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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 615
Words from 6456 to 6741
of 165649
