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