be seen, had failed to eradicate superstition and savagery from the native character; yet the same spirit which has imbued those who have suffered similarly in Africa and China, in more recent years, has inspired the soldiers of the Cross on the Columbia and its tributaries to persist in their self-sacrificing labours, with what success the present residents of Oregon and Washington can best attest.

The difference in appearance and customs, as well as language, between the Indians of the plains east of the mountains and those of the coast was great. Washington Irving attributed--no doubt correctly--the bent legs, corpulent bodies and generally squat appearance of the latter, as compared with the tall, straight figures of many of the natives of the East, to their life as fishermen and mariners, constantly squatting in canoes, while the aborigines of the plains scoured the prairies in the chase. Their disposal of their dead also reflected the character of the coast Indian's life--their cemeteries being collections of elaborately decorated canoes, containing the corpses, and finished with all manner of paraphernalia and provision for the deceased in their future state, in happy _fishing_, rather than _hunting_, grounds.

Slavery was rife among the aborigines of the coast, the number of a man's wives and slaves being the two chief items in estimating his importance. The lives of these slaves were completely at the mercy of their owners, who killed them without compunction whenever the occasion seemed to them to call for such a sacrifice.

The custom of flattening the head in infancy was a characteristic of certain of the tribes in the region of the Columbia and Puget's Sound, especially of the Chinooks and Cowlitz Indians. The process, which is well depicted, as well as described by Paul Kane, commenced with the birth of the infant and continued for a period of from eight to twelve months, in which time the head had lost its natural shape and acquired that of a wedge, the front of the skull flat and higher at the crown, giving it a very unnatural appearance. The infants are said to have shown no signs of suffering while subjected to the treatment, but on the contrary to have cried when their bands were removed--nor was their health or acuteness of intellect apparently impaired by it. The Flatheads took their slaves from among the roundhead tribes, the former looking with contempt even upon the whites, whose heads had grown in the natural shape which served to distinguish slaves from their masters.

The fondness of the Indian for arraying himself in the white man's garments, especially if they be of a showy or striking appearance, has been often remarked, and the Indians of the Columbia were no exception to the rule. "I remember old King Comcomly," said the old Hudson's Bay clerk quoted in the earlier part of this article[215], "once marching into Vancouver, with all his naked aides and followers, rigged out in a British general's uniform. But His Majesty had thrown off the pantaloons before he marched out--considering that they impeded his progress"--a scene which reminds one somewhat of the visit of the founder of the late Hawaiian dynasty and his suite to the _Tonquin_, while she lay at the Sandwich Islands.

The lot of the officers and clerks at the more remote posts of the Hudson's Bay Company was, in most cases, by no means an enviable one. Their letters to their friends and to each other--usually long and neatly written documents--contained many a tale of dangers surmounted and hardships endured. One wrote from Colville, in 1835, "we had five or six hundred Blackfeet upon us and fought some hours"; another, speaking of Fort Simpson in the same year, said: "A winter voyage on that rugged stormy coast is both dangerous and unpleasant and, when arrived, the matter is not much mended. The natives are very numerous, treacherous, daring, savage and ferocious in the extreme." Separated from his family, whom he would not expose to the dangers of the voyage, he exclaims against the country of his exile. Such instances might be multiplied and it is little matter of wonder that the burden of the trader's letter was at all times an expression of longing for the time when he hoped to "go out" to the far away civilized world and that he invariably looked upon one already there as in a situation akin to Paradise. The hope of promotion--which could not begin until after many years of service--the heartburnings at sometimes being passed over, the long waits of twenty or even thirty years for their "parchments," as they termed their commissions as chief factors or chief traders--were the subject of ceaseless thought and some grumbling. Now and again the bullet, knife or tomahawk of some treacherous foe would put an end to the earthly solitude of the trader at a remote post. In spite of all their drawbacks, however, the Hudson's Bay factors, traders and clerks formed a brotherhood of men, who, for courage, loyalty to the service and good comradeship, were unexcelled perhaps anywhere. In Eastern Canada, the Red River settlement and Vancouver Island, which formed the chief havens of their retirement from service, the old Nor'westers and Hudson's Bay men formed a confraternity of large-hearted and often opulent veterans, full of affection for their families and old comrades and of thankfulness to God for mercies vouchsafed them. That not only the highest position in the company's service, but the highest imperial honours as well, were open to the Hudson's Bay clerk possessing the necessary ability, tact, vigour and perseverance is evidenced by the case of the Hon. Sir Donald A. Smith, who, entering company's service as a lad from Scotland, 18 years of age, has risen, step by step, to the highest position in that service, has amassed great wealth, held a seat for many years in the Canadian parliament, and occupies now the important position of High Commissioner for Canada at London, where he holds a seat in the House of Lords as Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal.

As already stated, the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew headquarters to the north of the present boundary after it became fixed in 1846. Meantime settlement, especially in the Willamette valley, was going on apace and cities and towns arose. Though the fur trade departed, the fisheries have remained and the city of Astoria has been reared chiefly on a diet of fish--for the salmon and sturgeon, as well as smaller fish, of the Columbia, were ever justly celebrated. Ships of all nations found their way in increasing numbers across that bar which has ever been the chief drawback to navigation to and from the Columbia. Across the broad river down which the express boat propelled by the light-hearted, gaily-singing voyageurs, made its way in former times, the swift express train now travels with passengers who mayhap have crossed the continent in less time than would, in the early days, have been consumed in a trip from Spokane to Fort Vancouver.

C. O. ERMATINGER.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] Mr. C. O. Ermatinger, of St. Thomas, Ontario, the writer of this paper, is the son of the E. (Edward) Ermatinger and a nephew or the F. (Francis) Ermatinger who are mentioned in the entry on Monday, October 31st, 1825, of the Journal of John Work, which is printed in this Quarterly. Judge Ermatinger is a prominent member of the Elgin (County) Historical and Scientific Institute of Ontario, Canada. This paper was prepared for use in the East some years since; its publication in this Quarterly has now been kindly permitted.--T. C. Elliott.

[213] The present writer's father.

[214] Now deceased. The paintings were purchased I believe by Mr. C. B. Estes, M. P., of Toronto.

[215] The writer's father.

THREE DIPLOMATS PROMINENT IN THE OREGON QUESTION[216]

English-speaking people throughout the world are preparing to celebrate the century of peace which was begun on Christmas Eve, 1814, by the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. It is especially appropriate that here, in the Pacific Northwestern part of America, we should join in such a celebration, for it was by the Treaty of Ghent that the Oregon Question first entered the realm of diplomacy. There remained thirty-one years of struggle for sovereignty, during which war seemed imminent on more than one occasion, and yet, at the end of that period, the case was settled by diplomacy.

Many men took part in that struggle, but it is the present purpose to call attention to three eminent American statesmen who were brought into contact with the diplomacy of the case at each important stage of its evolution. As a group, they deserve more credit than is usually accorded to them in Northwestern annals. Their names are John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin.

It is not necessary to trace their early careers, except to point out that they fairly represented the United States in the critical year of 1814. Adams of Massachusetts was a New Englander. Clay, though born in Virginia, removed to Kentucky, at the age of twenty, to begin the practice of law. He thus represented the West as well as the South. Gallatin, born in Geneva, Switzerland, came to America, a boy of nineteen years, and passed through remarkable experiences in Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania and Virginia, settling finally in New York City, a man of fame and wealth.

During the War of 1812, these three men were in public service as follows: John Quincy Adams was United States Minister to Russia; Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was rounding out his twelfth year as Secretary of the Treasury. When Czar Alexander offered to end the war by mediation, President Madison took the proposal very seriously. He appointed Clay and Gallatin as commissioners to join Minister Adams in the negotiations. The two resigned their important positions to accept the new duty. When they arrived at St. Petersburg, it was learned that Great Britain had declined the Czar's offer of mediation.

There followed months of weary waiting. The victories over Napoleon relieved the pressure on Great Britain, but she finally made the proposal for commissioners of the two powers to meet in a neutral port.

Ghent was chosen and the United States added James A. Bayard and Jonathan Russell to their commission.

The long and tedious record of the negotiation reveals many a discord between the two sides but, much more unfortunate, it also reveals many clashes between Adams and Clay within the American commission. Adams insisted on protecting the fishing rights off British American shores and Clay wanted to deprive England from the use of the Mississippi River. Clay even tried to stop negotiations at the last moment. Adams says: "Gallatin and Bayard, who appeared not to know where it was that Clay's shoe pinched him, were astonished at what they heard, and Gallatin showed some impatience at what he thought mere unseasonable trifling."[217] Yet Gallatin surely did know where the shoe pinched and he was determined that the larger interests should not be jeopardized. His biographer says: "Far more than contemporaries ever supposed, or than is now imagined, the Treaty of Ghent was the special work and the peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin."[218] The biographer of Clay also refers to Gallatin's resources as a peacemaker, adding: "At the very last, just before separating, Adams and Clay quarreled about the custody of the papers, in language bordering upon the unparliamentary. But for the consummate tact and the authority of Gallatin the commission would not seldom have been in danger of breaking up in heated controversy."[219]

These quarrels of the pinching shoes had little to do with the Oregon Question. They reveal, however, some of the qualities of the men destined to cling to the question for many years. Oregon is not mentioned in the completed treaty. In general terms it is included in the following language of Article 1: "All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, excepting only the islands hereinafter mentioned, shall be restored without delay, and without causing any destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or other public property originally captured in the said forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property."[220] The islands mentioned were those in Passamaquoddy Bay and Gallatin suspected that the British commissioners desired to pave the way for securing in the future a part of Maine "in order to connect New Brunswick and Quebec."[221]

That Oregon was included in the treaty's general terms is shown by the instructions from Secretary of State Monroe to the American commissioners under date of March 22, 1814: "Should a treaty be concluded with Great Britain, and a reciprocal restitution of territory be agreed on, you will have it in recollection that the United States had in their possession, at the commencement of the war, a post at the mouth of the river Columbia, which commanded the river, which ought to be comprised in the stipulation, should the possession have been wrested from us during the war. On no pretext can the British Government set up a claim to territory south of the northern boundary of the United States. It is not believed that they have any claim whatever to territory on the Pacific Ocean. You will, however, be careful, should a definition of boundary be attempted, not to countenance, in any manner, or in any quarter, a pretension in the British Government to territory south of that line."[222]

The American commissioners were therefore informed as to the determined attitude of the United States as to Oregon and Adams declares that the British understood that Oregon was included in the provisions of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent. He says that Anthony St. John Baker, Secretary of the British Commission, was to go to America with the ratification of the treaty and, later, he says that Baker showed in a letter to Secretary of State Monroe that the British understood that Astoria was included in he terms of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent.[223] Subsequently (21 February, 1822) it was revealed by the publication of the report of the American commissioners, dated at Ghent, 25 December, 1814, the day after the treaty was signed, that an attempt had been made to settle the boundary from the Lake of the Woods westward along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. That would have settled the Oregon controversy then. It was rejected because it was involved with "a formal abandonment on our part, of our claim to the liberty as to the fisheries, recognized by the treaty of 1783."[224]

That Oregon was included in the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent was recognized in 1818 by the formal transfer of Astoria (Fort George of the British) to J. B. Prevost, representing the United States for the purpose of that transfer.

In the same year, 1818, was signed by Great Britain and the United States an agreement that has since been known in the Oregon country as the Treaty or Convention of Joint Occupancy. The official title is Convention Respecting Fisheries, Boundary and the Restoration of Slaves. Article III of this convention provided that "any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains" should for the term of ten years be free and open to "the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two Powers."[225] There were no American settlers in Oregon then. The Northwest Company of Montreal had a number of trading posts. The convention was a mutual confession that the future would have to solve the question of actual sovereignty. When that convention was signed, John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State, Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was United States Minister to France. But he was directed to go from Paris to London to join United States Minister Richard Rush in the negotiations and Gallatin's name is the first signature on the completed document.

On 22 February, 1819, John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, signed with Luis de Onis, Spanish Minister to the United States, an agreement known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cession of the Floridas, and Boundaries. Just exactly two years elapsed before the treaty was ratified and proclaimed. The delay was caused by Spain's fear that the United States was about to recognize the independence of the revolted Spanish American colonies. Article III of this treaty affects the Oregon case in two ways. It fixes the southern boundary of the Oregon country along the forty-second parallel of latitude and it passes to the United States a quitclaim to any title that Spain may have in lands lying north of that boundary.[226] Adams surely sensed the importance of this item at the time. It was frequently cited and urged in subsequent negotiations.

In 1821, the Czar of Russia claimed the coast of America from the frozen seas in the North to the fifty-first parallel of latitude. On 17 July, 1823, Secretary of State Adams told Baron Tuyl, Russian Minister to the United States, that the time had passed for further colonization by European powers in the lands of America. On the first Monday of the following December, President Monroe gave to Congress the famous message that embodies the Monroe Doctrine. Russia's claim to part of Oregon provoked a part of that Doctrine. Henry Middleton, United States Minister to Russia, was directed to begin negotiations which resulted in the convention as to the Pacific Ocean and Northwest Coast of America, bearing the date of 17 April, 1824. Article III of this convention fixes the northern boundary of the Oregon country at fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude. At this juncture, Gallatin had returned to private life, but Clay was still Speaker of the House and Adams was Secretary of State.

When the ten-year limit of the joint occupancy feature of the Convention of 1818 was about to expire, our three diplomats were sharply confronted with the Oregon Question once more. John Quincy Adams had become President, Henry Clay was his Secretary of State, and Albert Gallatin, who had refused a cabinet position and a nomination for vice president, now consented to serve as United States Minister to Great Britain. In sending Minister Gallatin instructions under date of 19 June, 1826, Secretary of State Clay said: "You are then authorized to propose the annulment of the third article of the Convention of 1818, and the extension of the line on the parallel of 49, from the eastern side of the Stony Mountains, where it now terminates, to the Pacific Ocean, as the permanent boundary between the territories of the two powers in that quarter. This is our ultimatum, and you may so announce it."

There still were no American settlers in the region. The fixing of the boundary was apparently impossible, but Gallatin succeeded in concluding on 6 August, 1827, a convention to continue indefinitely the joint occupancy feature and providing that either side could terminate the agreement by giving the other side twelve months' notice. President Adams felt that it was a compromise, but a good one. Said he to Congress: "Our conventions with Great Britain are founded upon the principles of reciprocity."[227] In the course of the negotiations there was submitted a declaration prohibiting both sides from "exercising, or assuming to themselves the right to exercise, any exclusive sovereignty or jurisdiction over the said territory, during the continuance in force of the present convention."[228] That declaration was not made a formal part of the convention except so far as it is covered by Article III, which provides that nothing in the convention shall impair the claims of either party "to any part of the country westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains."[229]

Oregon was projected into the struggles of joint occupancy. It remains to follow the interest of the three diplomats. Clay could not have forgotten Oregon wholly during his campaigns for the presidency or during his great fight for the Compromise of 1850, including the free constitution of California. He did not, however, come into definite contact with the Oregon case after his term as Secretary of State. Gallatin entered permanently upon private life in 1831. For about eight years he was a banker and then devoted himself to literature. There is abundant evidence that he remembered Oregon. He wrote in the field of ethnology about Indians of the west and, in 1846, when Oregon was reaching toward a final struggle in diplomacy, he wrote his well known pamphlet on The Oregon Question, beginning: "I had been a pioneer in collecting facts and stating the case."[230] When he wrote that pamphlet he was eighty-five years old and within three years of his death.

Adams continued longest in the public service; indeed, his wish to die in the harness was gratified. The ex-President entered Congress in 1831 and represented the same district in the House of Representatives until his death in 1848. He knew the Oregon Question from end to end. He knew how Doctor Floyd and others had tried, in 1821, to persuade Congress to establish a settlement on the Columbia. He knew about William A. Slacum's investigation and report, in 1837, as well as the report of the Wilkes Expedition, in 1841. On returning from church on 24 July, 1842, he called on Lord Ashburton and spent an hour with him learning about the negotiations with Secretary Webster for a treaty in which, as he found, the "Oregon Territory and Columbia River question remains open."[231] The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was concluded on 9 August, 1842, but there were further negotiations, for in March, 1843, after an illness of eight days, Adams got to the State Department and had a three hours' talk with Secretary of State Daniel Webster. He was displeased. Webster seemed frank enough with him about some points, but he admitted with apparent reluctance that Great Britain would not object to the United States extending southward from the Columbia River to San Francisco, at the expense of Mexico, if Great Britain was given a free hand north of the Columbia. Remembering the Puget Sound region as a part of such a sacrifice, Adams wrote in his diary: "What an abime of duplicity!"

On 16 February, 1843, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he reported unfavorably Senator Linn's bill for the occupation of Oregon Territory. For this he has been criticized, but no one knew so well as he what lay behind that Article III in the Convention of 1827.

After the election of 1844, with its successful battle-cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight!" Congressman Adams watched the Oregon Question closely. He got through the House a call on the President for papers in the case and his diary of 14 December, 1845, says: "My chief occupation was to read the discussion between the successive Secretaries of State, Daniel Webster, Abel P. Upshur, John C. Calhoun, and James Buchanan, with the British Ministers Henry S. Fox and Ricard Pakenham, concerning the contest of title between the United States and Great Britain to the Oregon Territory. The most remarkable reflection to which this correspondence gives rise in my mind is that, notwithstanding the positive declaration of Mr. Polk in his inaugural speech of the unquestionable title of the United States to the whole Oregon country to latitude 54.40, notwithstanding a repetition of the same declaration in his recent message to Congress, and notwithstanding the constant professed inflexibility of his official newspaper in support of this claim, he has actually repeated the offer heretofore made by Mr. Monroe, and repeated by me, of continuing the boundary-line between the British possessions and the United States in the latitude of 49 from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and that it has again been rejected by Great Britain."[232] He was of opinion that the offer ought not to be repeated or accepted if made by Great Britain, but he felt that Mr. Polk "will finish by accepting it."

He was right, Mr. Polk did accept it. The treaty was concluded on 15 June, 1846, and it is a great blessing that the end came through diplomacy without an appeal to arms. Few realized at the time how close we had come to war. The cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight!" was looked upon as mainly bluster for campaign purposes. But what of the other side? Within the last five years were published for the first time the Warre and Vavasour papers,[233] by which it is revealed that the British Government had sent the two secret agents into the Oregon country and they had shown how feasible would have been a war of conquest in that region. Instead of war, Great Britain renewed the offer of the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise boundary and it was accepted.

Each of our three diplomats lived beyond the Biblical allotment of years. Adams died in 1848 at eighty-one years of age, Gallatin in 1849 at eighty-eight, and Clay in 1852 at seventy-five. Grand old men, all of them! The public annals of their day are shot through and through with the records of their thoughts and deeds. Inadequate collections of their works have been saved, the greatest of which is the monumental diary of John Quincy Adams. He, himself, has written of that diary; "There has perhaps not been another individual of the human race, of whose daily existence from early childhood to fourscore years has been noted down with his own hand so minutely as mine."[234]

It has not been possible to search every document for this occasion, but enough has been gleaned to show something of the debt of gratitude which the Oregon country owes to the diplomatic triumphs achieved by the brains and hands of these three great men.

When the century of peace shall be rounded out on next Christmas eve, it would be well to send to Quincy, Lexington, and Trinity churchyard in New York wreaths of evergreens from the Oregon hills,--memorial tributes to Adams, Clay and Gallatin.

EDMOND S. MEANY.

FOOTNOTES:

[216] Presidential address for the special meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Seattle, 22 May, 1914.

[217] Charles Francis Adams: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 111, 121, 22 Dec., 1814.

[218] Henry Adams: Life of Albert Gallatin, 516. Quoted by John Austin Stevens: Albert Gallatin, 335.

[219] Carl Schurz: Henry Clay, I., 113.

[220] William M. Malloy: Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1909, I., 613.

[221] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, IV., 811. (Mr. Gallatin to the Secretary of State, 25 December, 1815.)

[222] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III., p. 731. The copy of this document was submitted to Congress in response to the Senate's request of 15 February, 1815. The statement was made that it was one of only two documents that had been withheld from Congress. In a former document under date of 21 March, 1814, there appears the line: "(Confidential paragraph omitted.)," which may be the same as that given above, though the date is one day later.

[223] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, IV., 93-94; (15 May, 1818).

[224] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, IV., 808-811.

[225] Malloy: Treaties, I., 632.

[226] Malloy: Treaties, II., 1652-1653.

[227] James D. Richardson: Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ii., 380.

[228] Public Documents, Serial No. 173; 30 Congress. 1st session. House of Representatives. Documents 199, p. 77.

[229] Malloy: Treaties, I., 644.

[230] Albert Gallatin: The Oregon Question (New York. Bartlett & Welford, 1846); reprinted by Henry Adams: Writings of Gallatin, III., 489-553.

[231] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs. XI., 219.

[232] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, XII., 220-221.

[233] The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society. X., 1-99 (March, 1909); also the Washington Historical Quarterly, III., 131-153 (April, 1912).

[234] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, XII., 276-277. (31 October, 1846.)

DOCUMENTS

A New Vancouver Journal

Taking up the Journal from where it left off in the April Quarterly we find the party approaching Restoration Point, opposite the present city of Seattle. The record here given is much briefer than in Vancouver's own official Journal, but it should prove of interest in spite of that fact. It retells the discovery of this region in the style of a mariner. In years to come this brief record is sure to be preserved by the side of the larger official record.

EDMOND S. MEANY.

THE JOURNAL

(Continued from page 137, April Quarterly.)

We were detained by the Tides, which were rapid, from joining the Discovery before the 26th when we found her at anchor off a Point of a small opening called by Captn: Vancouver Restoration Point.[235] Here there was a small village, containing, I shou'd suppose, about 60 or 70 Inhabitants.[236] It was situated on a fine rising ground, and the Country round it was extremely pleasant to appearance and clear. The Natives had brought a good supply of Venison to the Discovery. Two of her boats with Lt: Paget & Mr Whidby were now absent on a surveying expedition up the continuation of this & the Arms round us, and the morning after our arrival Captn; Vancouver with Mr Johnstone set out with two Boats on another expedition. Though I have but just before mentioned that I conceived the Natives hereabouts had but little intercourse with Europeans, we had here a proof that they were not entirely unaccustomed to Trading Vessels for two very good Sea Otter Skins were brought off for sale, and the price was copper. However they took so reasonable a price, and their having no more than these two skins among them makes me think that the knowledge they have of Trading Ships is acquir'd by their own commerce with Tribes between them and the Sea.

On the 27th at night Mr Whidby & Lt. Paget return'd from their cruize having closed up the Arms.[237] In one place they met with a considerable tribe of Indians from whom he had nearly met with some trouble, but by early good management nothing material happened. After being very well treated by the Boats party the Natives seized the opportunity of their stopping at a Beach to Dinner, to attack them. They were observed to string their Bows & sling their Quivers and were making for the Wood behind the party at Dinner from whence it was no doubt their intention to fire on them but as this was observ'd Mr Menzies & Mr Manby catching up their Muskets ran up and drove them back to their Canoes. As there were some opening to look into the Northd. we weigh'd anchor and quitted this place the next day the 28th and as Mr Johnstone was still absent in our Cutter with Captn: Vancouver we took Mr Whidby and the Discovery's Launch with us to carry on the survey and when we came abreast of the opening she was dispatched along with our Launch in which went Ltd: Hanson with a week's provisions. In the meantime we anchored off a place called Rose Point from the numerous trees of that name that were on the low ground; besides this there were plenty of currant, Gooseberry, & Raspberry bushes, and large beds of Strawberries but very little if any of these Fruits were yet ripe.