Captain Kaiser's company of Oregon Rangers, as they took that name, some of the same members being again enrolled, and the former captain acting as president of the meeting.
On the very day that Kaiser sent his report of these proceedings to Oregon's journal, Ogden, writing from Fort Vancouver to the same, announced the arrival at Nisqually of H. M. frigate Fisgard, forty-two guns and a crew of three hundred and fifty men, which had come to remain for the summer, or as long as the war-cloud threatened.[1] The news brought by the Fisgard, as late as December from England and January from New York, was rather quieting than otherwise. It was thought that the corn laws would be repealed and free-trade instituted, which would open British ports to American bread-stuffs, and it was believed greatly lessen the war feeling in the western states, where President Polk's supporters were strongest.[2] The president had also made proposals for altering the tariff, favorable to Great Britain; all of which was reassuring. At the same time it was evident that the French government, whose officers in the Hawaiian Islands courted the favor of the officers of the English fleet in the Pacific, would support the claims of Great Britain; and the pretensions of the French in the Pacific were tolerated by England in order to obtain this support.[3]
- ↑ The Fisgard was officered as follows: captain, J. A. Duntz; lieutenants, John Rodd, Charles Dyke, George Y. Patterson, Edward W. Lang, Edward D. Ashe; marines, Lieutenant Henry H. M'Carthy, and Fleetwood J. Richards: master, Edmund P. Cole; chaplain, Robert Thompson; surgeon, Thomas R. Durm; purser, Thomas Rowe; second master, James Crosby; instructor Robert M. Joship; 14 midshipmen. Roberts says: 'A small building erected for a midshipmen's school at Nisqually was standing only a few years ago. It was known to us as the "castle of indolence."' Recollections, MS., 78.
- ↑ Had the corn laws of England been abolished a few years earlier, so that a market could have been found for the grain raised in the Mississippi Valley, the history of Oregon might now be read differently, since the farmers who emigrated to the Pacific coast would have remained at home to raise corn and wheat for Great Britain.
- ↑ The N. Y. Herald of Nov. 30, 1845, remarks: 'The accounts from Tahiti state that H. B. M. ship Collingwood, Admiral Sir George Seymour, had arrived there and saluted the French Protectorate flag. This is rather singular, and seems to indicate that the English, in order to carry some point in the Pacific,
