This Tract Lay About
Two Degrees North Of The Columbia, And Intervened Between The
Territories Of The United States And Those Of Russia.
Its length
was about five hundred and fifty miles, and its breadth, from the
mountains to the Pacific, from three hundred to three hundred and
fifty geographic miles.
Should the Northwest Company persist in extending their trade in
that quarter, their competition might be of serious detriment to
the plans of Mr. Astor. It is true they would contend with him to
a vast disadvantage, from the checks and restrictions to which
they were subjected. They were straitened on one side by the
rivalry of the Hudson's Bay Company; then they had no good post
on the Pacific where they could receive supplies by sea for their
establishments beyond the mountains; nor, if they had one, could
they ship their furs thence to China, that great mart for
peltries; the Chinese trade being comprised in the monopoly of
the East India Company. Their posts beyond the mountains had to
be supplied in yearly expeditions, like caravans, from Montreal,
and the furs conveyed back in the same way, by long, precarious,
and expensive routes, across the continent. Mr. Astor, on the
contrary, would be able to supply his proposed establishment at
the mouth of the Columbia by sea, and to ship the furs collected
there directly to China, so as to undersell the Northwest Company
in the great Chinese market.
Still, the competition of two rival companies west of the Rocky
Mountains could not but prove detrimental to both, and fraught
with those evils, both to the trade and to the Indians, that had
attended similar rivalries in the Canadas.
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