DE MOFRAS EXPLORATION OF OREGON

185 Lieutenant Fromont 44 , who by order of the Senate had already completed an exploratory mission east of the Rocky Mountains, set off again with a company of emi- grants, who were traveling to the Columbia. Since the 12th of May, 1792, 45 the day that Captain Gray of Boston first entered the Columbia, very few American merchant ships have visited this river. After the fruitless expedi- tions of Astor, there remains to be cited only that of Captain Dominis, who, in 1829, in spite of the opposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, was able to take on board the brigs Owyhee and Convoy, more than eighty thousand dollars worth of furs. Terrible fevers were decimating the Indian population and the Americans claimed that the Company caused the rumor to be spread among the na- tives that it was their ships that had brought the malady. In 1834, the American brig May Dacre, Captain Lambert, belonging to Mr. Wyeth, who had come overland, tried to procure a cargo of salmon, but he could assemble only a few barrels on account of the opposition of the English company, even though he had promised its agents that he would not buy furs of the Indians. The brig Loriot which, In 1834, the American brig May Dacre, Captain Lambert, Government, did not carry on any trade. It only trans- ported to California some Americans who were going there to buy cattle, and among others, Messrs. Young and Carmichael 46 , who had set up a distillery in the Willam- ette Valley; but the Hudson's Bay Company and the prin- cipal French and American settlers having felt how in- jurious the manufacture of spirits would be, not only to 44 J. C . Fremont. Journal of travels on the Platte and Yellow Stone Rivers by Lt. Fre- mont; published by order of the U. S . Senate, Document of the American Congress, 1843. —de Mofras. 45 Capt. Robert Gray entered the Columbia river May 11, 1792. 46 Ewing Young and Lawrence Carmichael, members of the Wil- lamette Cattle Company. They abandoned" their distillery, but refused the compensation offered. Slacum's Report. 25th Congress, 2 Sess., Sen. ex. doc 24, p. 23-24. 9*sll