Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/198

 186 T. C. ELLIOTT positive of this) and were of nearly the same age, and entered the government service at about the same time, one in the field of diplomacy and the other in the navy. There exists a strong presumption therefore that Captain Biddle had some knowledge of the country at the mouth of the Columbia river through his relative, Nicholas Biddle, and hence may have been able to converse with Comcomly and Chief Factor Keith with some personal intelligence, and perhaps to have avoided contact with the fleas Lewis and Clark had found so numerous in their camp near Chinook Point. In 1818 Oregon was not known among nations by that name, but was called the Columbia River Country or the Northwest Coast of America. The Ontario was the first United States naval vessel that ever visited this Columbia River Country and her dispatch to this region was in reality the first official act of the United States Government in asserting her title to Oregon. The insertion of the word "possessions" in Article I. of the Treaty of Ghent (December, 1814) and the brief inquiry by our Department of State in 1815 were the pre- liminaries. The official immediately responsible for the send- ing of the Ontario may have been John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State under President Monroe, for in a letter to Mr. Rush, our Minister at London, dated May 20th, 1818, Mr. Adams authorized the following explanation to Lord Castlereigh, the British Foreign Secretary: that "the expedition was determined and the vessel dispatched during the President's absence from the seat of government last season." It had been suggested then and in later discussions was claimed that the quiet and sudden departure of the Ontario was a bit of sharp practice on the part of the United States. It is not intended to suggest that President Monroe was unaware of the appointment of and intended departure of Mr. Prevost upon this mission but that John Quincy Adams as the leader of the three commissioners who had negotiated the treaty of Ghent and immediately after as U. S. Minister to England had wide knowledge of and especial interest in the