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number of House bills introduced relative to Oregon, and car- ried the same to the person in charge of the H. Documents, who said he would find them for me. I then wrote a letter to Gen'l Adair, when I was sent for by Capt. Wilkes relative to said charts, and agreed to meet him at his house at 12 o'clock A. M. on the 18th. I occupied the evening in copying from the journals of the House whatever related to Oregon, and went to bed at 11 P. M.
December 18, 1849 This day I ordered my patent reports to be sent down to my room for direction, and at 12 o'clock M., I called on Capt. Wilkes to examine his charts, and in the even- ing I met the Post Master Gen'l relative to mails to Oregon. He informed me that Howland & Aspinwall had obtained lib- erty from the late Secretary of the Navy and P. M. General, Mason and Johnson, not to run their steamers to Oregon, but in consideration that they stopped at intermediate points on the coast, they should be allowed to carry their mail no farther than the mouth of the Clammet river, and were not to be bound to carry the mail to Oregon by steamer until after they had received six months' notice so to do. Upon this I determined to call on the Secretary next morning and get him, if possible, to make the order immediately. I also hunted up some bills on this day that had been introduced into the H. R. relative to Oregon. The balance of the day I was writing a reply to a slanderous article on Oregon, which had appeared in the Boston Courier.
December 19, 1849 Immediately after breakfast I got Gov. Gaines and called on the Secretary of the Navy and requested him to make the order above referred to on Howland & Aspin- wall to carry the mail to Oregon by steamer. He assured us that so soon as Congress was organized he would enforce the performance of this contract to the letter ; in other words, that he would order the steamers to run to Oregon. He also said, in reply to a request that a vessel might be sent to Oregon to be at the disposal of the Gov't, that he would have one sent, that he had or would inform Com. Jones that but one vessel must remain in the harbor at San Francisco.
