Mr. Astor, having at last arranged his plans, despatched in September, 1810, four of his partners, with twenty-seven subordinate officers and servants, all British subjects, in the ship Tonquin, commanded by Jonathan Thorne, a lieutenant in the United States navy, to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river. They arrived at their destination in March, 1811, and erected in a short time a factory or fort on the south side of the river, about ten miles from the mouth, to which the name of Astoria was given. The Tonquin proceeded in June on a trading voyage to the northward, and was destroyed with her crew by the Indians in the Bay of Clyoquot, near the entrance of the Strait of Fuca.
In the following month of July, Mr. Thomson, the agent of the North-west Company, to whom allusion has already been made, descended the northern branch of the Columbia, and visited the settlement at the mouth of the Columbia. He was received with friendly hospitality by his old companion, Mr. M'Dougal, who was the superintendent, and shortly took his departure again, Mr. Stuart, one of the partners, accompanying him up the river as far as its junction with the Okinagan, where he remained during the winter, collecting furs from the natives. The factory at Astoria, in the mean time, was reinforced in January, 1812, by a further detachment of persons in the service of the Pacific Fur Company, who had set out overland early in 1811, and after suffering extreme hardships, and losing several of their number, at last made their way, in separate parties, to the mouth of the Columbia. A third detachment was brought by the ship Beaver, in the following May. All the partners of the Company, exclusive of Mr. Astor, had now been despatched to the scene of their future trading operations. Mr. Mackay, who had accompanied Mackenzie in his expedition to the Pacific in 1793, was alone wanting to their number: he had unfortunately proceeded northwards with Captain Thorne, in order to make arrangements with the Russians, and was involved in the common fate of the crew of the Tonquin.
The circumstances, however, of this establishment underwent a great change upon the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain in June, 1812. Tidings of this event reached the factory in January, 1813. In the mean time Mr. Hunt, the chief agent of the Company, had sailed from Astoria, in the ship Beaver, in August, 1812, to make arrangements for the trade along the northern coast; whilst Mr. M'Dougal, the senior partner, with Mr. Mackenzie and others, superintended the factory. They were soon informed of the success of the British arms, and of the blockade of the ports of the United States, by Messrs. M'Tavish and Laroque, partners of the North-west Company, who visited Astoria early in 1813, with a small detachment of persons in the employment of that company, and opened negotiations with M'Dougal and Mackenzie for the dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company, and the abandonment of the establishment at Astoria. The association was in consequence formally dissolved in July, 1813; and on the 16th of October following, an agreement was executed between Messrs. M'Tavish and John Stuart, on the part of the North-west Company, and Messrs. M'Dougal, Mackenzie, David Stuart, and Clarke, on the part of the Pacific Fur Company, by which all the establishments, furs, and stock in hand of the late Pacific Fur Company were transferred to the North-west Company, at a given valuation, which produced, according to Mr. Greenhow, a sum total of 58,000 dollars. It may be observed, that four partners only of the Pacific Fur Company appear to have been parties to this agreement; but they constituted the entire body which remained at Astoria, Mr. Hunt, being absent, as already stated, and Messrs Crooks, Maclellan, and R. Stuart, having returned over-land to New-York in the spring of 1813.