stock of general merchandise, and the rest had come for provisions and lumber, chiefly for California. All the commerce of the country not carried on by these few vessels, most of them arriving and departing but once, was enjoyed by the British fur company, whose barks formed regular lines to the Sandwich Islands, California, and Sitka.
It happened that during 1846, the year following the incoming of three thousand persons, not a single ship from the Atlantic ports arrived at Oregon with merchandise, and that all the supplies for the year were brought from the Islands by the Toulon, the sole American vessel owned by an Oregon company, the Chenamus having gone home. This state of affairs occasioned much discontent, and an examination into causes. The principal grievance presented was the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, which prohibited their vessels from carrying goods for persons not concerned with them. But the owners of the only two American vessels employed in transportation between the Columbia and other ports had
sured. She was in charge of the pilot, but missed stays when too near the south sands, and struck where the Shark was wrecked 2 years before. On the 27th of July the American schooner Honolulu, Captain Newell, entered the Columbia for provisions; and about the same time the British war-ship Constance, Captain Courtenay, arrived in Puget Sound. The Hawaiian schooner Starling, Captain Menzies, arrived the 10th of August in the river for a cargo of provisions. The Henry returned from California at the same time, with the news of the gold-discovery, which discovery opened a new era in the traffic of the Columbia. The close of the period was marked by the wreck of the whale-ship Maine, Captain Netcher, with 1,400 barrels of whale-oil, 150 of sperm-oil, and 14,000 pounds of bone. She had been two years from Fairhaven, Mass., and was a total loss. The American schooner Maria, Captain De Witt, was in the river at the same time, for a cargo of flour for San Francisco; also the sloop Peacock, Captain Gier; the brig Sabine, Captain Crosby; and the schooner Ann, Captain Melton; all for cargoes of flour and lumber for San Francisco. Later in the summer the Harpooner, Captain Morice, was in the river. The sources from which I have gleaned this information are McLoughlin's Private Papers, 2d ser., MS.; Douglas' Private Papers, 2d ser., MS; a list made by Joseph Hardisty of the Hudson's Bay Company, and published in the Or. Spectator, Aug. 19, 1851; Parker's Journal; Kelley's Colonization of Or.; Townsend's Nar.; Lee and Frost's Or.; Hines' Or. Hist.; 27th Cong., 3d Sess., H. Com. Rept. 31, 37; Niles' Reg., lxi. 320; Wilkes' Nar. U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 312; Athey's Workshops, MS., 3; Honolulu Friend; Monthly Shipping List; Pettygrove's Or., MS., 10; Victor's River of the West, 392, 398; Honolulu News Shipping List, 1848; Sylvester's Olympia, MS., 1–4; Deady's Scrap-book, 140; Honolulu Gazette, Dec. 3, 1836; Honolulu Polynesian, i. 10, 39, 51, 54; Mack's Or., MS., 2; Blanchet's Hist. Cath. Church in Or., 143, 158.
