ards, and take possession of the wreck on behalf of the
crown. This was done accordingly, and the property and crew were removed
to Owyhee. The royal bounty appears to have been but scanty in its
dispensations. The crew fared but meagerly; though, on reading the
journal of the voyage, it is singular to find them, after all the
hardships they had suffered, so sensitive about petty inconveniences, as
to exclaim against the king as a "savage monster," for refusing them
a "pot to cook in," and denying Mr. Ogden the use of a knife and fork
which had been saved from the wreck.

Such was the unfortunate catastrophe of the Lark; had she reached her
destination in safety, affairs at Astoria might have taken a different
course. A strange fatality seems to have attended all the expeditions by
sea, nor were those by land much less disastrous.

Captain Northrop was still at the Sandwich Islands, on December 20th,
when Mr. Hunt arrived. The latter immediately purchased, for ten
thousand dollars, a brig called the Pedler, and put Captain Northrop in
command of her. They set sail for Astoria on the 22d January, intending
to remove the property from thence as speedily as possible to the
Russian settlements on the northwest coast, to prevent it from falling
into the hands of the British. Such were the orders of Mr. Astor, sent
out by the Lark.

We will now leave Mr. Hunt on his voyage, and return to see what has
taken place at Astoria during his absence.

CHAPTER LIX.

Arrival of M'Tavish at Astoria.--Conduct of His Followers.--
Negotiations of M'Dougal and M'Tavish.--Bargain for the
Transfer of Astoria--Doubts Entertained of the Loyalty of
M'Dougal.

ON the 2d of October, about five weeks after Mr. Hunt had sailed in the
Albatross from Astoria, Mr. M'Kenzie set off with two canoes, and twelve
men, for the posts of Messrs. Stuart and Clarke, to appraise them of
the new arrangements determined upon in the recent conference of the
partners at the factory.

He had not ascended the river a hundred miles, when he met a squadron
of ten canoes, sweeping merrily down under British colors, the Canadian
oarsmen, as usual, in full song.

It was an armament fitted out by M'Tavish, who had with him Mr. J.
Stuart, another partner of the Northwest Company, together with some
clerks, and sixty-eight men--seventy-five souls in all. They had heard
of the frigate Phoebe and the Isaac Todd being on the high seas, and
wer