Our residence of St. Francis Xavier is completed; it will hereafter serve for a novitiate and seminary, to prepare young men for the missions.
Measures, which I trust will be realized, have been taken by our fathers for visiting during this year the numerous tribes inhabiting the Pacific coast north and south of the Columbia; where already the visits of the bishop and his grand vicar have been so productive of favorable results. The 17th of February, 1842, Bishop Blanchet thus wrote to the Bishop of Quebec: " God has deigned to bless our labors, and to fructify the divine word. The adorable name of Jesus has been announced to new nations of the north. Mr. Demers bent his steps to Fort Langley on Frazer's river, in which place he administered baptism to upwards of 700 children. Many of them already enjoy the precious fruits of regenerating grace."
In my preceding letters, I gave you the details of our missions among the mountains of the higher Oregon; of the conversion of two tribes, the Flatheads and the Cceur d'Alene or Pointed Hearts; of the first communion of the latter, and conversion of a large number of Kalispels of the Bay, on the solemn festival of Christmas. From 1839, when the mission was established, to July, 1845, the reverend Canadian missionaries baptized 3,000 persons. The number of Catholics residing at the different stations of the Honorable Hudson Bay Company in Oregon, together with the colonists of the same nation, amounts to several hundreds. By adding to these 2,857 baptized since 1841 in the different mountain missions, it gives us a total of more than 6,ooo Catholics in Oregon. The. diminutive grain of mustard is fast extending far and wide its branches over this once sterile and neglected region. In the month of June Father Nobili, accompanied by a novice brother, left Willamette to visit the tribes of New Caledonia. The Very Reverend Mr. Demers saw there in 1842-3 the following named tribes Kameloups, the Atnans or Shouwapemoh, the Porteurs or