much of their intolerance of foreign intrusion; for in that spirit, notwithstanding the facts in the case, they insisted on viewing the presence of the British men-of-war, the Modeste, Fisgard, and Cormorant, which latter strongly armed vessel was stationed at the entrance to Puget Sound.[1]
The presence of the British flag, which had been a source of ill-suppressed ire, was rendered more openly obnoxious by the appearance of the United States colors,[2] and the intelligence brought by the Shark that the United States squadron, consisting of the frigates Congress and Savannah, and the sloops of war Cyane, Portsmouth, Levant, and Warren, were on the coast of Mexico and California, while the store-ship Erie was at the Islands provisioning for the fleet. Thus sustained, the belligerent feelings of the ultra-patriotic were privileged to exhibit themselves. Nor was the feeling of hostility with which many of the colonists regarded the officers of the British vessels entirely of a national character. In the eyes of the free and independent emigrants from the border of the United States, anything so cultivated, disciplined, and formal as a British naval officer was an intrusion. They were not inspired with awe, like an Englishman, but with dislike and envious contempt.[3]
After ascertaining that the Shark could not be taken into the Willamette, Howison visited Oregon City, where the people received him with a salute fired from a hole drilled in an anvil, probably the same which had done service on the 4th of July, and where
- ↑ 'The Shark people had said they would take the Modeste out of the river any time they were ordered.' Jackson, in Camp-fire Orations, MS., 9.
- ↑ 'Any future Martin who may write from the British side will say we got on smoothly, even lovingly, with the early immigrants, until after the advent of the U. S. schr. Shark, Capt. Howison. She came to show the flag. There was, we found, a noticeable change after that.' Roberts' Rec., MS., 49.
- ↑ 'The English officers used every gentlemanly caution to reconcile our countrymen to their presence, but no really good feeling existed. Indeed, there could never be congeniality between persons so entirely dissimilar as an American frontier man and a British naval officer. But the officers never, to my knowledge, had to complain of rude treatment.' Howison's Coast and Country, 4; Gibbs, in Pacific R. Rept., i. 421.
