Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/341

 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