8 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Finding it impossible to get the schooner into the Willhamette river, I left her at Vancouver, and made a visit to Oregon city, where I was received by the provisional governor, George Abernethy, esq., and honored with a salute fired from a hole drilled in the village blacksmith's anvil. From the city the gov- ernor accompanied me for a week's ride through the Willham- mette valley, and a more lovely country nature has never pro- vided for her virtuous sons and daughters than I here travelled over. This excursion ended, the governor took a seat in my boat, and accompanied me to Vancouver. He was received on board the schooner with a salute and remained with me for two days. I had previously dispatched the first lieutenant, Mr. W. S. Schenck, up the Columbia river as high as the Dalles, to find out what settlements had been made along its banks, and more particularly to endeavor to gain some information of the large emigration which was expected in from our western frontier this autumn, and from which we should get dates from home as late as June. In person I visited the Twality plains, and returned again by the city and river.
The high price of mechanics' labor here, and facility with which any one can earn a living, had tempted ten of the Shark's crew to desert ; and although a liberal reward was offered for their apprehension, only two had been brought back. The few American merchant vessels which had visited the Columbia suffered the greatest inconvenience from the loss of their men in this way, and it is now customary for them to procure a reinforcement of Kanakas in passing the Sandwich islands, to meet this exigency.
When Captain Wilkes left the river in 1841, he placed the Peacock's launch, at that time a new and splendid boat, in charge of Dr. McLaughlin, agent of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, to be used in assisting vessels about the bar, should they need it. After this boat had remained a year in the water with- out being of any use, she was hauled up on shore, and was now completely out of order from the effect of decay and shrinkage. Many applications had been made for her by Amer- ican emigrants, but Dr. McLaughlin did not feel authorized to
