USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 15
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Let us stop the flow of our narrative for a moment, leaving the incidents which led to the situation and are soon to precipi- tate its catastrophe, and analyze the characters of these men, nearly all foreigners, and subjects of a rival and then openly hostile nation, to whom Mr. Astor had most unfortunately com- mitted the conduct of this enterprise. Here we have five of the partners present on the ground and actively engaged -- Hunt, MacDougal, Mackenzie, Clarke, and Stuart. Hunt, temporarily absent, and, we think, a perfectly honest but not overstrong man-certainly not of the Andrew Jackson type-finds his ab- sence taken advantage of to dissolve the company, and yields, as we think too readily, to MacDougal's presentation of the
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" causes of discouragement." A man of more resources would have cut his way out rather than have played into the hands of his enemies, the Northwest Company. MacDougal, who seems to have been the moving spirit, was a traitor pure and simple, always on excellent terms -- doubtless looking to the end-with his old employers, the rival company. Mackenzie seems to have been either his blinded or willing tool, to do his work and carry out his plans. Clarke and Stuart were honest, true men, yielding to pressure they felt themselves unable to resist. The fact, more- over, that the majority of their employés were not of American nationality, and, therefore, secretly inclined to favor the British, must have seriously tied their hands. In fine, the circumstances and surroundings of the hour were favorable to MacDougal and his schemes, and he is about to take advantage of them for his own selfish purposes.
Our story grows more sensational. "On the 2d of October," says Evans, " Mackenzie, with a party of twelve inen in two canoes, started to advise Clarke and Stuart of the new arrange- ment. He met MacTavish and J. Stuart, partners of the North- west Company, with seventy-five men in ten canoes on their way down the river to meet the frigate Phoebe and the ship Isaac Todd. Clarke had been advised of the alarming news, and had come with them as a passenger. Mackenzie encamped with the party that night, and resolved to return with them to Astoria. Mackenzie and Clarke during the night made an attempt to slip off, with a view of getting a start and reaching Astoria first with the news ; but as they pushed out into the river, two of Mac- Tavish's canoes followed. On the 7th of October MacTavish and Mackenzie both reached Astoria. The Northwest Company's party camped at the fort. MacDougal prohibited the hoisting of the American flag by the young American employés."
It is a comfort to see even a breath of pure native American patriotism coming to the surface above these troubled waters, so foul with basest duplicity and English enmity. The next day sees MacDougal assembling his employés and preparing their minds for surrender by reading to them a highly sensational letter from his uncle, Angus Shaw (he seems to have been bound both by blood and interest to Mr. Astor's opponents), one of the prin- cipal stockholders of the Northwest Company, announcing the sailing of the frigate Phobe and the ship Isaac Todd with orders
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"to take and destroy everything American on the Northwest coast."
So, the way being thus nicely prepared, we are told that " this dramatic scene was followed by a proposition of Mac- Tavish to purchase the whole interests, stocks, and establish- ments of the Pacific Fur Company. MacDougal, now almost ready to throw off the mask which hitherto has so slightly shielded his dishonest intentions, assumes, in the absence of Hunt, supreme control and agency. He holds repeated confer- ences with MacTavish, from which his fellow-partners are care- fully excluded and their presence ignored, and finally concludes the sale of all Mr. Astor's possessions on the coast at certain rates. A few days later Mr. J. Stuart arrived with the re- mainder of the Northwest party. He objected to the bargain made by MacTavish, and materially lowered the rates agreed upon. MacDougal, who seems to have been agreeable to any proposition coming from his old employers, consents, and the agreement to transfer is signed October 16th." By this piece of mercantile infamy, " Duncan MacDougal, for and on behalf of himself, Donald Mackenzie, David Stuart, and John Clarke, partners of the Pacific Fur Company, dissolved July 1st," pre- tended to sell to his British confrères and co-conspirators of the Northwest Company "the whole of the establishments, furs, and present stock on hand on the Columbia and Thompson rivers," payable in three drafts on Montreal. This transaction, so dishonorable and perfidious to Mr. Astor, so disgraceful to the parties who consummated it, is thus detailed by John Jacob Astor in a letter to John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State :
" MacDougal transferred all my property to the Northwest Company, who were in possession of it by sale, as he called it, for the sum of fifty-eight thousand dollars, of which he retained fourteen thousand dollars for wages said to be due to some of the men. From the price obtained for the goods, etc., and he himself having become interested in the purchase and made a partner in the Northwest Company, some idea may be formed as to this man's correctness of dealing. He sold to the Northwest Company eighteen thousand one hundred and seventy and a quarter pounds of beaver at two dollars, which at that time was selling in Canton at five and six dollars per skin. I estimated the whole property to be worth nearer two hundred thousand
Engaby F. G. Kernan, NY
Francis Algoh.
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than forty thousand dollars, about the sum I received in bills on Montreal."
Mr. Astor took into consideration everything but the one leak which finally sunk the ship-the possibility of treachery grow- ing out of the employment of men brought up in the service of the rival company, whose opposition to his enterprise had already been demonstrated, and the even more remote contingency of a war between the two nations, which would make his principal post assailable by sea from the enemy's cruisers, while those in- land would be equally menaced by the British traders, whose employés were largely in the majority even among his own men. In all other respects his provision was liberal, his plans well found- ed, and his arrangements with his fellow-partners unselfish in the extreme. " He was practical, generous, broad." He was a brave man withal in placing his capital on a venture where adverse influences largely preponderated, and every known " coign of vantage" was already held.
The termination of this mingled tissue of fraud, dissimula- tion, and misfortune is somewhat dramatic.
The British sloop of war Raccoon, Captain Black, arrived at the Columbia on December 1st, 1813, with orders to destroy the American settlements on the Columbia. There were probably many pleasant anticipations both in her wardroom and between decks of the rich booty to be obtained and prize money dis- tributed from the looting of this Yankee trading house, with its precious gathering of furs. Judge, then, the surprise and disap- pointment of Captain Black and his officers when he was in- formed of the purchase by the Northwest Company, and the con- sequent change of ownership. The British flag now waved over British property -a fact, however, which did not deter the gal- lant commander of the Raccoon from taking possession of As- toria in the name of His British Majesty and re-baptizing it by the name of Fort George. Evans tells us that " he insisted upon an inventory of the purchased property being taken with a view' to ulterior proceedings, but he subsequently relinquished the idea, and never prosecuted his imaginary claim."
The formal surrender took place on December 12th, 1813, when the American flag was lowered and the British raised, there to remain till peace was restored ; and in accordance with the Treaty of Ghent, signed in December, 1814, which provided
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for the restoration of all places taken by either party, it was given up as captured property. The British Government send- ing orders to that effect, Captain Biddle entered the river in August of 1818, and on the 19th the Stars and Stripes once more floated over Astoria, which resumed its name, that of "Fort George" departing with the flag of its late captor. This was the fort of which the English Captain Black remarked, when he first saw its wooden defences, "Is this the fort about which I have heard so much ? D-n me, but I'd batter it down in two hours with a four-pounder !"
The fort under British rule had been considerably enlarged, having a stockade 250 by 150 feet. It was armed with twelve guns of different calibres and a number of swivels, and defended by some seventy men of different nationalities. Mr. Astor had intended to resume operations, but never resuscitated the Pacific Fur Company, nor did he resume the fur trade within that territory. It must have been a sore subject with him. A rich man may lose money and forget it-it is an accident of trade ; but let him be basely swindled out of even a much smaller sum, and it leaves a lifelong impression of disgust. As for the North- west Company, it continued its trade under that most mistaken compact for America-the Joint Occupancy Treaty-whose agreements were constantly violated in the spirit if not in the letter by the exercise of British influence, ever seeking to Angli- cize the Northwest.
CHAPTER XVI.
SEARCHING OUR TITLE-TREATS OF THE VALIDITY OF OUR TITLE -ITS CONTESTANTS AND EFFORT FOR FINAL "QUIETING" BY TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAIN.
" FIFTY-FOUR-FORTY OR FIGHT."
" A wordy war, with bitter ardor waged, Fierce in discussion while the conflict raged. A game of ' brag,' too oft of treachery too, Its stakes the region then so wild and new. The hunters haunt the home of deer and stag, Its roof the pine, each snowy peak its flag. Emblem of truce and peace one day to be, Of empire linking east with western sea."
-BREWERTON.
HAVING now, as a skilful engineer lays down his approaches, making gradual advances to the work he proposes to attack, environed our subject, so to speak, both by land and water, it is high time to take possession of such outworks of fact as may finally lead to the capture of the whole subject and enceinte of this our history of the State of Washington.
When a man purchases an estate, before entering and making improvements his first anxiety is to ascertain the validity of his title and the security of the foundation on which he rests his claim. To do so thoroughly he must go to the fountain-head of ownership, examine records, ancient and modern, look into the liens and mortgages which might affect it, the sufficiency of the witnesses who certify to its testaments, and in all respects as- sure himself that it is perfectly sound and good, even though his quest should take him back to a period when, as the old English law quaintly expresses it, " the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."
States, like individuals, must hold their possessions under certain conditions fixed and regulated in their case and laid down
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in what is generally known as the " law of nations." It may be by right of first discovery, enforced by colonization ; by peace- ful purchase or similar rendition, or by conquest of war perma- nently confirmed by treaty on cessation of hostilities. It becomes us, then, as citizens of this sovereign State and commonwealth of Washington, to know how our title to this fair domain on which we dwell was acquired, by what claimants opposed, their grounds of action and the legality of the manner in which our own title was finally assured and quieted. In so doing, how- ever, we do not propose to try back to the period of which we have spoken-" when the memory of man runneth not to the . contrary"-nor shall we enter into the intricate details of proto- cols, protests, arbitrations, and conferences, finally ending in that mutual agreement of the " high contracting powers" which we call a duly ratified treaty. Our search must be a skeleton at the best, dating back to the beginning of this century, when the situation of affairs on the Northwest coast may be briefly summed up as follows : The boundaries were unsettled and con- flicting, the claimants and parties in action being four-Russia, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States.
We will touch lightly, by way of preface, upon the claims of the two powers first named-Russia and Spain-as those soonest disposed of and least interesting to ourselves, because involving no particular conflict with American interests.
Russia demanded all the territory north of 51°, with its adja- cent islands. This she founded on the discovery of Russian navi- gators. The limits of her claim will be found in the imperial grant issued by the Emperor Paul to the Russian-American Fur Company in July of 1799. It is further strengthened by the declaration that the whole of the Pacific north of the latitude mentioned was " a closed sea," because completely bordered by Russian territory-a vexed question, entering into the sealing difficulties of our own day. Russia again asserts her claims, and that in no uncertain language, but autocratic as the Czar himself, in its imperial ukase of September 4th, 1821, which de- clares " that the whole west coast of America north of the fifty- first degree, the whole east coast of Asia north of 45° 50', with all adjacent and intervening islands, belong exclusively to Rus- sia ; and it also prohibits the citizens and subjects of all other nations, under severe penalties, approaching within one hundred
Eny ? by F. G. Kernan, NY
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miles of any of these coasts except in cases of extreme neces- sity."
It is not necessary to pursue the Russian title, as Mr. Sew- ard's farseeing and most fortunate purchase of Alaska settled for a very reasonable sum, though counted extravagant at the time, all controversy with that nation.
Spain, as asserted by Chevalier de Onis, her Minister at Washington, defines her rights as follows :
" The right and dominion of the crown of Spain to the North- west coast of America as high as the Californias is certain and indisputable, the Spaniards having explored it as far as 47° in the expedition under Juan de Fuca in 1592, and in that under Admiral Fonté to 55° in 1640. The dominion of Spain in its vast regions being thus established and her rights of discovery, conquest, and possession being never disputed, she could scarcely possess a property founded on more respectable principles, whether of the law of nations, of public law, or of any others which serve as a basis to such acquisitions as compose all the independent kingdoms and States of the earth."
Evans tells us that this clear and concise enunciation was uttered by the chevalier "at a time when Spain was asserting title adversely to all other nations. It was the same that she had claimed for centuries."
These utterances interest us, because by the Treaty of Flori- da, dated February 22d, 1819 (which left the Saline River the western boundary of the United States), our southern boundary was defined by " a line drawn on the meridian from the source of the Arkansas River northward to the forty-second parallel, thence along the parallel to the Pacific Ocean (afterward adopted, January 12th, 1828, by treaty with the republic of Mexico as the northern boundary of our sister republic-that is to say, the western and southern line of the United States as laid down in the Florida treaty). By this solemn convention we became pos- sessed of all the rights of Spain to any territory north of the said forty-second parallel-a cession which closes our search for title so far as this power is concerned, leaving only the conflict- ing claims of Great Britain and the United States to be consid- ered ; for with Russia we have no quarrel, and by the Florida treaty just referred to we become Spain's successor in interest, being clothed with all rights and powers growing out of her dis- coveries and explorations on the Northwest coast.
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The contestants in this long and bitter struggle for territorial supremacy were thus reduced to America and Great Britain, the other nations represented-Russia and Spain-having bar- tered their claims or rested in armed neutrality, mere spectators of the fight. The tilting grounds were the cabinets of England and Washington ; the reward of the victor, the virgin wilds, almost unbroken, of our own Northwest. The champions who stood forth, either as challengers or defenders, to lose fame or win renown in this diplomatic tourney, were the best and wisest among the statesmen and publicists on both sides. The specta- tors before whom they encountered were the representatives of the courts of Christendom, and in a lesser degree, yet most inter- ested in the result, every hunter and trapper, every axeman, settler, or emigrant who loved his flag and remembered his nationality amid the then far-off wilds of our present State of Washington. With the knightly courtesy of " distinguished consideration" they dipped their pen lances in ink, using every feint and guard, every thrust and parry of treaty or protocol, protest, precedent, or proviso known to modern diplomacy to defeat their opponents. Musty documents were ransacked, an- cient archives consulted ; half-forgotten journals of mariners and adventurers long since passed away suddenly became of vast im- portance. The laws of nations were invoked, Vattel and Puffen- dorf quoted as never before ; dispatches were exchanged which, though courteously worded, ofttimes breathed a spirit of defi- ance and presumption which sounded like bugle blasts inviting to battle. Once and again did we tremble on the verge of actual war. Assumptions were made which, if adhered to, would have mobilized armies and sent fleets to every sea. But for the action of Scott, the fiery Harney would have opened a fire whose iron hail had speedily ended the harmless interchange of paper bul- lets. "Fifty-four-forty or fight"' was not merely the slogan of a Presidential conflict or the catch cry of an excited election ; it "meant business ;" it was the stern determination of a nation that knew its rights and meant to maintain them at any cost. It is true that we yielded too much-far too much-to Great Britain in that final settlement which fixed our present Northwest- ern boundary ; but treaty-makers are inclined to be conservative, and err, unless fresh from some recent battle-field, upon the side of conservatism. But history repeats itself, and America may
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afford to patiently bide her time, well assured that the arbitra- tions of peace or the accidents of war will sooner or later give to the United States the limits assigned by nature and nature's God-boundaries whose fated termini are the billows that wash the shores of the North American continent and lave those out- lying islands which rightfully belong to us as the sentinels and guardians of our coast.
Let us, then, proceed to trace, as a general gallops down the . line and reviews the battalions of his army, the sequence of events which marked the ebb and flow of this diplomatic war.
We have now to deal with England, ever a most determined antagonist, fighting for every foot of the territory in dispute, con- ceding nothing save under protest, exhausting technicalities, and even when visibly beaten yielding ungraciously, making her concessions a matter of favor rather than of right ; giving ground like an experienced fencer, who bides his time and only waits his opportunity to make a more deadly lunge. Her proceedings in the open courts of national arbitration and adjustment were as fruitful in arrogant pretensions, false pretences and assumed premises as her more occult methods were unworthy, being con- ducted through the medium of the elaborate systems of her secret agents, the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Fur companies.
While touching rather delicately upon the vexed question of " original right and first discovery," where her own legislators must have perceived the weakness of their case, Great Britain seemed inclined to trust herself to the oft-repeated legal assur- ance that "possession is nine tenths of the law," an argument for the maintenance of which her agents already referred to had . most industriously prepared the way.
England did not, it should be remembered, assert an exclu- sive right to any portion of the Northwest coast ; at the same time, she had no idea of relinquishing any advantage which might be founded upon the voyages of Drake, Cavendish, Cook, or Vancouver to our coast, or the inland explorations of the in- domitable Sir Alexander Mackenzie. These men had displayed that historic flag which the poet tells us has
" Braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze,"
and with more or less of ceremony had taken possession in the name of the British crown, ofttimes regardless of the fact that a
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newer ensign had seen its stars reflected in those waters before their later visits, and forgetful of previous footsteps in their twice-trodden inland paths. Her negotiators thus defined her status :
" Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any por- tion of that territory. Her present claim, not in respect to any part, but to the whole, is limited to a right of joint occupancy in common with other States, leaving the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance. In other words, the pretensions of the United States tend to the ejection of all other nations, Great Britain among the rest, from all the rights of settlement in the district claimed by the United States. The pretensions of Great Britain, on the contrary, tend to the mere maintenance of her own rights in resistance to the exclusive character of the preten- sions of the United States."
Evans puts the situation so clearly and forcibly that we de- spair of improving upon it, and so quote at length, as follows :
" Fairly stated, Great Britain asserted no exclusive title, but preferred to acquire and rely upon possession, strengthening her claim by settlements permitted by other nations, who in such permission admitted that their title was insufficient to authorize her exclusion. Being thus in possession, and herself the judge of the indefeasibility of an adverse title, she could elect whether she would be ousted. The situation is thus defined : ' While we have not the title, we want the possession ; in the mean time, we do not admit that your title is any better than ours-in other words, just such a title as in all ages of the world might has made right.' "
To this claim the United States opposed a twofold right : We had discovered the Columbia River when Gray sailed into it and informed Vancouver of its existence ; Lewis and Clarke had ex- plored its banks and tributaries ; Americans had settled beside its waters. " It is a law of nature, universally recognized, that the discovery of a river followed by occupancy secures the right to the territory watered by it and its tributaries." Hence we claimed the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains between 42° and 51º north latitude, subject, of course, to the claim of Spain, the rewards of whose previous explorations became ours by the Treaty of Florida. Where is the flaw in our premises, the missing link in our claim of evidence to a good and sufficient .
Engªby F. G. Kernan, NY
IF Pierce Hoyan
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title ? But we strengthen this by our additional pretensions as "successors to France" by virtue of the Louisiana purchase in 1803, " by which we acquired the claim of continuity to the ter- ritory from the Mississippi westward to the Pacific, of the breadth of that province, its north line, according to the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), being the dividing line between the Hudson's Bay territory and the French provinces of Canada." The doc- trine of continuity has been recognized as a strong element of territorial claim, and its application universal in the colonization of the Atlantic seaboard. All European powers, in making set- tlements, maintained that colonial grants or charters (if not otherwise expressed) comprised not only the limits named therein, but included a region of country of like breadth extend- ing across the continent to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. For the integrity of this principle the war between Great Britain and France was waged, terminated by treaty in 1763. By that treaty the former power received Canada and Illinois ; renounced to France all territory west of the Mississippi, and thereby sur- rendered any claim to continuity west of that river. So we, as successors to both France and the rights acquired by treaty with Spain, backed by first discovery and occupation of the Columbia and its tributaries (which must to any fair and legal mind give a perfect title to the United States of the whole territory in dis- pute), were, and ought to be, seized of even more than the North- western territory we now possess.
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