year, so important in the history of the relations between Great Britain and America, opened with the issue of the order of January 26 by the British government for the restitution of Fort George, the post at the mouth of the Columbia, which, under the name of Astoria, had been taken possession of by the British early in the late war. This order, which was formally carried out in October of that year, gains in significance the more closely the whole history of the case is examined. Astoria, it will be remembered, was the name of the trading post established in 1811 by the Pacific Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor, of New York, was founder and chief stockholder. It was nominally an American company, and was established under the American flag; but of the party of thirty three that landed April 12, 1811, to form the settlement, all except three are said to have been British subjects. On the twelfth day of November, 1813, in the absence of Mr. Astor's agent, who was an American, Mr. McDougall, his sub-agent, a British subject, representing himself and the other partners present, likewise British subjects, signed the bills of sale, and delivered up Astoria to the Northwest Company, a British company. One month later, Captain Black, of the British navy, in the sloop-ofwar, Racoon, arrived in the Columbia, and took possession of Astoria in the name of his sovereign; and in honor of his sovereign changed the name to Fort George. He seems to have been chagrined not a little to find that, instead of the glory of battering down an American fort, nothing awaited him but to take peaceful possession in the name of his king of a British settlement.
By the first article of the treaty of Ghent, "all territory, places, and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war" should be restored. In view of the history just given, it is not strange that the British government, when called upon by the United
