Among the cherished possessions of the present writer is an old volume, presented to his father by the author. It was published in Montreal in 1820. It is written in French by G. Franchere, _fils_, one of the clerks who sailed in the _Tonquin_ in 1810, on her memorable voyage round Cape Horn, to the Sandwich Islands and the Columbia, where he remained to assist in the founding of _Astoria_ and other trading posts. On the cession of the posts to the Canadian "Northwest Company" he remained a few months in the employ of the latter, and returned over the mountains and by way of the Red River settlement and Lake Superior to Montreal in 1814. His narrative agrees in the main with that of Irving. Indeed, it is probable that it was one of the sources from which the latter obtained his account of the _Tonquin's_ trip and subsequent events on the Columbia. On two points dwelt on by Irving it is, however, silent--the one, the marriage of Macdougall, one of the partners in the Astor company, to the dusky princess, the daughter of King Comcomly--the other, the chief part played by Macdougall in the transfer of Astoria to the British company. It is probable, however, that a marriage, after the Indian custom, may have taken place between these personages, M. Franchere not thinking it worth while to mention the matter, nor even the fact of the young woman's existence. That there was treachery toward Mr. Astor in McDougall's dealings with the North West Company is rather a matter of inference with Irving than a distinct charge. Franchere--who speaks of the bargain with the North West Company as participated in by all present at Astoria at the time--not being a partner, could scarcely know more than appeared on the surface. The only sentence in English in Franchere's book is contained in a footnote. It is the now historic exclamation of Captain Black of His Majesty's ship _Raccoon_ when he landed at Astoria: "What! Is this the Fort I have heard so much of! Great God! I could batter it down with a four pounder in two hours." Franchere evidently thought his French rendering of these memorable words did not do the gallant captain complete justice, so he re-translated them, and Irving repeats them in all their nautical Anglo-Saxon vigour. Washington Irving's chronicle of Astoria practically closed with the cession of that post to McTavish, representing the North West Company--with the running up of the British in place of the American flag at the Fort in 1813 and the change of name from Astoria to "Fort George." As the North West Company thus swallowed up the American Company in 1813, so in 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company practically swallowed the North West Company--though the settlement of the irregular warfare, waged for years between these rival British companies, was termed an association or coalition.