Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/124

106 land lately stolen from the Indians, relinquished by Great Britain as much through a desire for peace as from any other cause, and which the United States government afterward sold for a dollar and a quarter an acre, at which rate the present damage could not possibly have reached the sum of three cents!

Kinney proved a thief, and not only stole the goods intrusted to his care, but allowed others to do so, and was finally placed under bonds for his appearance to answer the charge of embezzlement. The ship and spars were condemned and sold at Steilacoom November 23d, bringing about forty thousand dollars, which was considerably less than she was worth; the money, according to common report, never reaching the treasury. A formal protest was entered by the captain and supercargo immediately on the seizure of the Albion, and the whole correspondence finally came before congress on the matter being brought to the attention of the secretary of state by the British minister at Washington.

In the mean time congress had passed an act September 28, 1850, relating to collection matters on the Pacific coast, and containing a proviso intended to meet such cases as this of the Albion, and by virtue of which the owners and officers of the vessel were indemnified for their losses.

This high-handed proceeding against the Albion, as we may well imagine, produced much bitterness of feeling on the part of the British residents north of the Columbia, and the more so that the vessels