222 LOWNSDALE LETTER TO THURSTON
Territory. Up to the present it has been enveloped in mystery and kept, as the fern among the towering fir groves, shut out from the sunlight, and in this enchanted condition, for pur- poses best known to those who have not only fattened from this seclusion but also gives ground to suppose that there are sinister motives for the future. At the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia river by Captain Gray who entered its mouth and ascended to where Astoria is now situated, in the year 1792, there was no white settlements on this, nor its tributaries. After this discovery and report by Captain Gray, the Hudson's Bay Company by their agent, Mr. McKinzie, conceived the idea of converting the trade of this coast by a chain of trading posts to the Atlantic and reported accordingly, the probable interest it might make to the English crown by giving the United charter to the Hudson's Bay Company and the North- west Fur Company and we will see how far their designs have been carried out before we come to the present date.
In the year 1808 John Jacob Astor, after hearing the report of Lewis and Clark, came to the conclusion to settle a trading post at this point and sent by land a company of men while his ship Tonquin sailed around by sea, to their destination, where they arrived, the Tonquin entering the mouth and ascending to the station at Astoria, 1811. During the short period of two years, Astor's establishment flourished amazingly, and, as requested by the energetic traveler, McKinzie, the Hudson's Bay Company forced their way westward and commenced their course of opposition to the Americans, and in 1813 a British brig entered and captured his station, and in 1814 built a fort at the place now known by the name of Fort George and re- tained the same until the present, notwithstanding the required relinquishing the country by treaty ; they did indeed give up the site of Astoria but retained their hold at Fort George when the treaty required the surrender of the trade of the whole country on its former footing to the Americans.
Thus, cramped by the Hudson's Bay Company and a con- tinuation of their posts up the river, the company continued virtually to hold possession of the whole Columbia valley, on the east and west of the Cascade mountains, Astor relinquished the trade and, although in direct opposition to justice, England virtually, by the Hudson's Bay Company, possessed what treaty had guaranteed to the American citizen. They entered Oregon territory in the year 1810 ; still continuing westward 1812 they made another fort still lower on the Columbia, thence down to Walla Walla in 1811 and where Vancouver now stands,
