Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/230

 ada, and could in case of war, if not reunite it to the mother country, at least aid it in delivering itself from the abhorred domination of the English.

The American officers penetrated to the Missouri, May 14, 1804, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and November 15, 1805, arrived at Cape Disappointment, at the mouth of the Columbia river, after having come down the south branch of that stream. They erected near Youngs Bay a wooden house which they called Fort Klatsop. The whole American expedition departed for the United States March 4, 1806. This same year, fur traders of the United States, thinking to profit by the advantages which seemed to be promised by the expedition of Lewis and Clark, established at Saint Louis, under the direction of Don Manuel Lisa, a Spanish merchant, a company under the name of the Missouri Fur Company. The agents of this company explored the upper Missouri and even succeeded in reaching, beyond the Rocky Mountains, one of the small rivers forming the source of the Snake river, south branch of the Columbia. Mr. Henry, the head of the expedition, had founded a post on one of these rivers; but repeated attacks of the Indians and want of food forced him to abandon it in 1810.

In the course of this same year, Jacob Astor, German merchant at New York, formed the association known as the Pacific Fur Company. The object of this company was to trade direct with China and to take from the London companies the monopoly in furs. The admirable plan of Mr. Astor was worthy of greater success. Washington Irving, in his delightful work has given us an account of the two expeditions, by land and by sea, too popular for it to be necessary to repeat it here. The ship Tonquin, sent by Mr. Astor, arrived in the Columbia at the close of March, 1811, and on the left bank of the