to be no record of it, there is little doubt that he
was bidden to build a post on the upper Columbia
and to lay claim to the territory about its head-
waters and the Snake, and thence to complete his
exploration of the Columbia to its mouth. If his
orders had been to beat Astor's ship, the Tonquin,
in a race to the mouth of the river--as has often
been stated--he would not have spent the spring
of 1811 on its upper waters. It was not by preced-
ing Astor's men on the coast but by the charter
they hoped to receive as a result of their explora-
tions that the Nor'westers expected to gain Oregon,
for as a chartered company they would be backed
by the British Government.

Whether John Jacob Astor knew the plans of
the Nor'westers, even as they knew his, is conjec-
tural. However that may be, he proceeded with
his own enterprise. His first contingent would sail
in the ship Tonquin from New York and take the
sea route round Cape Horn--the route which
Robert Gray had sailed twenty years before--to
the entrance of the River of the West. And a
fleet of pirogues, conveying men in his service,
would strike from St. Louis up the Missouri to
follow the trail of Lewis and Clark into Oregon.

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