Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/19



more than twenty years before the first immigrant party set out for Oregon, the government had been pointing out to the people of the United States the prize it was reaching after on the shores of the Pacific. As a nation America was still too young for conquest, even had it been a part of our policy to acquire territory by force, which it was not. By treaties, and by expending a few millions in money, we obtained the transfer of French and Spanish titles; and by force of defensive arms had compelled Great Britain to surrender to us the forts she held on our lake borders.

But before this was accomplished, far-seeing statesmen had set on foot that transcontinental expedition, never appreciatingly eulogized in. the past, nor adequately honored with remembrance in the present—the journey of Lewis and Clarke from the Missouri river to the Pacific, at the mouth of the Columbia, in 1804–5–6. It was a brave and a perilous undertaking, and forged one of the