RESTORATION OF ASTORIA
315
measure which they have thought proper to adopt, but a reference to Sir Gordon Drummond's despatches to Mr. Baker of the 14th and 31st of August, 1815, will prove to your Excellency that the settlement to which Mr. Adams adverted was not captured during the war, consequently that its restitution cannot be claimed under the 1st article of the Treaty of Peace.
"The enclosed copy of a note which I have addressed to American government, will sufficiently explain to your
the
Excellency the course which I have thought it my duty to take can receive an answer to the despatches
in this business, until I
which
I
have forwarded by
this mail to
His Majesty's govern-
ment. "I have not yet received an answer to this note, nor is it necessary for the immediate purposes of this letter, that I should.
"Whatever may be the grounds which the American government may assign for the step which they have taken, it appears to
me
to
me
to be in the highest degree important, that the if possible, find upon her arrival at the Columbia
Ontario should
River, that the Territory
is
in the actual possession of
His
am
anxious to submit purpose Majesty's subjects. to your Excellency's consideration, whether it might not be still practicable, through the means of the interior posts of the
For
this
I
North West Company, to convey to such of its traders, as may happen to be upon that Coast, intelligence of the destination and object of the Ontario, which may reach them before her arrival.
sailed from New York on the 4th of October, been directed to take out Mr. Tyler, who has has but as she business on the part of the American with some been charged
"The Ontario
government in Peru, she will probably be detained some time upon the South West Coast of South America. "I am fully aware that it will be a matter of great difficulty to
make
this
communication, but
it
me
will also
be a matter of Your Excel-
that unless
great delicacy for it appears to lency can entirely rely upon the intelligence of the North
