Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/188

 180 DOCUMENT In this expectation your memorialist has been disappointed, and therefore he presents this memorial to your honorable body, with the, request that, if you approve his services, you will indemnify him for the actual expenses he has paid in per- forming them ; and will also make him whatever remuneration you may deem those services to merit from the Congress of the United States. And as in duty bound, your memorialist will ever pray, &c. W. A. SLACUM. A DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 11, 1835. SIR: Having understood that you are about to visit the Pacific ocean, the President has determined to avail himself of the opportunity thus afforded, to obtain some specific and authentic information in regard to the inhabitants of the coun- try in the neighborhood of the Oregon or Columbia river. In the belief that you will willingly lend your services in the prosecu- tion of this object, I now give you, by the President's direction, such general instructions as may be necessary for your guid- ance, in the execution of the proposed commission. Upon your arrival on the northwest coast of America, you will embrace the earliest opportunity to proceed to and up the river Oregon, by such conveyances as may be thought to offer the greatest facilities for attaining the ends in view. You will, from time to time, as they occur in your progress, stop at the different settlements of whites on the coast of the United States, and on the banks of the river, and also at the various Indian villages on the banks, or in the immediate neighborhood of that river ; ascertain, as nearly as possible, the population of each; the relative number of whites (dis- tinguishing the nation to which they belong) and aborigines ; the jurisdiction the whites acknowledge; the sentiments enter- tained by all in respect to the United States, and to the two European powers having possessions in that region ; and, gen- erally, endeavor to obtain all such information, political, physical, statistical, and geographical, as may prove useful or interesting