On the 15th of November, Messrs. Alexander Stuart and Alexander Henry, both partners of the N.W.  Company, arrived at the factory, in a couple of bark canoes manned by sixteen voyageurs.  They had set out from Fort William, on Lake Superior, in the month of July.  They brought us Canadian papers, by which we learned that the British arms so far had been in the ascendant.  They confirmed also the news that an English frigate was coming to take possession of our quondam establishment; they were even surprised not to see the Isaac Todd lying in the road.

On the morning of the 30th, we saw a large vessel standing in under Cape Disappointment (which proved in this instance to deserve its name); and soon after that vessel came to anchor in Baker’s bay.  Not knowing whether it was a friendly or a hostile sail, we thought it prudent to send on board Mr. M’Dougal in a canoe, manned by such of the men as had been previously in the service of the Pacific Fur Company, with injunctions to declare themselves Americans, if the vessel was American, and Englishmen in the contrary case.  While this party was on its way, Mr. M’Tavish caused all the furs which were marked with the initials of the N.W.  Company to be placed on board the two barges at the Fort, and sent them up the river above Tongue Point, where they were to wait for a concerted signal, that was to inform them whether the new-comers were friends or foes.  Toward midnight, Mr. Halsey, who had accompanied Mr. M’Dougal to the vessel, returned to the Fort, and announced to us that she was the British sloop-of-war Raccoon, of 26 guns, commanded by Captain Black, with a complement of 120 men, fore and aft.  Mr. John M’Donald, a partner of the N.W.  Company, was a passenger on the Raccoon, with five voyageurs, destined for the Company’s service.  He had left England in the frigate Phoebe, which had sailed in company with the Isaac Todd as far as Rio Janeiro; but there falling in with the British squadron, the admiral changed the destination of the frigate, despatching the sloops-of-war Raccoon and Cherub to convoy the Isaac Todd, and sent the Phoebe to search for the American commodore Porter, who was then on the Pacific, capturing all the British whalers and other trading vessels he met with.  These four vessels then sailed in company as far as Cape Horn, they parted, after agreeing on the island of Juan Fernandez as a rendezvous.  The three ships-of-war met, in fact, at that island; but after having a long time waited in vain for the Isaac Todd, Commodore Hillier (Hillyer?) who commanded this little squadron, hearing of the injury inflicted by Commodore Porter, on the British commerce, and especially on the whalers who frequent these seas, resolved to go in quest of him in order to give him combat; and retaining the Cherub to assist him, detailed the Raccoon to go and destroy the American establishment on the River Columbia, being assured by Mr. M’Donald that a single sloop-of-war would be sufficient for that service.