Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/205



Eugene Duflot de Mofras came to Oregon in October, 1841, as an agent of the French government on an errand which appears to have been solely commercial, and to have had no political significance. He had been an attache of the French Embassy at Madrid, but at the close of the year 1839, was transferred to their Legation at Mexico, with the special mission of visiting the provines of Western Mexico; Lower and Upper California, the Russian forts, the British and American posts on the Columbia, and the region of the Columbia River and the Oregon Territory; he was to "ascertain, independently of political considerations," as he himself says, "what advantages might accrue to France from commercial expeditions and the establishment of stations in these regions, still so little known in France."

He arrived at Fort Vancouver in October, 1841. After a sojourn of about six weeks, he took a return passage on the Hudson's Bay Company bark, Cowlitz, sailing December 21.

De Mofras' visit to the French settlement on the Willamette is of especial interest. He was most hospitably received and describes with obvious fidelity and sympathy the manners and customs of these people, their religious and political problems. His reception by the Hudson's Bay Company officers at Fort Vancouver was