CHAPTER III.
Fur Trade In The Pacific- American Coasting Voyages- Russian
Enterprises.- Discovery Of The Columbia River.- Carver's Project
To
Found a Settlement There.-Mackenzie's Expedition.- Lewis and
Clarke's Journey Across the Rocky Mountains- Mr. Astor's Grand
Commercial Scheme.-His
Correspondence on the Subject With Mr.
Jefferson.His Negotiations With the Northwest Company.- His Steps
to Carry His Scheme Into Effect.
WHILE the various companies we have noticed were pushing their
enterprises far and wide in the wilds of Canada, and along the
course of the great western waters, other adventurers, intent on
the same objects, were traversing the watery wastes of the
Pacific and skirting the northwest coast of America. The last
voyage of that renowned but unfortunate discoverer, Captain Cook,
had made known the vast quantities of the sea-otter to be found
along that coast, and the immense prices to be obtained for its
fur in China. It was as if a new gold coast had been discovered.
Individuals from various countries dashed into this lucrative
traffic, so that in the year 1792, there were twenty-one vessels
under different flags, plying along the coast and trading with
the natives. The greater part of them were American, and owned by
Boston merchants. They generally remained on the coast and about
the adjacent seas, for two years, carrying on as wandering and
adventurous a commerce on the water as did the traders and
trappers on land. Their trade extended along the whole coast from
California to the high northern latitudes. They would run in near
shore, anchor, and wait for the natives to come off in their
canoes with peltries. The trade exhausted at one place, they
would up anchor and off to another. In this way they would
consume the summer, and when autumn came on, would run down to
the Sandwich Islands and winter in some friendly and plentiful
harbor. In the following year they would resume their summer
trade, commencing at California and proceeding north: and, having
in the course of the two seasons collected a sufficient cargo of
peltries, would make the best of their way to China. Here they
would sell their furs, take in teas, nankeens, and other
merchandise, and return to Boston, after an absence of two or
three years.
The people, however, who entered most extensively and effectively
in the fur trade of the Pacific, were the Russians. Instead of
making casual voyages, in transient ships, they established
regular trading houses in the high latitudes, along the northwest
coast of America, and upon the chain of the Aleutian Islands
between Kamtschatka and the promontory of Alaska.
To promote and protect these enterprises, a company was
incorporated by the Russian government with exclusive privileges,
and a capital of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling;
and the sovereignty of that part of the American continent, along
the coast of which the posts had been established, was claimed by
the Russian crown, on the plea that the land had been discovered
and occupied by its subjects.
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