Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/228

220 the several religious societies to which said missionary stations respectively belong." The Bishop made his claim for a mission which he designated "The Mission of St. James."

The contention between the government and mission took tangible shape in February, 1887, when the Post Commander directed the officer of the day to remove the representatives of the mission beyond the Post limits. That this was done, manu moliter imposuit, may be assumed, as it was carried out by one of the most courteous of officers, General, then Captain, Daniel Burke of the Fourteenth Infantry. This apparently harsh proceeding was a tactical move of the Commandant to compel the Bishop to bring suit, as that would throw the burden of proof upon him.

We must now hark back in history, to give an account of the events which led up to this opening of active hostilities.

When Major Hathaway came to the old Hudson Bay Post, with his two batteries of artillery, in 1849, he found in the rear of the stockade an unoccupied church and a little log hut. When he applied to Mr. Ogden, then Chief Factor, for a room in which to store some articles, he offered to rent him the church. Major Hathaway did not want the church, but his Quartermaster did rent and occupy for a time the little log house.

To understand this subject, it is necessary to recall in this connection certain historical facts, because the law of the case depended on points of international law, treaty stipulations, and on certain well authenticated, but often forgotten, incidents in the history of the Northwest.

We must keep in mind that our right of sovereignty over this coast is founded on our claims of discovery and occupancy, and not on the Louisiana Purchase. The Yankee skipper, Gray, was the first to sail into the river, which he named after his bark, the Columbia; Lewis and Clark were the first white men to navigate the river from the mountains to the sea; John Jacob Astor of Waldorf established the first trading post west of the Rocky Mountains at Astoria in 1811. During the War of 1812, the Astor Company was supplanted