While Visits Of Ceremony And Grand Diplomatic Conferences Were
Going On Between The Partners And The King, The Captain, In His
Plain, Matter-Of-Fact Way, Was Pushing What He Considered A Far
More Important Negotiation; The Purchase Of A Supply Of Hogs.
He
found that the king had profited in more ways than one by his
intercourse with white men.
Above all other arts he had learned
the art of driving a bargain. He was a magnanimous monarch, but a
shrewd pork merchant; and perhaps thought he could not do better
with his future allies, the American Fur Company, than to begin
by close dealing. Several interviews were requisite, and much
bargaining, before he could be brought to part with a bristle of
his bacon, and then he insisted upon being paid in hard Spanish
dollars; giving as a reason that he wanted money to purchase a
frigate from his brother George, as he affectionately termed the
king of England. *
At length the royal bargain was concluded; the necessary supply
of hogs obtained, besides several goats, two sheep, a quantity of
poultry, and vegetables in abundance. The partners now urged to
recruit their forces from the natives of this island. They
declared they had never seen watermen equal to them, even among
the voyageurs of the Northwest; and, indeed, they are remarkable
for their skill in managing their light craft, and can swim and
dive like waterfowl. The partners were inclined, therefore, to
take thirty or forty with them to the Columbia, to be ernployed
in the service of the company.
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