Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/295

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Journal and Letters of David Douglas.
289

gentleman, and will, at no distant period, be laid before the public.

The expenses of this mission were, in great part, to have been defrayed by the Horticultural Society of London, of which Mr. Sabine was still Secretary; but when those changes took place in that Institution, the particulars of which are familiar to all who have felt an interest in the success of Horticultural Botany in this country, and in consequence of which Mr. Bentham became the Honorary Secretary in the room of Mr. Sabine, Mr. Douglas wrote from the Columbia resigning his appointment as Collector to the Society and he withdrew altogether from its service; sending to it, however, at the same time, all the collections he had made up to that period, but declaring his intention, nevertheless, to transmit all seeds and living plants he might procure, as a present to the Garden. This determination, which arose from some misunderstanding is deeply to be regretted, not only because we know, from our acquaintance with Mr. Bentham's character and feelings upon the subject, that this gentleman would have exerted himself to the uttermost to further Mr. Douglas' success: but because to this circumstance may perhaps be attributed the loss of nearly the whole of his Journals. To that Society, during the former expedition, they were from time to time carefully despatched; but now there was no one to whom he was bound to communicate the result of his investigations and labours: and with the remnant of his collection, sent home after his death, no Journal has appeared, save that of his Voyage from the Columbia to the Sandwich Islands and the Ascent of Mouna Roa.

All I have to offer, therefore, respecting his excursions in the Hudson's Bay territories and in California, where he reaped such a glorious harvest of plants, must be collected from his letters to his friends; and these almost