one Foreign Office official to another, in a private memorandum,—and it was. Gray's fur-trading log was not located by the Government until 1817,—the summer the Ontario sailed. When it was looked up through the ship's owners, an affidavit was made only of that fortnight of entering and trading in the river, and the exit. The Government did not even claim the log,—a mistake as against Vancouver's official, published reports, sanctioned and recognized by the British Government. When in 1837 tension had increased, and the American Government searched for Gray's log again, both he and his wife were dead, and the niece to whom he had left the treasure had used the log for wrapping paper! So far as Government records went, there was plenty of obscurity, and the configuration of the coast, the shape of that large bay-like mouth of the river, and the bars, seem not to have been comprehended by either government to any degree.
The sale of Fort Astoria is too well known to need comment, aside from the fact that almost invariably there is omitted the statement, as given by Alexander Henry, (in his Journals, ed. by Coues), that Wilson Price Hunt, after an investigation of the prices at which the fort and furs were sold, assented to them and thus sanctioned the sale. Without his approval the arrangements made by McDougall for the sale could not have held; so the charge of treachery seems quite unfounded for this, as well as for other reasons.
But with the war on, the North West Company's nudging of the British Government, asking for a warship to capture this post, brought the matter to the attention of Colonial officials and other British statesmen. The Americans were mere squatters on the Columbia from the British point of view, and hardly was the fort sold, on the Columbia itself, and Captain Black's reports sent in cipher overland to Canada, and to London—this being the quickest route,—than plans were being made to colonize the North West Coast. By discovery, exploration, trade and contiguity to Canada, the British
