The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811–1912/Volume 1/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
1774—1805
THE EVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL MOVEMENTS TOWARD OREGON THE PIONEER AMERI- CAN PUSHING WEST — GEORGE ROGERS CL.ARK AND OLD VINCENNES WASHINGTON
AND JEFFERSON CO-OPERATING TO HOLD THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY WASHING- TON AND JEFFERSON PLANT STAKES TO HOLD OLD OREGON.
If the reader cares to go back into history far enough to find out how our people got started west, he will find that the same blood which moved out of and west from the dark forests of Germany, crossed over the North sea from Schleswig to the shores of Britain and over-run the country we now call Eng- land, and then crossed over the North Atlantic during the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries to the poverty-stricken soil of the east coast of America, there began over again the same development, more or less warlike, to capture the Continent of North America, as their ancestors had utilized in the conquest of the British island. Do not imagine for a moment that this is a far-fetched suggestion, having no connection with the Oregon of the twentieth century. The blood and brains which planted civilization in England, just as surely planted the same forces in the wilds of America and then pushed on westward to the Alleghanies, to the Ohio, to the Mississippi, to the Rocky mountains, and finally to Oregon. And as the new life and surrounding.s of old Eng- land developed out of the Teutonic blood which came to its shores as robbers — new laws, customs and a higher civilization, so likewise did the new world of America develop out of these descendants from ancient Germany, still newer laws, higher ideals, and a more perfect civilization which over-run the wil- derness west and conferred upon Oregon, the perfect flower and fruit of a^l the trials, struggles, sacrifices and labors of the race from its cradle in the Black Forest of Germany to its favored home by the sundown seas.
And as the Englishman was ditTerent from his German ancestors, and fis the German pushed across seas westward, and the Englishman pushed across the seas westward, so also the American pushed on, and on, until he reached a west that is merged with the east, and they, each, carried their laws and their civilization, such as it was, with them. It was part of their blood, love and spirit. The Roman historian, Tacitus, who wrote about eighteen hundred years ago, and who was celebrated for his profound insight into the motives of human conduct the main spring of character, described the ancient German ances- tors of the English as a nation of farmers, pasturing their cattle on the forest glades around their villages and plowing their village fields. They loved the land and freedom; and freedom was associated with the ownership of land.
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They hated the cities, "and lived apart, each family by itself, as woodside, plain or fresh spring attracts him." That description written only a hundred years after the birth of Christ, would be a good description of the American pioneer from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and of thousands of families in Oregon today.
And so we follow up the heart and core of this great movement of a con- quering race to find it building here between the mountains and the mighty ocean the grandest foundation histoiy in all the western world. A history our readers should not onlj^ know themselves, but one they should delight to teach to their children.
For these reasons this narrative will now take up those movements of popu- lation westward which have more of the political and governmental interest and direction than the commercial enterprises described in other chapters. Even before the Revolutionary war began, from 1774 to 1776, the pioneers of Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina commenced drifting over the Allegheny mountains into what is now West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. And during that war, these pioneers in the Ohio valley rendered a great service to their brethren who, under the lead of Washington, was making heroic resistance to the British soldiers. But during the war, as a matter of necessity, all emigration to the west ceased. Nobody knew what the outcome would be. Washington could spare no able-bodied men to go west as long as he had a vin- dictive foe in his front. And the pioneers already in the west had all they could do to maintain their homes and position against the Indian savages, set on by the Canadian British.
But even then the leaven was working in the minds of the great leaders of the people, who were to lay the foundations of this mighty nation, to take and hold the valley of the Mississippi. More than once the question was put to Washington as to what he would do if he was finally defeated and driven back by the British army; and more than once he pointed to the AUeghenies as a sure defense behind which he could lead his veterans, and there forever defy all the hosts of King George and build up an army and a people which would swarm back over the mountains and drive the hated English into the Atlantic ocean. It was to the west, the west, the vast wilderness west, the ex- hausted, starved, tattered and torn veterans of the Continental army turned their waning hopes to find a haven of peace and safety from taxation without representation. Fortunate it was for America, and for humanity, that our colonial ancestors had for their leaders the three greatest men ever produced in any one age of the world.
Washington, the all-wise leader, whose great soul could not be moved by great success or still greater defeat; Franklin, the diplomat, whose profotmd wisdom and humanity moved the whole civilized world, and whose genius com- pelled even his enemies to serve his cause; and Thomas Jefferson, the statesman, seer, and greatest colonizer of all the world. With the three men, supported by the self-sacrificing and invincible soldiers of the Continental army, success of the king was an utter impossibility. Our forefathers had right, justice, the
sea and the land, yea, also the mountains on their side. They would not fail. 
No! as well the tall and pillared Allegheiiies fall — as well Ohio's giant lide roll backward on its mighty track.
"For freedom's liattle onee liegliu, Be(|iieathed from bleeding sire to son, is ever won."
The idea of a great western movement to hold an empire of rieli land for the teeming millions of men that were to come after them, was the idea of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two men did not always agree. And at least one of them was a little jealous of Washington's great name and fame. But on the western movement they did agree. Of all the great leaders of the rebellion against the British king, Washington only had been west of the AUeghenies and knew something of the great possibilities of the Oliio valley. Jefferson knew of it only from pioneer reports and French newspapers which he could read and translate for himself. But he was con- tinually reading and thinking, and dreaming of the vast illimitable west, away west, west, west to the Paeitio ocean. At that time, while Washington was lead- ing the Continental soldiers and straining every nerve to beat back the Brit- ish arms, Jeft'erson was stirring up trouble for the British by inciting the Vir- ginians to support George Rogers Clark in his plans against the British in the Ohio valley. In driving the French out of Canada, the British had come into possession of old Vincennes on the Wabash and other fur trading stations and French forts south of the great lakes. The British general, Hamilton (known in W^estern Indian war literature as the '"hair buyer," from his alleged practice of buying the scalps of murdered pioneers from the Indians), was in possession of the fort at Vincennes with a garrison of eighty British soldiers and a con- tingent of Indian allies. Clark was then, November, 1778, in Kentieky, as a pioneer Indian fighter, and hearing through one Francis Vigo, an Italian fur trader, that in the next spring Hamilton intended to attack the Ameri- can settlers in Kentucky, he (Clark) resolved to forestall his foe and set to work enlisting a force of men to march upon Vincennes during the winter, and surprise and capture Hamilton and his whole outfit. To carry out this dare- devil exploit, Clark had to rely wliolly on his own resources, which were prac- tically summed up in the individual person of George Rogers Clark, and his brains, courage and energy. He had not heard from or received any aid from his friends and abettors in Vii-ginia for a year ; and there was but a scant sup- ply of powder and lead in all the settlements in Kentucky for any purpose. But with Clark, to resolve was to act; and so he set to work enlisting men and building boats and soon had a little army on its way down the Ohio with their trusty rifles. Leaving a part of his force to patrol the river and look out for an attack in his rear, he marched the rest of his men overland to the old French fort at Kaskaskia, Illinois. Here his polite demeanor and address cap- tured the French and half-breeds, and especially the Creole girls, and all united to secure additional recruits to his banner — the banner of George Rogers Clark, for there was not at that time, a single American flag in all America, west of the Alleghany mountains. After a few days rest, and by these means, Clark had gathered together a motley band of one hundred and seventy Ken
tuekians, half-breed French, Creoles and stragglers that looked anything else
than a military force to attack a fort defended by trained soldiers, amply sup-
plied with cannon of that period, and full supplies of muskets and ammuni-
tion. On the 7th of February, 1779, Clark marched his little army out of old
Kaskaskia, the whole village escorting and encouraging the men, and the good
Jesuit priest, Gibault, adding his blessing and absolution on all those brave
volunteers. It was in the depth of winter and icy cold, in addition to which a con-
tinued downpour of rain flooded the whole country and made an inland sea of the
"Wabash river, which they had to cross at one place with only a few canoes,
most of the men wading in ice cold water up to their arm-pits and carrying
their guns and powder horns over their heads. But they finally reached their
goal. To such men, nothing was impossible. Clark reached Vincennes with-
out informing the town or fort of his approach. He surrounded the town in
the night and after a short, sharp and decisive attack in the morning, the
British general, Hamilton surrendered. Clark paroled the men, but sent Ham-
ilton under guard, to Virginia, where he was kept in jail at Richmond for two
years. Taken altogether, this exploit of George Rogers Clark was the most
reckless, daring, dangerous and successful military expedition in the whole
course of the revolutionary war, or of any war. And in its results it accom-
plished more for the United States than any other one military movement or
battle in the war. For without this successful venture of Clark's, the British
would have held the Mississippi valley until the end of the war, and by the treaty
of peace, England would have most surely secured everything west of the Al-
leghany mountains. The success of Clark enabled our peace commissioners,
Franklia, Jay and Adams, to claim that Clark had driven the British out of
the Mississippi valley and successfully held it. So that the boundary line be-
tween the American possessions and the English was established on the line of
the great lakes west to the headwaters of the Mississippi river, instead of at
the Alleghany mountains. By this grand coup in the western wilderness,
Clark added to the United States all the territory out of which has been carved
and populated the seven great states of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and half of Minnesota. This was the first great
advance of the American flag from the inhabited portions of the original col-
onies, moving westward. And it was wholly and purely a movement to secure
more territory, and wholly based on political reasons and not influenced by
any commercial motive or interest.
It has been the puzzle of historical writers for more than a century to account for the attitude of Washington to George Rogers Clark. Washington was per- sonally acquainted with Clark and his family, of which none stood higher in old Virginia. Washington must have known and did know the splendid military abilities of Clark. No man was a better judge of what other men could accom- plish than Washington. With the exception of Greene, Washington had not a single general under his command that equaled George Rogers Clark ; and no one of all his major generals, Greene not excepted, accomplished as much for his country as Clark. Then why did Washington keep him in the western wilderness with a mere handful of riflemen to be called out as the desperate straits of de- fense against Indians or British might require ? The only answer to that long un- answered question is, that of all men possible to be sent or kept in the west to hold
in check the British and their Indian allies, and hold the valley of the Mis- sissippi for any possible result of the war, George Rogers Clark was the first choice — the man that could be trusted and who was equal to the momentous im- portance of the position. Clark amply vindicated the confidence of Washington ; he discharged the great trust and responsibility on him with such distinguished ability as to immoi-talize his name in American histoiy, and in the annals of those who have covered their names with glory in defense of liberty and just laws. And the pity of it all is, that his great service to his country, and to his nation, wore never appreciated, recognized, rewarded or honored; and that one of the grand- est of our national heroes, and one of the nation's greatest benefactors should have died in poverty and neglect.
On the 4th day of March, 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as the third President of the United States. Jefferson had not taken a prominent part in the successful rebellion which had severed the colonies from the mother coun- try. He had not taken a part in making the constitution under which the people were organized into a nation of free men; and he had been anything but a har- monious prime minister of Washington's cabinet. It looked to the historian as if Jefferson's fame would be limited to his leading part in drafting the immortal Declaration of Independence. But there was seething in his active brain a great idea; the idea of extending the nation's boundaries from ocean to ocean. Having a natural taste for scientific studies, he longed to know what the great unfath- omed west of the Rocky mountains might contain. He had endeavored to organ- ize a geographical society to explore the western wilderness in the interest of scientific discovery, but received but little encouragement from Americans. But as soon as the independence of the colonies was secured he endeavored to enlist General George Rogers Clark in an exploring expedition to the Pacific coast, and on December 4, 1783, wrote to General Clark, saying:
"I find they have subscri,bed a very large sum of money in England for ex- ploring the country from the Mississippi to California. They pretend it is only to promote knowledge. I am afraid they have thoughts of colonizing in that quarter. Some of us have been talking here in a feeble way (the Geographical Society) of making the attempt to search that country; but I doubt whether we have enough of that kind of spirit to raise the money. How would you like to lead such a party? Though I am afraid our prospect is not worth asking the question."
But the first opportunity he got to set anything in motion that might bring him any knowledge upon the subject came to him while he was representing the United States at Paris in 1786. Jefferson gives an account of it in his autobiog- raphy as follows:
"While in Paris in 1786, I became acquainted with John Ledyard, of Con- necticut, a man of genius, some science, and of fearless courage and enterprise. He had accompanied Captain Cook in his voyage to the Pacific, had distinguished himself on several occasions by an unrivaled intrepidity and published an ac- count of that voyage with details unfavorable to Cook's deportment towards the savages and lessening our regi-ets at his fate. Ledyard had come to Paris in the hope of forming a company to engage in the fur trade on the western coast of America. He was disappointed in this, and being out of business, and of a roam- ing, restless character, I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring part of our continent by passing through St. Petersburg to the Pacific coast of Siberia, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka sound, from whence he might work his way across the continent to the United States; and I undertook to have the permission of the Empress of Russia solicited. He eagerly embraced the proposition, and Baron Grimm, special correspondent of the Empress, solicited her permission for him to pass through her dominions to the western coast of America. But this favor the Empress refused considering the enterprise entirely chimerical. But Ledyard would not relinquish it, persuading himself that by proceeding to St. Petersburg he could satisfy the Empress of its practicability and obtain her permission. He went accordingly, but she being absent on a visit to some distant part of her dominions, he pursued his course across Russia to within two hundred miles of the Pacific coast, when he was overtaken by an arrest from the Empress, brought back to Poland and there dismissed."
This shows how much farther ahead in the outlook towards Oregon Jefferson was, compared with all others. He had started Ledyard to cross the American continent six years before Gray had discovered the Columbia river, and seven years before Mackenzie had crossed the Rocky mountains. It is not only a matter of intense interest to go back and see the men who were racking their brains and exploiting their ideas about this Oregon of ours before anybody knew there was such a place; but it is also due from us to render just honors to those men who not only took the long look ahead, but followed up their great thoughts by practical statesmanship to secure this country to this nation and for our habitation and use.
When Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, he supposed that the vast territory known as Louisiana belonged to Spain. The Pope had given it to Spain, De Soto had claimed it for Spain, La Salle had claimed it for France and Prance had ceded all its rights to the country to Spain. And upon this presumption, Jefferson had planned to open negotiations as early as practicable after becoming president to purchase, or in some other way obtain the title to Loviisiana for the United States. And he did not go about this great business in a hap-hazard way. He knew perfectly well the excited state of feeling that existed throughout the whole country west of the Alleghany mountains. Irritated by the exactions of the Spanish traders at New Orleans, and feeling their whole future depended on the conditions on which they could ship their produce to market by the great rivers, the pioneers of the west were ready to volunteer and drive the Spaniards out of the country by force of arms, just as they had been ready to follow George Rogers Clark in 1793-4 to drive out the Spaniards and turn Louisiana over to the French. Therefore, to prepare himself as President of the United States, to meet and control any emergency which might arise in this delicate and great national business, as soon as he became president he sent a secret agent to old St. Louis to find out the state of feel among the Spanish at that frontier town. Jefferson desired to know the political sentiments of those old world pioneers at St. Louis, and especially their feelings towards the people of the United States. Trouble must come sooner or later from that foreign flag flying in the heart of the great Mississippi valley. For just as certain as George Rogers Clark with one hundred and seventy men had captured the British General Hamilton and his fort and forces at old Vincennes, that surely would some other western filibustering Clark arise and gather an army and drive the Spaniards out of St. Louis. The man selected for this secret mission to St. Louis was John Baptiste Charles Lucas. Lucas was a Frenchman that had studied law in Paris; had some acquaintance (here with Franklin and Adams while they were representing America during the Revolutionary war, and having come to America after the war made the acquaintauce of Albert Gallatin, Jefferson's secretary of the treasury, who introduced him (Lucas) to the president. Lucas was an ardent supporter of republican principles, he could speak the Spanish as well as the French language, and everything pointed him out as the man capable of serving Jefferson and his adopted country. Lucas undertook the confidential mission to St. Louis, and after sounding the drift of personal and political feeling at that point, proceeded to New Orleans on the same mission, making his confidential reports to the president only. Upon this information the president was prepared to act, and did act, as the sequel showed. He was prepared for war if the French had not backed down and offered to sell out before he had even time to submit an ultimatum.
That the services of Lucas in this national crisis were of great value and highly appreciated by the president, is shown from the facts that when Lucas became a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania in 1803, the Jefferson administration most heartily supported him and secured his election; and after Louisiana was formally ceded to the United States and a territorial government established in Missouri, the president appointed Lucas a United States district judge in that territory where he was heartily welcomed by the people. For although old St. Louis had a Spanish governor and Spanish soldiers, the majority of the townspeople were French and under the influences of the great fur traders, Pierre Laclede, August Chouteau and others, and already disposed to support an American president and American principles.
It is not, therefore, surprising that after all this careful preparation to deal diplomatically with the Spanish King for the purchase of Louisiana, that the president, and the whole country with him, should have been alarmed beyond expression to find that Spain did not in fact own Louisiana; but that the great province had been secretly ceded to France two years before the publication of the event. This discovery produced intense excitement throughout the whole country, and especially to President Jefferson. It could not be divined what purpose France had in view in taking back Louisiana by a secret treaty, and everybody assumed that sooner or later the nation would be forced into a war with an old friend. Writing to Livingston, the American minister to Paris, April 18. 1802, Jefferson says: "Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the affairs of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary war has produced more uneasiness throughout the nation and in spite of our temporary bickerings with France, she still has a strong hold on our affections. The ceSsion of Louisiana to France completely reverses all the political relations of the United States, and will form a new epoch in our political course. There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. That spot is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France placing herself in that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance."
Jefferson read the future as if by inspiration. The great waterways pouring their traffic down to New Orleans at the least possible expense were building up in the great valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers an empire of population. He thought, as everybody else then thought, that the trade of even Pittsburgh, only four hundred miles west of the Atlantic port of Philadelphia, must of necessity float down the Ohio and Mississippi, and go out to the world by way of New Orleans. And also all the traffic west and south of Pittsburgh must go the same way. We of this day cannot comprehend the consternation with which that view struck the president and all of the people of the west. We could understand it if England or Japan should now in our day capture Astoria and the mouth of the Columbia, and proceed to levy import and export taxes on every pound of Oregon produce or goods which goes out or comes in over the Columbia river bar. The steam railroad had not been invented at that day, and no one could then see any future for the great west except through nature's outlet by the great river to the Gulf of Mexico.
Jefferson has been by many rated as a philosopher, a scientist, a dreamer or schemer rather than a practical statesman; but the facts show that when the great occasion came he was always equal to it. He met this secret treaty move between Spain and France with both energy and wisdom. He instructed his minister to Paris, Robert Livingston, to ascertain at the earliest moment what France proposed to do with the island of New Orleans, as the city was then called. And as matters developed, in January following his letter to Livingston, he appointed James Monroe, minister extraordinary to France, with instructions to push the French court to a decision. And in his letter of instructions to Monroe, he reminds him that the French are hard pressed for money to complete the conquest of St. Domingo, and that these circumstances have prevented the French from taking possession of Louisiana. Everything seems to have been considered fair in love or war in those days as well as now, and Thomas Jefferson proposed to make the most of it for his country.
On February 3, 1803, Jefferson writes again to Livingston: "We must know at once whether we can acquire New Orleans or not." The westerners were clamoring for New Orleans and for war. The same sort of people that rallied to the appeal of Andrew Jackson ten years later and gave the British such a terrible thrashing below New Orleans, were now ready to fight the French if they dared to come and take the country they had bought from Spain.
So anxious and so terribly was Jefferson wrought up over the. condition of affairs that he tells Monroe in the letter quoted: "On the event of your mission depends the future destinies of this republic. If we cannot by a purchase of Louisiana insure ourselves a course of perpetual peace, then as war cannot be distant, we must prepare for it." The future destiny and ownership of this Oregon country was dangling in the balance right then and there.
There can be no doubt that Napoleon (then ruling France) purposed to take possession of Louisiana. A military force of twenty thousand men was on the eve of embarking; and Napoleon had decided to plant this force as a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi river; the strategic point to wield at his pleasure the commerce and civilization of the Atlantic ocean. A petty quarrel with England about the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean sea deranged his plans, and he formed another chain-lightning-resolve—he would rival Julius Caesar by the invasion and conquest of England. But to do this he dared not
seud his veterans to New Orleans; for England, mistress of the seas, might cap- ture his men, and ships atloat and wrest New Orleans from Prance. The great Napoleon dropped his scheme as quickly as he formed it ; and as he badly needed money for other schemes, he turned around and ottered Louisiana for sale to the American minister. "Never in the foi'tuncs of mankind," says John Quiney Adams, "was there a more sudden, complete and pro- pitious turn in the tide of events than this change in the purposes of Napoleon proved to the administration of President Jefferson." So convinced was Liv- ingston of the bad faith of France at that time,- that when Monroe reached Paris, Livingston declared that nothing but force would do; "We must seize New Orleans by military force, and negotiate afterwards." What then was his surprise and astonishment when he proposed to purchase the trading post of New Orleans, to find the French minister offering to sell him the vast terri- tory of Louisiana, New Orleans, the great rivers and everything else that France claimed in America. The whole tone of France was changed at once, and the bargaining for an empire of land went merrily as a marriage bell. Fif- teen million dollars was the price agreed upon for Louisiana territory; the largest real estate transaction in the world from the beginning of the human race. It conveyed all the lands in the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis.souri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, three-fourths of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, half of Colorado, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Utah, half of Minnesota and most of Montana ; five hundred and sixty-five million acres at a price of about one dollar and a half per square mile of land. Napoleon w^as greatly pleased with the sale he had made, and said to the American minister. "This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and I have given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." And the most curious thing in the whole transaction was that President Jeffei-son borrowed the money from English bankers to pay France, when it was perfectly plain that Napoleon would use the whole sum fighting England, taking a most outrageous advantage of the stupidity of the English ministiy. On the 20th of December following formal possession of the Province of Louisiana, was taken by the American Commissioners, Wm. C. Claiborne and General James Wilkinson, and the tri-eolored fiag was pulled down to wave no more forever over American soil.
President Jefferson was now free to pursue his life long desire to know what was in the Far West. He had now cleared away all obstacles; he had added to the national domain territory enough to make thirteen more great states; he had opened the way now to find out what wa.s in the far-off Oregon country. Oregon had been in his mind ever since he had started Ledyard across Asia to reach and explore it. And that is the reason this history of the Louisiana purchase is pertinent to the history of Oregon. Without Louisiana, the United States could never reach Oregon and without Oregon, there would be no American port on the Pacific Ocean.
Here we connect George Washington and Thomas Jeft'er.son with Oregon. While Washington was fighting the British in the Atlantic coast colonies, he did not neglect the rear ; but kept George Rogers Clark in the Ohio valley to hold the Indians in check and watch the British who were in actual possession of the great Valley. Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia and held
that office during all the darkest hours of the Revolution ; as such Governor he
succeeded in sending to Clark such limited supplies of powder and lead as would
keep the Ohio valley pioneers in ammunition to defend themselves. With this
slight aid Clark exceeds all his instructions organizes his "hunting shirt" army,
captures old Vincennes, and drives the British out of the Ohio valley, and holds
it until the Treaty of Peace with England gives all the great valley east of the
Mississippi river and north of the Florida line to the American Colonies. Both
Washington and Jefferson were working together to hold the west — ^Washington
as General in Chief of the armies, and Jefferson as Governor of Virginia. Wash-
ington captures the British army; peace is declared and the Treaty gives the
Ohio valley clear to the Mississippi to the United States. Washington is elected
President, and while in that office sent out the Boston Skipper, Capt. Robert
Gray, under the Stars and Stripes armed with the following authority :
"To All Emporers, Kings, Sovereign Princes, State and Regents to Their Respec- tive Officers, Civil and ililitary, and to All Others Whom It May Concern: '■'/, George Washingtan, President of the United States of America, do make known that Robert Gray, Captain of a ship called the Columbia, of the burden of about 230 tons, is a citizen of the United States, and that the said ship which he commands belongs to the citizens of the United States ; and as I wish that the said Robert Gray may prosper in his lawful affairs, I do request all the before-men- tioned, and of each of them separately, when the said Robert Gray shall arrive with his vessel and cargo, that they will be pleased to receive him with kindness and treat him in a becoming manner, &c., and thereby I shall consider myself obliged.
"September 16, 1790— New York City.
"Seal U. S. George Washington,
"Thomas Jefferson, President."
"Secretary of State."
Under that authority Capt. Graj^ discovers the Columbia river, sails in over its stormy bar and raises the American Flag for the first time in Old Oregon.
Time passes on and Thomas Jefferson succeeds Washington in the Presi- dential office. Now armed with the National authority he pushes his long cher- ished plan of getting control of the mouth of the Mississippi river. He succeeds beyond his greatest expectations, and gets the whole of Louisiana. The great transaction is scarcely completed than his ambition to get to the Pacific Ocean comes foremost in his thought; and we find him ^^Titing on August 12, 1803, a letter to John Breckinridge, who was Attorney General in President Jefferson's Cabinet from 1805 to 1806, from which is taken the following extract :
"Our information about the country (Louisiana) is very incomplete. We have taken measures to obtain a full report as to the settled part. The boundaries are the high lands on the western side of the Mississippi, enclosing all its waters, and terminating in the line drawn from the northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods to the nearest source of the Mississippi, as lately settled between Great Britain and the United States. We have some claims to extend on the sea coast (on the Gulf of Mexico) westwardly to the Rio Norte or Bravo, and later to go eastwardly to the Rio Perdido, between Mobile and Pensacola, t he ancient
bouiulary of Louisiaii;i. Tlicsc claims will he \\\r suiiji-cl of negotiations with
Spain, and it, as soon as she is at war we juisli tlicm strongly with one hand,
liolding out a price in the other, we shall obtain the Floridas, and all in good time.
In the meanwhile, without waiting for permission, we shall enter into the exercise
of the natural right we have always insisted on w^ith Spain, to-wit: That of a
nation holding the upper part of streams, having a right of innocent passage
through them to the Ocean. We shall prepare her to see us pracliee on this,
and she will not oppose it by force. ' '
And under the doctrine announced in that letter, Jefferson immediately organized the Lewis and Clark Expedition which made its way across Spanish territory to Old Oregon, and connected with Gray's discovery under Washing- ton's authority at the mouth of the Columbia river, thus raising under the au- thority of these two great Presidents the American flag from Ocean to Ocean — and planting the stakes for the American Title to Old Oregon.