RESTORATION OF ASTORIA
323
possession now open to view, and which joined to your own observation, the minute sketch of one of your officers I trust will sufficiently demonstrate. 38
"With regard
to the transfer,
ought to have been con-
it
sidered by the party benefited thereby, as one of those fortunate contingencies seldom to be met with; what the said party
upwards of three months antecedent
to
such transfer had
otherwise fully resolved to abandon by the dissolution of their concern, as expressed at full length in the preamble [of the bill of sale of Astoria]. But to return to my subject; the
arms and ammunition we now possess consist of two long 18-pounders mounted in the square of the buildings, six Guns two 6-pounder co6-pounders, and four 4-pounders. horns and seven swivels stationed in the block houses and on the platforms, besides blunderbusses, muskets, and fusils there are upwards of eight hundred round and cannister shot for the cartridge guns, principally 18 and 6-pounders, together with a certain proportion of powder, ball, etc., part of which is indispensable for the trade, etc., and the gross amount of property (buildings excluded) on a rough estimate, cannot, I principal
conceive be over rated at about
30,000.
The Natives
are
very numerous and much addicted to theft, lying, and plunder, and though with few exceptions we have hitherto kept smooth with them without which we must long ere now have ceased to be a trading establishment,
we
require to be vigilant, cir-
cumspect, and much on our guard. These I conceive constitute the leading points which your communication embraces. "One circumstance, however, I had almost omitted. I allude
manner of Captain Biddle's last visit. By the Levant, a Boston vessel, freighted with part of our annual supplies, and from on board of which were landed 80 to 90 bags of
to the
Spanish flour belonging to the Ontario
we were informed by
verbal authority, founded on conjectures, that the latter was destined hither for the purpose of taking possession either of the settlement, or of the country, but having entertained similar suspicions the preceding 38 Ore. Hist. Quarterly, V.
summer and moreover conceiving
XIX,
pp. 276-82;
V.
XX,
p. 30, T. C. Elliott.
it
