Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/27



CHAPTER TWO Years of Agitation

The Biddle version of the journals of Lewis and Clark was published in 1814.* On December 24, 1814, the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States was terminated by the Treaty of Ghent, which provided that "All territory, places, and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war . . . shall be restored without delay," and ratifications were exchanged early in 1815. At the end of the war, Astoria, John Jacob Astor's trading station and fort at the mouth of the Columbia river, was held by the British, by whom it had been renamed "Fort George.^ Under the terms of the treaty the United States arinounced its inten- tion of asserting sovereignty over this fort and the region of the Columbia, but no response came from Great Britain. ' Ac- cordingly a sloop of war was dispatched in September, 1817 to take possession. This action compelled the British to declare themselves, which they did by asserting a claim to the territory upon the ground that it had been "early taken possession of in his majesty's name, and had been since considered as forming part of his majesty's dominions."

These events served to arouse great interest in the Pacific Northwest. It was only natural, therefore, that Hall Jackson Kclley should have sought out the Lewis and Qark journals and read with avidity all that they had to tell of the far-off land. Here was a young man with boundless enthusiasm and ambition, and with energy which refused to be confined. Fate had placed him in Boston, the home port of Captain John Kendricky Captain Robert Gray, and the Winships. There were men in Boston wHo could tell of their voyages and of

I The History of tho Bspodition Undor tko Command fo Captains Lowis and Clark, it the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky mounuins and down the River Columbia to the Pacific ocean. Philadelphia, 1814. 2 v.