Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/196

184 T. C. ELLIOTT who as official repreesntative of the United States govern- ment spent about six weeks in Oregon during the winter of 1836-7. He wrote : "Soon after the departure of the United States Ship Ontario, Captain Biddle, the buildings at Fort George were destroyed by fire." (See p. 184, Vol. 13 of Or. Hist. Quar.). The correctness of this tale to Mr. Slacum is somewhat doubtful; no other document of that period men- tions such an event, as far as now known to the writer. The establishment was certainly intact in October, 1818, when Mr. J. B. Prevost and Captain Hickey were there in H. M. S. Blossom. The contiguous location of so many wooden build- ings inside a wooden stockade would naturally have occasioned a general conflagration had any occurred, and such disaster would probably have been mentioned by others. The caution of Captain Biddle in not attempting to lower the British flag is also of interest, as it would have been quite in keeping with his reputation for boldness and firmness to have done just that thing. Doubtless Chief Factor Keith was expecting him to do so as word had been sent from London by way of Montreal and Fort William that a war vessel had been dispatched to the Columbia river for some such purpose. When the Ontario sailed from New York she also carried as joint special commissioner to represent the United States at this surrender, Mr. J. B. Prevost, appointee of the State Department. Upon arrival in South American waters it was found that no officer of the British naval forces had received instructions in this matters and so Mr. Prevost deemed it wise to delay a little and disembarked from the Ontario at Lima or Valparaiso. At this very date, August 19th, 1818, however, he was sailing north in a British naval vessel, the Blossom, as guest of a British officer also designated to proceed to the Columbia on this errand. Possibly a difference of opinion existed between Captain Biddle and Mr. Prevost, but that concerns more properly an account of the acts of Mr. Prevost. The instructions were to assert the claim "in a friendly and peaceable manner, and without the employment of force." Captain James Biddle of the Ontario was a member of the