Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/15



The present volume is occupied by the reprint, from the original London edition of 1849, of Alexander Ross's Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River from 1810-13.

No less than three members of the Astorian expedition published personal narratives, each of them a work of much merit. As a source for the study of this first attempt in behalf of the United States to colonize the Northwest Coast, the account of Ross supplements in many particulars that of Gabriel Franchère, the French Canadian clerk whose notable tale of adventure is published in volume vi of our series. Ross's narrative was not made public until twenty-nine years after the appearance of the first (French) edition of Franchère's book; but it was based upon journals written at the time, and has the value of a first-hand relation.

Ross was a Scotchman, who left his father's home (1804) to seek a fortune in the then "dissolute, extravagant, and butterfly" Province of Canada. He confesses that only stern Scotch pride kept him from returning to the parental roof, for which he secretly longed during several years after his departure. In the new land his fortunes did not flourish. Endowed with a good education, he at first eked out a scanty livelihood by teaching school; but after five years purchased some land in Upper