It will be noticed that as he was preparing to embark on the Cadboro in early November in 1846, homeward bound, the American barque Toulon arrived from the Sandwich Islands with the "news of the Oregon treaty, Mexican war, and occupation of California." He had taken his observations of conditions in Oregon near the close of that long period of suspense over the unsettled ownership of the country. He had seen "all settled spots on the Columbia below the Cascades, the Wilhammette valley for sixty miles above Oregon City, and the Twality and Clatsop plains." He confines his report to subjects his "own observations or verbal inquiries from authentic sources could reach."
He begins with a characterization of the attractive personality of Dr. McLoughlin, and gives an appreciative estimate of his able and sagacious administration of the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company down to 1845, and of his large service to the community as a whole. The attitudes taken toward him by the different elements in the Oregon community are not withheld. The classes in the composition of the population of Oregon in the middle of the forties are described, particularly the situation in which the American immigrants found themselves after completing their long treks across the continent.
The Hudson's Bay Company dominated the affairs m the settlement. The benevolence, the steadiness and the farsighted character of the policy of the managers of that concern elicited his commendation.
Lieutenant Howison's report supplies very definite information on the trade, shipping, productions, towns, Indian population and general development of Oregon at this stage. He forecasts with wonderful clearness the factors that have been controlling influences in its growth ever since. The document is a fit companion of the reports of Slacum and of Wilkes. These are found in Volume XIII, pp. 175-224, and in volume XII, pp. 269-299, respectively, of the Quarterly.
