t from the Missouri until the
following spring. We could only guess how events were going forward in
our diplomacy. We did not know, and would not know for a year, the
result of the Democratic convention at Baltimore, of the preceding
spring! We could only wonder who might be the party nominees for the
presidency. We had a national government, but did not know what it was,
or who administered it. War might be declared, but we in Oregon would
not be aware of it. Again, war might break out in Oregon, and the
government at Washington could not know that fact.

The mild winter wore away, and I learned little. Spring came, and still
no word of any land expedition out of Canada. We and the Hudson Bay folk
still dwelt in peace. The flowers began to bloom in the wild meads, and
the horses fattened on their native pastures. Wider and wider lay the
areas of black overturned soil, as our busy farmers kept on at their
work. Wider grew the clearings in the forest lands. Our fruit trees,
which we had brought two thousand miles in the nursery wagon, began to
put out tender leafage. There were eastern flowers--marigolds,
hollyhocks, mignonette--planted in the front yards of our little cabins.
Vines were trained over trellises here and there. Each flower was a
rivet, each vine a cord, which bound Oregon to our Republic.

Summer came on. The fields began to whiten with the ripening grain. I
grew uneasy, feeling myself only an idler in a land so able to fend for
itself. I now was much disposed to discuss means of getting back over
the long trail to the eastward, to carry the news that Oregon was ours.
I had, it must be confessed, nothing new to suggest as to making it
firmly and legally ours, beyond what had already been suggested in the
minds of our settlers themselves. It was at this time that there
occurred a startling and decisive event.

I was on my way on a canoe voyage up the wide Columbia, not far above
the point where it receives its greatest lower tributary, the
Willamette, when all at once I heard the sound of a cannon shot. I
turned to see the cloud of blue smoke still hanging over the surface of
the water. Slowly there swung into view an ocean-going vessel under
steam and auxiliary canvas. She made a gallant spectacle. But whose ship
was she? I examined her colors anxiously enough. I caught the import of
her ensign. She flew the British Union Jack!

England had won the race by sea!

Something in the ship's outline seemed