pay some outward regard to her agreement with Spain concerning the northwest coast of America, and the United States being too poor and weak to set up claims, even if they felt disposed to dispute the right of Spain, the vessels of each nation were withdrawn from that portion of the Pacific, and silence and obscurity reigned once more over those remote seas. In the meantime important political changes had been going on in Europe. Louisiana, which then comprised all the territory not belonging to Spain, west of the sources of the Mississippi, and south of the forty-ninth parallel, had been ceded by France to Spain thirty years before the events just spoken of. But in 1800 France once more regained possession of Louisiana, and in 1803 sold it to the United States.
Could the British lion, hating the fleur de lis, and fearing the growth of the young American eagle, suppress a desire to seize some portion of the spoils of war, or the profits of barter? What had not been openly taken from Spain might be craftily alienated from the United States by the help of one of its princely corporations—and, according to leonine ethics, should be.
When President Jefferson recommended and set on foot the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, with a purpose of examining the country west of the Rocky Mountains, and discovering the sources of the Columbia, the British Government sought to forestall him by means of no common excellence at hand—the expert pioneers of the North-west Fur Company. When Lewis and Clarke left their encampment on the Missouri River in the spring of 1805, to proceed on their great journey toward the Pacific through an unexplored country, one of the leaders of the North-west Company was just on their heels. In October of that year they had reached the head-waters of the southern branch of the Columbia, and very fortunately were able to make their way to the mouth of the lower river before winter set in. Not so fortunate was the British emissary who dogged their footsteps. An accident detained him in the mountains until the snows came on; and when at last he reached the coast it was on Frazer's River, far to the north of the Columbia, and which he mistook for one of the northern branches of that river. Thus, for the second time, Fortune, Fate, Providence, or what you choose to name the invincible destiny, signified to whom the empire should be given.
Although the Congress of the United States did not doubt the American title to the territories lying on the Pacific, north of one certain boundary, and south of one hardly less certain, as having been acquired both by discovery and purchase, yet it was very well understood that England meant to question that title; and therefore when John Jacob Astor, in 1810, conceived his great scheme of establishing a commerce at the mouth of the Columbia, Congress, headed by the President, promised protection and support to his undertakings. Occupation and colonization were safe and sure methods of securing the territory about which it might be inconvenient to go to war. But now again the North-west Company, jealously watching the American movement, endeavored to reach the mouth of the Columbia before Mr. Astor's company; and again, prevented by an accident, only reached that point after Astoria had been built, and garrisoned in the half-military style that the presence of powerful Indian tribes made necessary. The war of 1812, the treachery of Mr. Astor's partners—several of whom had been formerly in the employ of the North-west Company—and the pusillanimous behavior of Congress after the close of the war, virtually defeated for a time the prospects of an American settlement on the shores of the Pacific. The North-west Com-
