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JONATHAN CARVER AND THE NAME OREGON 357

Origan". On no other map published before that time, has the name Origan or Oregon yet been found. 15

The preface or introduction to a book is presumed to reveal the true motives and intent of its author. Captain Carver's introduction tells of his bitter disappointment because of hav- ing been compelled to return to Mackinac from the West, with- out carrying out a plan he had independently conceived soon after the close of the war to make his way across the con- tinent to the Pacific Ocean and locate there a port for the use of British commerce. And for this far look into the future, he has been lauded by some writers as a forerunner of President Jefferson in plans for transcontinental exploration. Captain Carver attributed the failure of his plan to the in- ability of Commandant Rogers to supply him on the Mississippi River with goods to use as presents to the Indians and also his own inability to purchase such goods from the traders at Grand Portage. To anyone familiar with the progress of the organized fur traders to the Rocky Mountains, such an in- dependent enterprise is at once recognized as absurd. Had Captain Carver set out in the manner he describes he would simply have disappeared, and with him perhaps any chance for the evolution of the name Oregon. Such an enterprise not only required higher official sanction than the mere per- mit and assistance of the commandant at Mackinac, but also called for personal experience in the Western field, outfitting and financial backing, little or none of which Captain Carver

had.

The following excerpt from an official letter written at Quebec on March 2, 1768, while Carver was still at Mackinac, shows conditions at the time as well as what was already in the minds of British officials. The letter was sent by Sir Guy Carleton, then governor general of Canada, in reply to inquiry from Lord Shelbourne, of the British ministry in London, 16 and we quote as follows:

"I shall easily find in the troops here many officers and men very ready to undertake to explore any part of this continent,

^"These maps have been cited t ? the writer by librarians in the Library of

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