The Project Gutenberg EBook of Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest
Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific, by Gabriel Franchere

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Title: Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific

Author: Gabriel Franchere

Release Date: May 27, 2005 [EBook #15911]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note: Because this is a personal narrative,
inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, and
italicization have been preserved in cases where it is not clearly an
error from the original printing.]

[Illustration: ASTORIA, AS IT WAS IN 1813.]

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA

IN THE YEARS 1811, 1812, 1813, AND 1814

OR

THE FIRST AMERICAN SETTLEMENT ON THE PACIFIC

BY GABRIEL FRANCHERE

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY J.V. HUNTINGTON

REDFIELD
110 AND 112 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK

1854.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854,

BY J.S. REDFIELD,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In 1846, when the boundary question (that of the Oregon Territory in
particular) was at its height, the Hon. THOMAS H. BENTON delivered in
the United States Senate a decisive speech, of which the following is an
extract:--

"Now for the proof of all I have said. I happen to have in my possession
the book of all others, which gives the fullest and most authentic
details on all the points I have mentioned--a book written at a time,
and under circumstances, when the author (himself a British subject and
familiar on the Columbia) had no more idea that the British would lay
claim to that river, than Mr. Harmon, the American writer whom I
quoted, ever thought of our claiming New Caledonia. It is the work of
Mr. FRANCHERE, a gentleman of Montreal, with