PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 59 



With a similar disregard for their interests, they 

 were purchasing sea-otter skins at twenty dollars 

 apiece, whilst the animals were swimming about un- 

 molested in their own harbours ; and this from the 

 Russians, who are intruders upon their coast, and are 

 depriving them of a lucrative trade : and again, they 

 were paying two hundred dollars for carts of inferior 

 workmanship, which, with the exception of the wheels, 

 might have been equally well manufactured in their 

 own country. 



With this want of commercial enterprise, they are 

 not much entitled to commiseration. With more jus- 

 tice might they have complained of the navigation 

 laws, which, though no doubt beneficial to the inha- 

 bitants on the eastern coast of Mexico, where there are 

 vessels belonging to the state in readiness to conduct 

 the coasting trade, are extremely disadvantageous to 

 the Californians, who having no vessels to employ in 

 this service are often obliged to pay the duty on goods 

 introduced in foreign bottoms. This duty for the en- 

 couragement of the coasting trade w^as made seventeen 

 per cent, higher than that on cargoes brought in vessels 

 of the state. Thus not only must the inhabitants pur- 

 chase their goods on very disadvantageous terms, but, 

 as a foreign vessel cannot break stowage without land- 

 ing the whole of her cargo, they must in addition 

 incur the expenses attending that, which will in gene- 

 ral fall upon a few goods only, as the towns in Cali- 

 fornia are not sufficiently populous, any one of them, 

 to consume a whole cargo ; and it is to be remem- 

 bered, that no foreign vessel, after breaking stowage, 

 can proceed to another port in the same dominion 

 without being liable to seizure by the customs. 



The imprudent nature of these laws, as regards Ca- 



