Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/115

Rh the river he again came in hailing distance of the English ship, and announced to Captain Vancouver his great discovery, giving him all the bearings which had been accurately taken. Captain Vancouver immediately changed his course, found the entrance, entered the river, sailed up the Willamette to its falls, up the Columbia to the rapids, and formally took possession in the name of England! It is a singular fact that both Spain and England that year each had a ship along the coast upon voyages of discovery. We are accustomed to call such events as "it so happened," but whether accidental or providential, America was ahead. It will be well to keep these facts in mind, for upon them hinges all claims England had upon Oregon! Yet, weak as they were, she held supreme possession of all Oregon for nearly half a century, and as we shall show, had it not been for the heroic work of the old pioneer missionaries, would probably have held the whole fair land for all time to come. England owned the territory northward from the United States, whose boundaries were not accurately defined. Even those along the borders of the New England states were not definitely fixed, and were a source of constant conflict until settled by the Ashburton treaty as late as 1846. The line between the United States and Canada ran westward to the Rocky Mountains, and there ended.