Eugene Duflot de Mofras

“ It must be said also that most of the settlers at the Willamette have trapped beaver a long time in California, in the Sacramento valley and San Francisco Bay; they all know that that country is preferable to this on account of its fertility, and its freedom from malarial fevers, which sometimes decimate the population of the Willamette, and the greater part of them would ask nothing better than to go there and stay if they were sure of finding there efficient protection. ”

“ The Americans know that these southern provinces are much superior to the Northern regions of Oregon, and that besides a milder climate and a more fertile soil they possess inexhaustible mineral treasures. Nevertheless, it is seen from the foregoing that in these disputed territories the Americans are still very far from possessing the same elements of population, ships, commerce and agriculture which constitute the strength of the Hudson's Bay Company, representing the English interests. ”

“ English manufacturers, alarmed at the formidable competition which has sprung up in France, Switzerland, and the United States, even, in spinning and weaving cotton materials, have applied themselves for several years with special care to the making of woolen goods. The consumption of this material has so increased that the quantities furnished by the European markets have been insufficient; the colonists of New Holland and the Cape of Good Hope, who are devoted to this branch of commerce, have profited by this scarcity to send their products to Europe and realize immense profits. ”

“ Let us say in passing that the Hudson's Bay Company and its agents at the Sandwich Islands always grant passage on their boats readily and gratuitously to the Methodists, their attendants, and generally to all Americans who go either from the Columbia to the Islands or from the Islands to the Northwest coast. English ships do not refuse even to transport without expense cases of merchandise belonging to the Methodists. ”

“ Paulding also expressed the opinion that the best protection to give to the citizens of the United States in Oregon Territory would consist in the permanent establishment of a military post, occupied by a force of five or six hundred men; he added that he had given orders to Lieutenant Wilkes, commanding the Exploring Expedition, to make a careful survey of the Northwest coast, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the Columbia river, the coast included between this river and California, and very especially the port of San Francisco, represented as one of the finest in the world. ”

“ As do all the other Indians of this Territory, the Chinooks distinguish readily at first sight the different nationalities of the whites; they designate the Spaniards of California by the name of Spagnols; and the English by that of Kinjor (corruption of the words King George) as being subjects of King George; they call the Americans Boston, doubtless because almost all of them come from this city; and the French-Canadians, Fransé or Pasayouk, that is to say "white faces," the French being unquestionably the first whites to cross the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ In the hope of realizing large profits from the raising of sheep, the company bought six thousand in California and imported rams of a superior breed from Scotland. No country, indeed, is better suited to the breeding and raising of wool-bearing animals; the mildness of the Puget Sound climate allows the flocks to remain outside all winter, where they find abundant feed in fields covered in all seasons with thick grass. Dr. MacLoughlin, who is a distinguished agriculturist, hopes before many years to obtain wools of equal quality with those of Saxony and Scotland. ”

“ At Puget Sound, as at Fort Van Couver, you can count a population of from six to seven hundred souls, of whom more than three-fourths are free settlers; at Kaoulis, six hundred individuals, five hundred of whom are free settlers, and forty families of engages; in the Willamette Valley about two thousand persons, all free settlers. Each year a certain number who are not employes come from Canada. ”

“ In the meantime, the agents residing in America, and who as has been said, are not stockholders, noting the progressive diminution of fur animals, and fearing that the English Government might abandon the left bank of the Columbia, formed among themselves, three years ago, a corporation called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. They chose in advance the most fertile part of the territory around Puget Sound and its excellent harbors, and there assembled and intrusted to the free settlers five thousand horned cattle and horses and eight thousand sheep. ”

“ Without more knowledge of the country than we possess, it is difficult, if not impracticable, to form a just estimate of the cost of erecting a fort sufficient for the protection of the troops in time of peace, and to answer the purposes of defence at the breaking out of a war. An experienced officer of engineers ought to be sent out with the expedition, and $50,000 appropriated to erect a fort. ”

“ The unrestricted liberty that reigns in the United States is too well known for any one to suppose that the character of the Methodists is purely religious. Several of them have been induced to come to Oregon only for commercial or agricultural business. Almost all of them collect an allowance made by the committee at Boston.
Mr. Lee has established a farm of considerable size, where he has about eighty hectares of enclosed land, and where he harvests two hundred hectoliters of wheat, and as much of leguminous grains and potatoes. ”

“ Its object is not only to instruct the Indians and to teach them husbandry and the mechanical arts, but also to aid emigration and the settlement of families from the United States in the disputed territory, to induce them to take up agriculture, salmon fishing, silk culture, the cultivation of hemp and flax, and commerce in lumber and furs. ”

“ These are men courageous and patient, more skilful at hunting, wood cutting and carpentering than at agriculture. Some families, however, have come with wagons by the South Pass, and both in the territory and in the United States one may expect to see before many years a wave of immigrant population carried beyond the Rocky Mountains; but up to the present, as has been seen in the course of this work, it is rather towards the old Spanish provinces of Texas, New Mexico and Upper California that this movement has operated. ”

“ The Company does not have its land cultivated by its servants in this part of the country. The French have been established on the Willamette since 1831; [14] if they have not the advantages of a harbor, as those at Nesqually have, they possess as compensation a land more fertile, they enjoy a milder climate, and above all they have more than the others the valuable convenience of easy access to California to procure cattle of all kinds. In a favorable season this journey can easily be made in three months as it is not more than four hundred leagues going and coming. ”

“ Now California and Puget Sound are in a condition no less favorable for placing advantageously in Europe the wools that their flocks, once improved, will be able to produce.
The most interesting of the white population in this territory are the French-Canadian settlers, retired servants of the Company, who, as we have said, have taken up lands which they work on their own account. ”

“ The Hudson's Bay Company has no establishment on the Willamette except a little wooden house, kept by one man, and situated at the fall of this river which rises to the southeast in the Sierra Nevada, and empties into the Columbia six miles below and opposite Fort Van Couver. ”

“ The distance from Fort Van Couver to Nesqually is sixty leagues or six daysmarch. To avoid leaving the Columbia and entering the Straits of Fuca, you go down the river to the mouth of the Kaoulis, which you ascend in canoes for some time, and then on horseback to the sea coast.
The fort, built as those we have already described, and armed with several pieces of cannon, encloses the lodgings and the shops. It is built a half league from the sea, which is cut off from view by a wood and a slope of the ground. In the environs they have cleared about two hundred hectares for the Company. ”

“ Some of them have set up grist mills and sawmills on the numerous streams which water the valley. Others, and particularly Stanislas Jacquet, go to California nearly every year to buy cattle and horses. In the proper season they trap the small number of beavers which still remain, and prepare the furs and skins, but their principal occupation is agriculture. Although the great majority of settlers have married Indian wives, the French language is the only one in use in the colony. ”

“ It is doubtful if such a feeble ship can withstand the sea, and as to isolated commercial expeditions of Americans, we hesitate to believe that with their limited means they can seriously compete with the English company, whose power is strengthened by considerable capital and an excellent organization. ”

“ Thus it pays for wheat at the rate of from two and a half or three dollars a hectoliter and even then takes the grain only in exchange for merchandise from England, on which it realizes a considerable additional profit. The Company has in its forts 6000 sheep, 7000 horned cattle and 2000 horses; it sells cattle to the settlers for an average of $40 a head, and when it lends them any cattle it shares the increase with them. ”

“ Every year the Company exports to the Sandwich Islands and to London about 600 barrels of salmon. So abundant is this fish in the Columbia River, and consequently so moderate in the price, that the salted fish can easily meet the competition of the fresh salmon from Scotland which is consumed in Great Britain. Whale^ bone and whale oil, smoked buffalo and goat tongue, buffalo hump, castoreum, swansdown and feathers, sealion tusks, and fish glue are important articles of export. ”

“ The total population of Fort Van Couver is seven hundred persons, of whom twenty-five are English and one hundred French-Canadian engages with their families. These whites, who for the most part are married to Indian wives, speak only the French tongue. ”

“ Up to twelve leagues from its mouth the course of the Willamette is perfectly navigable for ships of two hundred tons. You encounter at this distance a vertical fall of forty feet, formed of layers of basalt which take up the whole river, the width of which is about four hundred meters. Ships can come to anchor under the fall ”

“ The troops, on arriving at their destination, will be without cover or shelter of any description, and may be exposed to the attacks of the surrounding Indians before then can erect even field works to protect themselves. They ought, therefore, to be in sufficient numbers to furnish guards, and to take the necessary measures of defense while the work of erecting a fort and buildings for the troops is going on. ”

“ The troops ought to be furnished with subsistence for one year; and I would recommend that about thirty laborers, and an overseer, conversant with husbandry, be employed to accompany the detachment, who would be able, in that fertile region, to raise, with the aid of the soldiers themselves, an abundance of stock and grain for the future maintenance of the troops. ”

“ I say additional, because to abstract so large a number of men from the army in the present state of the country, when there are so many calls for regular troops, and the frontiers exposed to attack are so insufficiently guarded, would be imminently to increase the danger of a border war. ”

“ He maintains some relations also with the American merchants of the Islands; but all other American citizens have commercial relations only with the Hudson's Bay Company. However, in January, 1842, four American carpenters occupying a wooden hut left by the United States squadron near the mouth of the river, succeeded in constructing a little schooner of twenty tons, which they named the Young Oregon, [55] and with which they hoped to do some trading with California. ”

“ They were actively engaged in founding missions among the natives, and in re-establishing order among the French Canadians who had been left to themselves. These two ecclesiastics now had five missions: one at Puget Sound, near Fort Nesqually, the mission of Saint Francis Xavier on the Kaoulis River; Saint Mary for the Chinook Indians of Fort Van Couver; Saint Louis, King of France, at Willamette falls; and Saint Paul, on the left bank of this river, in the midst of the farms of the French Canadians. ”

“ All travelers agree on the measurement of some pines reaching a height of 300 feet and having a diameter of 15 to 18 feet; but these trees, growing in an always humid atmosphere generally show a very thick and spongy grain; in summer they are easily seasoned and their flexibility diminished on account of the quantity of water which remains in the pores. ”

“ Whether the forces to be sent out are to consist of additional troops, or to be taken from the line of the army, they ought to be recent recruits, raised for the purpose, both to prevent the renewing them oftener than once in four years, to avoid the expense of transportation ”

“ Lumber, dressed and squared, which it sends to the Sandwich Islands, does not bring a large enough price, notwithstanding its mediocre quality, considering the scarcity of export markets. The size of the trees is enormous. ”