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All honor to Jefferson, the far-sighted statesman; and a like honor to the courageous explorers, Lewis and Clarke; but the writer of history should be true to facts. Lewis and Clarke were not "The first men who saw your West." They were not the discoverers of Oregon. Old Captain Gray did that a dozen years prior to the visit of Lewis and Clarke. A writer of true history should not have blinded his eyes to that fact on his dedicatory page. Captain Gray sailed into the mouth of the Columbia River on his good ship Columbia, from Boston, on May 7th, 1792. The great river was named for his vessel. This, together with the title gained by the Louisiana purchase in 1803, and the treaty with Spain and Mexico, more fully recited in another chapter, made the claim of the United States to ownership in the soil of Oregon.
The mission of Lewis and Clarke was not that of discoverers, but to spy out and report upon the value of the discovery already made. Their work required rare courage, and was accomplished with such intelligence as to make them heroes, and both were rewarded with fat offices; one as the Governor of Louisiana, and the other as General Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and both were given large land grants. We have not been able to see in any of Dr. Coues' full notes any explanation of such facts, but even if he has given such explanation, 20
