The Profits Drawn From The Country
In Question By The British Fur Company, Though Of Ample Amount,
Form No Criterion By Which To Judge Of The Advantages That Would
Have Arisen Had It Been Entirely In The Hands Of The Citizens Of
The United States.
That company, as has been shown, is limited in
the nature and scope of its operations, and can make but little
use of the maritime facilities held out by an emporium and a
harbor on that coast.
In our hands, besides the roving bands of
trappers and traders, the country would have been explored and
settled by industrious husbandmen; and the fertile valleys
bordering its rivers, and shut up among its mountains, would have
been made to pour forth their agricultural treasures to
contribute to the general wealth.
In respect to commerce, we should have had a line of trading
posts from the Mississippi and the Missouri across the Rocky
Mountains, forming a high road from the great regions of the west
to the shores of the Pacific. We should have had a fortified post
and port at the mouth of the Columbia, commanding the trade of
that river and its tributaries, and of a wide extent of country
and sea-coast; carrying on an active and profitable commerce with
the Sandwich Islands, and a direct and frequent communication
with China. In a word, Astoria might have realized the
anticipations of Mr. Astor, so well understood and appreciated by
Mr. Jefferson, in gradually becoming a commercial empire beyond
the mountains, peopled by "free and independent Americans, and
linked with us by ties of blood and interest."
We repeat, therefore, our sincere regret that our government
should have neglected the overture of Mr. Astor, and suffered the
moment to pass by, when full possession of this region might have
been taken quietly, as a matter of course, and a military post
established, without dispute, at Astoria.
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