Chapter III: The English

THE BLEAK NORTH-WEST COAST.

"_War with the world and peace with England._"—_Spanish._

We should expect to find a race of sailors pushing discovery on their own element.

With English mariners of the seventeenth century, the belief in a North-west Passage to India was an inherited faith. Cabot led discovery in this direction. It became, almost exclusively, a field for the brave and adventurous of this nation who, from year to year, spreading their tattered sails to the frozen blasts of the Polar Sea, grimly fought their way on from cape to headland, in desperate venture, lured by the vain hope of finding the open waters of their dreams lying just beyond them. It is a story of daring and peril unsurpassed. Many a noble ship and gallant crew have gone down while attempting to solve those mysteries which the hand of God would seem forever to have sealed up from the knowledge of man.

Among others the brave and ill-fated Henry Hudson,[1] in 1610, sailed through the straits leading into the bay now bearing his name, where his mutinous crew wickedly abandoned him to die of cold or hunger, or both.

Afterward, Hudson's Bay was repeatedly visited by English navigators whose discoveries all went to confirm the prevailing belief in an open polar sea. One of them even took a letter from his own king for the Emperor of Japan. In view of the suffering to which all were alike subject, these "frost-biting voyages" might be said to show more heroism than sound practical wisdom, yet with the riches of the Indies spread out before their fancy, and all England to applaud their deeds, the best of England's sailors were always ready to peril life and limb for the prize. All who came back told the same tale,—of seas sheeted in ice, suns that never set, lands where nothing grew, cold so extreme that all nature seemed but a mockery of the all-wise design of the Creator Himself.

Sir Thomas Button followed up Hudson's discoveries in 1612. He wintered at the mouth of Nelson's River, so named by him, after finding farther progress to the westward barred by the coast, where he had hoped to find it opening before him.

It was soon found that the bleak and desolate region enclosing Hudson's Bay was rich in fur-bearing animals, whose skins bore a great price in Europe, and the reports brought back from that far-off land gave a certain Frenchman named Grosselier the idea of planting a fur-trading colony there. He at once went to the minister with his plan. The minister, however, would not listen to him. Grosselier then went to Prince Rupert,[2] who was staying at Paris, to ask for the aid he wanted. Struck with the scheme, the prince became its patron. A ship was sent out, with Grosselier, in 1668, which reached the head of James' Bay,[3] where Fort Charles was built. The next year, Prince Rupert, and seventeen others, were incorporated into a company, with power granted them to make settlements and carry on trade in Hudson's Bay.

In this way the since famous Hudson's Bay Company obtained a monopoly of the fur-trade of all that region, which afterward proved so valuable to it. Its powers were most ample. It could hold and convey land, fit out ships, erect forts, or make war with the peoples of that country, but all this was to be done in its character as a trading-company; and though it had a resident governor, the central authority was kept in the company, in London, who continued to direct its affairs.

In the earlier years of its existence the Hudson's Bay Company had a hard struggle for life. We know that French traders formerly had dealings with the natives of that dreary inland sea. Jealousy now prompted them to try to drive the English thence by force, and so get rid of their rivalry. To this end repeated attacks were made upon the English factories,[4] which were taken and retaken, first by one and then by another assailant. Even in time of peace the French had not scrupled to assault these remote posts, so unwilling were Canadians to see the English gain a foothold in that quarter.

These invasions were quieted at last by the treaty of Utrecht (1713), which left the English in possession of what they had battled with foes of every sort to secure for themselves.

Communication had with the natives, who were nomads, taught the English how to make distant journeys, and gradually, with their aid, to penetrate farther and farther into the interior. But to live in the country at all, they had, in a great measure, to adapt themselves to the natives' way of life, and to make journeys they had to adopt the rude conveyances found in use among them.

FOOTNOTES

[1] HENRY HUDSON. The same who discovered and named Hudson
River of New York.

[2] PRINCE RUPERT, of Bavaria, commanded the cavalry of
Charles I. during the Civil War (1642): after the Restoration
he devoted himself to scientific pursuits.

[3] JAMES' BAY. Like Davis, Baffin, Hudson, etc., the name
is that of an arctic navigator. It opens at the bottom of
Hudson's Bay.

[4] THE ENGLISH FACTORIES, at that time, were Forts Nelson,
Albany, Hayes and Rupert.

HUDSON'S BAY TO THE SOUTH SEA.

"_Many a shoal marks this stern coast._"

The Hudson's Bay Company's grant was meant to promote the discovery of a North-west Passage to India: so the people of England, in giving away such large privileges, expected this would be done without delay.

But the company, at first, made little or no effort in this direction. It was chiefly occupied with making money, and making it from the start. Hence every thing was made to work to that end.

England did not know what she was doing when she created this monopoly. Ignorance led to delusion, and delusion to the inconsiderate granting away of an empire. It was thought the company would explore and settle its grant, and thus England would reap the benefits without spending a penny. The company, on the other hand, meant to do nothing of the sort, unless driven to it by popular clamor. Then it would do as little as it could. Colonization was fatal to the fur-trade, and the company was an association of fur-traders, nothing else. Hence, given a warehouse in London, a ship to carry goods back and forth, a port and factory at Hudson's Bay, a score or more of trading-posts scattered here and there over a vast extent of territory, to which the hunters could bring furs and get goods at the company's price, and we have, briefly told, the whole machinery of this giant monopoly. In dealing with the outside world it pursued a policy of Spanish exclusion and silence. It was not making history, but money.

Yet the company was all the time building better than it knew, for even the coming and going of its own traders gradually enlarged geographical knowledge of the country, so smoothing the way for the future.

From time to time the natives who came to the factories showed specimens of copper ore, which they said came from the Far Off Metal River of the North. The English traders consequently named it the Coppermine. It became an object with them to find the mine, or mines, whence these specimens had been taken. The governor accordingly (1769) sent one of his most trusty men into the unknown wilderness in search of them.

Taking with him some Indian guides, and living as they lived, that is to say one day fasting and the next feasting, as game was found plenty or scarce, Samuel Hearne only succeeded in getting to the Coppermine after making three attempts to do so. His story is a wondrous record of persevering endurance. He found the sacred character of the calumet everywhere acknowledged, even by the most degraded tribes. When they had once smoked together the stranger was as safe from injury or insult as in his own house, though nothing could exceed the curiosity which his white skin, blue eyes and light hair, all so different from their own, caused among the Indians he met in his journey.

The Coppermine was found to run into the Arctic Ocean, instead of Hudson's Bay, as Hearne supposed it did when he first set out, but no copper could be discovered worth the taking of such a journey to look for, as his. Hearne came back (1772) at the end of a year and a half, having established the shore line of the northern ocean at a point where land only was supposed to be. This was considered a great geographical discovery. Thus, year by year, a little was added here and a little there toward completing an accurate map of the north coast line.

In 1789, a Scotch trader, named Alexander Mackenzie, had been living for eight years past at Fort Chipewyan.[1] This was a station nearly central between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific. Mackenzie was an explorer by instinct. He determined to cross the continent. Once he had made up his mind, no thought of hardship could deter him. His course through the Slave River and lakes led him to the river now bearing his own name,—the Mackenzie River. Down this stream the intrepid traveller floated in his frail canoe, to its outlet upon the frozen Arctic Sea.

During his trip, Mackenzie questioned the Indians of this river about the unknown country lying beyond the great western wall of mountains, but found they could tell him little except that the people of that country were so exceeding fierce no stranger durst go among them. But Mackenzie knew the Pacific was there, and meant to reach it.

He first moved up from Fort Chipewyan to the east foot of the mountains, so as to get a better start. He wintered here. In the spring (1793), he was ready to set out again. One large, strong canoe, which held all the provisions, and which two men could carry with ease, enabled the travellers to work their slow and toilsome way up the swollen mountain torrents into the highest defiles, from which they sprung. As the explorers advanced, the stream they were ascending became more and more choked up with rocks or fallen trees, and more and more broken by cascades and rapids. It was often necessary to carry the canoe round or drag it over these obstructions, though at the cost of such toil that the men grew disheartened and wished to turn back, thinking the task a hopeless one. Unsparing of himself, Mackenzie put courage into the downhearted, and after a short rest all were ready to go on again.

Falling, at length, among the Indians who dwelt among the mountains, Mackenzie found that the rest of the journey would be much shortened by leaving his canoes and proceeding by land. He therefore continued his way by land, constantly meeting with natives who lived sumptuously on the salmon that the streams everywhere produced in great abundance and perfection. Mackenzie soon found he had nothing to fear from these people. They fed and sheltered his men in their villages, and willingly helped him on his way. The fatigues and anxieties of the journey were nearly past, for on the 23d of July, 1793, the party of white men arrived on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, near the Straits of Fuca.

Although, in relating the adventures of Mackenzie, we have gone somewhat before our story, the doing so is essential to its design, as subsequent chapters will show.

FOOTNOTE

[1] FORT CHIPEWYAN was at the foot of ATHABASCA LAKE, midway
between the mountains and Hudson's Bay.

THE RUSSIANS IN ALASKA.

"_Heaven is high and the Czar distant._"

Referring to what Drake had done for England, and De Fuca for Spain, the one tacking a name to the coast here, the other there, we find little for more than a century going to show that Europeans thought the discoveries of either worth following up.

What do we then see? Not Spain, not England putting forth a steady hand to grasp the prize each already claimed as its own, but a new power, coming not from the East, but from the West. It is a power hardly known in Europe. It is Russia.

The Czar Peter, Peter the Great in history, determined to know whether the two grand continents, Asia and America, were joined in one, or separated by a northern ocean. Peter died before the orders given for this purpose could be carried out, but Catherine, his empress and successor, sent Captain Behring[1] of the royal navy to execute them.

Sailing from Kamschatka (1728), Behring followed the coast of Asia round to the north-west, finding open water everywhere, and so determining the separation of the continents. In a second voyage (1741) he put out to sea, this time falling in with the American coast, discovering Mt. St. Elias and the Aleutian archipelago.

During this voyage Behring's vessel was thrown upon an island and wrecked, and he himself died miserably there, but some of his sailors built themselves a vessel out of the wreck, in which they succeeded in getting back to Kamschatka, bringing with them the furs of the sea-otters and foxes they had killed and eaten while living upon the desert island.

From the time of these discoveries, Russian adventurers, who were little better than daring freebooters, crossed over the narrow seas to the Aleutian Isles, to kill the sea-otters for their fur, thus opening between them and Ochotsk, and between Ochotsk and the Chinese frontier, next Siberia, by means of caravans, a trade in the valuable furs for which these islands are so famous.

In time, these roving traders were followed by a few actual colonists, who were brought over from Siberia or Kamschatka to aid in establishing permanent trading-posts[2] at suitable points. But the country possessed no other resources except its fur-trade. The early traders had cruelly oppressed the natives, hence the first colonists were looked upon as enemies, and treated as such by them. Some missionaries of the Greek Church were also sent over to care for the souls of these poor people, who before had no knowledge of Christianity.

There were no elements of thrift in this colony, consequently it could never make healthy progress. At best the people were little better than vassals, while the Indians were hardly more than slaves. The land is too cold for agriculture. The people have but one occupation, that of seal-hunting.

The fur-trade was at first conducted by private persons, but eventually the control passed to one large company, sanctioned by the crown under the form of The Russian American Company, with headquarters first at Kodiak and then at Sitka.[3]

This company claimed the whole coast of America, on the Pacific, with the adjacent islands, from Behring Straits southward to, and beyond, the mouth of the Columbia River.

FOOTNOTES

[1] BEHRING STRAITS, and Sea, take their name from this
navigator,—Vitus Behring, or Bering. According to a map
published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, Behring
touched his farthest southerly point on our coast closely
under the sixtieth parallel, at what is called, on some maps,
Admiralty or Behring's Bay. His consort Tchirikow's track
is extended to 55° 36´. In the narrowest part of Behring's
Straits it is only thirty-six miles from Asia to America,
showing how slight were the obstacles to communication, as
compared with the three thousand miles separating America from
Europe.

[2] PERMANENT TRADING-POSTS were begun on Oonalaska about
1773, and Kodiak 1783. In 1789 there were eight of these
posts, with two hundred and fifty Russians. A Russian post
was also established at St. Michael's, Norton Sound.

[3] SITKA was founded to check the encroachments of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Alaska was purchased by the United
States in 1867, during the presidency of Andrew Johnson.

ENGLAND ON THE PACIFIC.

"_Ye mariners of England!_"—_Campbell_.

England's conquest of Canada[1] (1763) put a wholly new face upon the situation in America. She was now, beyond dispute, the foremost power of this continent.

Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died away, when a new power arose to contend with England for what she had just torn from the grasp of France. This was her own American colonies, whose people had now been driven to take up arms (1775) against the mother country, in defence of their dearest political rights. So England gained Canada, but lost her own colonies. She wrested power from France, only to see it snatched from her own grasp in the moment of victory, though, after all, it was no less a victory for the English-speaking race over all her Latin-speaking rivals. It must be seen that events like these would have far-reaching effects in shaping our history.

Yet while the conflict with her colonies was going on, and both parties were in the thick of the actual fighting, England was putting forth efforts to control the commerce of the North-west Coast.

For this purpose it would be essential to have accurate surveys of all important harbors and sounds, in order to select sites for future settlements, and above all of any navigable rivers flowing from the east out upon the coast, that might afford a practicable route into the interior, and so connect this coast with the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company.

With this end in view, two discovery ships were sent out (1776), in command of Captain James Cook,[2] with orders to search the coast of New Albion for any navigable river north of the forty-fifth parallel. England clearly meant to re-assert her claim to sovereignty,[3] set up so long ago in her behalf by Sir Francis Drake.

On board Cook's ship were two persons with whom our story will have to deal. One was Midshipman Vancouver, the other Corporal Ledyard of the marines.

Cook first discovered and named the Sandwich Islands.[4] Shaping his course thence for the American coast, he fell in with (1778) and named Cape Flattery.[5] Steering now northward with the coast always in sight, Cook at length found a broad basin, which the Indians called Nootka, and which has since been known as Nootka Sound.[6] The ships lay here all the month of April, refitting, and getting ready for the coming cruise in the arctic seas, which Cook was instructed to explore for the wished-for passage into Hudson's Bay.

Except for their propensity to steal, which nothing could control, Cook found the natives of Nootka a friendly people, though they were no longer abashed in the presence of white men, or afraid of their loud-roaring cannon, as in the time of Drake. Many wore brass or silver trinkets. Most of them had tools of iron which they had made for themselves, and could use with skill. Passing ships would therefore seem to have brought these tribes into unfrequent communication with Europeans, so that Cook's coming neither surprised nor intimidated them; while the articles in their possession acquainted him with the fact that other navigators had passed that way before him, perhaps with views similar to his own.

Upon again setting sail, Cook was blown off the coast by contrary winds. When he again saw it, he was far to the north of Nootka. He saw and named Mt. Edgecumbe as he sailed; then Mt. St. Elias rose in solitary grandeur before them, giving Cook notice that he was now crossing the track of the Russian discoverers.

The ships continued to skirt the coast until its westward trend forced them to put about, and steer south-west, along the shores of the Alaskan peninsula. Cook had missed both the Columbia River and the Straits of Fuca, thus losing his one chance for making known to the world the great water systems of the north Pacific.

Getting clear of Alaska, Cook came to Oonalaska, of the Aleutian group, which he doubled. Then, finding the coast beyond him to bend in the desired direction, again he sailed on through Behring's Straits into the Arctic Ocean as far as Icy Cape (70° 29´), at which point his ships were stopped by ice. Finding he could go no farther, he put about and returned to Oonalaska, where, in October, he anchored.

From this anchorage Corporal Ledyard was sent on shore in search of the Russian traders, then known to be living on the island, whom he found, and brought back with him to the ships. Getting little from these people, for want of interpreters, Cook sailed back to the Sandwich Islands, where the natives of Owyhee treacherously killed him while he was on shore.

The furs which Cook's sailors obtained from the natives of Nootka, in exchange for knives, buttons and other trifles, were sold at Canton, China, for more than ten thousand dollars. This was the beginning of a trade between Nootka and Canton, which, during the next decade, was the means of bringing many British vessels to the North-west Coast.

It is instructive to remember that, at the very time when the American colonies were throwing off their allegiance, Cook was quietly exploring the North-west Coast, in the interests of peaceful expansion, which, in the end, was to inure to the benefit of those colonies.

FOOTNOTES

[1] CONQUEST OF CANADA was the result of the Seven Years'
War in Europe. Nearly all the powers were involved in it. When
peace was made, all that France held east of the Mississippi
River, under the names Louisiana or Canada, except New
Orleans, was given up to England. New Orleans, with all that
France claimed west of the Mississippi, had already (1762)
been privately ceded by France to Spain.

[2] JAMES COOK entered the navy as a cabin boy. He stood
at the head of English navigators since Drake. The government
kept his discoveries secret till after the close of the war.
To their honor, all the belligerents gave orders that he
should not be molested by their forces.

[3] HER CLAIM TO SOVEREIGNTY. It was known in England,
before Cook sailed, that Spanish navigators were again working
their way up the coast. (See voyages of Juan Perez 1774, Bruno
Hector and Bodega 1775, in Bancroft.) The Spaniards knew the
value of the fur seal in commerce.

[4] SANDWICH ISLANDS, so named for the Earl of Sandwich,
then first lord of the Admiralty.

[5] CAPE FLATTERY, on the mainland, at the south entrance
to the Straits of Fuca, and landmark of those straits.

[6] NOOTKA SOUND, Vancouver Island. Taken possession
of by Spain, 1789. The English navigators Cook, Meares
and Vancouver, being unable to find another good harbor
between Cape Mendocino and Cape Flattery, hit upon Nootka
as possessing the requirements of a port for their nation.
Upon this a quarrel arose with Spain, which claimed Nootka
in virtue of prior discovery. In the end Spain was obliged
to relinquish Nootka to England. VANCOUVER, who gave his
name to the large island to which Nootka Sound belongs,
reached the coast April, 1792, near Cape Mendocino, but
strangely missed the Columbia River, though he carefully
looked for any opening in the coast line, which he declared
to be unbroken from Mendocino to Cape Flattery. Vancouver's
surveys were to fill the gap left open by Cook when he was
blown off the coast. His passage through the Straits of Fuca
had been anticipated by Captain Kendrick, of the American
sloop "Washington," in 1790, thus first verifying the
long-disputed fact of the existence of those straits.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Though Elizabeth was so well calculated to govern with ability, and even with that glory and advantage to her people which England had never witnessed under any of its preceding sovereigns;—though her administration was so vigorously and equitably exercised, and all her plans and negotiations so ably and successfully conducted;—though, in short, she was equally revered and obeyed, as a sovereign, at home, and she was feared and respected abroad;—yet was Elizabeth a very weak and silly woman in trifling concerns. She seemed a Goliath in the conduct of the mighty affairs of empires; but dwindled into a very woman, when the color, fancy, or fashion of a dress became the topic. Nor was she free from the little petty vexations, jealousies, and rivalship of beauty, so natural to her sex. Indeed, it appears that she hated and envied her cousin, the beautiful Mary of Scots, less on account of her pretensions to the crown, than for her superior charms. When Mary sent Sir James Melville to London, to endeavor to establish a good understanding with Elizabeth, he was instructed by Mary to sound her cousin on subjects that would interest her rather as a woman than a queen. "He accordingly succeeded so well," says Hume, "that he threw that artful princess entirely off her guard, and made her discover the bottom of her heart, full of those vanities, and follies, and ideas of rivalship, which possess the youngest and most frivolous of her sex. He talked to her of his travels, and forgot not to mention the different dresses of the ladies in different countries; and she took care thenceforth to meet the ambassador every day apparelled in a different habit; sometimes she was dressed in the English garb, sometimes in the French, sometimes in the Italian; and she asked him which became her most? He answered, the Italian,—a reply that he knew would be agreeable to her, because that mode showed to advantage her flowing hair, which he remarked, though more red than yellow, she fancied to be the finest in the world. She desired to know of him what was reputed to be the best color of hair; she asked whether his queen or she had the finest color of hair; she even inquired which of them he esteemed the fairest person,—a very delicate question, and which he prudently eluded, by saying that her majesty was the fairest person in England, and his mistress in Scotland. She next demanded which of them was tallest. He replied, his queen. 'Then she is too tall,' said Elizabeth, 'for I myself am of a just stature.'"

It is a saying, that the greatest heroes are not so in the opinion of their valets; and it may with equal truth be said of this celebrated princess, that, however she might appear a great heroine to the world, she was still nothing more than a frail woman in the eyes of those who best knew her private and undisguised thoughts, feelings and actions.—_Anon._

INTERLUDE.—WHAT JONATHAN CARVER AIMED TO DO IN 1766.

It so happened, that after the conquest of Canada, an American, and veteran of that war, named Jonathan Carver, conceived the idea of crossing the continent by way of the Great Lakes and tributaries of the Mississippi. After attentively studying the French maps, and reading the accounts of Hennepin and Lahontan, he believed this could be done.

Carver's avowed purpose was, first, to ascertain the breadth of the continent. If successful in reaching the Pacific, he meant to have proposed to the English government the establishment of a permanent port on that coast. He was convinced that this was the true way to the discovery of the North-west Passage, which Drake had attempted so long ago, justly reasoning that it would be easier to sail from the west than from the east, while the loss of time consequent upon the long voyages from England, with the delays and perils incident to Arctic navigation, would be much lessened by having such a dépôt as he proposed. And it would also greatly facilitate communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific.

Carver thought further, that a settlement on that side of the continent would not only open up new sources of trade, and, to use his own words, also "promote many useful discoveries, but would open a way for conveying intelligence to China and the English settlements in the East Indies with greater expedition than a tedious voyage by the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan, would allow of."

Whether it originated in his own brain or not, so far as known, Carver was the first boldly to set before the English people the idea of going across the American continent to India,—the idea that has eventually solved the whole problem.

Convinced that his undertaking was practicable, Carver started from Michilimackinac in September, 1766, in company with some traders who were going among the Sioux by the old route leading through Green Bay, Fox River and the Wisconsin. What he could learn about the upper tributaries of the Mississippi seems to have determined Carver to fix his final starting-point somewhere about the Falls of St. Anthony.

These falls were reached on the 17th of November. When Carver came to the point overlooking them, his Indian guide surprised him by beginning to chant aloud an invocation to the spirit of the waters. While doing this he was stripping off first one, then another, of his ornaments, and casting them from him into the stream. First he threw in his pipe, then his tobacco, then the bracelets he wore on his arms and wrists, and lastly his necklace and ear-rings. When he had thus divested himself of every article of value he possessed, the Indian concluded his prayer of adoration with which his propitiatory offerings were so freely joined. Carver's journey, in this direction, ended at the River St. Francis. Returning south he ascended the St. Peter's, or Minnesota River, by his own account, for a distance of two hundred miles, to the villages of the Sioux with whom he passed the winter.

But after thus penetrating far into what is now the State of Minnesota, Carver found himself unable to proceed. The gifts that were to be sent after him, and which were essential to securing a safe-conduct among the Indian nations on his route, did not come. No alternative therefore remained but to go back to Prairie du Chien, the great Indian trading-mart of all that region, where the explorer finally gave up the attempt to go west at this time. He then returned to Canada by way of the St. Croix and Lake Superior, bringing with him the information gained by a seven months' residence among the Sioux.

Carver's Travels were published in England in 1778, ten years after his return, although his notes and maps had been in the government's possession for some years, permission to publish them having been refused him.

It is here that we first find the name of Oregon,[1] given to the great river of the Pacific slope. Carver speaks of it repeatedly as "the river of the West that falls into the Pacific Ocean."

This explorer afterward (1774) decided to renew the effort to cross America, his indicated route being up the St. Peter's to its head, thence across to the Missouri, up this stream to its source, and, after discovering the source of the "Oregon or River of the West, on the other side the summit of the dividing highlands," to descend it to the sea. His purpose was frustrated by the war between England and the colonies. He has, however, put on record his opinion touching the future of the great Mississippi valley. This is his prophecy:

"To what power or authority this new world will become
dependent, after it has arisen from its present uncultivated
state, time alone can discover. But as the seat of empire,
from time immemorial, has been gradually progressive towards
the west, there is no doubt but that at some future period,
mighty kingdoms will emerge from these wildernesses, and
stately palaces, and solemn temples, with gilded spires,
reaching the skies, supplant the Indian huts whose only
decorations are the barbarous trophies of their vanquished
enemies."

FOOTNOTE

[1] OREGON. What were Carver's sources of information about
this river? The Sioux told Father Charlevoix forty odd years
earlier (1721), that by going up the Missouri, as high as
possible, a great river would be found running west, into
the sea. Carver, we know, had read Charlevoix's work. Yet the
Sioux may have told him the same story, which he so constantly
reiterates in his own narrative, and we know it to be a true
story. Substantially, Carver followed the same route which
Marquette, Hennepin, and others had before him. This may have
cast doubts upon the validity of all he has given, as of his
own knowledge. But the main facts came within the ken of so
many persons, who could have stamped them as spurious, but
did not, that we think their validity must be granted.

But what is the origin of the name OREGON first used by
Carver? Here we are all at sea. Bonneville says the word comes
from Oregano, which he asserts to have been the early Spanish
name for the Columbia River country—derived from oreganum,
the botanical name for the wild-sage plant, or artemisia.
This seems hardly conclusive. Again, we know the Spaniards
gave the name Los Organos (Organ Mountains) to a range of
the Sierra Madre, so it is possible they may have applied it
indefinitely to the whole chain, north of New Mexico. But the
Sioux could hardly have known of either derivation, or Carver
have invented the name.

JOHN LEDYARD'S IDEA.

CORPORAL JOHN LEDYARD'S[1] fancy had been taken captive by the exploits of Captain Cook, which for a time fairly renewed the enthusiasm Drake's bold dash into the far South Sea had created so long before.

Ledyard was a born explorer. Every thing he saw while under Cook's command was jotted down from day to day in his diary. He was quick-witted, restless, and ambitious of making his way in the world, nor was he slow to see the advantage that the north-west coast offered to whomsoever should be first in the field. But Ledyard had been wearing King George's uniform, though himself an American, whom thirst for new scenes had led to enlist under a hostile flag. When, however, after his return to England, Ledyard was sent out to America, rather than fight against his country he deserted.

His mind was filled with crude projects for securing the commerce of the north-west coast, not for England, but for America, and America was now a free republic. So he had imbibed at least the spirit of what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Ledyard first tried to get American merchants to fit out a ship for him. Failing in this he went to France, thinking to secure there the help he wanted.

It happened that while Ledyard was trying to get up a company to carry on his schemes, Louis XVI. was fitting out La Peyrouse to follow up Cook's track in the Pacific, and so make good what that eminent navigator had failed to make complete.

Ledyard importuned everybody. Haunting those who would listen to him, borrowing money first from one and then another in order to live, sometimes without a crown in his pocket, always repulsed, but never despairing, the would-be explorer woke and slept on his one ever-present idea.

"I die with anxiety," he says to a friend, "to be on the back of the American States, after having penetrated to the Pacific Ocean. There is an extensive field for the acquirement of honest fame. The American Revolution invites to a thorough discovery of the continent. It was necessary that a European should discover America, but in the name of love of country let a native explore its resources and boundaries. It is my wish to be that man."

Thomas Jefferson was, at this time (1785), our minister to France, "in every word and deed the representative of a young, vigorous and determined state." Ledyard often sought his counsel and aid. Struck by Ledyard's uncommon devotion to his one idea, Jefferson said to him one day, "Why not go by land to Kamschatka, cross over in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri, and penetrate to and through that to the United States?"

This conversation curiously shows us that, at the time the American Union was first formed, more was known about Kamschatka than about the region lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. Through Siberia, at least, there was a travelled route, while from the Mississippi to the Pacific there was none. The conversation is therefore an instructive starting-point in the history of our country.

Although the enterprise itself failed to bear fruit at this time, the coming together of these two men, one of whom became the apostle of the American idea in its broadest sense, was like the striking together of flint and steel. Fire followed it. Ledyard had the best knowledge of the subject. Ledyard pointed out the way. Ledyard had given Jefferson something to ponder, which, in his sagacious mind, soon grew to a question of highest national importance.

Ledyard eagerly agreed to make the trial, provided that the Russian Government would give its consent. This being granted, the explorer set out for Kamschatka; but at Irkutsk, in Siberia, he was stopped and turned back, in consequence of the jealousy of the Russian-American Company, whose headquarters were at Irkutsk, and who feared their interests would be endangered if this daring stranger were permitted to pass into their territory.

From this time Ledyard's personal history ceases to be associated with that of the Great West. But he was the first to perceive, perhaps dimly, what was shortly to become, with a broader growth, the ruling idea of American statesmen.

FOOTNOTE

[1] JOHN LEDYARD was a native of Groton, Conn.; (born 1751,
brother of Colonel William, who fell in the defence of Groton,
1781). John went first to Dartmouth College to be fitted as
an Indian missionary. In those primitive days the students
were called together by the blowing of a conch-shell. Though
quick and apt to learn, Ledyard hated study. He preferred
climbing the mountains about the college. In four months
he ran away. He, however, returned, but finding the rigid
discipline no less irksome than before, made his escape in a
canoe, in which he floated down the Connecticut River, from
Hanover to Hartford, one hundred and forty miles. Ledyard was
proud, sensitive, impulsive, and restive under correction or
restraint. Finding his purpose to enter the ministry thwarted,
in a fit of resentment he shipped for the Mediterranean as
a common sailor before the mast. This voyage was Ledyard's
preparation for service under Cook. He was in turn theological
student, sailor, soldier, explorer, and in his make-up all
these characters were combined to produce a thorough-going
explorer.

A YANKEE SHIP DISCOVERS THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

With the close of the Revolutionary War, the commercial spirit of our countrymen began to re-assert itself in deeds which should stamp them for all time as worthy sons of worthy sires. Far back, even when the colonies were but a few feeble settlements strung along the Atlantic seaboard, few people had shown greater enterprise in seeking avenues for commerce than they.

This was especially the case with the New-England colonies. War had ruined their commerce, but with the coming of peace the shrewd New-England merchants were on the lookout for new outlets, since nowhere could ships be so cheaply built, while the population largely got their living either on or from the sea. Besides this, they had a brand-new flag of their own, of which they were justly proud, and which they wished to see afloat on the most distant seas.

The discoveries made on the north-west coast by England, though kept secret till after the close of the war, were by no means unknown to our merchants and sailors, in whom the laudable desire to profit by every avenue the ocean might throw open to honest enterprise and skill, was inspired and increased by a condition of national freedom.

It was at this time that certain merchants of Boston formed (1787) a partnership for beginning a trade between the north-west coast and China. They fitted out the ship "Columbia," of two hundred tons, and sloop "Washington," of ninety tons burden, with trading-goods, which the masters were to barter for furs with the Indians, sell the furs at Canton, and with the proceeds buy teas for the home-market. Large profits were expected. As the United States was a new power at sea, and her flag little known, the masters were provided with passports, to certify they were honest traders sailing under an honest flag.

The owners, however, looked somewhat farther than a mere trading voyage would suggest. They had in mind the establishment, under the national authority, of permanent factories, somewhat similar to those of the Hudson's Bay Company. Looking to this end, their masters, John Kendrick and Robert Gray, were instructed to buy lands of the natives, to build storehouses or forts, or make such other improvements on these lands as would insure their permanent tenure to the owners. In so far as occupation by any white people was concerned, the territory lying between Cape Mendocino and the Straits of Fuca was known to be vacant, though, out of England, Spain was thought to have the best claim to it. Kendrick and Gray were therefore directed to begin operations on this unexplored strip of coast, not only as traders, but as explorers of an undiscovered country.

Less could not well be said of these voyages, because of the importance they subsequently assumed in the dispute between England and the United States about their respective boundaries, but we will leave that question now to take its proper turn in the story, and go back to the voyages themselves.

Both vessels[1] reached Nootka in the early autumn of 1788. Having made her cargo, the "Columbia" set sail for Canton, sold her furs for teas, with which she returned to Boston in August, 1790, thus first carrying the flag quite round the world.

This time the Bostonians did not throw the tea overboard as they had once done, when it came seasoned with an odious tax. A quite different reception was given to the "Columbia" as she sailed up the harbor with the stars and stripes fluttering at her mast-head, after an absence of nearly three years. As she passed the Castle, the "Columbia" fired a national salute, which the fortress immediately returned. The loud-booming cannon brought the inhabitants in crowds to the wharves to see what ship was receiving such honorable welcome. As the "Columbia" rounded to, in the inner harbor, the people shouted, the cannon pealed, as if the occasion were one worthy of public commemoration and rejoicing. It was, indeed, felt to be the breaking away from old despotisms which a colonial condition had so long imposed, while the track round the globe was not yet so much travelled, or so well known, as to make the "Columbia's" voyage seem any less a great achievement.

It happened that the "Columbia" had touched at Owyhee, the royal residence of the king of the Sandwich Islands. Captain Gray persuaded the king to let the crown prince go with him to the United States. The prince was royally welcomed in Boston, and safely returned to his native land, so bringing about a friendliness between Americans and the islanders, of much benefit to commerce in the future.

Although the owners had lost money[2] by the venture, they were public-spirited men, and determined on making a second trial. The "Columbia" was therefore again fitted for sea, and in June, 1791, was again breasting the waves of the North Pacific. During this second voyage, Captain Gray saw the mouth of a river, into which, however, he did not sail, because the surf broke with violence quite across it. He, however, carefully noted down the latitude in his log; but when, shortly after, he fell in with Vancouver, that officer doubted what Gray told him about this river. It could not be there, he thought, since he himself had carefully searched without finding it.

After parting company with Vancouver, Gray sailed south, with the intention of knowing more about the river in question. When the entrance was sighted, the "Columbia" was boldly steered for it with all sails set. She safely ran in between the breakers, into a broad basin which no keel but hers had ever ploughed before, and without anchoring held her onward course fourteen miles up the river, surrounded by a swarm of canoes, among which the stately ship moved a leviathan indeed.

When the anchor was let go, Captain Gray found himself quietly floating on the bosom of a large freshwater river, to which, upon quitting it, he gave the name of his ship,—the Columbia.[3]

As a result of these voyages, the direct trade between the North Pacific and China fell almost exclusively into the hands of American traders. British merchants were restrained from engaging in it by the opposition of their East India Company. Russian vessels were not admitted into Chinese ports. We find the British explorer, Mackenzie, speaking with much ill-humor about this state of things, which, nevertheless, only goes to prove the energy and skill of American merchants and ship-masters, who, from the first voyages of the "Columbia," were known to the Indians of the north-west coast as Bostons, because these vessels hailed from that port.

FOOTNOTES

[1] BOTH VESSELS. The "Washington," being a sort of tender
to the "Columbia," coasted about Vancouver Island and Straits
of Fuca. In pursuance of his instructions, her master bought
large tracts of land from native chiefs, from whom he took
regular deeds. Copper coins, and medals struck for the
purpose, were also given to the natives. Kendrick was the
first to collect sandalwood as an article of commerce.

[2] THE OWNERS LOST MONEY. "All concerned in that enterprise
have sunk fifty per cent of their capital. This is a heavy
disappointment to them, as they had calculated, every owner,
to make an independent fortune."—_Letter to General H. Knox._

[3] THE COLUMBIA RIVER. The entrance was sighted by Heceta
(Spaniard), 1775, who called the northern promontory St.
Roque. This name was soon given, on Spanish maps, to a river
St. Roque, flowing out into Heceta's inlet, who says, "These
eddies of the water caused me to believe that the place is the
mouth of some great river." He did not, however, attempt to
enter. Captain Meares (1788), in searching for this River St.
Roque, ran into the inlet, but, seeing nothing but breakers
ahead, left it under the conviction that there was no such
river. On this account he called the northern promontory Cape
Disappointment. The southern point was named by Gray, Point
Adams.

THE WEST AT THE OPENING OF THE CENTURY.

"_America now attains her majority._"

At the close of the Revolutionary War, almost nothing was known in the American colonies about the country lying to the west of the Mississippi. The sources of the Missouri[1] were unknown even to French traders. Nobody knew that a great sister river carried the snows of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, or that the head waters of these two noble streams lay coiled about the feet of the same lofty chain.

Where, then, should we locate the West? Possibly central along the eastern base of the Alleghanies, certainly remote at Pittsburg, and perhaps reaching its vanishing-point somewhere about the Dark and Bloody Ground of Kentucky. Among a host of foes civilization stood at bay here, but would take no backward step.

France opened the way from east to west. France and England fought for the primacy of the continent, and England won. Defeated France gave up the idea of maintaining herself in America, and secretly ceded to Spain what the war had left her west of the Mississippi, as a bankrupt might convey his property out of the reach of his most pressing creditor.

When the Colonies revolted, France saw her way to make them, like the cat in the fable, pull her chestnuts out of the fire. It is no part of a king's trade to set up a republic. France played her own game,[2] played it astutely and to the end. When the Colonies, with her help, achieved their independence, she showed them, much to their wonder, for they were fresh to the tricks of diplomacy, that in politics there is no more friendship than in trade, or rather that politics is a game in which the best player wins.

In view of what it had cost her to give up Louisiana, in the first place, not only in loss of territory, but national prestige, it is perhaps not strange that when, as our ally, France was in turn a victor, she should be found trying to get back Louisiana for herself. To do this she had to play a double game, with the help of Spain, while that power stood ready in the background to take any thing that came in her way.

These two gamesters wished to restore what we should call the old balance of power, thus confining the United States nearly in the limits they had occupied as colonies. To her honor, England would not listen to their seductive pleadings. Not that she loved her revolted subjects more, but that she loved her old rivals less. When John Jay gave their schemes to the light of day, it was seen France had never meant we should be a power among the nations—only a little republic. In the end England's pride prevailed over the sting of wounded self-love. Instead of dictating the terms of peace, as she had meant to do, France had to see herself shut out from Louisiana, for good and all, while Spain, the Mephistophiles of American affairs, recovered Florida from England, so excluding the United States from access to the Gulf of Mexico either by the seaboard or the Mississippi River. What was now left of French Louisiana, as it existed previous to this war, presented the anomaly of a colony of French people living under the Spanish flag.

In effect, John Jay had urged upon England that blood is thicker than water. Franklin said, "Let us now forgive and forget." And so the Anglo-Saxon spirit prevailed.

With independence achieved, the United States gained, as we have seen, all the territory, except Canada, which England had conquered from France. At a single stride her frontier had reached the Mississippi on the west and the Great Lakes on the north.

Before the war, of which this was the grand sequel, a thin stream of English immigrants, chiefly from Virginia and North Carolina, under the lead of Daniel Boone, had crossed the mountains of North Carolina into Kentucky. This movement was central in what is commonly known as the Blue Grass Region, of which Lexington may be considered the pivot.

After the war, a second and larger emigration, chiefly from New England, crossed over the Alleghanies to the head of navigation on the Ohio, whence it moved down that river to the Muskingum, and was central about Marietta. Here, then, we have two separate streams of population, belonging to the same sturdy Anglo-Saxon race, though originating in different sections of the young Republic, each taking along with it to its new home in the West the customs and traditions of its own section, and guided by instinct or destiny upon lines which, ere long, were to divide slave from free States.

By an Act of Congress, known in history as the Ordinance of 1787, all that great block of wilderness country, into which this last emigration was setting, became one political division under the name of the North-west Territory.[3] The Act creating this territory also provided for making three States from it, and most wisely forbade that slavery should ever exist within its borders. Thus it was that the Ohio came to be not only a physical, but a political, dividing-line between the sections, which, now that the law of the land had fixed a limit slavery should not overstep, came to be designated as North and South, not, as formerly, from geographical situation only, but because the line had been thus sharply drawn between free and slave institutions. Each was now on trial before the world; each was now to show what it could do for human progress, under its own institutions, with its own means, and on its own chosen ground.

It would seem as if this splendid acquisition of ours, this North-west Territory, now constituting the great heart and seat of power in the American Union, might well have filled the fullest measure of patriotic desire for territorial expansion. It was to be, however, but the cradle of a newer and more robust growth, as the original States had been for that just beginning at the centre. It was an empire in itself, comprising all those States now enclosed between the Mississippi, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes. Yet this whole tract held, in 1792, no more than ten thousand whites, settled in widely scattered spots, among sixty-five thousand wild Indians.

These widely scattered spots were the new settlements at Marietta and Fort Harmar on the Muskingum, Cincinnati and Fort Washington on the Ohio, Clarksville at the Falls of the Ohio, with the old French posts of Vincennes on the Wabash, Kaskaskia on the river of the name, and Fort Chartres and Cahokia on the Mississippi. Over this vast tract a score of military posts held the Indians in check, and formed the kernels of future settlements. Along the line of the Great Lakes, and contrary to treaty stipulations with her, England still held the key-points,—Niagara, Miami, Detroit, Michilimackinac,—thus restricting the movement of our citizens from east to west on that line, and so shutting them out from the lucrative Indian trade of the Far West.

Let us now look at the section south of the Ohio.

Kentucky was made a State in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796. All south of Tennessee and west of Georgia was formed (1798) into the Mississippi Territory. On the east, or American, shore of the Mississippi, settlement was mostly confined to the places mentioned in "The Founding of Louisiana" as villages. None had outgrown this condition. Most were simply plantations. Population had increased (1785) to thirty-eight thousand persons, chiefly by the coming-in of refugees from Nova Scotia and St. Domingo. And blacks were already numerous enough to cause uneasiness among the planters. The cultivation of cotton and sugar was growing to importance; but the Spaniards at New Orleans wanted all the water to their own mill, as the proverb has it, which meant nearly the same thing as closing the river to American trade altogether.

The Falls of the Ohio had already begun to assume importance both as a depot and shipping-point. They were a natural stopping-place for all boats going up or down the river. Hence Louisville had grown up above the falls as the port of a remarkably thrifty cluster of inland settlements which had taken the place of the primitive stations of the first settlers.

On both sides of the Ohio the Indians made a determined stand against the coming in of white settlers. But bravely as they fought, their power was so broken in many bloody conflicts, that they were, at length (1794), glad to sue for peace. Shorn of power, they were now confined within narrower limits. England gave up (1795) the lake fortresses. All roads to the West being now open, they were speedily thronged by an army of settlers.

FOOTNOTES

[1] THE SOURCES OF THE MISSOURI. About the time Mackenzie
crossed the mountains (see chapter "Hudson's Bay to the
Pacific"), an employee of the North-west Company, named
Fidler, is reported to have gone from Fort Buckingham to the
head of the Missouri. Traders from St. Louis ascended the
river at this period, but how far is uncertain.

[2] FRANCE PLAYED HER OWN GAME. It is notorious that
the French minister, Vergennes, intrigued with the British
minister, Shelburne, outside the knowledge of the United
States Commissioners. See "Life of Lord Shelburne."

[3] NORTH-WEST TERRITORY was ceded to the General Government
by the States to provide a means for paying off the debt
incurred during the war. In thirty years it had half a million
people. Connecticut reserved a strip along Lake Erie to
herself.

GROUP II.

BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN IDEA.

AMERICA FOR AMERICANS.

"_America, is therefore the land of the future._"—HEGEL.